Emerging US war policy, Israeli drones, and Iran on NATO, Iraq, and elections

According to an article by Marc Ambinder [2], published by the Atlantic, US president Barack Obama will likely support a senate bill to provide funds to Pakistan tied to that country's efforts against Taliban and Al-Qaeda insurgents.

These reports are coming from US government insiders prior to president Obama's formal release of his Afghanistan and Pakistan policy.

Such aid will likely be used to pressure Pakistan's government to reduce it's long-standing and often covert cooperation with the Taliban. This method is not new, and was carried out quite under both presidents Bush and Clinton. The Pakistani government, at that time under the leadership of Pervez Musharraf, proved adept at playing both sides, receiving money from the U.S. and using its military and secret intelligence to support Taliban assets it had cultivated over many years.

Pakistan had previously used its ties to the Taliban to exert influence within Afghanistan, such as undermining the Northern Alliance (which had greater understanding with Iran),  establishing trade routes and smuggling rings, keeping Indian influence to a minimum in Afghanistan, and using Taliban allied training grounds and people as fighters against India in Kashmir in order to avoid the full fallout from a formal government directed attack.

According to the Atlantic article [2], president Obama plans to send "4,000 additional troops ... tasked with training Afghan soldiers and the national police; the administration hopes to have more than 130,000 [Afghan] soldiers and 82,000 [Afghan] police officers trained by 2011."

The Nation has an informative article [3] on the use of Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, by Israel in the latest major assault on the Gaza Strip. Israel is a leader in the development of drone technology, modifying U.S. designs as it has done with many of its other military hardware.

The AFP reports [4] that Iran has attended a meeting at NATO headquarters, the first time direct talks were held between these two groups since the Iranian revolution some 30 years ago. According to a chief NATO spokesman, "the Iranians are interested in possible cooperation on Afghanistan." AFP reports that Iran is interested in mitigating the smuggling of drugs from Afghanistan into Iran.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that between 1.5 and 2 million Afghan refugees reside in Iran. Iran is keen on reducing the numbers of these refugees and reducing the flow of new refugees. Also, Iran has had quite bad relations with the Taliban. The Sunni Taliban sees Iran's Shia government as apostate and relations between the two are anywhere between strained to hostile.

In 2001, Iran proved supportive of the US invasion of Afghanistan and, importantly, was instrumental in convincing its allies in the Northern Alliance to work with the US.

Juan Cole reports [5] on an Al-Zaman article claiming "that Iranian speaker of the House Ali Larijani is on a secret mission in Iraq to mediate between the Islamic Mission (Da'wa) Party of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his sometime coalition partner, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI). The two parties are seeking to form coalitions in several southern Shiite provincial councils, and Iran is said impatient for the deal to be concluded."

The lead-up to Iran's June presidential elections has been somewhat tumultuous for all candidates involved, including current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He faced stiff resistance, and finally parliamentary defeat of his budget plans in March [6]. Despite this body blow, EurasiaNet reports [7] that president Ahmadinejad remains the front runner in the race. Ahmadinejad's power base is heavily tied to his alliance with the military, counter to traditional politics in the Islamic Republic of Iran. His past and current election campaigns indicate greater military influence over Iranian politics, undermining some of the power of clerics and their financiers (the bazaaris).

(First published at nmaleki.com [8])

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