Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called for a timetable to end the occupation of Afghanistan by Western forces or if not, said that the West must accept negotiations with the Taliban to end bloodshed there.

President Hamid Karzai told a visiting U.N. Security Council delegation Tuesday that the international community should set a timeline to end the war in Afghanistan.

It appeared to be the first time Karzai has called for a time limit on the international effort to defeat Taliban militants and raise a stable and competent Afghan security force and government.

"If there is no deadline, we have the right to find another solution for peace and security, which is negotiations," Karzai was quoted as saying in a statement from his office.

Spencer Ackerman has the essential analysis, as usual. Although he thinks that Karzai is indeed trying to box the US and its allies into accepting a negotiated settlement with the Taliban, Spencer also writes:

My first instinct is that this is a measure to shore up Karzai’s waning support among war-weary Pashtuns. But could he really mean there ought to be a set date on ending the Afghanistan war? One thing that’s been entirely missing from the policy debate on Afghanistan — in the U.S., in NATO, in Afghanistan — is that no one even pretends to think about how the war is supposed to end. No one knows the endgame, and no one even proposes endgames.

Brian Beutler is right - it's about time someone in the West did start talking about an Afghanistan endgame and that someone is Barrack Obama. He was right about needing one in Iraq, something the Bush administration has belatedly signed on to in an embarassing climbdown. Now here's an opportunity for some more much-needed foresight and international leadership.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Today, a friend sent me a PDF copy of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mullen unclassified new "CJCS strategic guidance" for 2008-09. It makes interesting reading.

Some first thoughts:

"We have the most combat-hardened forces in history."

That's hyperbole, right? Even if you just restrict it to American forces.

"Our Navy and Airforce are unmatched, although our advantage could easily slip."

Slip to who and over what period of time? There isn't a nation on Earth spends a fraction of what the U.S. does on the military, and the next three biggest spenders are all ostensibly allies (France, Britain, Japan). The US could cut its military budget by two thirds and still outspend all of its possible threats combined.

Mullen's version of the objective in Iraq and Afghanistan:

"...a representative, stable, independent Iraq that is an ally and regional leader, and a representative, stable Afghanistan and Pakistan that are allies and cooperative members of the international community..."

Is this in fact doable at any price America is willing to pay and over any forseeable timeline? And why don't Afghanistan - and Pakistan! - have to be "independent" too?

"In the near term, Al Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan are the probable source of a terrorist attack on the homeland.

So Mullen agrees with Hayden that Pakistan is the true central front in the so-called "War On Terror" (and one the US isn't actually at war in). Is the reason that Pakistan doesn't need to be independent contained therein, for the warmongers? That'll be why we invaded Iraq and sent Pakistan billions in military aid while helping prop up the people in Pakistan's military and intelligence services enabling those Al Qaeda safe havens. That makes perfect sense.

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Here's a historic picture from AFP, via the NY Times - The Iraqi cabinet has approved the current wording of the so-called Status of Forces Agreement between the US and Iraq, which will replace the UN mandate at the end of the year, with only one dissenting voice.

Spencer Ackerman writes:

The Bush administration intended the SOFA process to entrench the occupation. Instead it gave the Iraqi government the means to end it. And that's the best-possible way for the war to end: with the Iraqi government -- the one we've disingenuously told the world we're in Iraq to support -- showing its political maturation to get us out the day after tomorrow. And out actually means out. The SOFA demands that every last U.S. serviceman is on a plane by December 31, 2011. Obama's plan for a 30,000-troop residual force? Officially overtaken by events. As I say, the impact of this appears not to have sunken in. The Iraqis have forced an end to the war.

But the neocons are determined to get every last day out of their war. At Commentary, Abe Greenwald spins the cabinet's vote as favorably as he can:

What happens to the claim that Barack Obama’s drawdown plan was consonant with the hopes of the Iraqi leadership? The agreement calls for American troops to be in Iraq for three more years. That’s 36 months - more than twice the length of time Obama has proposed troops stay in the country.

Nevertheless, President Obama will heed the new reality.

