Proliferation Press

Dear readers,

Proliferation Press will be on pause until November 2008. Thanks so much for your readership, and see you next fall.

In an apparent sign of things maybe–maybe not–to come, Bill Clinton indicated his support for the US-India nuclear deal. This is not shocking, given Hillary’s vigorous support for the US India nuclear deal. But former President Clinton did leave the door open to revisions–suggesting another grueling round of negotiations should his wife, Hillary Clinton, be elected President this November.

From Sify News:

Underlining strong bipartisan consensus for the deal in his country, he said the US has a made “a decision across parties to build strategic partnership with India in the 21st century”.

“The deal could have been stronger on the “non-proliferation side”, Clinton replied when asked what portions of the deal he would have liked to change if he were the President.

“We did not want to give the Chinese an excuse to develop nuclear weapons,” Clinton replied when asked why such a deal could not be reached during his tenure as the president between 1992 to 2000.

“The agreement should be supported. There’s a strong level of trust between India and the US. The US would be willing should Indians wish to revisit some provisions of the deal,” Clinton said when asked whether a Democratic Party administration would like to renegotiate the deal if they come to power next year.

Is Bill speaking for himself, or rather the policy of a Hillary Clinton administration? Only time will tell.

For more on Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy, read her recent policy brief in Foreign Affairs.

The Decemeber 2007 brief does touch on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT):

But we lost that opportunity by refusing to let the UN inspectors finish their work in Iraq and rushing to war instead. Moreover, we diverted vital military and financial resources from the struggle against al Qaeda and the daunting task of building a Muslim democracy in Afghanistan. At the same time, we embarked on an unprecedented course of unilateralism: refusing to pursue ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, abandoning our commitment to nuclear nonproliferation, and turning our backs on the search for peace in the Middle East. Our withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol and refusal to participate in any international effort to deal with the tremendous challenges of climate change further damaged our international standing.

The  two big victors of Pakistan’s recent parliamentary elections, the PML-N and PPP, have reached a power-sharing deal. The gaping hole: agreement on whether or not to impeach Musharraf.

So it seems, at least for now, Musharraf’s survival strategy might just work.

Here’s one thing to cheer: The fundamentalist ruling party of the North-West Frontier Province—Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) of the Pakistan frontier region—suffered a huge defeat in Pakistan’s elections earlier this week. 

The shift from MMA-rule to the Awami National Party (ANP) may bring considerable changes to Pakistan’s anti-terror policies, particularly the purpose of Al Qaeda members. 

From The Times of India: 

The Red Caps are back in the Frontier. In a remarkable display of resilience and commitment to its secular values, the Awami National Party (ANP), which bore the brunt of suicide bombers in the run up to the elections in the country’s most volatile province bordering Afghanistan, swept to power in NWFP on Tuesday as it completely decimated Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) in its stronghold.

So powerful was the Pashtun nationalist party’s resurgence that the MMA affiliate, Maulana Fazlur Rehman of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islami, lost his own seat in his hometown of Dera Ismail Khan, despite the fact that women were stoped from voting in many parts of the province.

To add insult to injury, the Islamic party also lost votes and seats in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), dubbed by some as the nursery of Islamic fundamentalism.   

Less Shocking: Former UN Ambassador John Bolton favors US unilateralism/bilateralism over international organizations.

More Shocking: His swipe at international law.

From Yale Daily News’ report on Bolton’s Thursday Yale Law School visit:

“There’s only one country that’s going to stop nuclear proliferation and the threats presented by Iran and North Korea, and that’s the United States,” he concluded. “And that’s the cold, hard truth about international organizations.”

Bolton served as U.N. ambassador under a recess appointment beginning in August 2005. His nomination to the post in 2006 was never approved by the Senate.

Bolton described what he sees as the current challenges in American non-proliferation policy and discussed the United States’ best options in addressing nuclear threats — hardly bothering to veil his disdain for international law and institutions.

“When I was here, I didn’t take any courses at all on international law,” he said, “and frankly I don’t think I missed a thing.”

The paradigm for stemming proliferation, Bolton said, is Libya’s voluntary disarmament in 2003 under American and British pressure — without the help of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency.

MSNBC reports that the CIA killed a top al-Qaeda commander in Pakistan, but did not consult with President Musharraf before launching the missile attack.

What reaction will the Pakistani public have? Is this the new way US forces operate in the terrorist hotbed of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border?

From MSNBC:

In the predawn hours of Jan. 29, a CIA Predator aircraft flew in a slow arc above the Pakistani town of Mir Ali. The drone’s operator, relying on information secretly passed to the CIA by local informants, clicked a computer mouse and sent the first of two Hellfire missiles hurtling toward a cluster of mud-brick buildings a few miles from the town center.

The missiles killed Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior al-Qaeda commander and a man who had repeatedly eluded the CIA’s dragnet. It was the first successful strike against al-Qaeda’s core leadership in two years, and it involved, U.S. officials say, an unusual degree of autonomy by the CIA inside Pakistan.

Having requested the Pakistani government’s official permission for such strikes on previous occasions, only to be put off or turned down, this time the U.S. spy agency did not seek approval. The government of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was notified only as the operation was underway, according to the officials, who insisted on anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities.

While the PML-N and PPP have had a huge night, it appears initial forecasts of a two-thirds majority (which would allow presidential impeachment or Constitutional restoration) may need to be corrected. 

