Foreign affairs bits

Unfortunately, none of them good:

-- Once again, the Chinese are not our friends:

Last Thursday, President Barack Obama conferred with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in the Oval Office. The two met less than a week after five Chinese vessels, in the words of the Pentagon, “shadowed and aggressively maneuvered in dangerously close proximity” to USNS Impeccable, an unarmed information-gathering ship, in international waters in the South China Sea. This incident, which occurred on March 8, followed hostile conduct against the USNS Victorious in international waters in the Yellow Sea on March 4 and harassment of the Impeccable on March 5 and 7.

Specifically, Chinese boats closed within feet of the Impeccable, blocked its path, and dropped obstacles in the water. The Chinese vessels even tried to separate a towed array from the Impeccable so that they could take away one of the Navy’s most advanced devices. Among other things, a Chinese boat dangerously crossed Victorious’s bow at night without warning. Chinese planes buzzed both American ships.

And what did the United States do in response to this extremely provocative behavior? “President Obama and Foreign Minister Yang discussed the overall state of the U.S.-China bilateral relationship, emphasizing the desire of both sides to strengthen cooperation and build a positive and constructive U.S.-China relationship,” the White House stated after their meeting. “The president also stressed the importance of raising the level and frequency of the U.S.-China military-to-military dialogue in order to avoid future incidents.”

Avoiding future incidents should be everyone’s goal. Nonetheless, they have been occurring with distressing regularity since at least the beginning of the Bush administration. Ever since China’s downing of a Navy reconnaissance plane and the imprisonment of its crew in April 2001, there has been a series of troubling incidents in international waters bordering China. In September 2002, for instance, Chinese vessels and aircraft harassed the USNS Bowditch in the Yellow Sea. That incident was followed by aggressive action against the same vessel in September 2008, again in the Yellow Sea. There are other incidents that went unreported.

Analysts speculate as to Chinese intentions, but in a sense it really does not matter what Beijing is trying to accomplish. Its conduct is simply unacceptable. Washington, however, seeks to establish “dialogue” with China’s generals, admirals, and officials as if their belligerent acts are the result of the lack of contact. It is simply ludicrous for the Obama White House to claim that the Chinese want to “strengthen cooperation” or build a “positive and constructive” relationship after engaging in such truculent behavior.

What China did with the P-3 Orion in 2001 was an outrage and an act of war. W's response was disappointingly bad. It looks like Obama's will be even worse. And remember Bill Clinton calling the Chinese our "strategic partners," even as they threatened to nuke Los Angeles. Why is everyone so desperate to kiss up to the Chinese?

-- Pakistan is imploding:

The Asia Times highlights the greatest proximate danger from fast-breaking developments in Pakistan. The truce between the Taliban and the fracturing Pakistani government has released thousands of fighters to begin an offensive in Afghanistan. [...]

In addition, after striking peace deals with the Pakistani security forces, the newly formed United Front of Taliban in the Pakistani tribal areas is ready to pump at least 15,000 to 20,000 fresh fighters into Afghanistan. These are expected to start crossing the rugged - and unmanned - border in April.

Bill Roggio describes how the fight seems to have drained out of some parts of the Pakistani armed forces, who have now resorted to try and buy the Taliban off.

The military ceased operations in Swat in February 2009 after it failed to dislodge the Taliban. … Javed and the military have refused to respond to the Taliban infractions. Javeed even went out of his way to praise Mullah Fazlullah. He described Fazlullah as a “good human being,” Daily Times reported.

Javed’s [the Malakand Division Commissioner] proposal to integrate the Taliban into the security forces comes as the US Congress is debating a $20 billion aid package to Pakistan. Senators John Kerry and Richard Lugar have proposed giving Pakistan a one-time $5 billion grant plus a 10 year aid package worth $15 billion. Some of this money is slated to improve the security forces in Paksitan’s Northwest Frontier Province and the Taliban-controlled tribal agencies.

But Pakistan’s history of appropriately spending US aid money is appalling. More than $3.8 billion of an estimated $5 billion of military aid given to Pakistan up until December 2007 is unaccounted for, and it has been reported that millions of dollars in US aid has gone to pay reparations to the Taliban in Swat.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s government continues to implode. The VOA reports that it has put a former Prime Minister under arrest and sealed off the capital against protesters. ABC Online has reported yet another attack on US supply trucks through Pakistan. The New York Times reported on March 11 that the US was seeking to supply NATO troops through Russia and Iran.

