... is that there is not one version of Muslim. For instance the Taliban consider Shia Muslims to be heretics. Makes them natural allies to fight the Taliban.

But Iran sheltered Wahabbi Al Qaeda elements. Sunni want their version, Shia want theirs. But with a common enemy?

them under a form of house arrest.

^{Fuck it man, I'd wade through a river of shit ten times to see this place. ~ On Istanbul, April 2009}

Regardles of their status they did cooperate:
In sum, there is strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers. There also is circumstantial evidence that senior Hezbollah operatives were closely tracking the travel of some of these future muscle hijackers into Iran in November 2000. However, we cannot rule out the possibility of a remarkable coincidence—that is, that Hezbollah was actually focusing on some other group of individuals traveling from Saudi Arabia during this same time frame, rather than the future hijackers
http://www.meforum.org/670/irans-link-to-al-qaeda-the-9-11-commissions

I think the point his they hate the west more than each other.

My point is that we can not rule out that some have interest that are higher prioritized than harming the West. This fissure needs to be leveraged. That is what diplomacy is good for.

SP having traveled in Iran and and many other Muslim countries will probably have a good insight if there is such a thing as a Muslim extremism monolith. I tend to think they are not as much aligned as typically portraied.

Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran have all very well defined specific interests that in my mind outweigh any generic hatred of the West.

as the Muslim monolith. It's a myth. I have been treated exceptionally well--far better than I as an American deserve--by Muslims in places as different and worlds apart as Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Uzbekistan, Russia, Oman and Iran, not too mention China, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Turkey. There is one thing that all Muslims, or at the very least, all the Muslims I have met, have in common: hospitality.

And, for the record, the country I have been treated the absolute worst in, as an American, was in 'civilized' Western Europe: Spain to be exact. And I've been treated like dog shit in Italy too. (Russians are pretty shitty people too, but they're equally opportunity in their shittiness towards foreigners.) I was treated more kindly by Serbians on a midnight train into Macedonia only a few months after the 1998 Kosovo War than I ever thought possible.

As the kind woman on the train said to me in Russian (the only common tongue we shared, "man is man." And in that she meant, "we are all people, to be judged as individuals."

I've done my best to take her kind words and spread them as far and wide as possible.

^{Fuck it man, I'd wade through a river of shit ten times to see this place. ~ On Istanbul, April 2009}

...priority than harming the west - their relationship with God. Fissures between groups are certainly to be understood and exploited, but in the contest with extremism, MHO, no lever is more potent than the theological. One key way that the extremist monolith is, well, "monolithic" is that it tends not to be very well grounded theologically. There are reasons why these guys are a very small sub-population and though they may portray themselves as knights of the banner it's quite unclear that the represent the vanguard of anything.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

your comment brought to mind your link to the story of the Iranian junkie, and the plastic keys the young martyrs wore about their necks as they ran across mine fields in an attempt to "de-mine" them.

Religion/belief is a very strong lever, indeed. Christianity in the US Air Force, for example. The Crusades, etc.

But what of the role of those who use these Holy Warriors as pawns? or would you argue that leaders and movements arise as a reponse to oppression, real and perceived, and the resultant ideology merely a recruitment tool?
chicken or the egg?

...tough to get a clean, apolitical cut from the reporting] have allowed for sufficient co-ordination to launch a wave of al-Qa`eda attacks on Saudi. Clearly al-Qa`eda and Iran are pretty bitterly opposed to each other strategically - doesn't mean that they don't ever help each other out when their interests align. There is supposed to be some int backing such alignment up in both Iraq and Afghanistan (it's "fashionable" to poo poo this as political fantasy, but my experience has been that generally when this sort of stuff gets talked about there is something there - generally not what the politicos and particularly their adherents whip it into, but something more than what the partisans on the other side of the issue would have it be).

Ah, the joys of trying to be an informed news consumer in a partisan age when everyone has a near perfect printing press in their lap...

