[Kabar-indonesia] 2: In Sharp Break with Bush, Iraqi PM Denounces Israel [+GOP Retreat]

[JoyoNews at aol.com]

Mideast-2 (4 reports): 

- NYT: Iraqi Prime Minister Denounces Israel’s Actions 

- WP front page: GOP Lawmakers Edge Away 
  From Optimism on Iraq

- NYT: Overseers of Sunni Mosques Are Kidnapped 
  in Iraq [Also Wednesday, at least 60 people were 
  killed in shootouts, bombings and artillery attacks 
  around the country.]

- NYT Op-Ed: The Taliban’s Silent Partner 

The New York Times
Thursday, July 20, 2006

Iraqi Prime Minister Denounces Israel’s Actions 

By EDWARD WONG and MICHAEL SLACKMAN

photo: Many Sunni Arabs, traditionally opposed to Shiite leaders like 
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, say they are nonetheless rooting for Hezbollah. 
Vahid Salemi/Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 19 -- Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq on 
Wednesday forcefully denounced the Israeli attacks on Lebanon, marking a sharp 
break with President Bush’s position and highlighting the growing power of a 
Shiite Muslim identity across the Middle East.

“The Israeli attacks and airstrikes are completely destroying Lebanon’s 
infrastructure,” Mr. Maliki said at an afternoon news conference inside the 
fortified Green Zone, which houses the American Embassy and the seat of the Iraqi 
government. “I condemn these aggressions and call on the Arab League foreign 
ministers’ meeting in Cairo to take quick action to stop these aggressions. We 
call on the world to take quick stands to stop the Israeli aggression.”

The American Embassy did not provide an immediate response.

The comments by Mr. Maliki, a Shiite Arab whose party has close ties to Iran, 
were noticeably stronger than those made by Sunni Arab governments in recent 
days. Those governments have refused to take an unequivocal stand on Lebanon, 
reflecting their concern about the growing influence of Iran, which has a 
Shiite majority and has been accused by Israel of providing weapons to Hezbollah, 
the Lebanese Shiite militant group. 

The ambivalence of those governments has angered many Sunni Arabs in those 
countries, despite the centuries of enmity between the Sunni and Shiite branches 
of Islam.

Like many other people around the region, Ahmed Mekky, 40, an Egyptian lawyer 
and a Sunni Arab, says he supports Hezbollah because it is doing what he said 
the Arab leadership has been frightened to do for too long — standing up to 
Israel and the United States.

“We are praying that God would make Hezbollah victorious,” Mr. Mekky said as 
he stood beside a newspaper kiosk in downtown Cairo on Wednesday. “All the 
Arab governments are asleep.”

Perhaps more so than at any time since Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait in 1990, 
the bloodletting between Hezbollah and Israel has highlighted the huge divide 
between many Arab countries, and between many people and their leaders. 

Sunni Arab leaders in Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf 
Countries have complained that since the rise of a Shiite majority governing Iraq, 
and with Iran pressing ahead with its nuclear program, Tehran stands to 
emerge as the regional power. Unlike the other countries, Iran has only a tiny 
minority of Arabs, with Persians making up a slight majority. (Azeris are the 
second-largest ethnic group there.)

Some Sunni leaders see in Hezbollah a dangerous beachhead for Iranian 
influence in the region. They have criticized Hezbollah for staging the raid into 
Israel and the capture of two soldiers last week that prompted Israel’s attack on 
Lebanon. 

But the longer the conflict drags on, the more these leaders are finding 
their credibility called into question. The longer satellite television shows 
images of civilians killed and maimed by Israeli bombs, the more these leaders 
face hostility from their own people. The longer Hezbollah fires rockets into 
Israeli cities and towns, killing and wounding Israelis, the longer these leaders 
have to face questions about why they do not take similar action.

