NightWatch

For the Night of 19 June 2009

Japan: Update. The House of Representatives today passed legislation that will allow Maritime Self Defense Force ships on anti-piracy duty to come to the aid of any merchant ship attacked by pirates. Prior to this law, the Japanese ships could only assist merchant ships that had some linkage to Japan.

The new law will allow Japan's ships to attack pirate ships that approach other vessels in the Gulf of Aden, a key shipping route. Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada issued an order on Friday to prepare for "an immediate and appropriate implementation" of the new mission after the law takes effect in late July, the Agence France-Presse reported.

This law is not significant for any impact Japan’s ships will have on piracy, but as an unprecedented and expansive interpretation of self-defense. If no nations object, there will be others. Japan’s time is coming again, in parallel with China’s rise.

The Diet is also preparing legislation to empower the Coast Guard to arrest and inspect ships suspected of engaging in arms proliferation, as defined by UN Security Council Resolution

North Korea-South Korea: Negotiators at Kaesong repeated the North’s demands for a four-fold wage increase for the 40,000 workers and for a 3,000 percent increase in rent, both of which the South’s team rejected.

The surprise development is the North did not pout or walk out. Its negotiators did not reject a South Korean proposal for a survey of wages and rent at comparable joint industrial sites around the world. They also said the North is willing to ease restrictions on crossing the border by South Korean companies. They told the south that the South Korean worker in detention is doing fine, without producing him or setting him free. Finally, both sides agreed to talk again on 2 July.

This was the least rancorous of the meetings to decide the future of the Kaesong project. It would appear that a slight lull has set in, until the next flashpoint flares.

The Washington Times reported a US Navy ship is shadowing the North Korean suspected arms carrier MV Kang Nam. Blue Star Chronicles and Fox News identified the shadowing ship as the Aegis-equipped, Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS John S McCain. McCain has no authority to board by force, but will tail the ship and might force it to stop after it leaves the Chinese coast en route Singapore. Meanwhile, US diplomats will urge the ship’s most likely ports of call to stop and inspect the cargo.

One source described Kang Nam as a repeat offender in that Hong Kong authorities inspected it for carrying prohibited materials shortly after the North Korean nuclear test in October 2006. Its destination and intermediate stops, if any, are not yet clear.

An arrest with request to board for inspection is a potential flashpoint, even if the Kang Nam rejects the request.

Pakistan-China: StrategyPage.com published the following article today. As is its practice, no sources were cited.

“The Chinese are sharing intelligence and equipment with the Pakistanis as the Pakistani Army prepares a final assault on the Taliban’s stronghold along the border with Afghanistan. Pakistan and China are teaming up to fight what government officials call a “syndicate” formed between the Taliban and Chinese Muslim separatists. Uighur separatists operate under Taliban protection maintaining training camps along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

“In order to enhance Pakistan’s ability to police the border region, China offered to sell Pakistan $280 million in equipment. The only specifics divulged by Chinese officials are that the equipment will include vehicle and mobile scanners which will most likely be deployed to detect car bombs. The security equipment is bound for the Pakistani police as the government announced a plan to recruit 20,000 new officers in the capital.”

The key point of this item is that US intelligence officers must now assume that anything shared with Pakistan will end up in China, on any topic. StrategyPage claimed that China has vast experience in counter-insurgency, which is patently untrue. China has experience in brutally squashing internal uprisings by the Han people, from time to time, but none in suppressing insurgencies.

China apparently provides equipment, but Pakistan has the experience in stomping insurgencies and uprisings, and in aiding and supporting them in India. China’s interest has little to do with Taliban, only with Uighurs. It apparently has a similar relationship with Turkey, where some Uighur terrorist groups have their headquarters. There again, the Chinese trade military equipment for intelligence on the Uighurs.

The irony is that Pakistan double dealt the Chinese during much of Musharraf’s tenure. Pakistan’s need for strategic depth induced it to deal with the Taliban when they were in power in Kabul between 1996 and 2001. They ignored Taliban support for Muslim Uighur separatists who the Taliban trained to in terrorist tactics for use against China, Pakistan’s patron and supply life-line in every conflict or crisis with India since 1971. Some Uighurs were reportedly trained at camps in Pakistani Kashmir run and supported by Pakistani intelligence.

Thus, the Chinese engagement with Pakistan serves two immediate purposes. One is to track and kill Uighurs and the other is to keep Pakistani intelligence operations under positive surveillance to stop them from helping the Uighurs. A third unstated, but obvious, purpose is to siphon off any US intelligence shared with the Pakistanis, especially sources and methods.

Pakistan: Air Force fighters attacked Taliban positions at Sarwakai, Madiyan and Barwang in South Waziristan on 19 June in preparation for a “full-scale” assault as soon as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud is spotted, Press Trust of India reported. Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar said, "We are looking for him [Mehsud]... Once we know where he is, then we will not miss him because we have the F-16s. They are very precise, they have laser-guided bombs and they can work better than a drone."

This is the start of the South Waziristan offensive to kill Baitullah Mehsud and all his Mahsud followers. Ground force operations will commence shortly.

Mukhtar’s is an interesting statement. It signifies that Pakistan chooses manned aircraft over drones because of their greater precision in support of counter-insurgency operations. Folks at the Paris Air Show might well pay attention to folks actually fighting an insurgency with non-US doctrine.

Comment: Pakistan has used its air force throughout the Swat Valley campaign and will continue using air support throughout a Waziristan campaign. The press has reported almost no complaints about civilian casualties, There is no audience for such complaints outside the tribal agencies, whom most Pakistanis judge have brought on themselves the wrath of the state. It is difficult to accept that Pakistani targeteers are more competent at their work in Pakistan than Coalition targeteers in Afghanistan, but that remains a possibility.