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

... like historians approach old manuscripts. Where does it come from? Could it be a fake? What was the original purpose of the information? Can the original author be established with certainty? Is there a hidden agenda? How trustworthy is the document? Are there conflicting or contradictory sources? Is the information originally translated from another language and what may have been lost in translation?

All of this we need to consider facing the information overload of the contemporary media if we want to have any chance at getting anything resembling the true picture.

Triggered by your last sentence I felt compelled to compile this - although I think it is quite obvious from your insightful comments that your approach to news reporting is very much along those lines.

It just clarifies in my mind that non American need to cut US citizen some slack. Good journalism is supposed to take on some of this burden. But good journalism is in very short supply in the United States. Given the garbage that American low information voters are spoon fed by their MSM it is a miracle that they get anything right.

web of intrigue.

_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children.}

...journalism in the United States - it just isn't, in the main, found in either broadcast or print media. The think tank community has really stepped up into public outreach and many among them are doing some really stellar work. Me, my strategy is to step back from the firehose of the day to day media and mainly focus on the think tanks and books - then, with few key media outlets I find I can get a pretty decent idea of what's going on [or at least I can delude myself into an internally consistent misperception].

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

In absolute numbers you are entirely right there is still a lot of good journalism coming out of the US. Within the US though the noise to signal ratio is so bad that the good stuff is entirely drowned out by the garbage. To the point that I don't even see how somebody growing up with such awful media can ever learn to distinguish between the rubbish and good journalism.

Simple answer: No, these are Pakistan Taliban - Mullah Omar is down south heading the Quetta Shura.

More complex attempted answer: There appear to be ties between the Haqqani Network [generally subsumed under the label Afghan Taliban] and the Pakistani Taliban, of which the best known leader is Mehsud. Increasingly seeing reports indicating that Haqqani folks [and probably others] are serving as stiffeners in the Pakistani Taliban ranks [not an uncommon force mix on the other side of the border as well]. Recently Mullah Omar has issued a call for unity within the various nationalities of Taliban and increased focus on Afghanistan. Not really sure where HiG fits in.

Sum total: Yeah, there are some ties between Afghan and Pakistani Talibans, but this is more complicated than just two groups. My guess is that the ties are going to increase, but may end up putting more stress on the Afghan focus. Might mean that they de-emphasize effort in eastern Afghanistan this year in favour of consolidation in Pakistan, or they may be so secure that we see a major uptick. Not sure about the degree to which any of this would affect action down south - could see fewer Haqqani people there, which would be nice [they're capable] but I wouldn't count on it.

Really bottom line: Need a dance card to keep the players straight and ya pays yer money and ya takes yer chances.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

I had a feeling it was more complex than just saying "Taliban".

created a border between Afganistan and Pakistan (prior to the partition of the indian sub continent). As usually happens it split the Pashtun family, tribe or nation. Afgan and Paki Taliban are brothers and cousins. Winston Churchill wrote about this area when he was a journalist, "The Pathan tribes are always engaged in private or public war. Every man is a warrior, a politician and a theologian Every large house is a real feudal fortress....Every family cultivates its vendetta; every clan, its feud.... Nothing is ever forgotten and very few debts are left unpaid."
http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/Islam/Pashtun.html
Afgan or Pakistani both are providing protection for "Arab fighters."

"A Short Walk In the Hindu Kush," as well, if only obliquely. It's still worth reading to get a better idea of what parts of Pakistan were like before the 'mythical' days of the Hippie Trail.

^{Fuck it man, I'd wade through a river of shit ten times to see this place. ~ On Istanbul, April 2009}

well worth reading concerning the background of this crisis are "Taliban" and "Descent into Chaos" by Ahmed Rashid.

...forecasts in Taliban that are in play today.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

... deterrent is adequate protection against such a scenario?

As a matter of fact, just before invading Afghanistan, W called Mush personally to ask him if they were with us or against us. W told him if they were against us they would be similarly obliterated. Mush went on Pakistan national TV and explained the situation to the nation and said that Bush had given him no choice but to go with the US against the Afghan Taliban — "or else." This was not reported in the US press. I read it in the Pakistani news online.

