Internat’l News and Views
Middle East/North Africa
Libya
Forces of Libya’s provisional government launched a renewed assault Saturday on Moammar Kadafi’s hometown, meeting fierce sniper, mortar and rocket fire from the bastion of support for the ousted leader. – Los Angeles Times
In a rare cross-border incursion, fighters loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi drove cars full of weapons into Libya from across the Algerian border and attacked former rebel forces, Libyan military officials said Sunday. – New York Times
Libya’s new rulers said Sunday that investigators had found the site of a mass grave believed to contain human remains from what many here regard as one of Moammar Kadafi’s signature crimes — the 1996 massacre of about 1,200 inmates at Tripoli’s notorious Abu Salim prison. – Los Angeles Times
Libyan oil workers and officials say damage to ports and oil terminals is so severe and security so poor that the large-scale resumption of exports to Western markets could be delayed longer than some officials had predicted. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Improvisation, innovation and good luck, as well as military professionalism, enabled European and other governments to succeed in the Libyan campaign against Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s regime, a leading British think tank has concluded. – Defense News
The U.N. atomic agency on Sept. 23 confirmed the existence of raw uranium in Libya after U.S. news channel CNN reported that new regime forces had found potentially radioactive material. – AFP
Libya’s new rulers have control over internationally “banned weapons” from Moammar Gadhafi’s regime, the head of the National Transitional Council said Sept. 24. – AFP
Syria
A group of defectors calling themselves the Free Syrian Army is attempting the first effort to organize an armed challenge to President Bashar al-Assad’s rule, signaling what some hope and others fear may be a new phase in what has been an overwhelmingly peaceful Syrian protest movement. – Washington Post
Colonel Harmoush’s case offers a microcosm of the opacity that obscures events in Syria as its leaders press a lethal crackdown. – New York Times
Yemen
President Ali Abdullah Saleh warned Yemeni citizens that they wouldn’t succeed in removing him from power with their nearly eight-month-old nationwide protests against his regime, and he reiterated his stance that he wouldn’t leave office until new elections were held. – Wall Street Journal
Tensions between Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and an influential dissident general escalated Saturday amid fresh assaults that killed at least 40 people and injured scores. The mounting violence came a day after Saleh abruptly returned from Saudi Arabia after nearly four months and called for a cease-fire and a return to negotiations to solve Yemen’s crisis. – Washington Post
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s return to Yemen from Saudi Arabia Friday morning set off a frenetic round of high-level diplomatic meetings that brought few conclusions about Saleh’s intentions or how to proceed with international efforts to push him from power. – Washington Post’s Checkpoint Washington
Egypt
The historic trial of Egypt’s former leader Hosni Mubarak came to an abrupt halt Saturday after a revolt by attorneys for the families of victims killed in the uprising against him, who declared that they had lost faith in the judges hearing the case. – Washington Post
Egypt’s military ruler, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, testified Saturday at the trial of his onetime patron and colleague, former President Hosni Mubarak, in a closed hearing that disappointed prosecutors who had hoped he would help determine whether the ousted Egyptian leader conspired to order the killing of unarmed demonstrators in his final days in power in February. – New York Times
Here in a nation that long outlawed strikes and largely judged independent unions to be enemies of the state, a juggernaut labor movement is flourishing in the light of the Arab Spring. – Washington Post
Jackson Diehl writes: Those who worry about an Egyptian implosion sometimes hint that the elections should be further postponed or even canceled. In fact, the opposite is needed. The United States and other Western governments ought to adopt the demand put forward in a letter last week by Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who was one of the leaders of the revolution: that the military “quickly announce specific dates for the process of transferring complete power . . . to an elected civilian authority that would control everything in the nation.” – Washington Post
James Kirchick writes: Egyptians feel that theirs is a great nation whose full potential as a regional power has been repeatedly squandered by venal leaders. It is too soon to say what role post-Mubarak Egypt will play in the Middle East, but the events outside its neighbor’s embassy do not augur well. As any honest appraisal of the region will confirm, far worse outcomes have been borne of revolution. – The Weekly Standard
Bahrain
As the government of Bahrain held parliamentary elections Saturday, hundreds of protesters clashed with security forces while trying to make their way to Pearl Square, the site in the capital where the kingdom’s pro-democracy movement got started early this year and was heavily suppressed. – New York Times
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud gave the kingdom’s women the right to participate in local elections and to become members of the country’s top advisory body, a sign that the elderly monarch hasn’t abandoned his program of cautious social reform despite political upheavals elsewhere in the Middle East. – Wall Street Journal
Iran
Two American hikers held for more than two years in an Iranian prison returned home on Sunday, maintaining their innocence and lambasting their captors for detaining them because of their nationality during a “fateful hiking trip” along an unmarked border with Iraq. – Wall Street Journal
