The Wall Street Journal reports ahead of tomorrow’s U.S.-Pakistani foreign ministerial talks:
Pakistan sent a 56-page document to the U.S. ahead of strategic talks scheduled for Wednesday, seeking expanded military and economic aid in what some American officials believe is an implicit offer to crack down in return on
It’s gotten much less attention than his unilateral revision of Afghanistan’s electoral law, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai is scaling back a milestone for human rights in post-Taliban Afghanistan: setting aside parliamentary seats for women politicians. Things are still in flux, and for weeks, a spokesman for the More…
Whatever’s happening with the Baradar capture, President Obama convenes his national security team today for what I think is the first all-hands meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan since the December West Point speech. The (very long) guest list:
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the deputy to Mullah Omar and commander of the Taliban’s military forces, was captured by U.S. and Pakistani intelligence in Karachi last week. The news has now leaked out. While you’re not going to see any Paul Bremer-esque “We got him!” preliminay end-zone dances, More…
Unclear why they were there as yet; according to the U.S. embassy in Islamabad they were helping train the Pakistanis in counterinsurgency. But there’s this:
The American soldiers, who may have been part of a training unit, were en route to inspect a proposed site for small-scale development projects that
This — to be very clear — isn’t a shift of position. Both Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of NATO troops in the war, have said that they would support any outreach made by the Afghan government to More…
The State Department released a revised civilian strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan today. And it’s really more of a summary of what’s been going on as much as it is a document about where strategy goes from here. Seriously, if you read this piece and this piece More…
Adm. James Stavridis made it sound like a fait accompli this morning when he told a blogger conference call that NATO will soon announce a new senior official for coordinating allied civilian contributions to Afghanistan. The new position will be filled by a civilian. Perhaps that shouldn’t be a More…
With Amb. Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, publicly floating the idea of increasing aid to Pakistan on top of the $7.5 billion five-year aid bill passed this year, it’s worth asking how the current aid gets doled out. And for an answer we More…
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) is holding a hearing right now about contractors in Afghanistan before a Homeland Security and Government Affairs subcommittee. (I regret I can’t cover it right now, but you can watch it live here.) Still, the senator’s staff has prepared a memo about the parlous state More…
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