Saturday, January 31, 2009

Replicating the Al Anbar model in FATA?

Replicating the Al Anbar model in FATA?
The News, January 31, 2009
Farhat Taj

Al Anbar is a region in Iraq that was devastated by Al Qaeda inflicted violence. Several Sunni tribes of the region formed an alliance, supported by the US, and took up arms against the terrorists. The tribes successfully controlled Al Qaeda terrorism and stabilized the region. In media it was called 'Al Anbar Awkening'.

All over the world think tanks studying the situation in FATA debate and discuss whether an Al Anbar style awakening is possible in FATA? Can FATA tribes take up arms against the Taliban and Al Qaeda? In my opinion there is tremendous potential for an Al Anbar style awakening in FATA. But there is one huge obstacle: the mistrust of the tribes in the military leadership, especially the intelligence agencies. The Taliban and Al Qaeda have been target killing tribal leaders and so far the military has failed to protect the latter. So far no one has even been officially accused or arrested of the target killing of more than 200 tribal leaders.

The target killing of the tribal leaders started in South Waziristan almost at the same time when the US was bombing Taliban and Al Qaeda hideouts in Afghanistan in 2001 and the militants ran towards Waziristan. They were not welcomed by the tribal leaders. In order to have a strong foothold in Waziristan, the militants killed more than 120 tribal leaders. Clearly the then government of General Pervez Musharraf was playing a double game. On one hand it joined the US led war on terror, on the other hand it allowed the militants to kill the tribal leaders and replace the tribal order with the Taliban order.

For complete article, click here

Also See:
Concerted efforts needed to regain Swat: experts - Daily Times
Somebody else pushing strings of Swat, Fata unrest: Chief Minister - APP

Friday, January 30, 2009

For Holbrooke, Situation in Pakistan, Afghanistan Is 'Dim and Dismal': Bruce Riedel

Interview: For Holbrooke, Situation in Pakistan, Afghanistan Is 'Dim and Dismal' By BRUCE O. RIEDEL AND BERNARD GWERTZMAN, New York Times, January 28, 2009
Interviewee: Bruce O. Riedel, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution
Interviewer: Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor, Council on Foreign Relations

Bruce O. Riedel, an expert on South Asia, who has worked for the CIA, Pentagon, and National Security Council, says new special envoy Richard Holbrooke inherits a "dim and dismal" situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan. What is needed, he says, is for Holbrooke to reverse the negative momentum in both countries. He says the Taliban's military successes in Afghanistan have to be reversed, and Pakistan must help close their sanctuaries on Pakistani territory. But Riedel says "trying to get that cooperation out of the Pakistani government in my judgment will be the single hardest test that Ambassador Holbrooke faces and in fact may be the single hardest foreign policy challenge President Obama faces."

With Richard Holbrooke being named the new special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, what's going on in that part of the world? When Asif Ali Zardari, the new president of Pakistan, was inaugurated last year, he invited Afghan President Hamid Karzai to the inauguration. Is there better coordination between the two countries?

The good news is that the relationship between President Zardari and President Karzai is a fairly good one, and the two of them are comfortable working with each other. That has yet to translate, though, into a real productive relationship along the border. It's an opening, certainly, that we should exploit. The inheritance that Ambassador Holbrooke gets, though, on the whole is pretty dim and dismal. The war in Afghanistan is going badly, the southern half of the country is increasingly in chaos, and the Taliban is encroaching more and more frequently into Kabul and the surrounding provinces. And in Pakistan, the jihadist Frankenstein monster that was created by the Pakistani army and the Pakistani intelligence service is now increasingly turning on its creators. It's trying to take over the laboratory.

Does the Pakistani military have a strategy for the FATA [the Federally Administered Tribal Areas] along the borders with Afghanistan?

It's of two minds about the FATA. On the one hand, it has always used the Federally Administered Tribal Areas as the place where it could create groups like the Taliban, or encourage the development of the Taliban, where it could train people to operate in Kashmir or to operate in India. But now that it sees that it's losing control of that area, it's increasingly concerned about the future. Unfortunately, the Pakistani army is not very well prepared either in training or in equipment for the kind of counterinsurgency warfare that needs to be fought in the badlands along the Afghan border. And here is another opening for the United States to offer to Pakistan the kinds of counterinsurgency training and doctrine and the kinds of equipment that would be useful in this war. Helicopters in particular. The Bush administration gave Pakistan about a dozen helicopters. What they really need is several hundred to operate in this very difficult terrain where air mobility is really the key to battlefield success.

And is there a lot of talk about the U.S. Predator attacks on supposedly al-Qaeda targets in that area? Is there an implicit agreement that these attacks should go ahead even as Pakistan protests?

I don't know what the discussions between Washington and Islamabad have been over that. These Predator attacks have scored some important successes. Significant al-Qaeda figures have been killed. But they also have a counterproductive element to them, which is that they further the alienation of the Pakistani people away from us. One of the biggest challenges, if not the biggest challenge we face in Pakistan today, is that the American brand image has been badly eroded. Polling in Pakistan shows that a majority of Pakistanis blame America for the country's internal violence. India comes in second place, and al-Qaeda and the militancy comes in third place. Any time that you are outpolling India as the bad guy in Pakistan, you're in deep, deep trouble.

For complete interview, click here

Also See:
Gilani urges Obama to respect Pakistan’s sovereignty - Dawn
Northwest Pakistan: What Are the Options? - New York Times
Outsourcing security - Ayesha Siddiqa

Tackling the worsening crisis in Swat

EDITORIAL: Army chief’s ‘signalling’ in Swat
Daily Times, January 30, 2009

The chief of army staff (COAS), General Ashfaq Kayani, visited the troops in Swat yesterday and told them that the “Pakistan Army has the will and the resolve to defeat terrorists, restore peace and establish the writ of the state in violence-hit areas”. He was putting the stamp of his authority on the third phase of Operation Rah-e-Haq against the Taliban led by warlord Fazlullah. The message to the troops was no doubt also intended for the rest of the country and for the world community that has become less and less sure about Pakistan’s “will and resolve” after the first two phases of the Swat operation were seen as failures.

The visit came in the wake of a statement made by the interior adviser, Mr Rehman Malik, promising the ouster of the terrorists from Swat “in fifteen days”. The statement ran the risk of being treated as a meaningless hyperbole since he had earlier promised a similar “solution” to the sectarian mayhem of Parachinar “in fifteen days” and not delivered. But General Kayani’s appearance in Swat is a substantial gesture of “signalling” in all kinds of directions. Of them, the most important is the one aimed at the people of Swat and the people of Pakistan who are despairing of the state’s capacity to face up to brutal terrorism. His meeting with the ANP holdout against the Taliban, Afzal Lala, is also a significant demonstration of the intent to fight back.

For complete editorial click here

Also See:
Some thoughts on Swat - By Charles Ferndale
Some observations on the war in Swat - By Aasim Sajjad Akhtar
Back to the future - By Dr. Maleeha Lodhi

Turkish PM Erdoğan storms out of heated Mideast debate

Turkish PM Erdoğan storms out of heated Mideast debate
Zaman, January 30, 2009

Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan stormed out of a debate on the Middle East at the World Economic Forum on Thursday, saying he might never return to the annual gathering of the rich and powerful.

Israel's President Shimon Peres had launched a fiery defense of his country's assault on Gaza over the past month and, with a raised voice and pointed finger, questioned what Erdogan would do if rockets were fired at Istanbul every night.

As the debate, which also included United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and Arab League chief Amr Moussa, was ending, Erdogan was cut short as he tried to respond.

"I don't think I will come back to Davos because you don't let me speak," the Turkish prime minister said, as he stood up and walked out of the conference hall in the Swiss ski resort.

"The president spoke for only 25 minutes. I have only spoken for half of that."

Turkey's state-run Anatolian news agency quoted Erdogan as saying to Peres: "When it comes to killing you know very well how to kill. I know very well how you killed children on the beaches."

In a hastily-called news conference, Erdogan later explained that he had been upset with both the moderation of the debate and Peres' manner.

"My reaction was directed at the moderator. I think that if we have moderation in this way, we won't really get out of Davos what we all come here to get out of Davos, and it would cast a shadow over efforts to reach peace," Erdogan said.

"President Peres was speaking to the prime minister of Turkey -- I am not just some leader of some group or tribe, so he should have addressed me accordingly," he told reporters.

Also See:
Thousands welcome Turkish PM in Istanbul on his return from Davos - Hurriyet Daily News
Turkish prime minister storms out of Gaza debate - AFP

Thursday, January 29, 2009

An Open Letter -- From Pakistan -- To President Obama

Commentary
An Open Letter--From Pakistan--To President Obama
Imran Khan, Forbes, January 29, 2009
The U.S. and NATO should withdraw from Afghanistan.

Dear President Obama,

Your extraordinary ascent to the U.S. Presidency is, to a large part, a reflection of your remarkable ability to mobilize society, particularly the youth, with the message of "change." Indeed, change is what the world is yearning for after eight long and almost endless years of carnage let loose by a group of neo-cons that occupied the White House.