“People know that the Arab governments are impotent and are always looking 
for excuses to justify their failure to do anything,” said Adnan Abu-Odeh, a 
former adviser to the late King Hussein of Jordan. “In fact, historically, this 
episode is another example of how Israel embarrasses the moderate regimes in 
the region.”

Prime Minister Maliki’s comments in Baghdad came in response to a reporter’s 
question about whether the Iraqi government had plans to evacuate Iraqis from 
Lebanon. After lashing out at Israel, Mr. Maliki said he had asked the Iraqi 
Embassy in Beirut to help evacuate Iraqis stranded by the Israeli campaign.

His stance is noteworthy because it is a significant split with American 
policy toward Israel. It has been the Americans’ hope that Iraq would become 
President Bush’s staunchest ally among Arab nations. The Americans arranged a 
series of elections that ended up putting Shiite parties in power, and the White 
House helped boost Mr. Maliki by pushing last spring for the ouster of the prime 
minister at the time, Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Mr. Maliki relies on the presence 
of 134,000 American troops in Iraq to stave off the insurgency led by Sunni 
Arabs, who ruled over the majority Shiite Arabs for decades.

The resentment of the Iraqi government toward Israel calls into question one 
of the rationales among some conservatives for the American invasion of Iraq — 
that an American-backed democratic state here would inevitably become an ally 
of Israel and, by doing so, catalyze a change of attitude across the rest of 
the Arab world.

A growing number of Iraqi officials have stepped forward in recent days to 
condemn Israel. On Sunday, in a rare show of unity, the 275-member Parliament 
issued a statement calling the Israeli strikes an act of “criminal aggression.” 
The militant Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, whose followers play a crucial 
role in the government, said last Friday that Iraqis would not “sit by with 
folded hands” while the violence in Lebanon raged. Mr. Sadr commands a powerful 
militia, the Mahdi Army. 

So far, the most prominent Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has 
remained silent. But another Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad al-Husseini 
al-Baghdadi, of Najaf, in an Internet posting on Wednesday accused the 
“international arrogant forces, especially America” of igniting conflict between Shiite 
and Sunni Arabs in Iraq and provoking Israel to attack the Palestinian 
territories and Lebanon. The ayatollah has relatives in Lebanon.

An Iraq-born cleric now living in the Iranian holy city of Qum, Ayatollah 
Kazem al-Hussein al-Haeri called in an Internet posting for Muslim warriors to 
support the “mujahedeen of Lebanon,” saying that “the battle is all of Islam 
against all of the nonbelievers,” according to a translation by the SITE 
Institute, which tracks Internet postings by Islamic militants. The ayatollah is Mr. 
Sadr’s godfather.

In recent days, residents of some cities in the Shiite heartland of southern 
Iraq, including Kut and Basra, have taken to the streets to protest Israel’s 
strikes. 

The Israeli assault is bringing to the fore one of the unintended 
consequences of the American war here — the potential for what many analysts call a 
Shiite crescent stretching from Iran to Iraq to Lebanon. It is a phenomenon that 
could rewrite the political map of the Middle East, with Sunni Arab countries 
drawing together to oppose Shiite dominance. The lukewarm responses from Sunni 
countries during the Lebanon conflict, in contrast to the statements from Mr. 
Maliki and other Shiite leaders, are the latest manifestation of the divide.

Top Shiite politicians in Iraq have myriad connections to Iran. Many 
officials in Mr. Maliki’s political group, the Islamic Dawa Party, fled into exile 
there to escape the brutal persecution of Saddam Hussein. Mr. Maliki also has 
other ties to pro-Hezbollah leaders in the region. He spent most of his 23 years 
in exile in Syria, where he ran the Damascus branch of the Dawa party. Syria 
supports Hezbollah and Hamas, the militant group that now leads the Palestinian 
government.