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sept. 23 called on NATO naval forces to withdraw from the Persian Gulf, calling them a threat to security. – AFP
Iraq
More than a dozen people were killed Sunday in the Shiite holy city of Karbala when four successive explosions struck outside a passport office. – New York Times
Israel
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas formally applied to the U.N. Security Council for Palestinian statehood, defying U.S. pressure to return to direct negotiations with Israel. – Wall Street Journal
With a Palestinian application for UN membership under consideration by the Security Council, a proposal by international mediators to renew peace negotiations has received guarded Israeli approval and a cool reception from the Palestinians. – Washington Post
Two days after seeking full membership for a State of Palestine in the United Nations, President Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, returned to a hero’s welcome here on Sunday, telling supporters that they were part of a “Palestinian Spring” and that he would resume peace talks with Israel only if it stopped building settlements. – New York Times
The Palestinian bid for United Nations statehood, whatever its outcome, is already helping reshape Palestinian attitudes to expect less of negotiations—which most feel have failed to deliver after nearly two decades—and embrace a more confrontational stance toward Israel. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
As Israel considers its reaction to the Palestinian drive for recognition of statehood at the U.N., officials are weighing calls for swift retaliation against fear that tough measures could be counterproductive. – Los Angeles Times
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tehran wouldn’t recognize Israel’s right to exist even if the United Nations were to accept a Palestinian state into its ranks. – Wall Street Journal
The specter of financial crisis hangs over the Palestinian statehood bid submitted to the United Nations—a scenario that threatens not only the viability of the Palestinian Authority but of the peace process itself. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Michael Oren writes: The U.S. and other principled nations are standing strong, though, and Mr. Netanyahu is ready to negotiate today—if only Mr. Abbas is willing. While the circumstances have changed since 1947 and even 2008, the formula for peace remains unaltered. By accepting the Jewish State, the Palestinians can have their own. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Lee Smith writes: If the president is beginning to see the nuances and difficulties of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in many of its details, he still lacks an understanding of the larger architecture that everything hangs on: American leadership. Nations, like individual investors, do not always know what’s best for them. Both history and Wall Street are replete with the tragic stories of those who confused opportunities and risks. When Washington fails to lead competently, the world is a riskier place, for our friends and for ourselves. – The Weekly Standard
Elliott Abrams writes: It is true that Abbas’s U.N. ploy may work for him in terms of his own domestic politics — for a while, anyway. Instead of being the man who lost Gaza, he may briefly be the man who “bravely” took the statehood issue to the U.N. But he did not take the Palestinians one step closer to peace, nor did he speak to them seriously about what peace will require from them. In this he is a faithful follower of his mentor Yasser Arafat. If there is ever to be peace, the Palestinians will someday need a leadership that tells them the truth: Hard work and difficult compromises will be needed, not applause in the General Assembly. – National Review Online
Turkey
A Turkish court ordered a general, an admiral and two colonels held in custody for an alleged coup plot which has already seen dozens of top officers jailed, Anatolia news agency said Sept. 24. – AFP
Asia
Afghanistan
Angry protests against Afghan President Hamid Karzai erupted Friday at the burial of his government’s chief peace negotiator, who was killed this week by a suicide bomber posing as a Taliban envoy. – Los Angeles Times
Afghan officials said Sunday that they had arrested a man connected to the Taliban militants who sent a suicide bomber to kill the leader of Afghanistan’s peace process. – New York Times
An Afghan man employed by the U.S. government opened fire Sunday night inside the CIA station in Kabul, killing one American, a government employee, and wounding a second, officials said Monday. – Washington Post
[E]ven as the Americans pledge revenge against the Haqqanis, and even amid a new debate in the Obama administration about how to blunt the group’s power, there is a growing belief that it could be too late. To many frustrated officials, they represent a missed opportunity with haunting consequences. Responsible for hundreds of American deaths, the Haqqanis probably will outlast the United States troops in Afghanistan and command large swaths of territory there once the shooting stops. – New York Times
Kabul once considered itself relatively insulated from the violence that leapfrogs daily from one part of Afghanistan to another. But a series of attacks over the last four months has left many in the capital feeling vulnerable, jittery and angry — at the insurgents who seemingly strike at will, at Westerners whose presence makes targets of all those living here, and at their own government, which few consider capable of keeping them safe. – Los Angeles Times
Pakistan
Pakistan’s powerful army chief on Friday rejected the top U.S. military commander’s allegation that Pakistan’s prime spy agency aided a deadly insurgent attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, saying that the claim was “disturbing” and “not based on facts.” – Washington Post