Understandably, your overarching policy focus would be the security and welfare of all U.S. citizens and so it should be. Similarly, our first and foremost concern is the protection of Pakistani lives and the prosperity of our society. We may have different social and cultural values, but we share the fundamental values of peace, harmony, justice and equality before law.

No people desire change more than the people of Pakistan, as we have suffered the most since 9/11, despite the fact that none of the perpetrators of the acts of terrorism unleashed on the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, were Pakistani. Our entire social, political and economic fabric is in a state of meltdown. Our sovereignty, dignity and self-respect have been trampled upon. The previous U.S. administration invested in dictators and corrupt politicians by providing them power crutches in return for total compliance to pursue its misconceived war on terror.

There are many threats confronting our society today, including the threat of extremism. In a society where the majority is without fundamental rights, without education, without economic opportunities, without health care, the use of sheer force and loss of innocent lives continues to expand the extremist fringe and contract the space for the moderate majority.

Without peace and internal security, the notion of investing in development in the war zones is a pipe dream, as the anticipated benefits would never reach the people. So the first and foremost policy objective should be to restore the peace. This can only be achieved through a serious and sustained dialogue with the militants and mitigation of their genuine grievances under the ambit of our constitution and law. Since Pakistan's founding leader signed a treaty in 1948 with the people of the country's Federally Administered Tribal Areas and withdrew Pakistani troops, they had remained the most peaceful and trouble-free part of Pakistan up until the post-9/11 situation, when we were asked to deploy our troops in FATA.

For complete article, click here

Imran Khan is chairman and founder of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (Movement for Justice), and served as an elected member of Pakistan's parliament from 2002-08. The captain of the Pakistan team that won the cricket World Cup in 1992, he founded the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Center, the biggest charitable institution in Pakistan. He is chancellor of the University of Bradford, in the U.K.

Revealed: the letter Obama team hope will heal Iran rift: Guardian

Revealed: the letter Obama team hope will heal Iran rift
Symbolic gesture gives assurances that US does not want to topple Islamic regime
Robert Tait and Ewen MacAskill in Washington guardian.co.uk, Thursday 29 January 2009

Officials of Barack Obama's administration have drafted a letter to Iran from the president aimed at unfreezing US-Iranian relations and opening the way for face-to-face talks, the Guardian has learned.

The US state department has been working on drafts of the letter since Obama was elected on 4 November last year. It is in reply to a lengthy letter of congratulations sent by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on 6 November.

Diplomats said Obama's letter would be a symbolic gesture to mark a change in tone from the hostile one adopted by the Bush administration, which portrayed Iran as part of an "axis of evil".

It would be intended to allay the ­suspicions of Iran's leaders and pave the way for Obama to engage them directly, a break with past policy.

State department officials have composed at least three drafts of the letter, which gives assurances that Washington does not want to overthrow the Islamic regime, but merely seeks a change in its behaviour. The letter would be addressed to the Iranian people and sent directly to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, or released as an open letter.

For complete article, click here

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

How a Thirteenth-Century Islamic Poet Conquered America - By Ryan Croken

Found in Translation: How a Thirteenth-Century Islamic Poet Conquered America
By Ryan Croken, Religion Dispatches, January 28, 2009

I am / not the one speaking here. Even so, I’ll stop. / Anything anyone says is your voice.
–Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks

The best-selling poet in America today could never have known that someday there would be such a thing as America. Born over eight centuries ago in what is now Afghanistan, Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, a Sufi mystic, has traversed some rather astonishing cultural and temporal boundaries to become one of the most improbable leaders in American letters. A study of Rumi’s success, however, would not be complete without exploring the relationship between the poet and his most popular translator, Coleman Barks.

On the spiritual and textual plane in which Rumi and Barks encounter one another, we find not a clash, but a fusion of civilizations, out of which has emerged a 13th-century Sufi devotee who is devastatingly fluent in post-modern American English. As throngs of Americans now worship Rumi for the way he worshipped Allah—at a time in which “Allah” has become a scary word in the “Western World”—the political significance of Barks’ accomplishment cannot be overstated. Barks, a white man from Tennessee, doesn’t speak or read a lick of Persian, and this fact both complicates and facilitates his ability to make a historically accurate Rumi accessible to mainstream America. A poet himself, Barks “re-Englishes” existing translations, releasing, in his own words, “the fire and ecstasy of Rumi’s ghazals” from the stale confines of their scholarly translations. But because Barks himself has become a palpable presence in these ghazals, some critics have lambasted him for the liberal manner in which he has popularized Rumi.

For complete article, click here

The Saudisation of Pakistan - By Pervez Hoodbhoy

The Saudi-isation of Pakistan
A stern, unyielding version of Islam is replacing the kinder, gentler Islam of the Sufis in Pakistan.
By Pervez Hoodbhoy, Newsline, January 2009

The common belief in Pakistan is that Islamic radicalism is a problem only in FATA, and that madrassas are the only institutions serving as jihad factories. This is a serious misconception. Extremism is breeding at a ferocious rate in public and private schools within Pakistan’s towns and cities. Left unchallenged, this education will produce a generation incapable of co-existing with anyone except strictly their own kind. The mindset it creates may eventually lead to Pakistan’s demise as a nation state.

For 20 years or more, a few of us have been desperately sending out SOS messages, warning of terrible times to come. In fact, I am surprised at how rapidly these dire predictions have come true.

A full-scale war is being fought in FATA, Swat and other “wild” areas of Pakistan, resulting in thousands of deaths. It is only a matter of time before this fighting shifts to Peshawar and Islamabad (which has already been a witness to the Lal Masjid episode) and engulfs Lahore and Karachi as well. The suicide bomber and the masked abductor have crippled Pakistan’s urban life and shattered its national economy.

Soldiers, policemen, factory and hospital workers, mourners at funerals and ordinary people praying in mosques have all been reduced to globs of flesh and fragments of bones. But, perhaps paradoxically, in spite of the fact that the dead bodies and shattered lives are almost all Muslim ones, few Pakistanis speak out against these atrocities. Nor do they approve of the army operation against the cruel perpetrators of these acts because they believe that they are Islamic warriors fighting for Islam and against American occupation. Political leaders like Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan have no words of solace for those who have suffered at the hands of Islamic extremists. Their tears are reserved exclusively for the victims of Predator drones, even if they are those who committed grave crimes against their own people. Terrorism, by definition, is an act only the Americans can commit.

For complete article, click here

What Should President Obama Say to the Middle East?


Speaking Clearly:
What Should President Obama Say to the Middle East?
By Stephen McInerney (ed.); Project on Middle East Democracy, January 2009

As President-elect Barack Obama prepares to take office this month, the world anxiously awaits the policies of the new American administration. Amid generally high expectations worldwide, many across the Middle East remain skeptical of the future of U.S. policy toward that region. The inaugural address on January 20 will be watched carefully and analyzed for signals of changes in policy. President Obama is also widely expected to give a major foreign policy speech in the Islamic world during his first 100 days in office. Until now, there has been more debate over where such a speech should be given than over what its content should be. But that content will be listened to intently and is critically important – when he addresses the expectant audience of the Arab and Muslim World, what should President Obama say?

To help answer this question, we at the Project on Middle East Democracy have asked a dozen respected American foreign policy voices to address the following question in 300 words or less:

At the outset of his administration, what would you advise President Obama to say to the people of the Middle East?

The selected contributors represent a wide spectrum of viewpoints and approaches to U.S. policy in the Middle East – Democrats, Republicans, and nonpartisan analysts; public opinion pollsters and academics; democracy promotion practitioners and human rights advocates. Unsurprisingly, their answers vary, in both substance and in form. Some write in the first-person, articulating explicitly what the new President ought to say to the region. Others speak in their own voice, addressing their advice directly to the incoming President. Most focus solely on the content of what should be said; a few also weigh in on how and where the message ought to be delivered.

While the dozen answers vary, there are a number of themes strongly recurring throughout them:

PARTNERSHIP – Declare that America will work with the people of the Middle East toward common goals, rather than trying (unsuccessfully) to impose America’s will on the region.
MODESTY – Don’t make lofty promises that cannot be delivered, raising false expectations; rather, be realistic and close the gap between rhetoric and policy.
PEACE – Acknowledge the suffering caused by the use of military force and by violent conflicts in the region; affirm a commitment to the peaceful resolution of existing conflicts.
HUMAN RIGHTS – Offer clear support to the people of the region who seek to secure their own rights and freedoms, to reform their own societies, and to broaden political participation.

Each of the individual responses articulates more fully these themes, and spells out more specific messages that our new President ought to direct toward the people of the Middle East.

In this publication, the dozen responses are presented in full. As President-elect Obama prepares to address the people of the Arab and Muslim world and to repair our relations with that troubled region, we believe these contributions outline the key issues and approaches that he ought to consider.