There is far too much resting on the successful fulfillment of this agreement for Obama to defy it. For starters, it is a watershed moment for American-Iraqi relations and Iraqi sovereignty... Tearing up a cooperative agreement so delicately arrived at would go down as a diplomatic and geopolitical travesty for the Obama administration — proving, as it would, that America’s talk of freedom and democracy is piffle.

I'm not sure that Obama couldn't stick to his 16 month deadline, if he wanted to, without contravening the agreement. As far as I'm aware (and I only have leaks to work with - no-one's seen the final wording in public yet), the agreement only says US troops must withdraw no later than Dec. 31, 2011, and makes no mention of prohibiting an earlier withdrawal.

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Periodically over the last year and a half, the Bush administration and the US military have promised to provide proof of Iranian meddling in Iraq in the form of Iranian-provided weaponry in the hands of terrorists insurgents special groups criminals. Their first effort to do so, the infamous Baghdad Briefing, fell flat on its face when even Bob Gates and then Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Pace admitted that the incredibly weak evidence it presented proved nothing of the sort. Since then, various promised "smoking gun" briefings have been announced, postponed and then cancelled. Even the previously stenographic mainstream press finally noticed there was a lot of smoke and no fire.

That seems to be because, according to a task force of investigators advising the US military in Iraq - known as Task Force Troy - the narrative of Iranian weapons flooding across the border is only hype after all. Gareth Porter writes:

According to the data compiled by the task force, and made available to an academic research project last July, only 70 weapons believed to have been manufactured in Iran had been found in post-invasion weapons caches between mid-February and the second week in April. And those weapons represented only 17 percent of the weapons found in caches that had any Iranian weapons in them during that period.

The actual proportion of Iranian-made weapons to total weapons found, however, was significantly lower than that, because the task force was finding many more weapons caches in Shi'a areas that did not have any Iranian weapons in them.

The task force database identified 98 caches over the five-month period with at least one Iranian weapon, excluding caches believed to have been hidden prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion.

But according to an e-mail from the MNFI press desk this week, the task force found and analysed a total of roughly 4,600 weapons caches during that same period.

The caches that included Iranian weapons thus represented just 2 percent of all caches found. That means Iranian-made weapons were a fraction of one percent of the total weapons found in Shi'a militia caches during that period.

The extremely small proportion of Iranian arms in Shi'a militia weapons caches further suggests that Shi'a militia fighters in Iraq had been getting weapons from local and international arms markets rather than from an official Iranian-sponsored smuggling network.

Left out of the list of Iranian-made weaponry were 350 armour-piercing explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) found in Iraqi weapons caches. Despite the lurid claims of US officials, the task group couldn't ascribe an Iranian origin to a single one. Which along with press reports about finding EFP manufactories inside Iraq explains why, since mid-Summer, we've heard nothing about Iranian-made EFPs whereas before official reports and statements were full of them.

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Finally, Iraqi authorities have confirmed the date of long-postponed provincial elections. There will be a roughly two month campaign season and elections on January 31.

Here's where the games start in earnest, because the Green Zone elites are in serious trouble if the elections go forward without a "guiding finger on the scales", so to speak:

According to a survey published by an Iraqi NGO, the Al-Amal Association, only 22.7 percent of 12,000 people polled in 11 provinces said they will vote for religious parties or blocks.

Voting for independent candidates is deemed a priority for 26.3 percent of the surveyed public of 11,000 Iraqis, while 23.7 percent said they will select democratic and secular blocks.

In the last provincial elections, in December 2005, religiously-affiliated parties won all the seats in the councils, with the exception of the Kurdish region and Kirkuk.

Expect every dirty trick in the book, from ballot stuffing to candidate assassinations to voter supression at gunpoint. And remember that secular candidates were meant to do a lot, lot better than they actually did in every set of Iraqi elections so far - for pretty much the same reasons.

More, the date sets aside four provinces, pointing up the "Kurdish Problem":

First scheduled for October 1, the polls were postponed when the national parliament struggled to pass an election law because of concerns over the disputed oil-rich northern province of Kirkuk.

The January ballot will be held in only 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces after the new law excluded Kirkuk and the three Kurdish provinces of Arbil, Dohuk and Sulaimaniyah.