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had tough words for Pakistan, warning the nation to stop assisting the Haqqani Network in attacks on American forces in Afghanistan and urging the U.S. to consider steps to end that threat. – The Hill
Pakistan’s army chief convened a special meeting of senior commanders Sunday following U.S. allegations that the military’s spy agency helped militants attack American targets in Afghanistan, the army said. – Associated Press
Pakistan’s foreign minister on Saturday warned the United States against sending ground troops to her country to fight an Afghan militant group that America alleges is used as a proxy by Pakistan’s top intelligence agency for attacks in neighboring Afghanistan. – Associated Press
Analysis: The public assault by the Obama administration on the Pakistani intelligence agency as a facilitator of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan has been met with scorn in Pakistan, a signal that the country has little intention of changing its ways, even perhaps at the price of the crumpled alliance. – New York Times
Editorial: The U.S. now has a range of options available, from designating the Haqqani network a foreign terrorist organization (as a prelude to hitting its finances); withholding $1 billion in military aid to Pakistan in the absence of antiterrorist cooperation; or hitting the Haqqanis ourselves. Pakistan’s leadership, among its myriad delusions, believes its status as a nuclear power somehow frees it to reduce its relationship with the U.S. to the same crude and cynical status as its relations with the homicidal Haqqanis. That’s false, and the Obama Administration deserves credit for publicly putting Pakistan’s impossible-to-tolerate behavior on the table. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
China
As the American economy appears to teeter on the edge of another recession, Europe struggles with a financial crisis and emerging markets like Brazil and India show new weaknesses, China may appear to be in better shape than most countries, economists say. But “better” is relative. – New York Times
China’s massive economic-stimulus program has supported near double-digit growth, but also stoked inflation, piled up debt and fueled another unwelcome development: social unrest. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
The U.S. decision to upgrade Taiwan’s fighter jets marks the end of Gary Locke’s honeymoon as the U.S.’s first Chinese-American ambassador to China. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
China’s navy is playing an important role in the country’s drive to become a world military power, with the recent trials of its first aircraft carrier underlining the scale of Beijing’s naval ambitions. – AFP
Taiwan
Symposium: Should the U.S. continue selling arms to Taiwan? What are the consequences? – NYT Room for Debate
Robert Kaplan writes: Because we cannot know the future, all we can do is note the trend line. The trend line suggests that China will annex Taiwan by, in effect, going around it: by adjusting the correlation of forces in its favor so that China will never have to fight for what it will soon possess. – Washington Post
Dan Blumenthal and Mike Green write: After some initial stumbles vis-à-vis China, the Obama administration has gone a long way to reassure friends and allies in Asia that the United States will not accommodate a rising China at their expense. The transparently self-restrained decision on Taiwan arms sales will set that strategy back. – Shadow Government
India
India is being pulled into a complex and increasingly tense territorial dispute in the South China Sea, with China repeatedly warning ONGC, the Indian state oil company, that its joint exploration plans with Vietnam amount to a violation of Chinese sovereignty. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
India tested a medium-range nuclear-capable missile along its eastern coast on Sept 24, an official said, as part of the nation’s efforts to build up its atomic deterrent. – AFP
Japan
A pro-nuclear-power mayor of a town known for a long-stalled reactor project defeated his antinuclear opponent Sunday in a blow to the antinuclear movement that has grown in Japan since the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. – Wall Street Journal
Three former aides of political heavyweight Ichiro Ozawa were found guilty of violating campaign funding laws Monday, a surprise verdict that is likely to further diminish the clout of the ruling-party power broker, who has also been indicted in the case. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Security
The War
The Obama administration is considering a military trial in the United States for a Hezbollah commander now detained in Iraq, U.S. counterterrorism officials said, previewing a potential prosecution strategy that has failed before but may offer a solution to a difficult legal problem for the government. – Associated Press
Editorial: Drones will remain invaluable to preventing terrorist attacks against U.S. targets. But they cannot become a substitute for sustained efforts at nurturing moderate and representative government in the Muslim world. That is as true in Yemen and Somalia as it is in Afghanistan and Pakistan. – Washington Post
Robin Simcox writes: Learning the lessons of the previous decade will also be key. Islamist groups manipulate historic grievances to gain support. Therefore, as in Afghanistan, the U.S. must encourage its regional partners to establish grass-roots grievance procedures for disenfranchised citizens. It is an unpleasant reality that the likes of drones risk a level of collateral damage that will stop terrorist plots in the short term but inflame extremism in the long term. – Wall Street Journal Europe
Defense
A House-passed stopgap spending measure would trim annual Pentagon funding by more than $7 billion from the current level and prohibit the Defense Department from starting new weapon programs. – The Hill