For complete report, click here

Activities of the Indian Lobby in America

The India Lobby
Drunk with the Sight of Power
By VIJAY PRASHAD, Counterpunch.org, January 26, 2009

On January 27, 2009, a newly formed task force of Indian American organizations is set to overrun Capitol Hill. The Indian American Task Force will take their message to Congress and to the new administration, asking them to be much tougher on Pakistan. The impetus for this new combine and its lobbying is the Mumbai attacks of December 2008. But this is not just about justice for the victims of Mumbai. There is another dynamic involved, which is to walk the Jewish American road, to create a “India Lobby” that resembles the “Israel Lobby.” The investment among these Indian Americans is to follow the remarkable success of the Israel Lobby, which has been able to leverage its relatively small numbers (7 million, only 2.5% of the U. S. population) into considerable political power. An even more impressive story is that of the Cuban Americans (1.6 million; 0.5% of the U. S. population), but these Indian Americans are less enthused by them. After the Bay of Pigs and a few isolated terrorist acts, the Cubans have been rather unimpressive, the Embargo notwithstanding. The Jewish American dominated Israel Lobby, on the other hand, has made the United States into “Israel’s attorney” (according to former U. S. State Department official Aaron David Miller). This is what impresses the new Indian American Task Force.

Islamic Terrorism

To prepare for the January 27 day of action, the Task Force released its “information document.” The primary author of the document is the US India Political Action Committee (USINPAC), a group founded in the aftermath of 911 with the close support and encouragement of the American Jewish Committee (AJCommittee) and the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC). At a meeting of Jewish American and Indian American partisans of the right, Charles Brooks of the AJCommittee said, “We’re fighting the same extremist enemy. We want to help [the new Indian group] become more effective in communicating their political will.” Who is this “enemy”? Sue Ghosh Stricklett, who was then with USINPAC, told a conservative publication in 2003, “the terrorism directed against India is the same as that directed against the United States and Israel. We would like to see closer ties between the United States and Israel [with India].” Stricklett urges this alliance to deal with what these organizations often call “Islamic militancy” or “Islamic extremism,” or what the late Congressman Tom Lantos called it at an Indo-Jewish forum, “mindless, vicious, fanatic Islamic terrorism.” The USINPAC document on the Mumbai attacks argues, “We believe the problem of Islamic terrorism is global and requires an urgent global approach and solution.”

To render terrorism and terrorists as the enemy fails to distinguish between the tactics that a people use and the social and political conditions that generate their hostility. To defeat those who use terrorism, one has to understand and deal with the conditions that produce those who take to terror. All this is irrelevant to USINPAC, and to its cousins, AIPAC and the AJCommittee. From a security policy or even military standpoint, avoiding a broad analysis of the roots of terror is a serious error of judgment.

To ignore the local origins of the attackers is myopic. It allows groups like USINPAC and AIPAC to make quick common cause with the anxiety within the US in the post-911 period. Half-baked assumptions about the terrorists (or what that distant memory of a person once called “evildoers”) generate fear, but not analysis and certainly not a strategy to deal with the problem. Ariel Sharon took advantage of the post-911 intellectual chaos in the US to “change the facts on the ground” (as the Israeli Higher Command likes to say) in both the West Bank and Gaza; his assaults in 2002-03 opened a dynamic that is ongoing in Gaza today. The Hindu Right, in power till 2004, wanted to mimic the Israeli strategy by bombing some madrassas and known terrorist camps in Pakistan, but neither the Indian military nor would Indian public opinion countenance such belligerence (I remember a breezy chat with an Indian army man, long known to my family, who proudly told me how the mid-level officers like himself bristled during the 2001-02 mobilization along the Indo-Pak border, called Operation Parakram, or Operation Strength). After the Mumbai attack, the media tried to carry the standard, joined breathlessly by the Hindu Right, whose parliamentary leader, L. K. Advani said, “This is not an attack. It is war,” and the government must take “whatever action [is] necessary,” a. k. a. bombardment of Pakistan. The government held fast, pressured in large part by a very large march organized by a hundred organizations and held in Mumbai in mid-December, and by the anxiety in Washington over the diversion of Pakistani troops from its Afghan border to its Indian one. The Israeli road was ignored for the moment.

It is this road that USINPAC and its kin groups wish to create, not by lobbying the Indian government (a task already taken in hand by the Indian Right) but by moving Congress. If the US government would be more resolute with its friends in Islamabad, the bromide goes, all would be well, or else India will have little choice but to go to war. The demands made on the Congress are, on the surface, quite bland, but also purposely naïve. For instance, USINPAC demands that Pakistan extradite the suspects in the Mumbai attacks to India. However, India and Pakistan do not have an extradition treaty, a result of the deep distrust between the two countries. Confidence needs to be built that could enable mutual security. Making a demand that cannot be met is both deceptive and dangerous: it deceives the citizenry with its simplicity, and yet it pushes adversaries into corners. Another demand is that Pakistan must shut down “all radical madrassas which preach nothing but hate.” This is also a reasonable demand, particularly if they “preach nothing but hate.” The problem is that under IMF pressure, Pakistan has clumsily cut-back on its state funded and run education and health infrastructure. Into this empty space came the Saudi/CIA/Pakistani elite funded “faith-based” organizations, who provide a dual function. They are the only schools for the lower middle class and working-class, as well as the disposable poor, and they are their only dispensary and hospital, at the same time as many of them harvest young people into organizations committed to armed action in Kashmir and terror operations around the sub-continent (in India, yes, but also within Pakistan, viz. the assassination of December 2007 Benazir Bhutto and the September 2008 bombing of the Islamabad Marriott). Pakistani state and society are entangled in these organizations; to demand that these groups be taken care of on a short time-frame is unrealistic.

USINPAC’s document does not acknowledge the deep influence of the United States in some of this mayhem. It was during the Afghan Wars of the 1980s that Pakistani society was deeply scarred, as the US-Saudi funded jihad produced a social force that committed itself to religious war. Those “irregular troops” were never demobilized, and it is here that one finds the core leadership of the terror outfits. They have then built on the grotesque inequality of Pakistan to draw their cadre, many of whom are inspired not only by their poverty, but also by the rise of the Hindu Right in India (whose riots are a spectacular example of terrorism in their own right) and by the virtual occupation of Kashmir (what else to call a situation where 700,000 troops police a state with a population of nine million?). Washington has never taken any responsibility for its role in the creation of these outfits. The recent, and ongoing Afghan war, has only heightened the tension, with the US moving to a nuclear treaty with India that has only stiffened the resolve of the Pakistani military to fear its neighbor. None of these moves have done anything to create confidence in South Asia, and nor will the demands made by USINPAC, the putative Indian Lobby.

The India Caucus

USINPAC and others will move, on Tuesday, around a Congress already receptive to them. In 1992, Frank Pallone of New Jersey gathered six other Democrats and one Republican into a hastily formed India Caucus. Pallone’s 6th District includes Edison, which is one of the capitals of Indian America (20% of the population in the town is of Indian origin). Pallone recognized that this bloc needed to be cultivated, and he proceeded with finesse. The Indian government had recently begun to “liberalize” its economy, it had opened its arms toward Israel and it had signaled that it wanted a new relationship with the United States. Pallone became the go-to guy, and in under a decade he brought in a fourth of the House to the Caucus. It helped, of course, that the Indian American community had money in its pocket, and its “leaders” (those with the money) wanted to be players in DC. The India Lobby tested its mettle by destroying the annual move by Indiana’s Dan Burton to end US assistance to India. Burton eventually said that the India Lobby “beat me into the ground.” No loss there, really. In 2002, Pallone won India’s highest civilian award, the Padma Bhushan. Winning the award with Pallone was Gary Ackerman of New York, the current chair of the India Caucus.

Ackerman helped coordinate the links between AIPAC and the AJCommittee and the USINPAC. Israel, he said, is “surrounded by 120 million Muslims” whereas “India has 120 million” Muslims within. In 1999, Ackerman was in Atlanta at an Indian American event, where he celebrated the “ancient civilizations” of Hindus and Jews, pointing out that “Strong India-Israel relations is very critical to ensuring peace and stability in a part of the world that is characterized by instability, fundamentalist religious bigotry, hatred toward the West and its values and murder and mayhem spawned by acts of cross-border terrorism.” Ackerman is not only one of those who believes that Israel is the 51st state of the United States, but he is also one of the major proponents of the Indo-US nuclear deal. In 2001, Ackerman’s legislative aide, Narayan Keshavan (who was otherwise a journalist, and who died very young, at 53, in 2003), said, “There are scores of congressmen and dozens of senators who clearly equate the growing Indian American political influence to the ‘Hindu Lobby’ – very much akin to the famed ‘Jewish Lobby.’” The aspiration to become like AIPAC and to move India in the direction of Israel is strong among many of those who want to build this India (or Hindu) Lobby, geared as it is against Pakistan and without deference to the fact that the 120 Indian Muslims are Indians too and not simply Muslims. A senior Democratic Senator said in 2003, “All of us here are members of Likud now.” In 2009, if USINPAC succeeds, they’d say, “We’re also members of the Hindu Right now.”