Outside of Iraq, popular criticism of those Arab leaders who have not stood 
with Hezbollah has been biting. Al Dustoor, an Egyptian opposition weekly 
newspaper, mocked President Hosni Mubarak in a headline comparing him to the 
Hezbollah leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. Mr. Nasrallah’s son died in 1997 during 
the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. Mr. Mubarak has been accused of 
positioning his son, Gamal, to take over as president in six years.

The headline: “The difference between a leader who offers his son as a martyr 
and a leader who offers his son as a successor!”

Also in Egypt, 75 prominent academics, political leaders and former 
government officials issued a statement declaring solidarity with Hezbollah, commending 
Mr. Nasrallah and criticizing Arab governments as “silent and impotent.”

It is impossible, of course, to talk about one “Arab Street” because 
opinions are as varied as they would be in any multicultural, multinational, 
multireligious region. But it has gotten to the point where even some of those who are 
critical of Hezbollah for seizing the Israeli soldiers are calling for unity 
in standing up to Israel and the United States. 

“What is certain is that Hezbollah’s step and that taken by Hamas before it, 
lacks political wisdom,” wrote the Saudi journalist Dawood al-Shiryan in the 
pan-Arab newspaper Al Hayat. “But to insist on calling the resistance to 
account for this mistake now that Israel’s violent response has been launched has 
created a political reality that is difficult to describe.” Last month Hamas 
captured an Israeli soldier during a raid.

Should Hezbollah and Hamas emerge victorious, Mr. Shiryan argued, leaders of 
countries like Egypt and Jordan will be isolated from the leaders of those 
groups. And if they lose, Egypt and Jordan will bear part of the blame.

Even in Syria, which has offered strong verbal support for Hezbollah during 
this crisis and is accused of having helped arm and train it in the past, there 
is growing frustration that tough words are not followed by tough deeds. The 
Syrian authorities have cracked down recently on critics of the government, so 
people who were asked about their views were afraid to be identified. But in 
recent conversations at a cafe in the center of town, many people expressed 
just that frustration.

“The Syrian leaders don’t want war with Israel, but what’s the use of 
supporting Hezbollah under the table?” a retired lawyer said. “For a long time our 
government has talked about its support for pan-Arab issues, but the Syrian 
people are tired of talk.”

Mahmoud Abdel Aziz, a cashier at a grocery store in the Cairo residential 
area of Zamalek, was watching the Egyptian satellite news when he expressed his 
own frustrations with Arab leaders. 

“If I could go fight with them, I would,” he said. “Where the hell are we?”

Edward Wong reported from Baghdad for this article, and Michael Slackman from 
Cairo. Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting from Cairo, and Katherine Zoepf 
from Damascus.

---------------------------------------------------

The Washington Post
Thursday, July 20, 2006
-front page-

GOP Lawmakers Edge Away From Optimism on Iraq

By Jonathan Weisman and Anushka Asthana
Washington Post Staff Writers

Faced with almost daily reports of sectarian carnage in Iraq, congressional 
Republicans are shifting their message on the war from speaking optimistically 
of progress to acknowledging the difficulty of the mission and pointing up 
mistakes in planning and execution.

Rep. Christopher Shays (Conn.) is using his House Government Reform 
subcommittee on national security to vent criticism of the White House's war strategy 
and new estimates of the monetary cost of the war. Rep. Gil Gutknecht (Minn.), 
once a strong supporter of the war, returned from Iraq this week declaring 
that conditions in Baghdad were far worse "than we'd been led to believe" and 
urging that troop withdrawals begin immediately.

And freshman Sen. John Thune (S.D.) told reporters at the National Press Club 
that if he were running for reelection this year, "you obviously don't 
embrace the president and his agenda."

"The first thing I'd do is acknowledge that there have been mistakes made," 
Thune said.

Rank-and file Republicans who once adamantly backed the administration on the 
war are moving to a two-stage new message, according to some lawmakers. 
First, Republicans are making it clear to constituents they do not agree with every 
decision the president has made on Iraq. Then they boil the argument down to 
two choices: staying and fighting or conceding defeat to a vicious enemy.