The US cannot permitted a nuclear armed Pakistan become a failed state under the control of Sunni militants sympathetic to Al Qaeda, if not in league with it. Nor can India and Shiite Iran.

If this would happen, prepare for the worst. Regional conflagration would be inevitable.

If I were the president, I'd be dispatching Hillary and Bob Gates to India tomorrow to put the Pakistanis on notice that this is were the rubber hits the road for them. The message? Pakistan must withdraw the bulk of their forces from the Kashmiri line of control and deploy them against the Taliban — or else they'll be facing off not only with India.

I don't think that the Pakistani military has any illusions about facing off with the US. They just don't think the US will carry through. Involve India, and they'll realize that they are in the cooking pot. Pakistan cannot handle an India backed by the US.

Oh, and India is actually a democracy, which Pakistan is in name only. How about that. The US needs to strengthen India anyway to counterbalance China, still a communist country. Perfect opportunity.

Nevertheless did Mush play his people or did he play us with his TV appearance? I think he is a very good (and underestimated) manipulator not somebody you can trust as a source. Although what he claims certainly is plausible given what we know about W's personality structure.

India is a democracy but holding on to Kashmir in a more than dubious manner. Have a referendum in Kashmir as demanded in the 1948 U.N. resolution, have it be honored and the key ingredient that makes this a conflict zone in the first place may go away.

Let's also not forget that India started the nuclear arms race in this corner of the world.

IMHO just taking sides in this manner is not a very good option at this point. Although if the situation deteriorates further it may become inevitable.

...taking sides so much as it is building relationship capital to potentially actually help settle the Kashmir issue. It's been pointed out that the nuclear deal last summer should be seen in the light of removing the most important obstacle to improved, enduring relations between India and the United States - this from Riedel who's pretty intimately involved with the set of issues.

Neither India nor Pakistan are going to be happy about it, but it's pretty clear that the whole set of issues really doesn't go away until Kashmir gets settled - and the reason that everyone's already bitching (were some stories from the Indians a while back) is, I think, because everybody's realizing that the US isn't on their side.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

on one of the news channels, an "expert," believes the capital of Pakistan is not the target but rather Kashmir. Open ground links between the frontier and Kashmir would aid the Taliban or their guest's efforts in bringing jihad to India's forces stationed there.
What is interesting is the Army's response in sending in "Miltia,"
as opposed to Army Troops. The Government seems impotent in dealing with the problem. Reminds me of the South Vietnamese Government's response to NVA armor rolling south, taking every city along the way,
and their claim of being in control of the situation. Just hope I don't wake up one morning soon and see the fall of the nation as a whole.

Even though most Pakistanis agree that the Pakistani Taleban and their extremist allies now pose the biggest threat to the Pakistani state since its creation, both the army and the government appear to be in denial of reality and the facts.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8016485.stm

in India actually being able to do the job.

Now, Pakistan might believe India could. And that threat might be sufficient. But if my general experience of India is anything to go by their military is probably as corrupt and incompetent as the rest of the country.

^{Fuck it man, I'd wade through a river of shit ten times to see this place. ~ On Istanbul, April 2009}

As long as Pakistan is able to game the US for billions and put India in the background as an ineffectual threat to them, the Pakistanis will do nothing about the rising militant "threat." In fact, they encourage the militants as a paramilitary forces for retaking Kashmir without an overt military invasion. The US is getting rolled.

Not so sure that one should speak of the Pakistani military as if it were a unitary whole. There's a good many military members who are, as the memorable phrase of Rashid's expressed it, "more Taliban than the Taliban". Here's hoping the institution doesn't fragment [more] over this.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

The Pakistani military and intelligence service (ISI) are complex organizations with many factions. However, their principal missions are keeping the country together and holding off India while attempting to gain control of Kashmir. It has entered into an unholy alliance with militants in an effort gain control of Kashmir as well as to inflict punishment on Indian Hindus for Muslim grievances.

