Foreign Policy In Focus

Day of the Deadlines, as well as timelines, in the world of international relations (at least in so far as they were brought to my attention) . First this: at IPS News, Gareth Porter writes about General McChrystal:

McChrystal's shift in emphasis toward the targeted raids against the Taliban was undoubtedly accelerated by the message from the Barack Obama administration in March that he had to demonstrate progress in his counterinsurgency strategy by the end of December 2010 rather than the mid-2011 deadline for beginning the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

That earlier deadline, first reported by the Washington Post Mar. 31, was confirmed this month by U.S. Gen. Frederick Hodge, the director of operations for all of southern Afghanistan. "Our mission is to show irreversible momentum by the end of 2010 -- that's the clock I'm using," Hodge told The Times of London.

Second, at Foreign Policy, Barbara Slavin writes about the Israel-Palestine peace process:

George Mitchell, the Obama administration's special envoy for Middle East peace, plans to set a deadline for an Israel-Palestinian agreement, applying lessons learned from his successful mediation in a previous conflict. [Asked] whether he intended to set a similar deadline for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, Mitchell said that he would do so after indirect talks between the two sides progress to direct negotiations. … In his public remarks, the former Senate majority leader acknowledged widespread skepticism both in the region and in Washington that he can broker a deal between the center-right government of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas.

So far, the skeptics would seem to have the better of the argument. . . . But Mitchell . . . noted that the Netanyahu government has endorsed the concept of an independent Palestinian state and agreed to freeze new housing construction on the West Bank for 10 months. The Palestinians, the envoy said, are working to stop attacks on Israel. . . . Mitchell omitted mention of the toughest issues impeding Israeli-Palestinian peace: the fate of Jerusalem and of Palestinian refugees.

Third, at Global Security Newswire (of which Focal Points is an unabashed fan), Elaine Grossman writes of the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty review conference yesterday:

"It is almost an impossible task," said Zimbabwean Ambassador Boniface Chidyausiku, who chaired the conference's committee on disarmament, describing his unsuccessful effort to obtain support from all of the accord's 189 member nations for a draft joint statement about efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons. . . .  One central point of contention in Chidyausiku's draft text pertains to whether the five nuclear powers recognized under the treaty -- China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States -- should be pressed to establish a set schedule for eliminating their atomic arms.

"The conference affirms that the final phase of the nuclear disarmament process and other related measures should be pursued within a legal framework with specified time lines," reads a particularly controversial passage of the disarmament committee's in-progress report. The reference to adhering to disarmament "time lines" has raised the ire of Washington and others. Representatives of a number of nations -- including the United States, France and Russia -- called yesterday for any timing imperative to be removed from the resolution. 

"We remain resolute" in backing the draft's "very mild language" regarding an initiative to draft time lines for disarmament, South Africa's delegate to the disarmament committee said.

Then, with some poignancy, the delegate added: "Allow us to take something home."

Some quick impressions . . . In the first instance, a timeline seems to have driven Gen. McChrystal to increased brutality. (Not that I'm advocating a longer timeline!) In the second, one can't help but wonder if Mitchell is just reliving past glories (his success in Northern Ireland). In the third, as during the Bush administration, the United States seems to reflexively balk at measures initiated by other nations.

Getting down to basics, most humans resist pressure. Do Focal Points readers see an alternative to deadlines and timelines? After all, recent discoveries about the "emergent phenomena" of complexity science makes a mocker of them. (Kind of an abstract question, I know.) Or do you think they're valid in one or all of the above instances?

Shortly after the failed Times Square attack, Gen. David Petreaus characterized the lone suspect, Faisal Shahzad, as a "lone wolf." A day later, U.S. attorney general Eric Holder offered a sharply divergent view, describing the suspect as "intimately involved" with the Pakistani Taliban.

The competing assertions about Shahzad's links relationship with Pakistani Taliban reflects a broader debate both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and Pakistan over how to handle Taliban elements in Waziristan province.

The Pakistanis, who have been rounding up militants and conducting their own interrogations, fumed at Holder's assessment. They questioned the only real lead thus far, a friend of Shahzad and quasi-active member of the banned Islamist group Jaish-e-Mohammad named Muhammad Rehan, and concluded that Rehan did not introduce Shahzad to the Pakistani Taliban.

"There are no roots to this case, so how can we trace something back?" an anonymous Pakistani security official said.

FBI agents also questioned those detained by Pakistani authorities; they have not produced any evidence or made any statements that contradict Pakistani findings—at least not publicly.

Pakistani officials believe the U.S. is trying to use the Shahzad case to pressure the country to launch a ground offensive against the militant hornets' nest in Waziristan province.

"There is a disconnect between the Pentagon and the [Obama] administration," a senior Pakistani government official said of the wide gap between Petreaus' and Holder’s assessments. "The Pentagon gets it that more open pressure on Pakistan is not helpful."

It may not be helpful, but is it true? On Tuesday, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Kit Bond, cast doubt on the Holder version of events.

"I am not convinced by the information that I've seen so far that there was adequate, confirmable intelligence to corroborate the statements that were made on Sunday television shows," Bond said a classified briefing.

Another possible reason for the administration's eagerness to push a Shahzad-Taliban connection is that it would vindicate Obama’s drone-heavy strategy.

"[B]ecause of our success in degrading the capabilities of these terrorist groups overseas…they now are relegated to trying to do these unsophisticated attacks, showing that they have inept capabilities in training," said John Brennan, a White House counter-terrorism official.

Can anyone else hear in that rationale the faint echoes of a certain conservative? It seems to me that the expanding reach of terrorist violence is proof of the drone program's success in the same way that the growing violence of the Iraqi insurgency was proof that it was in its "last throes."

And the crux of Brennan's theory—that drone strikes have so harried the world's experts in blowing people up that they can no longer properly train people in explosives—strikes me as wishful thinking.

His view is certainly a more reassuring one for the administration than the alternative, which is that the drone attacks' collateral damage actually inspired the radicalism of Shahzad, a seemingly integrated American citizen.

The truth may be a combination of both, or something else altogether. It'll be hard to know until—if—the fog of competing political agendas lifts.