The shift is subtle, but Republican lawmakers acknowledge that it is no 
longer tenable to say the news media are ignoring the good news in Iraq and 
painting an unfair picture of the war. In the first half of this year, 4,338 Iraqi 
civilians died violent deaths, according to a new report by the U.N. Assistance 
Mission for Iraq. Last month alone, 3,149 civilians were killed -- an average 
of more than 100 a day.

"It's like after Katrina, when the secretary of homeland security was saying 
all those people weren't really stranded when we were all watching it on TV," 
said Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.). "I still hear about that. We can't look 
like we won't face reality."

Said Gutknecht: "Essentially what the White House is saying is 'Stay the 
course, stay the course.' I don't think that course is politically sustainable."

Rep. Jim Gerlach (Pa.), who like Shays is a swing-district Republican facing 
a tough reelection race, has introduced legislation to create clear 
measurements of progress in Iraq, in such areas as government stability and territory 
under the control of Iraqi forces.

On Tuesday, Shays joined U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker in 
criticizing unreliable cost estimates of a war that is nearly 3 1/2 years old. Shays 
said the Defense Department has not "had respectful [cost] accounts since the 
end of World War II," adding that he hopes the agency will withstand an audit 
in his lifetime.

Gerlach took a similar road.

"Congress needs to be more proactive and aggressive in evaluating what is the 
progress in Iraq," he said. "The Iraqi government shouldn't feel like it's 
got a blank check on American lives and American dollars."

Even Democrats say they see a change in tone on the other side of the aisle.

"I think there is a lot less arrogance about the war in Iraq than there once 
was -- and people are much more sober in their assessment," said Rep. Chris 
Van Hollen (Md.).

The evolving Republican message on the war contrasts with the strong rhetoric 
used by House and Senate Republicans recently in opposing a deadline for 
withdrawal from Iraq. During a debate last month, Gutknecht intoned, "Members, now 
is not the time to go wobbly." This week, he conceded "I guess I didn't 
understand the situation," saying that a partial troop withdrawal now would "send a 
clear message to the Iraqis that the next step is up to you."

"If we don't take the training wheels off, we will be in the same place in 
six months that we're in today," he said.

Republicans and some conservative Democrats who have backed the president's 
call to stay the course are finding it increasingly difficult to square their 
generally optimistic rhetoric with the grim situation on the ground in Baghdad 
and other cities.

"This escalating trend . . . represents the greatest danger to Iraq as it 
threatens to erode the government's authority," Ashraf Qazi, the U.N. envoy to 
Baghdad, said in a statement. "The emerging phenomenon of Iraqis killing Iraqis 
on a daily basis is nothing less than a catastrophe."

But it is the nature of the violence that may be forcing Republicans and some 
Democrats to temper their public assertions about the war -- even as they 
insist that the administration cannot pull out without precipitating an even 
worse situation. Masked attackers wielding heavy machine guns have killed Shiite 
mothers and children in a market and hauled Sunnis off buses to be slaughtered 
in broad daylight. A suicide car bomber killed 53 Tuesday in Baghdad after he 
beckoned a crowd of day laborers to his explosives-laden minivan.

Last week, House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) issued a statement 
hailing the turnover of Iraq's Muthanna province to Iraqi security forces 
under the headline "Progress in Iraq . . . Despite Doomsday Democrats."

On Tuesday, there was little talk of progress as he insisted that the rising 
sectarian violence was "nowhere close to civil war."

"Look, you have got one of two options," Boehner said. "We can pull out, walk 
away and watch everything that we've worked for and the Iraqis worked for 
fall apart and watch pure civil war break out, or we can stay the course. . . . 
As difficult as the problems are on the ground, it is either one of two 
options."