However, military organizations are generally more practical than ideological in comparison with politicians. The Pakistani military must realize that directly opposing the US is no win situation for Pakistan on a variety of levels, not the least of which is economic. Without continuing US economic support Pakistan is a basket case, and with US economic warfare directed against it, the country would quickly plunge into disarray and then destitution would set in. The professional class would leave the country en masse unless prevented from doing so, and there would only be a shell remaining. The US would not have to get involved militarily to bring Pakistan to eking out its survival at subsistence levels like NK.

The US strategy generally is to keep enemies weak and off balance without necessarily having to intervene militarily. This has been a staple of US policy for some time. One doesn't have to intervene militarily if one keeps one's enemies weak and off-balance. With a weak Pakistan, the US could easily destroy terrorist camps with impunity as it did in Afghanistan when necessary.

The US holds an economic sword over Pakistan even without sanctions, as it does Iran and Cuba with sanctions, for example. Without US aid, the Pakistani military would be finished against India for one thing, and if India were to receive military assistance from the US, Pakistan would be toast and they know this.

The US is capable of loosening and tightening these reins at will without have to get involved militarily in a direct way. The US can begin tightening the screws right now before the militants get much further in their drive to bring Pakistan under Shari'a (Islamic law) instead of secular jurisprudence, a threat that would be unacceptable to both India and the West, given that Pakistan is a nuclear power that has already been a source of proliferation. While this would be acceptable in tribal regions, the civilized area of the country would be a disaster.

Such an action would either force the Pakistani military to get real and take on the Taliban seriously, or else to get ready for certain economic disaster and possible attack by an India aided by the US. The US needs to stop pussyfooting around as it has been.

pushing Iran on the backburner, for now?

_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children.}

The US and Iran have common strategic interests in Sunni-predominant nuclear-armed Pakistan not falling into Sunni militant (Taliban) hands.

The US actually has little to worry about in the case of a nuclear Iran. Iran is not the wild card that the US press demonizes it as. Iran has legitimate grievances against the US going back to the Shah, for example, that the US has not addressed and needs to. Iran is a democracy. In fact, it is the only functioning democracy in the region other than Israel. Iran and the US have a lot in common and Iranians in general are pro-American.

The US really needs to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian kertuffle equitably before peace cones to the region in general. Presently, the dissonance between the US and Iran is largely about Israel's shameful repression of Palestinians for decades, and unquestioning US support for it on political grounds. If this were solved tomorrow, a large reasons for the the current dissonance with Iran would evaporate. The Shah was decades ago, and the Iranian revolution has changed a lot and is changing quickly as the elder generations retire and die off.

I don't see Iran as a serious threat to US national security. I do in the case of Pakistani militants taking over a nuclear-armed Pakistan, with the mission spreading Shari'a and confronting Western dominance.

If the US can partner with Iran to counter this, so much the better for both. A nuclear-armed Sunni Taliban would certainly result in a nuclear-armed Shi'ite Iran to protect itself.

...is as effective as you state above.

1) A Pakistan weak enough that the United States could strike within with impunity is a Pakistan weak enough to be a worry in terms of control of its special weapons.

2) Terrorist infrastructure has gotten smaller and much of it is below the detection threshold - at least the parts of it that pose a threat to the US heartland. The enemy has learned to keep these things much smaller and less visible - even a two week quickie course on explosives can make a critical difference and that doesn't take much in the way of infrastructure. Infrastructure that supports activity into Afghanistan is a good deal larger.

3) Pakistan has done without US military aid before, for extended periods. They certainly like having it and the previous cessation of said aid is responsible for much bad blood on the part of Pakistani senior command, but they can actually survive without it [considerable cost given current economic realities, but doable - what's the old saying "most states have an army, Pakistan is an army that happens to have a state"?].

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

1) A Pakistan weak enough that the United States could strike within with impunity is a Pakistan weak enough to be a worry in terms of control of its special weapons.

Pakistan has already had (still has?) a proliferation problem. And they recently released Khan.

There is serious doubt about Pakistan's ability and willingness to control its nuclear program based on past actions and present conditions.