Whether owing to vote-rigging or not, the failure to seal a 2/3s majority may be why President Musharraf feels comfortable calling this “mother of elections” the “voice of the nation.”

It also appears that the PML-N had more success than expected. 

From The Dawn:

But while the partial results had already started trickling in, the president, while appearing briefly on the state-run Pakistan Television, called the vote “the voice of the nation” and said whoever won in what he called the “mother of elections” must be accepted. “We must accept the result gracefully.”

While the PPP was likely to win most of the National Assembly and provincial assembly seats in its main power base of Sindh province, besides sharing the spoils in the other three provinces of Punjab, North-West Frontier Province and Balochistan, the PML-N looked doing unexpectedly well in Punjab, even giving some shocks to a friendly PPP.

…

While top PPP leaders remained comparatively inactive during a 40-day mourning for Ms Bhutto and did not campaign much even afterwards, PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif created his own wave in his home province of Punjab and Hazara region of the NWFP with his hard line against President Musharraf and for the restoration of about 60 superior court judges who were sacked under the extra-constitutional emergency the president had declared on Nov 3 in his now given up capacity as army chief.

Both the PPP and PML-N have vowed to cooperate in the formation of the future government — and possibly have a government of national consensus — if they together win a majority. A two-thirds majority in both houses of parliament would enable them to impeach the president and to deprive the presidency of its powers to sack a prime minister and dissolve the parliament by restoring the Constitution to its pre-Oct 12, 1999 position when General Musharraf suspended it while capturing power by toppling the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif and then amending it by decree.

But that does not seem to be an immediate possibility while a PML-led coalition has a majority in the 100-seat Senate and it is not yet certain if all the opposition parties together will have a two-thirds majority in the 342-seat National Assembly.

The coming days guarantee high-stakes discussions between the PPP and PML-N. How these will pan out, and where Musharraf will end up seems an open question.

But one thing seems clear: While low turnout and violence did mar the elections, the day was a success—a considerable feat in light of Benazir Bhutto’s recent assassination.

And if you didn’t know, Senators Joe Biden (D-DE), Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and John Kerry (D-MA) were in Pakistan for the historic day.

From Bloomberg News:

Pakistan’s opposition parties were poised to win parliamentary elections as voters sought an end to President Pervez Musharraf’s eight years of military rule.

“It seems, according to predictions, that the opposition has won,” Tariq Azeem, a spokesman for the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-i-Azam, said by telephone from the capital, Islamabad.

Early results from the 64,000 polling booths showed that the two major political groups — the late Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party and former prime minister Mohammad Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League — could gain control of two- thirds of the parliament’s seats. That would give them government control and the mandate to reverse constitutional changes that have kept Musharraf in power since a 1999 military coup.

But will the two leading opposition parties get to a two-thirds parliamentary majority? And just how well will the PPP and PML-N get along?

The Times of India writes on the early returns. And The Dawn offers this geographic breakdown of support.

The Dawn also offers articles on the killings of policemen and parliamentary candidate, not to mention an election delay owing to violence.

And The New York Times offers this slide show of Pakistan’s consequential and violent election day.

The Iraq War’s United Nation authorization is just about up. In its place, the Bush administration is working out a “status-of forces” agreement to continue the U.S. military mission in Iraq. 

Such “status-of-forces” agreements do no require Congressional approval, unlike treaties which require a two-thirds Senate majority.

Naturally the question becomes: What will the twilight Bush administration lump into this “status-of-forces” agreement? 

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought to answer this question, and quell any Congressional concerns over whether or not such an agreement would morph into a lasting troop commitment or security guarantee. 

From Wednesday’s Washington Post: 

First, some background. Whenever American troops are stationed or temporarily present on foreign soil, a number of legal questions arise, ranging from the overall scope of their mission to the minutiae of day-to-day life — from authority to fight to rules for delivering mail. In more than 115 nations, we have individually tailored status-of-forces agreements. These agreements are crafted to take into account circumstances in each host country as well as the unique requirements and missions of our forces there.

In Iraq, the presence and role of the United States and our coalition partners have been authorized by U.N. resolutions. The current U.N. authorization expires at the end of this year, and Iraq has indicated that it will not seek an extension. It would rather have an arrangement that is more in line with what typically governs the relationships between two sovereign nations.

…

In these negotiations, we seek to set the basic parameters for the U.S. presence in Iraq, including the appropriate authorities and jurisdiction necessary to operate effectively and to carry out essential missions, such as helping the Iraqi government fight al-Qaeda, develop its security forces, and stem the flow of lethal weapons and training from Iran. In addition, we seek to establish a basic framework for a strong relationship with Iraq, reflecting our shared political, economic, cultural and security interests.

Nothing to be negotiated will mandate that we continue combat missions. Nothing will set troop levels. Nothing will commit the United States to join Iraq in a war against another country or provide other such security commitments. And nothing will authorize permanent bases in Iraq (something neither we nor Iraqis want). And consistent with well-established practice regarding such agreements, nothing will involve the U.S. Senate’s treaty-ratification authority — although we will work closely with the appropriate committees of Congress to keep lawmakers informed and to provide complete transparency. Classified briefings have already begun, and we look forward to congressional input.

In short, nothing to be negotiated in the coming months will tie the hands of the next commander in chief, whomever he or she may be. Quite the contrary, it will give the president the legal authority to protect our national interest — and the latitude to chart the next administration’s course.

Want to know more status-of-forces agreement? Check out this Global Security article.