Karzai shocks US - again !
Karzai said that “very serious and delicate negotiations” are ongoing about the particulars, but that the nine bases would be given to them in return for security and economic pledges.
Sopko, who has held the position of SIGAR since last summer, said it surprised him how many in the administration didn’t understandthe role of an independent inspector general, and accused him of “embarrassing” the White House by doing his job.
Khan said that the government was obliged to ensure that no future drone strikes take place against Pakistani territory, and ordered the Foreign Ministry to bring a resolution to the UN Security Council demanding their halt. He added that if the US vetoed the resolution the government ought to consider severing diplomatic ties with them.
The 360 degree path that ended with them taking the same failed position they’ve held for over a year appears to have come entirely from Syria’s rebels loudly rejecting the US-Russia pact yesterday, saying they are holding out for the government to give in to all their demands unilaterally.
Karzai: US Can Keep Nine Bases in Afghanistan
US Dismisses Comments as 'Premature'
by Jason Ditz, May 09, 2013
While officials have tried to mostly keep last year’s agreement to keep US troops in the nation through 2024 out of headlines, Afghan President Hamid Karzai brought considerable attention to the long-term US occupation today by announcing that they will be keeping nine bases across Afghanistan.
Karzai said that “very serious and delicate negotiations” are ongoing about the particulars, but that the nine bases would be given to them in return for security and economic pledges.
Karzai went on to say that he is ready to sign a formal pact on the specifics of those bases at any time, saying he believes keeping the US troops in Afghanistan is in his government’s interests.
His comments appear to have taken the US by surprise, with them looking to keep details of their post-2014 deployments quiet for now. Officials said that any comments on nine bases were “premature.” The US had previously indicated that only two bases, one in Kabul and Bagram Airfield, were to be kept.
And Obama Admin tries to silence Special Inspector General for Afghanistan.........
Inspector General: Officials Trying to Silence Me on Afghanistan
Officials Mad at Publicity Generated by Fraud Reports
by Jason Ditz, May 09, 2013
In a speech yesterday at the New American Foundation, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko revealed that he has been under pressure from officials across several departments for publicizing his audits on waste and fraud in the Afghan War.
Sopko, who has held the position of SIGAR since last summer, said it surprised him how many in the administration didn’t understandthe role of an independent inspector general, and accused him of “embarrassing” the White House by doing his job.
He went on to say that officials had repeatedly demanded to “pre-screen” his reports before they were released, and that many wanted to edit them before they were made public, again totally negating the entire point of having an independent auditor in the first place.
While Sopko insisted the attitude was most prevalent among bureaucrats it went all the way to the top, and that a number of senior officials who “you think would know better” had also accused him of undermining the war.
Pakistan Supreme Court finds US Drone War Illegal !
Pakistan High Court: US Drone Strikes Illegal
Says Govt Must Stop Future Strikes
by Jason Ditz, May 09, 2013
Pakistani High Court Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan has issued a ruling today declaring the ongoing US drone strikes against the tribal areas illegal under international law, adding that they amount to a “war crime” when they kill innocents.
Khan said that the government was obliged to ensure that no future drone strikes take place against Pakistani territory, and ordered the Foreign Ministry to bring a resolution to the UN Security Council demanding their halt. He added that if the US vetoed the resolution the government ought to consider severing diplomatic ties with them.
The ruling came as the result of a case filed by an Islamabad legal aid charity on behalf of victims of the March 2011 attack on government officials and tribal elders in North Waziristan.
It is unclear if the ruling will have any immediate impact on government policy, but with Pakistan’s elections just two days away, it could give the front-running PML-N a legal basis for its campaign promises to put an end to the drone attacks.
US backtracks on negotiations after Rebel smackdown on talking with Assad Government ....
US: No Syria Peace Deal Without Assad Ouster
Backtracks on Recent Support for Negotiations
by Jason Ditz, May 09, 2013
The Obama Administration announced two days ago that it was making a dramatic shift, supporting negotiations to end the Syrian Civil War. Today, they appear to have backtracked entirely, insisting that any talks are preconditioned on President Bashar Assad resigning.
The 360 degree path that ended with them taking the same failed position they’ve held for over a year appears to have come entirely from Syria’s rebels loudly rejecting the US-Russia pact yesterday, saying they are holding out for the government to give in to all their demands unilaterally.
Though Syrian officials have repeatedly said a negotiated settlement would likely include Assad not participating in a future government, but the rebels have insisted that Assad and virtually everyone else in the current government must resign before the talks can even begin, a clear non-starter.
Oddly, Secretary of State John Kerry seemed not to notice that he had backed off anything, insisting that the call for talks was met with a “very positive response” in the very same speech where he announced the new/old preconditions.
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| Syria 'Is Ready' to Let in UN Chemical Experts http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139373/efraim-halevy/israels-man-in-damascus Israel's Man in Damascus
Why Jerusalem Doesn't Want the Assad Regime to Fall
 A man holds a roll of pictures of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during a rally in support of him in Damascus, 2011. (Khaled al-Hariri / Courtesy Reuters)
In October 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin telephoned Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to inform him that peace was at hand between Israel and Syria. Two weeks later, Rabin was dead, killed by a reactionary Jewish Israeli fanatic; the peace agreement that Rabin referenced died not long thereafter. But Israeli hopes for an eventual agreement with the Assad regime managed to survive. There have been four subsequent attempts by Israeli prime ministers -- one by Ehud Barak, one by Ehud Olmert, and two by Benjamin Netanyahu -- to forge a peace with Syria.