Pentagon leaders and defense-minded lawmakers grew more strident this week in their warnings about what might befall the U.S. military if the Congress’ Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction fails to agree on a plan to reduce the debt. But at least one analyst says the Pentagon could reduce the pain by applying some strategic rethinking. One thing is clear: Service budgeteers, who have already throttled back spending plans once this year, are bracing to do so again. – Defense News
No matter that Congress can’t pass a budget for 2012, or that neither the Pentagon nor the rest of the U.S. government really knows what will be in the 2013 budget request due in February. The calendar dictates that work must begin now on the 2014 budget. – Defense News
As expected, the U.S. Senate on Sept. 23 confirmed the nomination of Ashton Carter to be the next deputy defense secretary. – Defense News
Foreign Aid
Josh Rogin reports: The State Department may be facing its toughest budget season ever, but there are still plenty of lawmakers who are ready to defend funding for diplomacy and development, according to Deputy Secretary of State Tom Nides. – The Cable
Russia/Europe
Russia
Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, who transformed post-Soviet Russia by imposing Kremlin control over most aspects of public life, moved on Saturday to return to the presidency and could remain until 2024, giving him a rule comparable in length with that of Brezhnev or Stalin. – New York Times
A senior member of the Russian government opened a rare public breach with the Kremlin on Sunday, saying he would refuse to stay on under the leadership shuffle that was announced over the weekend, in which the president and prime minister will change places. – New York Times
Vladimir Putin’s return to the Russian presidency next year will complicate the Obama administration’s efforts to advance arms-control and trade agreements, adding to already deep suspicions among U.S. policy makers and lawmakers about the country’s intentions and direction. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Liberal-minded Muscovites poured out their despair on the Internet on Sunday, passing around a portrait of Mr. Putin superimposed on Leonid Brezhnev, whose 18-year rule became known as the “era of stagnation.” The political scientist Sergei M. Markedonov said the news put him in mind of Charles Talleyrand’s description of Napoleon’s army as it crossed into Russia, toward a catastrophic defeat. – New York Times
As Mr. Putin announced his intentions on Saturday to run for a third term, economists were not expecting Russia to swivel sharply back to such policies, in what would be yet another shift between state control and privatization in the country’s recent economic history. – New York Times
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told his ruling United Russia party that the country’s leaders must “listen to the heartbeat” of its citizens, including human-rights activists, and rule by dialogue rather than force. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Nearly two years after her son died in custody, a slight, 59-year-old retired teacher is confronting the powerful officials who put him in prison and oversaw the system that has been blamed for his death. – Washington Post
The separatist war is mostly over in Chechnya, but kidnappings and extrajudicial killings continue in a more targeted way against people who support the rebels or speak out against the government of the Chechen leader, Ramzan A. Kadyrov, human rights groups say…The human rights group Memorial said its monitors were finding it more difficult to do their work, partly because victims and their relatives have become more frightened than in the past about reporting abuses. – New York Times
Editorial: Freed from the wishful delusion of a Medvedev-Putin power struggle, other nations can now deal with Russia as it is…Mr. Putin will make decisions based on how he calculates the benefits to himself and his clique. If the United States makes human rights part of its policy — with legislation such as that sponsored by Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) that imposes sanctions on the worst abusers — it can affect his calculation. – Washington Post
Americas
United States of America
The White House and Democratic leaders in Congress are at odds over three pending trade deals that President Obama is poised to send to Capitol Hill. – The Hill
Paul Miller writes: Our concerted effort to actually wage a counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan began slowly in 2007 and picked up steam in 2009. The problem is not that we have been trying so hard for so long but failed, but that for so long we failed to try very hard at all. Huntsman should really give the United States a chance to succeed before declaring failure. – Shadow Government
Cuba
A week after an effort to gain the release of an American jailed in Cuba ended in recriminations, the Cuban foreign minister said Friday that the door remained open to free him on humanitarian grounds, but only with a reciprocal effort from the United States. – New York Times
Africa
Rwanda
Anne Applebaum writes: In recent years, it has become fashionable in some circles to speak of a “Beijing consensus,” a road to growth and development that eschews democracy, scorns Western models and favors authoritarianism, benign or otherwise. A few years back, Rwandans leapt onto this bandwagon too. It got them a clean capital, fast growth and low crime — quite far, in other words. But how much farther? The development economists and aid often speak of the “bottlenecks” in infrastructure and energy supply that might block future growth in Rwanda. Maybe it’s time to add “lack of free speech” to that list. – Washington Post
Zambia
Zambian President Rupiah Banda, faced with electoral defeat Friday, did something unusual. He ceded power. – Los Angeles Times
Democracy and Human Rights
In his U.N. speech this week, President Obama vowed to support the democratic transitions in the Arab world with greater trade and investment, “so that freedom is followed by opportunity.” But his effort to back up that promise has run into hurdles in Washington and the Middle East. – Washington Post