Republicans, especially those in swing districts, had no choice but to shift 
the emphasis of their war talk, lawmakers said. "The Iraq issue is the lens 
through 
which people are looking at the federal government," said Rep. Charles W. 
Dent (Pa.), another swing-district Republican. "That is the issue to most people. 
There's no question about that."

To pretend the war is resolving itself nicely is no longer an option, he said.

------------------------------------------

The New York Times
Thursday, July 20, 2006

Overseers of Sunni Mosques Are Seized in Iraq 

By DAMIEN CAVE

photo: Iraqi policemen at the site of an explosion Wednesday at the 
courthouse 
in Kirkuk. At least 49 people were killed or found dead across Iraq. Marwan 
Ibrahim/Agence France-Presse -- Getty Images

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 19 -- Gunmen kidnapped as many as 20 employees of a 
government agency that oversees Sunni mosques on Tuesday and Wednesday, grabbing 
them on their way home from work at ad-hoc checkpoints north of Baghdad, an 
official said. 

Throughout the country, at least 49 people were killed or found dead on 
Wednesday, including an Interior Ministry official who was shot in his car at 8 
a.m. 

Most of the attacks appeared to be sectarian-related, and they came a day 
after a suicide car bomber killed at least 53 people and wounded more than 100 in 
the Shiite holy city of Kufa. On Wednesday, the Mujahedeen Shura, an 
insurgent umbrella group that has often directed attacks against Shiite civilians, 
posted Internet messages claiming responsibility for that bombing.

The abduction of workers from the oversight group, the Sunni Endowment, 
Iraq’s most prominent association of Sunni mosques and shrines, continued a string 
of high-profile kidnapping attacks against government-related figures this 
month. 

Many of the attacks have been against Sunni Arab officials, leading to 
speculation that Shiite militias or death squads have sometimes been involved. But 
little else has tied the attacks together other than a continuing demonstration 
of the lawlessness that has struck the capital and surrounding areas.

On July 1, a prominent Sunni Arab member of Parliament was abducted on her 
way to the capital. That led to threats from the main Sunni Arab coalition that 
it would boycott the government unless it did more to rein in Shiite militias 
and factions in the Interior Ministry’s security forces. 

On Saturday, in the most audacious kidnapping attack in recent memory, 60 
gunmen stormed a meeting of the country’s top sports officials in Baghdad and 
abducted 30 people, including guards and the president of Iraq’s National Olympic 
committee. Six of the hostages were freed the next day, but the rest are 
still unaccounted for. 

And on Sunday, the president of one of Iraq’s state-owned oil companies was 
abducted in Baghdad. 

In a carefully timed attack on Wednesday, 5 people were killed and 18 were 
wounded when two roadside bombs, followed by a car bomb, exploded near Baghdad’s 
Technology University, the police said.

Seven others died in a vegetable shop when a bomb inside a plastic bag 
exploded. 

The Interior Ministry official who was killed, Maj. Gen. Fakhri Abdul 
Hussein, died in a drive-by shooting, the ministry said. 

Two mortar rounds landed inside the Green Zone just after 4 p.m., killing one 
person, officials said. 

And in the predominantly Sunni district of Ghazaliya, in western Baghdad, a 
grenade hit a house, killing a woman inside and wounding three others. 

Throughout the city, an additional 30 unidentified bodies were found 
Wednesday, security officials said.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, a car bomb exploded beside an Iraqi police 
patrol, killing two people and wounding eight, including five policemen. 

South of the capital, in an area mostly controlled by Sunni Arab insurgents, 
two members of a Shiite organization were shot and killed on a highway between 
Yusufiya and Mahmudiya. 

Tuesday night the police in Mahmudiya found 18 bodies, all believed to be 
Sunni Arabs who lived in the same apartment complex, the police chief said. 

In his first statement since a particularly bad wave of killings in the last 
few days, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki struck a defiant note, 
describing the attacks as an effort to “hinder the political process through thwarting 
the national reconciliation initiative.” But that effort will continue, he 
said, with the government’s reconciliation commission meeting on Saturday to put 
forward its agendas. 