The South Asia Caucus

President Obama has appointed Richard Holbrooke as his representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan. India is not in the equation. What South Asia needs is a regional policy, with all the players in a regional organization that is committed to human security in its widest sense. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation could become that organization if it were taken seriously, better funded and not used as a venue for self-interested grand-standing. The regional organization could coordinate the demobilization of the forces of reaction in India, Pakistan and perhaps Afghanistan. But this is only the first step; there are others. Groups like USINPAC are incapable of finding the dynamic toward genuine peace, trapped as they are in the tired rhetoric of belligerence. We need a new vision for South Asia, a new commitment to the peace that is possible.

Take a few minutes of your day and call the White House (202-456-1111), Gary Ackerman (202-225-2601), Jim McDermott (202-225-3106) and Mike Honda (202-225-2631). Tell them to ignore a strategy that creates tension in the subcontinent, and to dig deeper, to pay attention to a strategy that calls for the creation of confidence between its countries and the creation of trust between its peoples. In 1947, as Indian and Pakistani generals added an extra pomade to their moustaches before setting off to war, Gandhi told his prayer meeting, “If we cannot keep our freedom without the sword, then I shall think that India has done nothing for the world. Today we have an army. Attempts are being made to strengthen it. I declare that in this way we are not really strengthening ourselves. We shall be doing no good to the world in this way. And if the world learns this kind of thing from us it is not going to gain anything, rather it will be doomed” (December 4, 1947).

Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and Director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT His new book is The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, New York: The New Press, 2007. He can be reached at: vijay.prashad@trincoll.edu

ISI's Role in Swat?

What Pakhtuns think
The News, January 28, 2009
Farhat Taj

There are many Pakhtun who argue that some elite state intelligence agencies and the Taliban, as of Swat for example, are 'natural allies' and feed on each other. The Taliban want a besieged and helpless population whom they can rule with impunity. The ISI, they claim, is facilitating this rule and in return the Taliban create chaos and violence. Some may ask the obvious question: why would any one want chaos and violence in the area?

Two arguments are put forward by many Pakhtuns in this regard. Some refer to the well-known but often-discredited theory of strategic depth, which envisions that Afghanistan will become the fifth province of Pakistan and that the central Asian Islamic states will become its client states. Thus Pakistan will become a robust regional power vis-a-vis India in South Asia and acquire a leadership role in the Muslim world. Therefore, by having a region close to Afghanistan which is full of violence and chaos is a way of preventing the US, India and Iran from establishing a firm foothold in the area. Also, US and NATO forces are in Afghanistan, which means that it is important to have a kind of a buffer between Afghanistan and the rest of Pakistan. Furthermore, many American think-tanks are of the view that a chaotic FATA is bad for both US and NATO forces because it allows the militants a haven to launch attacks inside Afghanistan, and then retreat back to Pakistan.

For complete article, click here

Also See:
The way forward in Swat - By Khurshid Khan, The News
Taleban's stranglehold brings fear to Swat - BBC

Monday, January 26, 2009

President Obama's Policy Towards the Muslim World - Al-Arabiya TV



Also See:
Obama Extends Hand To Arabs and Muslims - Washington Post
Obama Tells Muslims That 'Americans Are Not Your Enemy' - Radio Free Europe

Counterinsurgency Field Manual: Afghanistan Edition - Foreign Policy

Counterinsurgency Field Manual: Afghanistan Edition
By Nathaniel C. Fick, John A. Nagl, Foreign Policy, January/February 2009

Two years ago, a controversial military manual rewrote U.S. strategy in Iraq. Now, the doctrine’s simple, powerful—even radical—tenets must be applied to the far different and neglected conflict in Afghanistan. Plus, David Petraeus talks to FP about how to win a losing war.

For the past five years, the fight in Afghanistan has been hobbled by strategic drift, conflicting tactics, and too few troops. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, got it right when he bluntly told the U.S. Congress in 2007, “In Iraq, we do what we must.” Of America’s other war, he said, “In Afghanistan, we do what we can.”

It is time this neglect is replaced with a more creative and aggressive strategy. U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, is now headed by Gen. David Petraeus, the architect of the U.S. military’s counterinsurgency strategy widely credited with pulling Iraq from the abyss. Many believe that, under Petraeus’s direction, Afghanistan can similarly pull back from the brink of failure.

Two years ago, General Petraeus oversaw the creation of a new counterinsurgency field manual for the U.S. military. Its release marked a definitive break with a losing strategy in Iraq and reflected a creeping realization in Washington: To avoid repeating the mistakes of the Vietnam War, the U.S. military would have to relearn and institutionalize that conflict’s key lessons. At the time, the doctrine the manual laid out was enormously controversial, both inside and outside the Pentagon. It remains so today. Its key tenets are simple, but radical: Focus on protecting civilians over killing the enemy. Assume greater risk. Use minimum, not maximum force.

For complete article, click here

Also See:
Karzai anger at US strike deaths - BBC
How Holbrooke will succeed - Moshararf Zaidi, The News

US envoy hands over $1.5m security gear to Pakistan's Frontier Corps - A Positive Step

US envoy hands over $1.5m security gear to FC
The News, January 27, 2009: Bureau report

PESHAWAR: The United States Ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W Patterson, Monday handed over security equipment worth $1.5 million to the Frontier Corps (FC).

A formal ceremony to this effect was held at the FC Training Centre, Warsak, near here, where the equipment was handed over to Major General Tariq Khan, Inspector General FC.The equipment included protective helmets, bulletproof vests, communication and office equipment.

This is part of ongoing efforts to assist and recognise the efforts and sacrifices of FC and Frontier police, said Patterson, while speaking on the occasion.More equipment, including armoured vehicles and Lead Acid Batteries, would be provided to FC in the next few months. The US has donated to the FC $43.8 million security equipment to date.

Lynne Tracy, principal officer US Consulate, Peshawar, Brigadier General DiBartolomeo, Office of Defence representative Pakistan, US Embassy, Islamabad and Robert Traister, US Consulate, Peshawar, also attended the ceremony.

Meanwhile, the US envoy handed over 32,400 packets of high nutrient biscuits to the Commission of Afghan Refugees to be distributed to families at the Kacha Ghari Internally Displaced Persons’ (IDP) camp.

The donation, made in collaboration with VITA Pakistan Limited, a Lahore-based company, is intended to nutritionally supplement and benefit children aged three to seven.Patterson said the US government had contributed over $10 million for immediate relief efforts, including support for international relief programs. In addition, the US government set aside approximately $10 million for development in Bajaur Agency to assist IDPs as they return to their homes.

The US government, she said, would continue to provide other assistance to affected population and is implementing emergency shelter, health, nutrition, livelihoods, protection, water, sanitation and hygiene programs as well as continuing to provide humanitarian coordination and distribution of emergency supplies.

How Not to Lose Afghanistan: New York Times

How Not to Lose Afghanistan
By The Editors, New York Times, January 26, 2009

Barack Obama has said that his priority in the war on terrorism is Afghanistan, and is poised to increase troop levels there, perhaps by as many as 30,000. How should the United States deal with growing strength of the Taliban? Is increasing troop levels enough? We asked some analysts for their thoughts on military and political strategy in the region.

Kori Schake, former national security adviser; Andrew Exum, former United States Army officer; Bruce Riedel, former C.I.A. officer; John Nagl, former United States Army officer; Parag Khanna, senior research fellow at the New America Foundation

The Taliban Problem Crosses Borders
Parag Khanna, senior research fellow in the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, is the author of “The Second World: How Emerging Powers are Redefining Global Competition in the Twenty-First Century.”

Even if an additional 30,000 American and NATO troops were deployed in southern and eastern Afghanistan, the Taliban problem would not be reduced. It would merely be pushed back over the Pakistan border, destabilizing Pakistan’s already volatile North-West Frontier Province, which itself is more populous than Iraq. This amounts to squeezing a balloon on one end to inflate it on the other.

The tribal militias, newly armed with Chinese AK-47s, will not be able to cope with that influx. Even now, the increase in attacks on NATO convoys in Peshawar and the Khyber Pass show how the Afghan front is seriously affected by American policies in Pakistan. Fewer arms from the United States (the Obama administration intends to emphasize civilian over military aid) have diminished the Pakistani military’s willingness to support American supply routes, forcing the U.S. military to scramble for new routes through Russia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. As was the case under the Musharraf regime, the Pakistan army is more interested in American planes than policies.

Clearly, America cannot resolve the Afghan problem in isolation. South-Central Asia needs independent security institutions, beginning with a joint Afghan-Pakistan force empowered to conduct operations on both sides of the border, as recently proposed by Abdul Rahim Wardak, Afghanistan’s defense minister.

At the same time, America will have to accept Afghan and Pakistani negotiations with Taliban commanders, who have emerged from a deep Punjabi and Pashtun social base that cannot be eradicated anytime soon.

Just as needed are provisional reconstruction teams in Pakistan’s tribal areas, like those that have been established in parts of Afghanistan. These Pakistani-led teams should be provided with the cash and supplies to install power generators, to give local police officers more pay and to hire thousands of local Pashtun to build roads, hospitals and schools.