The United States is seeking new supply routes for the war in Afghanistan that would bypass Russia, and has even had logistics experts review overland roads through Iran that might be used by NATO allies, according to military planners and Pentagon officials.

Before very long, the magnitude of the problems with Barack Obama’s vision to turn Afghanistan into the main focus of American military pressure against radical Islam will become manifest to all. He ran for office promising to end al-Qaeda where it began. As he outlined his sweeping vision, there were many posts on the Belmont Club wondering how the logistical circle could be squared. Now, within a scant two months of assuming office Obama glittering vision has already been scaled down; Obama is now willing to ‘reach out’ to the Taliban. All talk of victory has ended. What about a draw?

And Pakistan's help on rounding up terrorists is, shall we say?, less than effective, since their madrassas and camps produce far more than they can catch, even when they are willing.

As I pointed out to people a long time ago, the problem with committing a pile of resources to Afghanistan, and with fighting a war there, is that Afghanistan is landlocked. There is no way to get enough troops, equipment and munitions to the country to be effective. You had to buy people off, which is what we did. But Pakistan's failure as a state makes that strategy less than effective as well.

And, yes, I am calling Pakistan a failure. But let's go a little bit further and a bit more provocative. When we discuss the "evils" of "colonialism" or "imperialism," no one seems to be willing to look at the consequences of abandoning such a policy.

Let's ask ourselves: how many former colonies are now actually better off without their colonial rulers? The US, for one. Brazil for another. Probably Canada and Australia. Maybe India and Singapore. What other former colony has turned into anything but a two-bit hellhole? Pakistan? Zimbabwe? Nigeria? Kenya? The Sudan? Indonesia? The Philippines? Would these places have been better off if they had remained colonies? Would the world have been better off?

-- Iran is messing around in Nicaragua. Say what? Todd Bensman discusses an underreported story:

The press, quite rightly, has swarmed like migrating wildebeest all over the the Islamic Republic of Iran’s burgeoning economic and diplomatic ties to Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela and, to a certain degree, Iran’s spread to other anti-U.S. countries in South America, such as Bolivia. But with the exception of my own coverage, there’s been hardly a peep about the fact that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad planted the Iranian flag so far north in Nicaragua as soon as the time-tested American nemesis Daniel Ortega took office in January 2007. In fact, Ahmadinejad considered Ortega’s ascension so important that he was in Nicaragua to attend the inauguration. Within months, Iran was promising hundreds of millions in economic projects — and quickly set up a diplomatic mission in a tony Managua neighborhood where it could all supposedly be coordinated. Now Iran is extending its reach even further north, right into Mexico City with equally under-covered proposals to vastly expand tenuous ties to America’s immediate southern neighbor.

The national security implications of Iran forging paths throughout America’s southern sphere of influence are striking. Iran has long been known for using Hezbollah — the U.S.-designated terror organization it sired — to sow mayhem against its perceived enemies from the diplomatic cover provided by Iranian embassies. When considering Iran’s move to Nicaragua, it is important to remember that Iran had Hezbollah blow up the Israeli embassy and a Jewish center in Argentina not so long ago, killing and wounding hundreds. This is according to a recent 800-page Argentine indictment and still outstanding arrest warrants for top Iranian officials and Revolutionary Guards who carried out the bombings under diplomatic cover provided by Iran’s Buenos Aires embassy.

But unlike those fairly distant countries, Nicaragua is close to the U.S. southern border and also to Mexico’s vast oil and gas infrastructure, which a small home-grown Mexican militant group was easily able to bomb at least half a dozen times in 2006 and 2007. Thousands of Nicaraguan laborers routinely cross the Mexican border and make their way over the U.S. border in search of work. It’s a pretty doable trip. And the mullahs, in addition to pushing for a greater presence in Mexico, keep on expanding in Nicaragua even now. If Iran ever got mad again about anything, couldn’t the ruling mullahs stage an Argentine repeat performance closer to home?