“These crimes do not indicate the power of Al Qaeda, but its weakness,” he 
added, because the insurgents hit areas that the prime minister described as 
formerly calm. 

Mona Mahmoud and Qais Muhammad contributed reporting from Baghdad for this 
article, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Kirkuk.

---------------------------------------

The New York Times
Thursday, July 20, 2006

Op-Ed Contributor

The Taliban’s Silent Partner 

By ROBERT D. KAPLAN

Stockbridge, Mass.

WHEN the American-led coalition invaded Afghanistan five years ago, 
pessimists warned that we would soon find ourselves in a similar situation to what 
Soviet forces faced in the 1980’s. They were wrong — but only about the timing. 
The military operation was lean and lethal, and routed the Taliban government 
in a few weeks. But now, just two years after Hamid Karzai was elected as the 
country’s first democratic leader, the coalition finds itself, like its Soviet 
predecessors, in control of major cities and towns, very weak in the villages, 
and besieged by a shadowy insurgency that uses Pakistan as its rear base.

Our backing of an enlightened government in Kabul should put us in a far 
stronger position than the Soviets in the fight to win back the hinterland. But it 
may not, and for a good reason: the involvement of our other ally in the 
region, Pakistan, in aiding the Taliban war machine is deeper than is commonly 
thought.

The United States and NATO will not prevail unless they can persuade 
Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, to help us more than he has. Unfortunately, 
based on what senior Afghans have explained in detail to American officials, 
Pakistan is now supporting the Taliban in a manner similar to the way it 
supported the Afghan mujahedeen against the Soviets two decades ago.

The Taliban has two leadership cells operating inside Pakistan, presumably 
with the guidance and logistical support of local authorities. Senior 
lieutenants to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban’s supreme leader, are ensconced in 
Quetta, the capital of the Pakistani province of Baluchistan. From there they 
direct military operations in the south-central Afghan provinces of Helmand, 
Kandahar, Uruzgan and Zabul. 

Meanwhile, one of the Taliban’s savviest military commanders, Jalaluddin 
Haqqani, and his sons operate out of Miramshah, the capital of the North 
Waziristan Province. From there, they run operations in Kabul and the eastern Afghan 
regions of Khost, Logar, Paktia and Paktika. 

Mr. Haqqani, who was years ago an American ally in the anti-Soviet campaign, 
has also been long suspected of sheltering Osama bin Laden. He is a crusty 
warrior with a great deal of credibility in Afghanistan because 20 years ago, 
rather than sip tea with journalists like some other rebel leaders, he was laying 
siege to Soviet positions.

Meanwhile, in the Pakistani city of Peshawar and the Bajur region, one finds 
various headquarters of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whose Hezb-i-Islami Party is 
aligned with the Taliban. Mr. Hekmatyar, another former American ally, runs 
operations in the Afghan regions of Kapisa, Kunar, Laghman, Nangahar and Nuristan.

These various bases inside Pakistan have assured the Taliban’s survival in 
the years since a democratic government was established in Kabul. Having hung 
on, the Taliban has recently regained much of its strength — and may now be 
winning the war of the villages against President Karzai. 

In Afghan politics, it is the rural heartland that has always been the 
pivotal terrain, the place from where the mujahedeen rebellion against a 
secularized, Marxist-influenced urban regime was ignited in 1978, almost two years before 
the Soviets actually invaded. Whereas Iraq is two-thirds urban, less than a 
quarter of Afghans live in cities.

In Afghan villages, God and tribe are more tangible than any elected 
parliament. And where democracy remains an abstraction, anyone who can provide 
security and other basic needs — by whatever means — commands respect. Since 
toppling the Taliban in late 2001, the coalition and Afghan leaders have concentrated 
too much effort on Afghan cities, many of whose inhabitants, connected as 
they are to the outside world, are apt to support democracy anyway. The war we 
are now fighting will be won or lost in the villages.

