Internally, the US President is coming under huge strain; his fellow Democrats don’t support adding more troops to the Afghan war since it is highly unpopular with their base; the Republicans did not support his announcing of a deadline to commence withdrawal of troops. The biggest fear of everyone is that by announcing a date, the Taleban, which has been out of power for 8 years now and fighting the insurgency, can afford to wait 2 more years and then make the effort to overthrow Karzai when the US leaves. Pakistan would no longer be willing to invest in an effort to fight the Taleban if it sees the US disengaging from the area, and needs a friendly Afghanistan to counter India.
So now, you have US officials trying their best to persuade leaders from all over that the US has not announced a disengagement, that the withdrawal would only happen if the Afghan army and security services are in a good enough condition, and that the end date for the withdrawal is not decided. Further, the US would set up bases in the area to ensure that it retains a sizable balance. However, Obama is also being accused of making decisions based on politics by ensuring that a withdrawal is in place when he is fighting for re-election.

From within Libya’s most secure jail a new challenge to al Qaeda is emerging. Leaders of one of the world’s most effective jihadist organizations, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), have written a new “code” for jihad. The LIFG says it now views the armed struggle it waged against Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s regime for two decades as illegal under Islamic law.
The code’s most direct challenge to al Qaeda is this: “Jihad has ethics and morals because it is for God. That means it is forbidden to kill women, children, elderly people, priests, messengers, traders and the like. Betrayal is prohibited and it is vital to keep promises and treat prisoners of war in a good way. Standing by those ethics is what distinguishes Muslims’ jihad from the wars of other nations.” The code has been circulated among some of the most respected religious scholars in the Middle East and has been given widespread backing. It is being debated by politicians in the U.S. and studied by western intelligence agencies.

Any advice by well meaning individuals from the West, as well as attempts by the governments of the Middle East to reduce the support for terrorist organizations is normally ignored. It is when scholars or even Islamic terrorists renounce the tools of terror does the fight against these terrorist organizations get joined.

Now the situation in Afghanistan is that there are just not enough troops on the ground to support the cities, forget the countryside where the Taleban reigns supreme. The US military commander in Afghanistan (Gen. Stanley McChrystal), who was given charge earlier this year, has now asked for 40,000 – 60,000 troops more, making clear that less number of troops than that will lead to a defeat. Obama is already facing many of his own supporters who are asking for a reduction of troops from Afghanistan, or even a complete removal. It is difficult for him to add the number of troops requested, but any refusals (or even going with his veep’s half-baked proposal of less troops, and more missiles and UAV’s) will open him upto the charges of being weak on national security. And if the US now withdraws or reduces its presence, or allows the Taleban to control more territory, this will be a sign of weakness that the US cannot really exhibit, given that it has foes such as Al-Qaeda (and its linked organizations), enemy states such as Iran and North Korea. For these foes, a US withdrawal means that the US does not have the stomach to go in for fights, and is an open invitation to attack it closer to home. Obama needs to take the correct decision, looking into mind the long term, and disregarding the recent award of the Nobel Peace Prize to him.

The government was responding to reports that the British government wanted al Megrahi to be eligible for release in order to smooth the way for the British oil giant BP to win exploration rights in Libya. But Justice Minister Jack Straw acknowledged Sunday that a key element of the story was correct — that Libya had demanded al Megrahi be included in a prisoner transfer agreement, and that, after initial resistance, the UK agreed to the demand.
The Sunday Times claimed that Libya had insisted that al Megrahi be freed before it would approve an enormous contract with BP. BP announced the deal in May 2007, promising an initial investment of $900 million to explore two Libyan areas — one the size of Belgium and the other as large as Kuwait. But Libya did not approve the deal until after London dropped its objection to releasing al Megrahi, the Sunday Times alleged. Libya’s parliament approved the BP exploration deal four days after the alleged Straw letter was dated.

This controversy about whether the British Government made the deal to win a commercial agreement can be damaging, and is something that a large number of people would be willing to believe (actually, I consider that this might actually be true, even though there is no actual confirmation). Political opponents to Prime Minister Gordon Brown must be smelling blood, seeing a way to tar him with the feather of ‘terrorits-for-trade’, and given the recent political problems of Gordon Brown, it could place him in an uncomfortable position if further media research reveals more such secrets in this area.

A series of bombings rocked Iraq’s capital within one hour Wednesday, killing at least 95 people and wounding 563 others, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said. The six explosions marked the country’s deadliest day since the United States pulled its combat troops from Iraqi cities and towns nearly two months ago and left security in the hands of the Iraqis. In one attack, a truck bomb exploded outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The blast blew through the front of the building, sending some vehicles flying and leaving others in mangled twists of metal in the area, which is just outside the restricted International Zone, also known as the Green Zone.
“The terrorism attacks that took place today require, without a doubt, the re-evaluation of our plans and our security mechanisms to face the challenges of terrorism,” Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said in a written statement.
Since then, al-Maliki has ordered his government to remove the concrete blast walls that line Baghdad’s streets and surround whole neighborhoods. The government has also removed some checkpoints, including one on the road where the bombing near the Ministry of Foreign Affairs occurred. That checkpoint had contained bomb-detection equipment.

Even though, Shia clergy has managed to appeal for calm and prevented retaliatory attacks, one wonders if such attacks continue and are not stopped, how long will this calm continue ?