This process can begin from the Khyber agency outside Peshawar and spread north and west toward the Afghan border. The original reconstruction teams in Afghanistan also need more support — which should involve Arab, Turkish and Chinese participation. In other words, long-term stability depends on getting reconstruction right on both sides of the border.

For complete article, click here

India’s stealth lobbying against Holbrooke's brief?

India’s stealth lobbying against Holbrooke's brief
Foreign Policy, The Cable, January 23, 2009

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- flanked by President Obama -- introduced Richard Holbrooke as the formidable new U.S. envoy to South Asia at a State Department ceremony on Thursday, India was noticeably absent from his title.

Holbrooke, the veteran negotiator of the Dayton accords and sharp-elbowed foreign policy hand who has long advised Clinton, was officially named "special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan" in what was meant to be one of the signature foreign policy acts of Obama's first week in office.

But the omission of India from his title, and from Clinton's official remarks introducing the new diplomatic push in the region was no accident -- not to mention a sharp departure from Obama's own previously stated approach of engaging India, as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan, in a regional dialogue. Multiple sources told The Cable that India vigorously -- and successfully -- lobbied the Obama transition team to make sure that neither India nor Kashmir was included in Holbrooke's official brief.

"When the Indian government learned Holbrooke was going to do [Pakistan]-India, they swung into action and lobbied to have India excluded from his purview," relayed one source. "And they succeeded. Holbrooke's account officially does not include India."

To many Washington South Asia experts, the decision to not include India or Kashmir in the official Terms of Reference of Holbrooke's mandate was not just appropriate, but absolutely necessary. Given India's fierce, decades-long resistance to any internationalization of the Kashmir dispute, to have done so would have been a non-starter for India, and guaranteed failure before the envoy mission had begun, several suggested.

"Leaving India out of the title actually opens up [Holbrooke's] freedom to talk to them," argued Philip Zelikow, a former counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who served until December as a consultant for a lobbying firm, BGR, retained by the Indian Government.

For complete article, click here

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Report: Obama's Policy Options in Pakistan's FATA



President Obama's Policy Options in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) - Hassan Abbas
Institute of Social Policy and Understanding, January 26, 2009

Introduction:
There is an emerging consensus among foreign policy experts that the growing insurgency and militancy in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) poses the greatest security challenge not only to Pakistan and Afghanistan, but also to the United States. Some scholars even project that a major terrorist act with al-Qaeda footprints in the United States might result in an American strike and ground invasion of this area. President-elect (delete) Barack Obama has repeatedly talked about stepping up military action in Afghanistan as a panacea to the expanding crisis in that country and hinted as early as August 2007 that if elected, he would sanction direct military strikes in FATA if there were “actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets” and if Pakistan failed to act. Situation has deteriorated in the region during the last year further complicating Obama’s policy options for stabilizing South Asia.

Turbulence and insurgency is not new to the Pak-Afghan tribal borderland. In the historical context, Afghanistan was a flashpoint of Anglo-Russian rivalry in the nineteenth century, and tribes living in the borderland played a crucial role in what is often termed the “great game.” The Soviet-American confrontation in the last quarter of the twentieth century further re-energized the traditional warrior-like ethos of the area’s tribes, as FATA became the base camp for religious warriors from around the world eager to confront the Soviet forces in Afghanistan. Abundant financial resources and armaments were made available by the West (primarily the United States and the United Kingdom) as well as Saudi Arabia for the cause, and Pakistani intelligence services delivered the goods. The doctrine of jihad was conveniently reframed to inspire the fighters. Eventually, the Soviet Union could not bear the burden and had to retreat, leaving Afghanistan open to all local and regional contenders for power. Consequently, a brutal civil war erupted in 1989 and the western handlers of the war sneaked out without any notice. Pakistan and Iran tried to manage and manipulate the crisis through their favorites; however, this strategy backfired and the Taliban, posing as a stabilizing force, emerged on the scene in 1994. Pakistan quickly adopted them, and Saudi support came in handy. Until September 11, 2001, Taliban brutality and oppression reigned supreme in Afghanistan, and FATA served as the conduit for the Pakistani support. Tragically, none of the players that brought Afghanistan to this plight felt any guilt. Even if they did, they never expressed it.

Contents: Historical Context; Basic Ground Realities; US Policy during Bush Era (2001-08); Early Policy Indicators from President Obama; 10 Steps that Pakistan Should Take ; 10 Steps that the American Government Should Take ; Concluding Thoughs; Endnotes

For complete report (pdf), click here

Radio Amplifies Terror of Taliban in Pakistan: NYT

In Pakistan, Radio Amplifies Terror of Taliban
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and PIR ZUBAIR SHAH, NEw York Times, January 25, 2009

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Every night around 8 o’clock, the terrified residents of Swat, a lush and picturesque valley a hundred miles from three of Pakistan’s most important cities, crowd around their radios. They know that failure to listen and learn might lead to a lashing — or a beheading.

Using a portable radio transmitter, a local Taliban leader, Shah Doran, on most nights outlines newly proscribed “un-Islamic” activities in Swat, like selling DVDs, watching cable television, singing and dancing, criticizing the Taliban, shaving beards and allowing girls to attend school. He also reveals names of people the Taliban have recently killed for violating their decrees — and those they plan to kill.

“They control everything through the radio,” said one Swat resident, who declined to give his name for fear the Taliban might kill him. “Everyone waits for the broadcast.”

International attention remains fixed on the Taliban’s hold on Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal areas, from where they launch attacks on American forces in Afghanistan. But for Pakistan, the loss of the Swat Valley could prove just as devastating.

Unlike the fringe tribal areas, Swat, a Delaware-size chunk of territory with 1.3 million residents and a rich cultural history, is part of Pakistan proper, within reach of Peshawar, Rawalpindi and Islamabad, the capital.

After more than a year of fighting, virtually all of it is now under Taliban control, marking the militants’ farthest advance eastward into Pakistan’s so-called settled areas, residents and government officials from the region say.

For complete article, click here

Also See:
Swat Taliban summon politicians to sharia court
- Daily Times
Obama's Vietnam? - By Juan Cole, Salon.com, January 26, 2009

Islamic Peacemaking Since 9/11: United States Institute of Peace

USIP: January 2009, Special Report No. 218
Islamic Peacemaking Since 9/11 By David Smock and Qamar-ul Huda

Summary
■ Muslims in general and Muslim leaders particularly have often been severely criticized for not more energetically condemning the violent acts of Muslim extremists.
■ Violent extremists are on one edge of the Muslim community. They are counter-balanced by a growing movement of Muslim peacemakers.
■ Equally as notable as Islamic militancy but less noted are Muslims’ 1) widespread condemnation of terrorism and other violent acts; 2) promotion of interfaith dialogue; 3) education of Muslim youth and reeducation of extremist Muslims; and 4) promotion of peaceful conflict resolution.

About the Report
The Religion and Peacemaking program conducts research, identifies best practices, and develops new peacebuilding tools for religious leaders and organizations. It also helps define and shape the field of religious peacebuilding.

USIP’s Religion and Peacemaking program has produced a series of Special Reports on Islam, including “Applying Islamic Principles in the Twenty-first Century,” “Ijtihad,” “Islam and Democracy,” “Islamic Perspectives on Peace and Violence,” and “The Diversity of Muslims in the United States.” This report is the most recent addition to that series. It is coauthored by David Smock, associate vice president for the Religion and Peacemaking program, and Qamar-ul Huda, senior program officer in that program. The research assistant for this project was Basma Yousef.

For complete report (pdf), click here

Mystical Power of Sufis

Mystical power
Why Sufi Muslims, for centuries the most ferocious soldiers of Islam, could be our most valuable allies in the fight against extremism
By Philip Jenkins, Boston Globe, January 25, 2009

THIRTY YEARS AGO this month, the collapse of the Shah's government marked the launch of Iran's Islamic Revolution, and since that point the topic of Islam has rarely been out of the headlines. All too often, we hear about Islam in the context of intolerance and, often, violence -- of Al Qaeda savagery, of Taliban misogyny, of nuclear weapons in Pakistan and perhaps in Iran itself. Even in Europe, many fear the growth of a radical Islamic presence. For three decades, Western observers have worked fervently to comprehend Islam's global power and appeal, its ability to inspire the poor and to topple governments. But in all that intense attention, most observers have missed a crucial part of the story: a global web of devout religious brotherhoods that by all logic should be a critical ally against extremism.

Sufis are the power that has made Islam the world's second-largest religion, with perhaps 1.2 billion adherents. Not a sect of Islam, but rather heirs of an ancient mystical tradition within both the Sunni and Shia branches of the faith, Sufis have through the centuries combined their inward quest with the defense and expansion of Islam worldwide. At once mystics and elite soldiers, dervishes and preachers, charismatic wonder-workers and power-brokers, ascetic Sufis have always been in the vanguard of Islam. While pushing forward the physical borders of Islam, they have been essential to the spiritual and cultural fullness of the faith. Today, the Sufi tradition is deeply threaded through the power structures of many Muslim countries, and the orders are enjoying a worldwide renaissance.