Elections in the three Kurdish provinces will not be held until after March 2009 and the existing multi-communal council will continue to administer the province of Kirkuk.

Kirkuk is the biggest potential flashpoint in Iraq nowadays and the Kurds are using every trick they can think of to write their own writ in the areas they claim. Right now, they're digging their heels in and refusing to consider amendments to the Constitution, which have been seen as just as important to reconcilliation attempts as these elections.

I just don't see these elections, and the subsequent protracted playing out of Kurdish differences with the rest of the country, as being violence free. The question really is how bad will it be and how much will resultant bad blood retard rather than advance reconcilliation. There's no easy fix, but at least there's now a firm, Iraqi-imposed, exit date for the US and its coalition allies. I always found it ridiculous that the Pottery Barn rule had been reinterpreted as "we broke it, so we get to tell you how to run your store from now on".

Crossposted from Newshoggers

And it's 1..2...3..what are we not fighting for?

Via Kevin Drum comes a piece in the NYT looking at the powderkeg of factional tensions in Mosul.

The Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is squeezing out Kurdish units of the Iraqi Army from Mosul, sending the national police and army from Baghdad and trying to forge alliances with Sunni Arab hard-liners in the province, who have deep-seated feuds with the Kurdistan Regional Government led by Massoud Barzani.

....“It’s the perfect storm against the old festering background,” warned Brig. Gen. Raymond A. Thomas III, who oversees Nineveh and Kirkuk Provinces and the Kurdish region. Worry is so high that the American military has already settled on a policy that may set a precedent, as the United States slowly withdraws to allow Iraqis to settle their own problems. If the Kurds and Iraqi government forces fight, the American military will “step aside,” General Thomas said, rather than “have United States servicemen get killed trying to play peacemaker.”

As one of Drum's commenters notes:

As I recall it, the program was: (1) increase troop levels (2) to reduce the violence to make space for (3) political reconciliation that will provide the foundation for (4) a reduction in violence not dependent on American troops (5) that will enable us to gradually withdraw without having to worry about whether Iraq will blow up again.

We never got past step 2. Now the reckoning.

That reckoning will involve violence, in more than one place and between more than just two factions, in the lead up to Iraq's provincial elections. The only real question is: how bad will it get? I totally understand Brig. Gen Thomas' wish not to have his people die policing a civil war six years into the U.S. occupation but doesn't this blow wide open the conservative talking point, so beloved of both Bush and McCain, that US troops have to stay in Iraq to help prevent such violence? Why are we still there?

Of course, if there's no new status of forces deal by January Thomas' plans become moot, since it's likely US forces would be confined to base anyway. In fact, they're using the threat of exactly that to try to strongarm Iraqi into accepting an agreement it isn't happy with. McClatchy reports:

The U.S. military has warned Iraq that it will shut down military operations and other vital services throughout the country on Jan. 1 if the Iraqi government doesn't agree to a new agreement on the status of U.S. forces or a renewed United Nations mandate for the American mission in Iraq.

Many Iraqi politicians view the move as akin to political blackmail, a top Iraqi official told McClatchy Sunday.

In addition to halting all military actions, U.S. forces would cease activities that support Iraq’s economy, educational sector and other areas _ "everything" _ said Tariq al Hashimi, the country’s Sunni Muslim vice president. "I didn’t know the Americans are rendering such wide-scale services."

Hashimi said that Army Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, listed “tens” of areas of potential cutoffs in a three-page letter, and he said the implied threat caught Iraqi leaders by surprise.

But if the US military is planning to stay out of any faction fights anyway, just how much of a threat is that?

Crossposted from Newshoggers

McClatchy reports that the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq is almost complete and that it " warns that unresolved ethnic and sectarian tensions in Iraq could unleash a new wave of violence, potentially reversing the major security and political gains achieved over the last year," directly contradicting John McCain's claims in Tuesday's debate that the Surge has been a success and victory has been attained.