On an immediate basis, the Pakistan Army needs to decide whether or not to go ahead with a fully fledged military operation in South Waziristan, the headquarters of the TTP. But before that, Pakistan’s government, army and intelligence agencies will have to undergo some existential angst articulating Pakistan’s absolute stance on militancy. The outcome of that thought process will determine what happens next. The Pakistan Army should not make the mistake of sitting back and hoping that a battle of succession will lead to rampant infighting that will forever fragment the TTP.
The US, meanwhile, has expressed concern that Pakistan will try to negotiate with Baitullah’s successor. After all, reports suggest that Baitullah’s father-in-law Malik Ikramuddin had been in touch with government officials looking to strike a new peace deal. Striking now will indicate a genuine desire to rid Pakistan of militancy. Talking, on the other hand, will suggest that Pakistan is still engaged in a double game.

Past deals with terrorists have always led Pakistan into more trouble, with the terrorist seeing such deals as being reflective of the inability of Governments to fight with them (or of having the stomach to take losses), and using this time to regroup and build up into being a formidable force again. The international community also suspects the intention of the Government when it strikes such deal.

At the same time, this inaction was something that the western backers of Pakistan were not able to understand; it seemed like a vindication of the fact that the Taliban was not something that the government or the military seemed to want to tackle; and the pressure exerted was incredible. There was a huge flurry of articles and interviews about how Pakistan is on the verge of collapse, that the institutions have lost credibility and were not able to ensure social justice in the country (which encouraged the growth of a force such as the Taleban), that the nuclear arms hosted by Pakistan were in danger of being taken over by the Taleban, and so on.
There is also another view that is seeming to emerge, that action taken by the Government on the urging of western Governments would turn the population further against the west and against the actions of their own Government; already there is a feeling that this is not Pakistan’s war and that forcing the Pakistani army to fight their own Muslim brothers is just not done. The view was that it needed for people to hear more about the kind of society that the Taleban is bringing on, and that as the Taleban occupied more areas of the country and that people realized that now they were in mortal danger, that this was not something that was happening far away, they would finally turn against the Taleban. This would be a time for the Government to take action.
Currently, the Pakistani Government has declared that the pact in Swat is dead, and fierce military action is underway against the Taleban. There is no common thoughts on whether the Government did indeed plan it this way, or whether the action was taken because the pressure on the Pakistani Government and the army was proving impossible to face; indeed, the fact that the Pakistani military has always been a proponent of the strategic depth option in Afghanistan makes it hard to say either way. It needs to be seen whether the action will go all the way, or will end when Zardari comes back to Pakistan.

In radio broadcasts and sermons, Taliban militants have been promoting themselves as Islamic Robin Hoods, defending Pakistan’s rural poor from a ruling elite that they describe as corrupt and oppressive. That message has been resonating throughout the Pakistani countryside, where the culture is deeply conservative and the people are desperately poor. “Justice [in Pakistan] is only for people who have money,” Daoud said, while slicing through handfuls of grass with a small scythe. “We are illiterate,” he added, “but we are hoping that with Islamic sharia law, our lives will get better.”
Enforcement of sharia law is the platform the Taliban have been using to justify recent land-grabs, such as last week’s armed occupation of the district of Buner, some 60 miles from the Pakistani capital. Militants have slowly taken over territory in northwestern Pakistan by first targeting unpopular landlords and bureaucrats, according to Amnesty International, the human rights watchdog. “Its systematic. The Taliban move into an area, they use local existing resentments. They often go in with the guise of being Robin Hoods,” said Amnesty International representative Sam Zarifi. “They scare away some local thieves, they impose very, very quick justice, very harsh justice, and initially in some places they are even welcomed.”

And how are the Taliban fought ? Attempts to reform society to make it more even and less corrupt do not go anywhere (or are not even made); the military has fought the Taliban in parts, but the battle is a battle in which innocents are affected and make them resentment of the efforts of the military; the presence of the US drones that make frequent bombing runs of villages in order to eliminate terrorists are seen as invasions of Pakistani sovereignty, and killing of innocents only serves to inflame the population even more.
What can be done ? The effort has to be bring down the Robin Hood image of the Taliban by reducing corruption levels, by making more development in these regions, and at the same time, confronting them militarily. One wonders whether Pakistan can do all this ?

Once the Obama Administration came to power, the expectation was that many of the excesses of the Bush era would come to a stop; however, if you look at the policy position of Obama once in power, he has dumped the term of ‘enemy combatant’ but kept the same powers (almost) (refer this article):

There will no longer will be “enemy combatants” at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Obama administration said Friday. Moreover, the new president no longer claims that his title as commander in chief allows him to order people deemed to be dangerous captured and held without trial. Having abandoned a favored Bush administration term in the war on terrorism, however, the new administration has claimed roughly the same power to hold Guantanamo’s detainees indefinitely — even those who never held a gun or went near a battlefield.
President Obama’s lawyers said Congress gave him the authority he needed when it authorized the use of military force one week after the Sept. 11 attacks. It said the president can use the military against “nations, organizations or persons” who planned or aided the terrorist attacks. President George W. Bush cited the same authority when he created the prison at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, but he also said he could act on his own as commander in chief.

For people who had been hoping that the change in administration will lead to a total reversal of policies, the enunciation of the new policy would not have been very comforting. One factor that would have led to the policy not being as liberal as many would have liked was the statistic released recently about the new of people who were released from Guantanamo who went back to being terrorists and fighting US interests.