To look at Islam without seeing the Sufis is to miss the heart of the matter. Without taking account of the Sufis, we cannot understand the origins of most contemporary political currents in the Middle East and Muslim South Asia, and of many influential political parties. We can't comprehend the huge popular appeal of Islam for

women, who so often seem excluded from Muslim life. Sufis are central to the ability of Muslim communities to survive savage persecutions -- in Chechnya, in Kosovo -- and then launch devastating insurgencies. They are the muscle and sinew of the faith.

And, however startling this may seem, these very Sufis -- these dedicated defenders and evangelists of mystical Islam -- are potentially vital allies for the nations of the West. Many observers see a stark confrontation between the West and Islam, a global conflict that entered a traumatic new phase with the Iranian revolution. But that perspective ignores basic conflicts within the Muslim world itself, a global clash of values over the nature of religious practice, no less than overtly political issues. For the Islamists -- for hard-line fundamentalists like the Saudi Wahhabis and the Taliban -- the Sufis are deadly enemies, who draw on practices alien to the Quran. Where Islamists rise to power, Sufis are persecuted or driven underground; but where Sufis remain in the ascendant, it is the radical Islamist groups who must fight to survive.

For complete article, click here

Will Pakistan survive as an idea?

Book review: Will the state survive as an idea? — by Khaled Ahmed
Daily Times, January 25, 2009
Pakistan ka Tasavvur;
By Stephen Philip Cohen; Translated into Urdu by Shafiqur Rehman Mian; Vanguard Books Lahore 2008; Pp358

Shafiqur Rehman has competently rendered into Urdu Stephen Cohen’s 2004 book The Idea of Pakistan. This will the first book of its kind in Urdu because of Cohen’s well known habit of looking at his subjects from new angles of inquiry.

Stephen Cohen grasped Pakistan from the right end of the stick; he wrote about the Pakistan army first. He is different from other writers on Pakistan today because he shuns mere cataloguing of facts. He develops insights, theorises on the basis of multiple versions of reality felt in Pakistan, and focuses on personalities in order to define them. The last bit he does to account for the wisdom that where state institutions are weak men drive political evolution.

He reads the literature on Pakistan he thinks provides the most innovative approach to a problematic state but delves into journalistic coverage to lend intimacy of immediate detail to his writing. His ‘scenario’-building is saved from obsolescence because he doesn’t rely on just one scenario. Yet his tone is magisterial enough to breed confidence in the reader.

For complete article, click here

Also See:
Book review When prime ministers bowed to jihad — by Khaled Ahmed
Cost of war - Farrukh Saleem, The News

Obama Approved Drone Attacks in Pakistan's FATA

President orders air strikes on villages in tribal area
Ewen MacAskill in Washington The Guardian, Saturday 24 January 2009

Four days after assuming the presidency, he was consulted by US commanders before they launched the two attacks. Although Obama has abandoned many of the "war on terror" policies of George Bush while he was president, he is not retreating from the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders.

The US believes they are hiding in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan, and made 30 strikes last year in which more than 200 people were killed. In the election, Obama hinted at increased operations in Pakistan, saying he thought Bush had made a mistake in switching to Iraq before completing the job against al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

For complete article, click here

Also See:
Thousands attend funeral of drone victims - The News
Fata toughest challenge for Obama, says Holbrooke - The News
Dialogue only solution to FATA problems: president - Daily Times

Friday, January 23, 2009

Continuation of Drone Attacks in Pakistan

Strikes in Pakistan Underscore Obama’s Options
By RICHARD A. OPPEL JR, New York Times, January 24, 2009

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Two missile attacks launched from remotely piloted American aircraft killed at least 15 people in western Pakistan on Friday. The strikes suggested that the use of drones to kill militants within Pakistan’s borders would continue under President Obama.

Remotely piloted Predator drones operated by the Central Intelligence Agency have carried out more than 30 missile attacks since last summer against members of Al Qaeda and other terrorism suspects deep in their redoubts on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan.

But some of the attacks have also killed civilians, enraging Pakistanis and making it harder for the country’s shaky government to win support for its own military operations against Taliban guerrillas in the country’s lawless border region.

American officials in Washington said there were no immediate signs that the strikes on Friday had killed any senior Qaeda leaders. They said the attacks had dispelled for the moment any notion that Mr. Obama would rein in the Predator attacks.

Mr. Obama and his top national security aides are likely in the coming days to review other counterterrorism measures put in place by the Bush administration, American officials said.

These include orders President Bush secretly approved in July that for the first time allowed American Special Operations forces to carry out ground raids in Pakistan without the approval of the Pakistani government.

For complete article, click here

Also See:
Twin drone strikes kill 18 - Daily Times

Obama’s double hyphenation and Pakistan's "Blank Cheque" to China

INSIGHT: Obama’s double hyphenation — Ejaz Haider
Daily Times, January 24, 2009

Until now Pakistan could cite the obnoxious unilateralism of the Bush administration for creating difficulties for it and not allowing it to sell the counter-insurgency efforts to the public. Obama, by genuinely changing the approach, could deprive Pakistan of that argument

US President Barack Obama has appointed Richard Holbrooke as special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan. Holbrooke, a former US ambassador to the United Nations and broker of the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords which ended conflict in Bosnia, has had a long and distinguished career as diplomat, writer, academic and businessman.

The appointment has caused some consternation among analysts in Pakistan because it seems to hyphenate Pakistan and Afghanistan while leaving India out of the equation.

Is the apprehension justified?

Consider three main strands in Obama’s approach to the war on terror.

For complete article, click here

ALSO SEE:
Pakistan gives “blank cheque” to China - The Hindu

Iran gets Afghan transit trade

Editorial: Iran gets Afghan transit trade
Daily Times, January 24, 2009

On Thursday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Indian Foreign Minister Mr Pranab Mukherjee opened a new road that will help link Afghanistan with the port of Chabahar in Iran and “challenge Pakistani dominance of trade routes into the landlocked country”. The 220km road in the southwest Afghan province of Nimroz is the culmination of the $1.1 billion Indian reconstruction effort in Afghanistan. Pakistan, if it remains wedded to its old strategy, is fated to be a loser.

The road, entirely funded by India with $15 million, runs from Delaram in Nimroz to Zaranj on the Iranian border, which connects to the Iranian port of Chabahar. The route is clearly intended as an alternative route if one looks at the concessions already offered at Chabahar. Afghan exporters will use the port with a 90 percent discount on port fees, a 50 percent discount on warehousing charges, and Afghan vehicles will be allowed full transit rights on the Iranian road system. In consequence, Pakistan has already reduced some of its duties at Karachi port in anticipation.

The tripartite deal was struck in 2003 and forms a part of Iran’s effort to become transit terrain for the states of Central Asia. And Chabahar has been built to separate European and Russian trade which is carried out at the Bandar Abbas port. Chabahar will also handle Indian goods heading for Afghanistan and Central Asia on the basis of concessions similar to the ones given to Afghanistan. This is a part of the change that came after 9/11, the failure of Pakistan’s policy of “strategic depth” in Afghanistan, and the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Pakistan was dominant in Afghanistan in the 1990s on the basis of the Taliban regime it nurtured, climaxed by the hijacking of an Indian airliner to Kandahar in 1999; but today Afghanistan’s neighbours plus India, adversely affected by the Taliban regime, call the shots there.

For complete article, click here

US - Pakistan Relations Under Obama

Obama pledges to work closely with Pakistan
* US president pledges to seek stronger partnerships with governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan
* Names Holbrooke special envoy for Pakistan, Afghanistan
Daily Times, January 23, 2009

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama on Thursday vowed to work closely with Pakistan and deepen engagement with the people of the South Asian country as part of efforts to overcome security challenges along the Pak-Afghan border through a regional approach that will also focus on the creation of economic opportunities for the people of two countries.

Partnership: “We will seek stronger partnerships with the governments of the region, sustain cooperation with our NATO allies, deepen engagement with the Afghan and Pakistani people and a comprehensive strategy to combat terror and extremism,” said Obama while naming former diplomat Richard Holbrooke as America’s special representative for the two countries, in the presence of Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the State Department.

Envoy: On his maiden visit to the State Department, Obama was confident that Holbrooke would be able to help forge and implement a ‘strategic and sustainable’ US approach in the critical region.

However, he said that progress would not come immediately in Afghanistan, as the Taliban violence had escalated ‘dramatically’ and the narcotics problem had worsened. He also criticised the Afghan government’s failure in delivering basic services.

The new US president also pledged to work towards “achievable goals that contribute to our collective security”.

Ambassador Holbrooke, 67 – who served as US ambassador to the United Nations – is credited with negotiating Dayton peace accords in 1995 that ended the Bosnian conflict.

In his brief remarks, Holbrooke said he would coordinate a foreign assistance programme in the two countries to bring coherence in the US efforts.