While government officials from Kabul show up in rural areas for regular 
visits, the Taliban are setting up permanent presences in them. They are also 
importing radical, Pakistan-trained clerics to preach against the Kabul 
authorities. While officials from the capital too often speak in platitudes, the Taliban 
make concrete offers to protect poppy fields from eradication. 

The drug trade is a particular problem because the United States, given its 
domestic policies, must take a stand against it and the government in Kabul, 
needing to maintain an upright image with international donors, must follow 
suit. Thus, the Taliban is free to use our morality against both.

The Taliban even have shadow officials for small areas of Afghanistan, whose 
top officials live just over the border in Pakistan. Afghan villagers journey 
to Pakistan to seek justice for one grievance or another from these 
alternative figures.

The situation is tragically simple: the very people we need to kill or 
apprehend we can’t get at, because they are in effect protected by our so-called 
ally, Pakistan. All we can do is win tactical battles against foot soldiers 
inside Afghanistan, who are easily replaced.

It isn’t that President Musharraf is doing nothing. He has deployed troops 
along the border that have somewhat cut down on the activities of Mr. Haqqani. 
Moreover, many of his troops are busy quelling a separatist rebellion in the 
border province of Baluchistan. 

But he feels himself atop a volcano of fundamentalism. He is among the last 
of the Westernized, British-style officers in the national army; after him come 
the men with the beards. The military and Pakistani society are filled with 
those who do not see the Taliban as a threat: it is an American problem, and 
one for an Afghan government toward which they feel ambivalence. So President 
Musharraf must walk a fine line. And he must be as devious with us as he is with 
any other faction. 

Thus Pakistani strategy is to get the Taliban to the point where it can set 
up secure leadership bases in remote parts of Afghanistan and move across the 
border. Then Pakistan will claim that it is no longer its problem.

There are two opposing tipping points to watch out for. The first is the 
moment the Taliban leadership feels safe in bases inside Afghanistan and decides 
it can mobilize to infiltrate and eventually topple the cities. That is when 
Presidents Bush and Karzai lose. Mr. Karzai would need to form his own private 
militia, and perhaps cut a deal with Mullah Omar in order to survive. 

The other tipping point is when the Taliban leaders inside Pakistan feel 
themselves under so much pressure from the local authorities that their energy is 
spent on survival rather than on running operations. That is when Messrs. Bush 
and Karzai win. Unfortunately, this seems less likely than the first tipping 
point.

We can’t reverse this drift without a stronger policy toward Pakistan. I say 
this with extreme trepidation. President Musharraf, for all his faults, may 
still be the worst person to rule his country except for any other who might 
replace him. And yet it is necessary to hold his feet to the fire to a greater 
extent than we have. 

Things have reached the point that it was entirely justified for the American 
ambassador to Islamabad, Ryan Crocker, to say this month that the exiled 
former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif should be allowed to return 
and run against Mr. Musharraf. As corrupt as those two leaders were, we need 
leverage.

IN the end, the battle for Afghanistan will be won in the villages, and the 
time-tested rules of counterinsurgency will apply. The two most vital goals in 
this case will be giving the local residents a stake in the outcome through 
subsidies and development projects; and providing security through the presence 
of coalition troops embedded with Afghan Army units. Periodic patrols don’t 
cut it. If you live and sleep beside people, they tend to trust you. You don’t 
win these kinds of wars operating out of big bases near the capital.

Finally, while democracy may be an abstraction in the Afghan countryside, it 
can be a powerful psychological tool if explained in the language of 
nuts-and-bolts enticements. With our help, President Karzai’s rural representatives 
must articulate a strategy of hope and development, and contrast it with the one 
of interminable conflict that is all that the Taliban can ultimately offer.

Robert D. Kaplan is a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, and 
the author of “Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and 
Pakistan.”

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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