Courcy's Intelligence Brief - 28 September 2011

Items

• Pakistan to US: "We've got nukes and China"

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  Last week, for the second time in as many months, we warned about the sharply deteriorating state of relations between the US and Pakistan.  However, we did not expect relations to deteriorate quite as far and as rapidly as they have in the past week.  The past week has even seen the governor of the Punjab (supported by a former intelligence chief) reminding the US that Pakistan is a nuclear-armed state.  And, behind the scenes, Pakistan is urging China to join a bilateral defence pact.

  Last Thursday (22 September), Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Haqqani network had been responsible for the 13 September attacks on the US embassy and Nato buildings in Kabul, Afghanistan, and that “the Haqqani network...acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency”.

  Mullen added: “In choosing to use violent extremism as an instrument of policy, the government of Pakistan - and most especially the Pakistani Army and ISI - jeopardises not only the prospect of our strategic partnership, but also Pakistan's opportunity to be a respected nation with legitimate regional influence.”

  This was an even blunter accusation of Pakistani complicity than the remarks we reported last week of US ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter, who had said on 16 September: “There is evidence linking the Haqqani network to the Pakistan government.  This is something that must stop.”

  Earlier, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta had said that the US would do everything necessary to defend allied forces against attacks by the Haqqani group, including launching attacks on the militants’ bases in Pakistan.   Mullen’s remarks to the Senate committee were taken in Pakistan as reinforcing this warning.

  Three things about the Pakistani reaction to Mullen’s intervention are of particular note, the first of which is that the army is clearly leading the response and the government is following the army’s lead.  Following Mullen’s comments to the Senate, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ishaq Pervez Kayani called an emergency meeting of army corps commanders on 25 September at which it was agreed that Pakistan should resist US pressure to mount an offensive in North Wazirizstan.  After the meeting, one official said: “We have already conveyed to the US that Pakistan cannot go beyond what it has already done.”

  At all stages, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has followed the military’s lead, and Kayani and other top military brass were scheduled to attend an All Parties Conference (APC) called by Gilani for today (29 September).

  The second point is that the consensus in opposing the US pressure is based not just on anti-American sentiment but on a growing belief that the United States is in a weak position.  There is a strong feeling in Islamabad that America has lost the war in Afghanistan and that it cannot afford a break with Pakistan.  This was reflected in an editorial on 26 September in the pro-military Pakistan Observer, which wrote: “Pakistan at this point has many options and we do not think that the United States, now overstretched in Iraq, Afghanistan, and some African countries, can afford to break the alliance with Pakistan.”

  This feeling that the US is not in a strong position to push Pakistan around will have been reinforced by Mullen himself when he told the Senate committee:

  "I believe that a flawed and difficult relationship [with Pakistan] is better than no relationship at all.  Some may argue I have wasted my time, that Pakistan is no closer to us than before, and may now have drifted even further away. I disagree. Military cooperation is warming. Information flow between us and across the border is quickening. Transparency is returning, slowly.  With Pakistan's help we have disrupted al-Qaeda and its senior leadership in the border regions and degraded its ability to plan and conduct terror attacks.  Indeed, I think we would be in a far tougher situation today, in the wake of the frostiness which fell over us after the Bin Laden raid, were it not for... the fact that we could at least have a conversation about the way ahead, however difficult that conversation might be."

  The third point is that the level of the anti-US rhetoric has reached highly dangerous levels.  The media is full of commentaries about the need to say ‘no’ to America – or, as The Frontier Post has put it, to say a “big NO to any slavery and enslavement” to America.  The Nation, a conservative-nationalist English-language daily based in Islamabad, concluded its 26 September editorial by saying: “The nation is expecting the politico-military leadership to come up with a firm resolve to defend the sovereignty and integrity of the country whatever the cost.”

  But, for inflammatory language, none could beat Punjab Governor Sardar Latif Khosa, who on 26 September warned the US against attacking Pakistan by invoking Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent.  He said: “Pakistan is not Iraq or Afghanistan; it is an atomic power.  It has the ability to defend its sovereignty and nobody should be in any doubt about the power of Pakistan’s army and missile technology.”  Former ISI chief General Hamid Gul has made the same point in the past week.

  Finally, there was a warning from the pro-military Pakistan Observer that unnamed “other countries” could be sucked into a conflict if the US were to attack Pakistan.  It wrote: “We would warn the US that if there is an aggression against Pakistan, it may also suck in other countries and there would be a fallout worldwide.”