Also, former Senate Majority leader George Mitchell was assigned the task to oversee US policy on the Middle East. Obama said the new envoy would head to the Middle East as soon as possible, “in a bid to get lasting peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians”. He also called on Israel to open Gaza border crossings to aid and commerce, as part of a lasting ceasefire following the conflict with Hamas. agencies

Also See:
SCENARIOS-Holbrooke faces big test in Afghanistan/Pakistan - Reuters
Obama says Pakistan, Afghanistan require wider strategy - AFP
Appointing Emissaries, Obama and Clinton Stress Diplomacy - New York Times
ANALYSIS: Obama, Pakistan and Afghanistan —Najmuddin A Shaikh - Daily Times

London Review of Books Contributors on Gaza

LRB contributors react to events in Gaza
London Review of Books, January 15, 2009

Yonatan Mendel
It’s very frustrating to see Israeli society recruited so calmly and easily to war. Hardly anyone has dared to mention the connection between the decision to go to war and the fact that we are only a few weeks away from an election. Kadima (Tzipi Livni’s party) and Labour (Ehud Barak’s) were doing very badly in the polls. Now that they have killed more than 1000 Palestinians (250 on the first day – the highest number in 41 years of occupation) they are both doing very well. Barak was expected to win eight seats in the Knesset; now it is around 15. Netanyahu is the one sweating.

I am terribly sad about all this, and frustrated. On the first day of the operation I wrote an article for the Walla News website and within four hours I had received 1600 comments, most calling for my deportation (at best) or immediate execution (at worst). It showed me again how sensitive Israeli society is to any opposition to war. It is shocking how easily this society unites behind yet another military solution, after it has failed so many times. Hizbullah was created in response to Israel’s occupation of Lebanon in 1982. Hamas was created in 1987 in response to two decades of military occupation. What do we think we’ll achieve this time?

The state called up more than 10,000 reservists, and even people who had not been called also travelled to military bases and asked to be sent to Gaza. This shows once again how efficient the Israeli propaganda and justification machine is, and how naturally people here believe in myths that have been disproved again and again. If people were saying, ‘We killed 1000 people, but the army is not perfect, and this is war,’ I would say it was a stupid statement. But Israelis are saying: ‘We killed 1000 people, and our army is the most moral army in the world.’ This says a lot about the psychology of the conflict: people are not being told what to think or say; they reach these insights ‘naturally’.

Since I was a soldier myself ten years ago, I worry I might be called up as a reservist. If I were to refuse now, when Israel is at war, I would be sent to prison. But still, I tell myself, that would be so much easier than being part of what my country is doing. Apparently, every single Jewish member of the Knesset, except one from the Jewish-Arab list, believes that killing more Palestinians, keeping the Gazan population under siege, destroying their police stations, ministerial offices and headquarters will weaken Hamas, strengthen Israel, demonstrate to the Palestinians that next time they should vote for Fatah, and bring stability to the region. I have no words. Only one Jewish member of the Knesset, out of 107, went to the demonstration that followed the deliberate bombing by the Israelis of an UNRWA school being used to house refugees, resulting in the deaths of 45 civilians. Once again, the Israeli slogan is ‘Let the IDF win’ and once again everybody agrees. People have short memories. By 2008, two years after the Second Lebanon War ended, Hizbullah had more soldiers than before, three times more weapons, and had dramatically improved its political position. It now even has a right of veto in parliament. The same could happen to Hamas, but once again military magic enchants Israeli society.

I have a friend whose brother is a pilot in the IDF. I asked to speak to him. I told him what I thought about Israel’s behaviour and he seemed to agree with my general conclusions. He said, however, that a soldier should not ask himself such questions, which should be kept to the political sphere. I can’t agree. But the second thing he told me was more important. He told me that for pilots, a day like the first day of the war, when so many attacks are being made simultaneously, is a day full of excitement, a day you look forward to. If you take these words into account, and bear in mind that in Israel every man is a soldier, either in uniform or in reserve, there is no avoiding the conclusion that there are great pressures for it to act as a military society. Not acting is damaging to the IDF’s status, budget, masculinity, power and happiness, and not only to the IDF’s. This could explain why in Israel the military option is almost never considered second best. It is always the first choice.

Ha’aretz too is a source of unhappiness for me, since in wartime the paper is part of this militaristic discourse, shares its values and lack of vision. Ha’aretz did not criticise Israel when its troops deployed to Lebanon in 2006. Nor did it have anything to say when the same soldiers bombed Gaza’s police, schools and people. Even when there was a demonstration against the war, with more than 10,000 people taking part, both Jews and Palestinian citizens of Israel, the Ha’aretz website chose to publish a picture of a counter-demonstration, in which a few hundred participated, waving Israeli flags and shouting: ‘Let the IDF win.’

I have problems speaking to my closest friends and family these days, because I can no longer bear to hear the security establishment’s propaganda coming from their mouths. I cannot bear to hear people justifying the deaths of more than 200 children killed by Israeli soldiers. There is no justification for that, and it’s wrong to try to find one. Usually I feel part of society in Israel. I feel that I am on one side of the political map and other people are on the opposite side. But over the last few days, I feel that I am not part of this society any more. I do not call friends who support the war, and they do not call me. The same with my family. It is a hard thing for me to write, but this is how it is.

Yonatan Mendel was a correspondent for the Israeli news agency Walla. He is currently at Queens’ College, Cambridge working on a PhD that studies the connection between the Arabic language and security in Israel.

For other contributions, click here

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

How can Obama Administration Deal with Iran?

How to Deal with Iran
By William Luers, Thomas R. Pickering, Jim Walsh
The New York Review of Books, Volume 56, Number 2 · February 12, 2009

Three of the most pressing national security issues facing the Obama administration—nuclear proliferation, the war in Iraq, and the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan—have one element in common: Iran.[1] The Islamic Republic has made startling progress over the past few years in its nuclear program. Setting aside recent, misleading reports that Iran already has enough nuclear fuel to build a weapon, the reality is that Tehran now has five thousand centrifuges for enriching uranium and is steadily moving toward achieving the capability to build nuclear bombs.[2] Having the capacity to build a nuclear weapon is not the same thing as having one, and having a large stock of low-enriched uranium is not the same as having the highly enriched uranium necessary for a bomb. But the Obama administration cannot postpone dealing with the nuclear situation in Iran, as President Bush did.

Iran is closely implicated in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as well. Iran's influence in Iraq is well known. As Michael Massing has reported in these pages:

The SIIC [Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council], the main government party, was founded in Iran and remains so close to Tehran that many Iraqis shun it for having a "Persian taint." Iran is erecting mosques and power plants in the Shiite south and investing heavily in construction and communications in the Kurdish north.[3]
But Iran also has critical interests in Afghanistan, its neighbor to the east, where it has long opposed the Taliban and is concerned to avoid the chaos that would result from the fall of the increasingly threatened Karzai government. The Iranian government places a high priority on defeating al-Qaeda and the Taliban—extremist Sunni groups which it views as direct threats to Iran's Shiites—as well as on reducing Afghanistan's rampant drug trade.

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Pakistan in Peril By William Dalrymple

Pakistan in Peril By William Dalrymple
The New York Review of Books, Volume 56, Number 2, February 12, 2009

Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia
by Ahmed Rashid, Viking, 484 pp., $27.95

Lahore, Pakistan

The relative calm in Iraq in recent months, combined with the drama of the US elections, has managed to distract attention from the catastrophe that is rapidly overwhelming Western interests in the part of the world that always should have been the focus of America's response to September 11: the al-Qaeda and Taliban heartlands on either side of the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The situation here could hardly be more grim. The Taliban have reorganized, advanced out of their borderland safe havens, and are now massing at the gates of Kabul, threatening to surround and throttle the capital, much as the US-backed Mujahideen once did to the Soviet-installed regime in the late Eighties. Like the rerun of an old movie, all journeys out of the Afghan capital are once again confined to tanks, armored cars, and helicopters. Members of the Taliban already control over 70 percent of the country, up from just over 50 percent in November 2007, where they collect taxes, enforce Sharia law, and dispense their usual rough justice; but they do succeed, to some extent, in containing the wave of crime and corruption that has marked Hamid Karzai's rule. This has become one of the principal reasons for their growing popularity, and every month their sphere of influence increases.

The blowback from the Afghan conflict in Pakistan is more serious still. In less than eight months, Asif Ali Zardari's new government has effectively lost control of much of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) to the Taliban's Pakistani counterparts, a loose confederation of nationalists, Islamists, and angry Pashtun tribesmen under the nominal command of Baitullah Mehsud. Few had very high expectations of Zardari, the notoriously corrupt playboy widower of Benazir Bhutto. Nevertheless, the speed of the collapse that has taken place under his watch has amazed almost all observers.

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Obama Agenda on Pakistan

US to increase non-military aid to Pakistan: Pakistan to be accountable for FATA security: US
Staff Report, Daily Times, January 22, 2009

LAHORE: The new US administration will increase non-military aid to Pakistan, but hold Islamabad accountable for security along the border region with Afghanistan, according to a US foreign policy document released soon after President Barack Obama assumed office.

