South Asia over Middle East

By Carol Gee

In the News -- With the "Trilateral" meetings at the White House yesterday, it seems apparent that the Obama administration's main foreign policy focus in on South Asia -- "Af-Pak," rather that Iraq or Israel-Palestine. That is not news, of course. These developments are right in line with the reality of events and with the President's priorities on diplomacy. The talks will have been successful if they get the Pakistani army to focus on the Taliban in country, rather than India. According to the report by Politico.com, President Obama says he is "pleased" by the Af-Pak meetings. The Financial Times (5/7/09) has a particularly good story on the talks. Quoting the FT summary:

Islamabad on Thursday intensified attacks against Taliban militants in the northern Swat valley after Barack Obama, US president, welcomed the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan to the White House.

Thousands of people took advantage of a break in a curfew in Swat on Thursday to get out of the region as government aircraft attacked Taliban positions. United Nations officials said the campaign against the Islamic militants in Swat had prompted 100,000 civilians to flee the area over the past two days. Mian Iftikhar Hussain, a senior official in North West Frontier Province, where Swat is located, warned that 500,000 people might flee the conflict.

If Iraq is secure enough for the oil groups to return by the end of the year, despite the lack of an oil law, things must be getting more stable in that war-torn country with one third of the world's oil reserves. According to the New York Times (4/19/09), Iraq's parliament chose a new speaker after months of political infighting that stalled several pieces of legislation. He is a critic of PM Malaki. The commander in Iraq, General Odierno is certain that U.S. troops will be out of Iraq by late 2011.

Clearly President Obama has turned his attention to South Asia, and it is none too soon. The years of a Bush administration distracted in Iraq are somewhat behind us. The current administration is about the business that should have been finished with al Qaeda a long time ago.

References:

1. Terror tech -- from CQ Behind the Lines, by David C. Morrison (5/6/09): “In the old days, we knew where the enemy was; the problem was we couldn’t kill them fast enough. Now it’s almost getting them person by person, and technology can help us do that,” National Intelligence chief Adm. Dennis C. Blair tells The Baltimore Sun. The advent of robotic weapons of “indiscriminate lethality” promises to “lead to less physical risk to the combatants deploying them but greater moral risk,” a Global Media Forum essay assesses — while The New York Times quotes a Taliban logistician judging as “very effective” the CIA’s drone attacks in Pakistan.


2. "Obama says Pakistan nukes in safe hands," from The Financial Times (4/29/09). Summary of an article that provides a lot of good answers to the questions I have had about Pakistan's nuclear arsenal:
   
   

   US president Barack Obama on Wednesday has backed assurances from Pakistan’s military, saying he believed the country’s nuclear arsenal of as many as 100 warheads was in safe hands.
   
   Speaking at a White House news conference late Wednesday night, Mr Obama said while he was “gravely concerned” about the overall situation in Pakistan, he added that Pakistan’s military recognised the hazard of the country’s nuclear weapons “falling in to the wrong hands”.



3. "Almost 1 in 10 Afghans see the U.S. as the biggest threat to Afghanistan," from The U.S. News and World Report (4/15/09).

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)