  There was no elaboration as to who these other countries could be, but there is no doubt that Pakistan is assiduously courting China.  It would seem unlikely in the extreme that China would become militarily involved if tensions between the US and Pakistan were to escalate to that level.  But strong diplomatic support would surely be forthcoming.  At the beginning of this week China’s Vice Premier Meng Jianzhu was in Islamabad for a two-day visit, to meet with both the prime minister and military chiefs, and local sources reported him as saying that China is an “all-weather friend” to Pakistan and will stand by it in its “hour of need”.

  Also there is no doubt that Pakistan is looking for more than diplomatic support, with sources saying that Pakistan has been lobbying China hard in recent months to agree to a bilateral military pact.  One Pakistani official has been quoted as saying: “Our view is, and it is also shared by authorities in Beijing to an extent, that this will send a strong signal to the world that Pakistan is not alone...an emerging world power is standing behind it.”  Sources say that Prime Minister Gilani formally raised the issue with China shortly after the US raid to kill Osama bin Laden in May.  China may not yet be ready for this development, but the direction of travel is clear.

  By any standards it is an exceptional week when a previously key ally of the United States alludes to both the nuclear card and the China card in response to US demands that it cease supporting a terrorist group or face the consequences.  JdeC.

  NOTE: Not surprisingly, India has found Admiral Mullen’s comments about the links between Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Haqqani network irresistable.  On 25 September, India’s External Affairs Minister SM Krishna commented: “We have always been saying it.  I am glad the US finds it has also suffered under the ISI.”

• China pushing Japan and Philippines closer together

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  We have made the point a number of times before, but what concerns us most about China’s actions in the East and South China Seas is its apparent indifference to the consequences of its actions.  This week has provided another small example.

  President Benigno Aquino of the Philippines has been in Japan this week for talks with Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda about ways to boost Japan-Philippines bilateral relations, and these talks have included discussions on how to collaborate over maritime security in the face of increasing Chinese assertiveness.

  In a joint statement issued after their talks, the two leaders reaffirmed the necessity of strengthening bilateral cooperation in the field of maritime security.  The joint statement said that the two countries agreed “to promote exchanges and cooperation between their defence authorities” such as reciprocal visits between the Chief of Staff of Japanese Maritime Self Defence Forces (JMSDF) and the flag officer of the Philippine Navy, port calls in the Philippines by JMSDF, and the holding of the Japan-Philippines maritime chief of staff meetings.

  After the meeting, President Aquino said: “I was satisfied with our exchange of views on regional concerns of mutual interest.  Being both maritime countries, we affirmed our abiding interest in cooperating on maritime security issues.”

  This sort of mutual collaboration over maritime security issues between Japan and other Asian countries is exactly the sort of development that China has been telling Tokyo it should not indulge in.  China accepts Japan-US defence ties as “a bilateral arrangement created under special historical conditions”, but it says as often as it can that this “should not go beyond its bilateral scope”.  But Japan has been developing trilateral cooperation with the US and Australia, and it has been increasing bilateral collaboration with South Korea and the Philippines, both of course US allies.

  On 28 September, following Aquino’s visit to Japan, China’s Defence Ministry issued a statement saying: “Any move which is designed to multilateralize or internationalize the South China isssue will make the question more complex and neither will it help.”  Spokesman Geng Yansheng added that China has “incontestable sovereignty” over the islands of the South China Sea and surrounding waters.  He added: “We hope that concerned parties will behave in line with the interests of regional peace and stability.”

  In view of these sensitivities, it might have been thought that China would not seek to provoke further anxiety in Japan on the eve of President Aquino’s visit.  But, on the contrary, on 25 September a Chinese marine research ship was found conducting an unauthorized survey in Japan’s exclusive economic zone near to the disputed Senkaku Islands.  China was informed that Japan could not allow marine research in the area without its consent.

  It was a small incident, but symptomatic nonetheless.

• Netanyahu uncompromising at beginning of Jewish new year

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  Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu appears to have returned from the UN General Assembly, where he was fighting a rear-guard action against the Palestinian bid for statehood, in bullish mood and showing little inclination to compromise.  His hardline stance will have been boosted by the latest opinion poll which shows that if an election were to be held today, Netanyahu’s Likud Party would remain the largest party in the Knesset with 32 seats.  However, Labour would move into second place on 26 seats, ahead of Kadima (18 seats) and Yisrael Beiteinu (10 seats).