The document – available on the White House website – says, “Obama and [Vice President Joe] Biden will increase non-military aid to Pakistan and hold them accountable for security in the border region with Afghanistan.”

Refocus: It says that Obama and Biden would ‘refocus’ American resources on the “greatest threat to our security – the resurgence of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan”. “They will [also] increase our troop levels in Afghanistan, press our allies in NATO to do the same, and dedicate more resources to revitalise Afghanistan’s economic development. Obama and Biden will demand the Afghan government do more, including cracking down on corruption and the illicit opium trade,” it adds.

New era: The documed goes on to promise the beginning of a new era and pledges the US would end the war in Iraq ‘responsibly’, in addition to ‘finishing’ the war in Afghanistan. “President Obama and Vice President Biden will renew America’s security and standing in the world through a new era of American leadership. The Obama-Biden foreign policy will end the war in Iraq responsibly, finish the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.”

According to the new agenda, the US also intends to “secure nuclear weapons and loose nuclear material from terrorists’, and renew American diplomacy to support strong alliances and to seek a lasting peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”.

In his capacity as the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden – a known expert on Afghanistan and Pakistan – introduced legislation in the US Senate to increase non-military aid to Pakistan. The legislation proposes to triple non-military aid to Pakistan over the next five years. The bill also calls for greater accountability on security assistance, to improve Pakistani counter-terrorism capabilities and ensure more effective efforts against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

As the key points of Obama’s foreign policy agenda indicate, the new administration is expected to follow the key elements of Biden-Lugar proposals.

For the complete agenda document of Obama Administration, click here

Status of Women in Pakistan

The state and status of women by Sarwar Bari
The News, January 22, 2009

For many years we have been witnessing women being prevented to participate in the electoral process both as voters and candidates. Shamelessly, despite their cutthroat competition, the religious and so-called liberal parties engaged in this fraud. And the Election Commission of Pakistan has never taken any action against this clear violation of its code of conduct. In addition, the state has been ominously silent on the closure and burning of girls' schools and women's colleges in some parts of the country. It also must be noted that recently, when the Islamic Ideological Council announced some pro-women recommendations on divorce, the mullahs aggressively opposed them, while the so-called pro-women parties did not bother to defend the recommendations.

Is it not an irony, especially when the Constitution of Pakistan (Articles 25 and 34) guarantees equality between the two sexes? Let us not forget that Pakistan also signed the Convention for the Elimination of All Kinds of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). In order to achieve the objectives of CEDAW, Pakistan has also launched a Gender Reform Action Plan. In short, it could be concluded that the constitutional and policy framework of the state of Pakistan is externally pro-women, but inwardly it has no shame when its own laws are violated. This hidden contradiction needs a comprehensive analysis. Space constraint allows only a brief examination.

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Obama seeks ‘new way forward’ with Muslim world


Obama seeks ‘new way forward’ with Muslim world
By Anwar Iqbal, Dawn, January 21, 2009

WASHINGTON, Jan 20: “To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect,” said Barack Husain Obama after he took oath as America’s 44th president.

Over two million people watched as Mr Obama, as America’s first African-American president, etched his name on “the hard stone of history”, in the words of Congresswoman Dianne Feinstein who introduced him.

And four miles ahead of Mr Obama — over the heads of the people who had come to see history unfold — shimmered the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

It was on these steps, on Aug 28, 1963, that civil rights leader Martin Luther King had shared his dreams with another generation of Americans for an America free of racism.

And beyond those steps is the memorial for the man — Abraham Lincoln — who abolished slavery.

Mr Obama remembered both. “Our founding fathers faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations,” he said.

And the crowd cheered. Many of the people had spent the night in the open, braving subzero temperature on the green fields of Washington National Mall, which starts from the US Capitol, halts midway for the Washington Memorial and rolls down to the Lincoln Memorial.

They were here all night to listen to Mr Obama. Many cried openly as he came to take oath, others were seen wiping off their tears discreetly. But all seemed happy to welcome a change that they hope will not only change America but also usher in a new era of peace and prosperity to the rest of the world.

“We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and non-believers,” said Mr Obama. “We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; united not by religion, race or language but by our freedom.”

While he extended a hand of peace to the Muslim world, he also heralded a warning to the militants.

“To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their society’s ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy,” he said.

“To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

He also promised to work with the poor nation help elevate their poverty.

“To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds,” he said.

Mr Obama also had a word of advice for other prosperous nations. “And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders, nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect,” he said. “For the world has changed, and we must change with it.”

Mr Obama also remembered that all was not well either with America or with the rest of the world and that his nation expected him to, first of all, end its economic woes.

“Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms,” he said. “Homes have been lost, jobs shed, businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly, our schools fail too many, and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.”

He warned: “These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable, but no less profound, is a sapping of confidence across our land; a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, that the next generation must lower its sights.”

But America’s first black president promised to overcome these problems with the help of his nation.

“Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real, they are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this America: They will be met,” he said.

The ceremony began with the arrival of the guests, among them three former presidents, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, followed by the outgoing president George W. Bush.

Some of them, particularly Mr Clinton, received a standing ovation from the crowd but the cheers were not very loud for the two Bushes.

Then came the vice president-elect, Joe Biden and his family followed by Mr Obama’s children and then Michelle Obama in a stunning Isabel Toledo dress.

As they were seated, Congresswoman Feinstein, invited Rick Warren of the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, to bless the ceremony.

After a song by Aretha Franklin, who also sang at President Bill Clinton’s first inauguration, Mr Biden was sworn in by Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

The third musical interlude featured composer John Williams, violinist Itzhak Perlman, cellist Yo-Yo-Ma, pianist Gabriela Montero and clarinetist Anthony McGill.

Then Mr Obama and John Roberts, the US Supreme Court’s Chief Justice, took centre stage. The swearing-in duties were Justice Roberts’ first, making him the 14th chief justice to swear in a president.

Mr Obama, placing his hand on Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural Bible, recited the same oath as his 43 predecessors: “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Also See:
Obama Offers 'A New Way Forward' to Muslim World - US News and World Report
Colin Powell celebrates Obama's Muslim roots - Mondoweiss
‘To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward’ - The National
Muslim world mellow over Obama’s outreach pledge - Daily Times

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Letter to Obama on the Muslim world


Commentary: Letter to Obama on the Muslim world
By Arsalan Iftikhar
Special to CNN, November 14, 2008

Editor's Note: Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, founder of www.TheMuslimGuy.com and contributing editor for Islamica Magazine in Washington. This is one in a series of letters to the new president that will appear on CNN.com in the next several weeks.

(CNN) -- First of all, as one of more than 66 million Americans of all races, religions and ethnicities who voted for you, your electoral victory was one of the proudest moments of our collective lives.

As our American political history witnessed the magnitude of our nation's first African-American president, our society was also able to collectively (and finally) exhale, knowing that the mailbox at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. would now read "Obama" instead of "Bush."

With hardly a moment's rest, as you transition toward Inauguration Day, our nation (and the rest of the world) will not wait for long before seeking your leadership on many pressing global issues.

From an economic recessionary mess to a perpetually broken health care system with 46 million American neighbors as uninsured casualties, your soon-to-be administration will face some monumental domestic and foreign policy issues that will affect us for generations.

From an ill-conceived war in Iraq to an oft-forgotten war in Afghanistan, from global flashpoints from Tel Aviv to Islamabad, your diplomatic and political interaction with the Muslim world may decide the success (or failure) of your foreign policy legacy.

Your unenviable task will be to undo the catastrophic policies of George W. Bush and his fellow neoconservative ideologues, facing the specter of al Qaeda's sinister terrorism while undertaking public diplomacy efforts addressing anti-Americanism around the world.

Similarly, since the tragedy of September 11, the global Muslim community has continued its own daunting task of undoing catastrophic damage caused by Osama bin Laden and his creepy terrorist cronies.

From global debates on religious extremism broadcast on BBC World Television to global interfaith outreach with the Vatican, we Muslims are in the midst of our own internal dialogue condemning terrorism and reclaiming the mantle of Islam from the rusted claws of dinosaur extremists.

Again, let it be known to the world that Barack Obama is not (and has never been) a Muslim. Sadly, your presidential position vis-à-vis the Muslim world is still unenviable because some Republican adversaries sinisterly tried to paint you as a "crypto-Muslim" during the presidential election, although Sen. John McCain did not join in these absurd accusations.

However, in one fell political swoop, former Secretary of State Colin Powell bravely challenged the xenophobic undertones of his own Republican Party on "Meet the Press" by highlighting the ultimate sacrifice of a Muslim-American soldier who died in Iraq for the United States.

For complete article, click here

Also See:
Obama reaches out to Muslims - By Sarah Baxter, The Sunday Times, Jan. 18, 2009
On Obama's inauguration, Muslims say, 'It's our time' - Jan. 9, 2009