India

ASP In the News | July 11-14

Ian McAllister — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:13:00 -0400

The Daily Oregonian (07/12) cites Parag Khanna on the negatives of Foreign Aid.
Philadelphia Enquirer (07/11) quotes Peter Bergen on Al Qaeda's continuing decline.
Telegraph India (07/11) cites Jeffrey Lewis on India's nuclear program.

ASP In the News | July 7-9

Ian McAllister — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:58:00 -0400

Democracy Arsenal (07/08) cites Parag Khanna on the rise of the E.U.
The Las Vegas Sun (07/07) quotes Sherle Scwhenninger on the dire state of the housing market.
New York Times (07/07) features Michael Cohen discussing Obama's stance on patriotism.
Washington Post (07/06) quotes Peter Bergen on Al Qaeda's continuing decline.
Sify (07/02) features Jeffrey Lewis analyzing India's nuclear strategy.

Pakistan: Another Failed U.S. Policy

Patrick Doherty — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 21:29:00 -0400

A few hours ago I hosted the release of the Terror Free Tomorrow/New America Foundation public attitude survey of Pakistan. The whole event can be viewed here. The report is here.

The poll goes into depth in many areas, with some striking results: more than 50% of Pakistanis support negotiations with the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The United States is more feared as a threat to individual security than India. China is loved with an 82% favorable rating. Nawaz Sharif has an 86% approval rating. Musharraf is down to 23%.

Ken Ballen, president of Terror Free Tomorrow, summed up the findings well. View his comments here. Ken said the poll really strikes at the heart of three myths: that anti-American feelings do not matter; that we cannot change attitudes toward the U.S. anyway; and that they hate us for our freedoms. According to this polling, anti-americanism is driving political preferences, there are clear things the U.S. can do to improve our standing, and its the policies we pursue, not our passport, that piss people off.

When I add it up, I take it in a different direction. I believe you get a resounding repudiation of U.S. strategy towards Pakistan. That strategy has been to treat Pakistan as a central front on the war on terror. It's not hard to see why this has failed: the top issues for Pakistanis are restoring and independent judiciary, a free press, fair elections, and improving the Pakistani economy. But the U.S. has done little, if anything to support the lawyers rebellion calling for the reinstatement of the ousted judges, has poured billions of aid into not the economy but the military, and has stuck by Musharraf until the elections, while still not changing our policy. Worse, from Pakistani eyes, the U.S. is launching hellfire missile strikes and killing Pakistani civilians and military. Violence is at its highest leves in decades.

This, of course, gets to the core dysfunction of the Global War on Terror. You cannot win the war on terror on the cheap and violence only embeds the cycle of extremism. The fertilizer for extremism is economic and political exclusion and in Pakistan you have both at sustained high levels. Supporting the Pakistani Army with one hand while attacking the Taliban with armed Predators with the other just makes us complicit in the political exclusion and piles bloody grievances on top. For a president who made democracy the centerpiece of his second inaugural, it's hard to think of a place that would have benefitted more from real adherence to that speech.

The next president will have his work cut out for him. The honeymoon of the next president, in Pakistan, will be brief if it even exists. I continue to think that Afghanistan and Pakistan are part of a larger regional game that is more about Pakistan and India than a global vision of jihad. If, as was mentioned in today's event, Pakistan is keeping the Taliban around just in case the U.S. gets pushed out of Afghanistan and Pakistan needs to secure its western border from an India-friendly regime, the next president will find that the road to bin Laden may go through New Delhi and require a resolution to the real conflict, that over Kashmir.

First, however, Pakistan will need a stable, representative government. While the U.S. needs to be able to act against credible threats, what will be equally important is in supporting the kind of political reforms and economic growth that are high on the list of Pakistanis. Then, a strong Pakistan government can sit down to talk with India, cut a deal, and then start cleaning up the mess in its own backyard.

ASP in the News | April 30 - May 2

Ian McAllister — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:52:00 -0400

The American Prospect (05/01) features Parag Khanna discussing the "second world's" growing influence.
The Project on Middle East Democracy (05/01) quotes Steve Clemons' critique of U.S. foreign policy.

Gag Order On India Nukes Deal

Patrick Doherty — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:37:00 -0400

Just in case you were hoping that Defense Secretary Robert Gates' speech at the University of Kansas represented a real turning point in how the current Administration thinks about the formation and substance of foreign policy, Jeffrey Lewis, director of New America's Nuclear Strategy and Non-Proliferation Initiative, shows evidence to the contrary. Blogging at ArmsControlWonk, Jeffrey uncovers two more incidents of counter-productive arrogance, this time having to do with the India nuclear deal.

Want to know one reason that I hate the US-India nuclear deal?

The House Committee on Foreign Affairs asked 40 questions about the US-India Nuclear Deal, to which the State Department provided unclassified answers that it refuses to release to the public.

Daryl Kimball and Sharon Squassoni, now joined by Fred McGoldrick and Henry Sokolski, have been asking the State Department to drop what described as a “gag order” and release the responses.

That would be offensive enough, of course, but the story got more irritating today.

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