This is beyond worrisome.

2) Terrorist infrastructure has gotten smaller and much of it is below the detection threshold - at least the parts of it that pose a threat to the US heartland. The enemy has learned to keep these things much smaller and less visible - even a two week quickie course on explosives can make a critical difference and that doesn't take much in the way of infrastructure. Infrastructure that supports activity into Afghanistan is a good deal larger.

This is true, but now the US has little leverage over the proliferation of terrorists in Pakistan. If the US cannot prod the Pakistani military into taking this on, it is going to have to tackle the job itself.

There is no doubt that there are people, possibly OBL and Qaeda chiefs, now plotting against the US in Pakistan and training agents there. The US has to deal with this one way or another.

3) Pakistan has done without US military aid before, for extended periods. They certainly like having it and the previous cessation of said aid is responsible for much bad blood on the part of Pakistani senior command, but they can actually survive without it [considerable cost given current economic realities, but doable - what's the old saying "most states have an army, Pakistan is an army that happens to have a state"?].

This is true also. But when the US sabotages a countries economic infrastructure that country is stuck in time and is lucky if it does not regress. During this period, India will be moving ahead quite swiftly. Pakistan cannot afford to slip too far behind India or it is done for, especially if the US improves its relationship with India, as I am suggesting.

I don't want to sound too doctrinaire on this because this is a huge and highly complex area, and the US is best advised at this point to back off its heavy-handed foreign policy of the Bush-Neocon era. I think that tilting toward India might be a good way to do this while accomplishing a lot of other things in US interests. The Pakistanis have been playing the US for too long, just like the Israelis. As a result, US interests have suffered, and now things are going critical.

But I agree that the counter I am proposing may not be as effective as I seem to imply. If there were an obvious solution, I suppose the US would be forging ahead with it. On the other hand, the Bush administration managed to overlook the obvious all the time in its ideological zeal. Hopefully, this will change now that we have a group of more practically inclined people in charge.

You write ... when the US sabotages a countries economic infrastructure that country is stuck in time and is lucky if it does not regress.

I don't think there is any country more insulated than North Korea but they still managed to get dangerously close to going nuclear.

A nuclear-armed NK is no big deal to the US, although it is to Japan to some degree. NK is not really in a position to threaten anyone because of deterrence. They know that NK will be converted into glass within moments of a perceived nuclear attack. The big threat from NK is nuclear proliferation for money.

NK is dependent on food aid for survival, and the US et al can starve them anytime they want. NK can bluster about attacking South Korea, but that is all bluster. Their huge but relatively primitive army is no match for US and SK technology. The US demonstrated in Iraq what will happen to any challengers. NK could not have missed the message. They would be summarily destroyed, and if they tried resorting to nukes, they would be obliterated, and they know this.

NK is buying time but with no program to save themselves from economic collapse, and the US is willing to wait for them to self-destruct on their own. They are effectively a weak and isolated nation that is in desperate condition and with no friends or allies. The US is content to let them stay there as long as they want. SK is more compassionate since they are fellow country people, and is trying to ameliorate their desperate situation, so far to little avail.

...of Islamabad.

Link here.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

... approximately how many kilometers are there in one klick?

_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children.}

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children.}

Sunday, April 26, 2009
US worried about Pakistan’s nukes
The Daily Times

At the briefing, Lt-Gen Khalid Kidwai – head of the army division that controls Pakistan’s nuclear sites and weapons – said the weapons were protected by a “fool-proof” security system. Kidwai said 10,000 troops, including special agents reporting directly to the intelligence services, were guarding the nuclear facilities, He stressed that Pakistani military sites were equipped with security cameras; biometrics access control; bullet-proof vehicles, high security walls; and quick reaction forces. Around 2,000 scientists working with sensitive materials and information at the sites had to undergo extensive background checks before being given security clearances. daily times monitor

somehow this just doesn't seem all that reassuring

Now they can resupply and follow through with the main show.
Couple of days to a week they will be back. Just a guess!