  At the United Nations last Friday (23 September), the European Union presented a proposal for Israel and the Palestinian authority to resume direct talks within a month and for both sides to present proposals on borders and security within three months.  The aim would be to achieve a final settlement by the end of 2012.  But the messages coming out of Jerusalem suggest this is completely unrealistic.  On 29 September, Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe Yaalon said that negotiations could not succeed “with this Palestinian leadership”, mostly because they would not recognize Israel as a Jewish state or drop the ‘right of return’ for Palestinian refugees.

  Netanyahu agrees that there should be direct negotiations, but he too has reiterated the view since returning from New York that this cannot happen as things stand because the Palestinians “don’t want to recognize the nation state of the Jewish people, to give up on the refugees, and to give us the security conditions necessary for the defence of Israel”.  Netanyahu has also said, point blank, that he would not consider a settlement freeze.  Speaking to local media on 29 September, Netanyahu said that the settlements could be discussed during negotiations but the Palestinians should not “cherry-pick one of the final core issues and put it up front as a pre-condition”.

  Netanyahu’s line is that he gave the Palestinians nearly a year of settlement-freeze before but that didn’t get them to the negotiating table, so he won’t do it again.  By coming back to this issue again and again, says Netanyahu, the Palestinians are indicating “that they don’t really want to negotiate”.

  On the eve of a new Jewish year, Netanyahu has made it clear that his priorities are to continue to develop the State of Israel (infrastructure, society, education, defences), not peace negotiation.  He said: “The message I have for the coming year [is that] we have to continue to fortify the state of Israel.  That is the best guarantor of the future and ultimately the best guarantor of peace.  You don’t make peace with the weak; you make peace with the strong.”

  These new year’s eve comments are very much in line with the predictions we have been making since the outset of the Arab Spring, namely that Israel – facing the prospect of a hostile Egypt for the first time since 1973, along with an increasingly hostile Turkey – will be in no mood to compromise on territory.  In his comments quoted above Netanyahu said that the Palestinians weren’t prepared to give Israel “the security conditions necessary for the defence of Israel”.  But that gift is not the Palestinians’ to give.  The key to Israeli security lies in Cairo, Ankara, and Tehran, not in Ramallah - and developments in those capitals are all moving in the wrong direction for Israel.

• Risk pointers

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  *** Hezbollah threatens to destroy Tel Aviv.  The leader of Hezbollah, Hasan Nasrallah, has said that Hezbollah “will destroy Tel Aviv” if Israel attacks Iran.  According to Ayatollah Jafar Shojouni, a member of Iran’s Combatant Clergy Association, Nasrallah made this pledge in a meeting with Shojouni in Lebanon about three months ago.  According to Shojouni, Nasrallah said: “If Israelis come near Tehran, we will destroy Tel Aviv.”

  Interestingly, in an interview with Lebanon’s Daily Star published on 27 September, Shojouni admitted that support for Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was waning, but he also said that he would serve out his term.  He blamed Ahmadinejad’s problems on his chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei, who “only seeks controversy and tensions”.

  *** Islamists step up struggle for fruits of revolution.  The Islamists are stepping up their efforts to inherit the fruits of the Arab Spring, and, increasingly, pro-Islamist commentators and media outlets are talking about a conspiracy to steal the Arab revolutions from the Islamists, whom they claim were the main instruments in the successful revolutions.

  The Islamists admit that the Islamist element was modest in the Tunisian revolution, but they claim a decisive influence in Egypt and Libya and in the uncompleted revolutions in Syria and Yemen.  In Libya, in particular, it is pointed out that the Islamists “paid in a torrent of blood” (to quote a recent commentary in Jordan’s ad-Dustour).  Indeed, there are also rumours doing the rounds that Nato jets intentionally targeted Islamist fighters in Libya only later to claim this ‘friendly fire’ was a mistake.  The myth-making is in full swing.

  In the meantime, the differences between the Islamist and liberal wings of the Libyan revolution are continuing to prevent the formation of a government, which was originally due to have been concluded by 18 September.  The problem in Libya is that the Islamists did undoubtedly bear the brunt of the fighting, and now they want to have the premiership and a majority of cabinet ministers.  The liberals, on the other hand, say that their role in gaining the diplomatic and military support of the West was fundamental to the success of the revolution and should be awarded accordingly.  The position is further complicated by the claims of the various Libyan regions and tribes.

  A key figure is Ali al-Salabi, the spiritual leader of Libya’s Islamists.  He has told France that it must respect the desires of the Libyan people, by which he meant that France should refrain from pushing the claims of Mahmud Jibril, the former chairman of the executive board of the Transitional National Council (TNC).  Al-Salabi wants Dr Abd-al-Rahman al-Suwayhili as prime minister.