That's not a major surprise to anyone who follows events in Iraq without neocon rose-tinted glasses. Deep conflicts between the central government and Kurdish region, Awakening groups and Sadrists have all been put on a knife-edge by expectations for the upcoming provincial elections, which have been gerrymandered to keep the existing incumbents in the Green Zone in power. The Turks are looking down a gunbarrel at the Kurds and the Awakening is looking at losing its source of income - being paid not to be insurgents - while even the Green Zone elites are falling out among themselves over Maliki's newfound Napoleon complex. The chances of Iraq lasting another year without another significant outbreak of violence are small to none.

All of those sources of conflict are outlined in the draft NIE, according to more than "a half-dozen officials" who spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because NIE's are very restricted circulation documents.

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    Isn't it amazing how quickly Iraq has slipped down the list of defining issues for the presidential election, after every pundit in the country originally opining that it would be the defining argument to be fought? Of course, since those pronouncements we've had Georgia and the progressively chillier disagreement with Russia, we've had Afghanistan and especially Pakistan go to hell in a handbasket and we've had the economy do an impression of Chernobyl. Oh, and the Witchfinder from Alaska.

But there are still stormclouds on the Iraqi horizon, no matter that the Right wants to declare a whole new Mission Accomplished banner day. The Sunni Awakening is getting restless, the Shiite majority still have nasty internal feuds to resolve and the Kurds...well, Bush's bestest Iraqi allies throughout the occupation still have a damn good chance of being the spark that sets off a regional powderkeg. The Turks have already come very close to getting embroilled in an Iraqi mess when they sent a large force across the border last winter against Kurdish PKK separatist terrorists and are already set to do it again. The danger was always that the Kurds' military, the peshmerga, would turn out to resist the incursion and drag the Iraqi central government in too leaving the US torn between ripping up either the NATO alliance or years of Iraqi occupation.

So it was interesting recently to see an interview with Ahmet Davutoglu, the chief foreign policy aide to Turkey's prime minister, on the Council For Foreign Relations' website a few days ago. He warned that recent optimism on Iraq in the United States overlooks significant, dangerous problems which remain unresolved and set out a viewpoint that says Iraq should be seen as a Yugoslavia on the verge of breakdown.

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Wolf Blitzer, on Sunday's Late Edition interviewed Pakistan's new President, Asif Ali Zardari about his nation's involvement in the War On Terror, and specifically clashes over incursions into Pakistan by US troops. Zardari provided a lesson in glib lying which could be required viewing for a certain type of Western politician (step forward John McCain and Sarah Palin). Not a single "tell" was in evidence as 'Mr. Ten Percent' wildly spun to make himself and Pakistan sound all things to all presidential hopefuls.

  Download | play Download | play

Many thanks to Heather for the vids.

In the interview, Zardari claimed that the US was being "over-indulgent" (I think he meant over-zealous) in its incursions on Pakistani territory and appealed to the Bush administration just to "give us the intelligence" and that Pakistan would then do what was needed.

When asked about allegations from the US and other allies that elements in the Pakistani military and ISI intelligence agency shielded or aided some anti-US militant leaders, he said that was all in the past and that his government had full control of Pakistan's military. "Our democracy is trustworthy" he said. Yet in recent months, Zardari's government have tried at least three times to exert more authority over the shadowy ISI, and have had to climb down each time after pressure from the military. The ISI was directly accused of involvement in the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul back in

On recent reports, from both Pakistani and American authorities, that Pakistani troops had fired on US helicopters at least once and perhaps as many as three times - completely in accord with military statements saying Pakistan would defend against incursions at 'all costs" and would unhestitatingly "open fire" - Zardari stuck to his own tale that "open fire" is just a warning and that "only flares" to warn US forces had been used.

(Later in the interview, Zardari also said that if Pakistan captured Bin Laden it would try him in Pakistan rather than extradite him for trial on 9/11 charges, before hurredly doing an about face when Blitzer pressed him on this matter.)

But the most fervent spin of all was when Zardari tried to square himself with Obama, in case the latter should become President. When asked about Obama's policy (the one that both Bush and Sarah Palin apparently agree with but John Mccain doesn't) that the US should act unilaterally inside Pakistan if it is unable or unwilling to take action of its own, he said:

ZARDARI: Senator Obama answers that, if the Pakistani authorities are unwilling, but in this case, Pakistani authorities and the president of Pakistan is more than willing.