This shared history with the Assad regime is relevant when considering Israel’s strategy toward the ongoing civil war in Syria. Israel’s most significant strategic goal with respect to Syria has always been a stable peace, and that is not something that the current civil war has changed. Israel will intervene in Syria when it deems it necessary; last week’s attacks testify to that resolve. But it is no accident that those strikes were focused solely on the destruction of weapons depots, and that Israel has given no indication of wanting to intervene any further. Jerusalem, ultimately, has little interest in actively hastening the fall of Bashar al-Assad.
Israel knows one important thing about the Assads: for the past 40 years, they have managed to preserve some form of calm along the border. Technically, the two countries have always been at war -- Syria has yet to officially recognize Israel -- but Israel has been able to count on the governments of Hafez and Bashar Assad to enforce the Separation of Forces Agreement from 1974, in which both sides agreed to a cease-fire in the Golan Heights, the disputed vantage point along their shared border. Indeed, even when Israeli and Syrian forces were briefly locked in fierce fighting in 1982 during Lebanon’s civil war, the border remained quiet.
Israel does not feel as confident, though, about the parties to the current conflict, and with good reason. On the one hand, there are the rebel forces, some of whom are increasingly under the sway of al Qaeda. On the other, there are the Syrian government’s military forces, which are still under Assad’s command, but are ever more dependent on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah, which is also Iranian-sponsored. Iran is the only outside state with boots on the ground in Syria, and although it is supporting Assad, it is also pressuring his government to more closely serve Iran’s goals -- including by allowing the passage of advanced arms from Syria into southern Lebanon. The recent visit by Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Salehi to Damascus, during which he announced that Iran would not allow Assad to fall under any circumstances, further underscored the depth of Iran’s involvement in the fighting. It is entirely conceivable, in other words, that a post-Assad regime in Syria would be explicitly pro–al Qaeda or even more openly pro-Iran. Either result would be unacceptable to Israel.
Of course, an extended civil war in Syria does not serve Israel’s interests either. The ongoing chaos is attracting Islamists from elsewhere in the region, and threatening to destabilize Israel’s entire neighborhood, including Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq. It could also cause Assad to lose control of -- or decide to rely more on -- his stockpile of chemical weapons.
Even though these problems have a direct impact on Israel, the Israeli government believes that it should deal with them in a way that does not force it to become a kingmaker over Assad’s fate. Instead, it would prefer to maintain neutrality in Syria's civil war. Israel does not want to tempt Assad to target Israel with his missile stockpile -- nor does it want to alienate the Alawite community that will remain on Israel’s border regardless of the outcome of Syria’s war.
Last week’s attacks were a case in point. Israel did not hesitate to order air strikes when it had intelligence that arms were going to be funneled from Syria to Hezbollah. Although Israel took care not to assume official responsibility for the specific attack, Minister of Defense Moshe Yaalon publicly stated that Israel’s policy was to prevent the passage of strategic weaponry from Syria to Lebanon. But parallel with that messaging, Israel also made overt and covert efforts to communicate to Assad that Jerusalem was determined to remain neutral in Syria’s civil war. The fact that those messages were received in Damascus was reflected in the relatively restrained response from the Assad regime: a mid-level Foreign Ministry official offered a public denouncement of Israel -- and even then the Syrian government offered only a vague promise of reprisal, vowing to respond at a time and in a manner of its choosing.
As brutal as the Syrian war has become, Israel believes that another international crisis is even more urgent: Iran’s continued pursuit of a nuclear program. Jerusalem has long believed that mid-2013 would be an hour of decision in its dealings with Iran. In the interim, Israel wants to focus its own finite resources on that crisis -- and it would prefer that the rest of the world does the same.
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That is not to say that Israel will make efforts to actively support Assad; like most other countries, Israel believes that it is only a matter of time until the Syrian leader is forced from power. But a country of Israel’s size needs to prioritize its foreign policy goals, and Jerusalem does not feel like helping shape an adequate alternative to Assad is in its interest or within its capacity. It will leave that task to others. Indeed, Israel has welcomed the initiative by Russia and the United States to organize a peace conference aimed at resolving the conflict. In the run-up to the conference, Jerusalem will be sure to remind both Washington and Moscow that they share an interest in preventing a permanent Iranian or jihadist presence on Syrian soil.
In that sense, it is safe to say that Assad is not the only recipient of covert communications from Israel. That leaves two questions -- when the White House will decide what its own policy will be, and how it will implement it.
« Breaking News »
DEBKAfile May 12, 2013, 4:16 PM (GMT+02:00)
Various Lebanese sources report intense Israeli military activity Sunday along the Israeli-Syrian and Lebanese borders. Witnesses describe Israeli warplanes as making aerial passes over south Lebanon, ground forces moving along the Golan border with Syria and attack helicopters flying over Mts Hermon and Dov and the Shaaba Farms.
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