Pakistan

On the eve of the Afghan presidential election, there are very few public polls on which analysts and commentators can base their forecasts. So it's worth taking a moment to evaluate how useful these are and consider some of the biases that confound accurate polling.

First, polling will suffer from tremendous sampling bias, in which the sample is not representative of the national population. Afghanistan is still one of the poorest countries in the world with an extremely low telecommunications penetration rate. According to the International Telecommunication Union, there is less than one fixed phone line per thousand people. The world average is about nineteen per thousand...

Today, the day after Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf resigned, Pakistani Ambassador Hussein Haqqani will join New America President Steve Coll and American Strategy Program Director Steve Clemons live at 12:15 today, Tuesday August 19, 2008. 

Foreign Policy (08/18) quotes Steve Clemons on speculation over Obama's coming VP pick.
UN Dispatch (08/18) ponders Steve Clemons' questioning on just what is happening in Pakistan.
Washington Post (08/17) features Peter Bergen analyzing the present state of Al Qaeda.
Middle East Online (08/15) quotes Daniel Levy's analysis on a possible civil war in Gaza.
CBS News (08/14) cites Steve Clemons' analysis on false clams of a Colin Powel Obama endorsement.
Washington Independent (08/14) cites Peter Bergen on terrorist havens in Northeast Pakistan.

The civil society in Pakistan has taken down President Musharraf, not with military might or mass revolts, but with political pressure. Whether Musharraf is loved or hated, we have to applaud Pakistan's political maturity. They, as Bolivia did just a week ago, exercised their rights through law and politics to determine the course their country would take. The peaceful release of presidential power by Musharraf stands in stark contrast to Pakistan's long history of military coups and assassinations.

This is what democracy looks like. It is a complex system that must go beyond the right to vote, far beyond. Elections can only skim the surface of democracy. The pulls and levers, checks and balance, the right to stick with, as in Bolivia, or replace, as in Pakistan, the elected leader: this is true democracy.

Daily News (07/06) features Michael Cohen discussing Obama's parallels with FDR.
The National (07/05) posts Peter Bergen's analysis of continuing instability in Pakistan.
The Australian (07/05) quotes Flynt Leverett on the United State's loss of influence in the global economy.
The National Interest (07/03) cites Flynt Leverett on the increasing irrelevance of the G8.
Time (07/02) features Peter Bergen debating if Osama Bin Laden still matters in today's political climate.

Is Pakistan getting back on track? In recent days, we learned of American reluctance to mount special operations raids in Pakistan's tribal regions while at the same time the newly-elected government in Pakistan finally responded in force to increasing Taliban activity in the region.

American Strategy Program's Nick Schmidle, an expert on this region of Pakistan, examines this operation and concludes while it is good to see the new government taking a firmer stand against the Taliban, the longer-term effect may be to unite the disparate Islamist factions into a more cohesive group.

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.

U.S.-Iran cooperation? Neo-Taliban? For those of you wanting to go deeper on Afghanistan/Pakistan issues than the campaign soundbytes, here's New America's Nick Schmidle debating Amin Tarzi of the Center for Advanced Defense Studies on Bloggingheads.tv.

YUSHCHENKO PLEDGES VOTE: Ukraine's president says the country will hold a popular referendum on joining NATO within two years.

CAYMANS VOTE: The Cayman Islands are moving towards its first ever popular referendum, a vote the prime minister wants on his proposals for a "modernized" constitution. This story from the Caymanian Compass, a national newspaper there, says the referendum may include more than one question.

SCOTS ON THEIR OWN: Scots want to vote on independence, a new poll says.

ISRAELI VOTE? The Israeli Knesset debates the wisdom of holding a public referendum on territorial concessions.

SOLVING PAKISTAN'S CRISIS: How to restore those Pakistani judges deposed by Musharraf? Former parliamentarian Haji Saifullah Khan suggests a popular referendum might solve the problem -- and give the judiciary new public legitimacy.

Is it possible that Iraq is still sucking up all the best intelligence and counter-insurgency assets of the U.S. Government and leaving only the scraps to deal with the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan? New America Fellow Nick Schmidle, whose New York Times Magazine cover story got him and his wife expelled from Pakistan by the Musharraf government, looks at the state of play in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas in this piece in Sunday's Washington Post. With unmanned Predator strikes killing civilians and senior military advisors trying to replicate Iraq's Anbar Awakening, the answer seems clear.