BLITZER: Are you confident that you have control over all elements of the security forces, that you're all on the same page, as far as the United States and the war on terror is concerned?

ZARDARI: Most definitely.

BLITZER: Absolutely?

ZARDARI: Absolutely.

All done with hardly a flicker. It's easy to see why Mr. Ten Percent is now one of the richest men in Pakistan without ever running an actual business. But if American leaders trust him at his very changeable word then caveat emptor.

The Obama campaign has released a whole bunch of videos by "Next Generation" veterans - those who served and fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here's the first:

 And here's one from partial-amputee Jon Kuniholm, who talks about his experiences, addresses the "phony troops" meme and directly asks John McCain how long he'll support a "mission" that amounts to puting up figurative "accomplished" banners at regular intervals.

There's also one from veterans and military family members in Virginia and another from Bobby Wise, who served in Iraq and is veterans field director for the Obama campaign. All good, powerful stuff and these veterans and military family members really do make the best spokespeople for why Barack Obama is stronger and smarter on national security and veterans issues.

    Think Progress reports that the Bush administration have been playing politics with Iraq withdrawal plans, pressuring Maliki to delay an agreed withdrawal date by a year because the White House was concerned that Maliki’s endorsement of a 2010 time line would damage Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) presidential campaign. The revelation came in an al-Iraqiya interview with Maliki last week:

MALIKI: Actually, the final date was really the end of 2010 and the period between the end of 2010 and the end of 2011 was for withdrawing the remaining troops from all of Iraq, but they [the Bush administration] asked for a change [in date] due to political circumstances related to the domestic situation [in the US] so it will not be said to the end of 2010 followed by one year for withdrawal but the end of 2011 as a final date. Agreement has been reached on this issue. They are willing to respond positively because they, too, are facing a critical situation.

UPDATE:  Rachel Maddow covered the topic on her Monday show:   Download | play    Download | play (h/t Heather)

Matt Duss asks : "What did McCain know about this, and when did he know it?"

Maybe we could ask Iran/Contra liar and current Deputy National Security Adviser for Global Democracy Strategy, Elliot Abrams. Apparently, Abrams is regularly briefing the McCain campaign — McCain's favorite lobbyist for Georgia, Randy Scheunemann, appears to be the main contact — and has told friends and colleagues that he is confident that he will get a top post in a McCain administration.

I fear he is correct. But as I've previously argued, it's the second part of Obama's Pakistan policy that really needs implemented - not the first.

Following reports of a US raid into Pakistan which was turned back by border guards firing into the air, the Pakistani military - which have the vocal backing of their president and prime minister, have issued a statement about any future raids. You don't get much clearer than this.

...Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas told The Associated Press that after U.S. helicopters ferried troops into a militant stronghold in the South Waziristan tribal region, the military told field commanders to prevent any similar raids.

"The orders are clear," Abbas said in an interview. "In case it happens again in this form, that there is a very significant detection, which is very definite, no ambiguity, across the border, on ground or in the air: open fire."

The Pentagon's entire response - speaking for the Bush administration because no-one higher has made a statement - is to send out a spokesman to tell reporters that Pakistan will be told to change its mind.

In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman said Pakistan would "correct the record" on the latest statement. "We enjoy good cooperation with Pakistan along the border," said the spokesman, Bryan Whitman. "Pakistan is an ally in the global war on terror."

The Bush administration's motto really is "We make our own reality".

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Earlier, John Amato noted that General David Petraeus is using phrases like "Long struggle", "not irreversible", "still hard", "many clouds on the horizon"…and of course the ever fresh "fragile" progress.

John asks "Is that what success is, fragile?"

Well, yes.

- In the North, Kurdish peshmerga are facing off against the Iraqi Army and the Kurds are stealthily landgrabbing around the disputed city of Kirkuk. Amid accusations of kurdish oppression and ethnic clearing of Arabs in the region, it is "now on the verge of exploding." Any such explosion would lead to American forces choosing between three allies - the Kurds, Iraqi central government and NATO member Turkey, who would not sit idly by while a Kurdish independent state was formed.

- Also in the North, in the Sunni city of Mosul, violence is rising again. The number of attacks had fallen from 130 a week to 30 a week in July. But today they are back up to between 60 and 70 a week. The reason is simple - Maliki's Shiite majority are cracking down on other Sunni dissenters under the guise of hunting Al Qaeda.

- Across Sunni regions, there's a growing storm of discontent among members of the Awakening. The US says there are 100,000 Sons of iraq but the Iraqi government only admits to 50,000 - and they only plan to find new jobs for 20% of those. The rest are to be cut off and told that if they continue to carry weapons they are criminals. You can guess how that's going to go. If even 20% of the Sons of Iraq return to violence, they'll comprise an insurgency equal in size to the highest US estimates of Al Qaeda in Iraq at its zenith.

- In the Shiite South, the Sadrist movement still isn't dead or defeated. But it has been pushed into the arms of Iran, from whom it had previously mainteained a distance despite rightwing claims otherwise. Sadr is streamlining his movement into a massive political arm and a smaller military one, and his people are still observing his self-imposed ceasefire. But that could yet change - there's a move among the Green Zone elite to run provincial elections under the old laws since they can't get a new law passed. This would disenfranchise Sadrists along with all the other "powers that aren't" (like the Awakening movement) and, with no prospect for getting their voices heard peacefully, the pressure to return to violence to get some say will be overwhelming.

So, all this explains why Petraeus is telling the BBC that he will "never declare victory" in Iraq. Because he knows full well that there's every reason to believe that the entire country could blow up again and the "success' of the Surge even in reducing violence will be seen to be entirely temporary.

But all this hasn't stopped John McCain, Joe Lieberman and others pushing a "sense of the Senate" amendment on the fiscal year 2009 Defense Authorization bill. Lieberman introduced the amendment, which he described as "bipartisan" even though it has no Democratic sponsors. In part it reads:

[It is the sense of the Senate to] recognize the success of the troop surge in Iraq and its strategic significance in advancing the vital national interests of the United States in Iraq, the Middle East, and the world, in particular as a strategic victory in a central front of the war on terrorism

Which is simply a lie, according to the military's own assessments, and is purely designed to allow the McCain campaign to trot out the names of all those who vote for this amendment (and who vote against it)for political purposes. If you're a Democat and vote "Yay", you disagree with Obama; if you vote "Nay", you're a defeatist who won't acknowledge "the troops" success in McCain's precious Surge. Either way, McCain has a new attack.That the military itself doesn't really acknowledge that "success" - for good reasons - has nothing to do with McCain's cynical move.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is admitting that he's worried about Afghanistan.

I'm not convinced we are winning it in Afghanistan. I am convinced we can," Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in sobering testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee nearly seven years after U.S.-led forces toppled Afghanistan's former Taliban regime following the September 11 attacks.

Mullen said he was already "looking at a new, more comprehensive strategy for the region" that would cover both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

"In my view, these two nations are inextricably linked in a common insurgency that crosses the border between them," he told lawmakers.

"We can hunt down and kill extremists as they cross over the border from Pakistan ... but until we work more closely with the Pakistani government to eliminate the safe havens from which they operate, the enemy will only keep coming."

..."Add to this a poor and struggling Afghan economy, a still-healthy narcotics trade there and a significant political uncertainty in Pakistan, and you have all the makings of a complex, difficult struggle that will take time," he said.

He also warned that time was running out on the ability of the West to provide Afghanistan with vital nonmilitary assistance for Afghanistan including roads, schools, alternative crops for farmers and the rule of law.

"These are the keys to success in Afghanistan. We cannot kill our way to victory and no armed force anywhere, no matter how good, can deliver these keys alone," Mullen said.

That's pretty straight talk and is probably a result of commander's sense of frustration with the White House. Bush short-changed the commanders on the ground in Afghanistan, letting them have less additional troops than they'd asked for and later than they'd asked for them. And Mullen's words are an implicit endorsement of Obama's plan for the region.

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