Pakistani ground operations have conformed to the well-established, more than 100-year old practice in the border marches. They involve applications of overwhelming paramilitary and military power to establish a baseline of security, which means scaring the population out of any thoughts of supporting insurgents or even providing creature comforts to insurgents. This is the technique the Sri Lankans used, which resulted in the first successful counterinsurgency operation in the 21^st century.

Low tech, manpower intensive bludgeoning operations with air support have two successes this year. Bribery of the enemy has one success two years ago. High tech operations with simultaneous initiatives for good “governance” have no successes … ever… anywhere. How is it that Pakistani F-16 pilots can manage to avoid civilian casualties or at least complaints about civilian casualties but Coalition pilots in Afghanistan cannot?

One reason is that tribal civilians who die supporting Pakistani Taliban are considered Pakistani Taliban. No one elsewhere in Pakistan thinks this is improper treatment. They judge it to be condign punishment, just rewards for sedition, especially because the Pakistani Taliban lack the strength to stand up to the federal forces.

In Afghanistan, tribal allegiance precedes national identity, especially when the central government is seen as weak and soft, as now, and cannot make punishment stick.

Swat Valley. “We are preparing an exit policy for the Army, and for this reason, the government has allocated Rs 25 billion for the capacity building of police, the Levies Force and the Frontier Corps,” Prime Minister Gilani told reporters at Governor’s House today. His remarks followed a briefing on issues related to internally displaced persons from Malakand, the law and order situation in the North West Frontier Province and the military offensive in Swat.

He said the sum would be released to the provincial government in six installments and would be spent over the next two years on training and the provision of equipment needed for sound civil administration in troubled areas.

The prime minister also ruled out talks with the Taliban, saying that the “only way out for them is to surrender.”

Pakistan-Kayani: The Chief of the Army Staff said today that Pakistani nuclear weapons were essential to its national security because they guaranteed deterrence. That is precisely the argument North Korea uses, except its potential enemy is vastly more powerful than India. Somebody might advise Kayani on this issue. In a global information network, his comments will be used by North Korea to harden their resolve against the US. They have told US negotiators that they are only doing what India and Pakistan have done.

Iran: In his Friday sermon, the Supreme Leader said there was "definitive victory" and no rigging in disputed presidential elections, offering no concession to protesters demanding the vote be canceled and held again. Khamenei said official results showing a landslide for hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad were beyond question. "There is 11 million votes difference,” Khamenei said. "How one can rig 11 million votes?"

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said protests should cease and the opposition must pursue its complaints via the channels of the cleric-led ruling system. He said protesters would be "held responsible for chaos if they didn't end" days of massive demonstrations.

The Supreme Leader spoke for nearly 90 minutes, offering no concessions whatsoever to protesters who have demanded the vote be held again. Khamenei also called the British government "the most evil opponent" and blamed external "enemies of Islam" for trying to stoke anger. He affirmed his support for Ahmadi-Nejad, saying the President's views on foreign affairs and social issues were close to his own. Khamenei also accused the other candidates of insulting Ahmadi-Nejad before the election.

Presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi’s absence from the Friday prayers led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was notable. Prior to the speech, The Times of London reported that Khamenei had ordered Mousavi and the other candidates to stand beside him at the pulpit and show support for the regime -- or be “cast out.”

Comment: In the instability cyclical pattern, the regime is looking for a line it can hold. Khamenei has determined that line requires identifying political discontent as a threat to state security – the hard line. This is the typical reflexive response of egomaniacs: define questions about political behavior as threats to the state. It is an escalation move that ignores facts and starts a new cycle. Iran is now in an overreaction phase, dependent on the loyalty of the forces to the chain of command and the state’s monopoly of coercive power.

This is a big gamble. Sometimes it works. With enough forces, and no armed opposition, state security becomes the line the government can hold. Holding that line never solves political issues – it kicks them into the future. It buys time for other forms of state subversion to have effect.

Khamenei has labeled protestors criminals, betraying the principles of the revolution established by Ayatollah Khomeini. Today Iran became a lot like Saddam’s Iraq in crisis management style, but less effective.

Today’s sermon carried an ultimatum to disperse or face consequences. The threat of force constitutes the official answer to the electorate’s political questions. This creates a serious incongruity that will bring down the regime if voter fraud is confirmed on a massive scale.

For example, if genuine and massive fraud can be demonstrated, Khamenei must step down because he now owns the election. It is clear the outcome is what he dictated.

Iran might not be part of an axis of evil, just of proliferation. However, Khamenei showed he and Ahmadi-Nejad are an axis of evil. Finally, the old fool admitted in public that Ahmadi-Nejad is his puppet. Khamenei took ownership of Ahmadi-Nejad’s most hateful comments against the Jews and his denial of the Holocaust. Khamenei all but admitted he is the source of the vile ideas that Ahmadi-Nejad states in public -- that should surprise no one.

The crisis is now Khamenei’s problem. He has dared the opposition to challenge him. That is suicidal arrogance and a serious misread of the issues, unless Khamenei knows the election was rigged and must use bluster to prevent his “outing” as a fraud.

The burden of going forward – the next escalatory move -- is now with the organizers of the mass demonstrations. The regime is primed and ready to crackdown on demonstrations set for 20 June. If violent clashes occur and the ensuing outrage swells the opposition, the government must enter power sharing with Mousavi and his cohorts. If violent clashes occur and the regime triumphs, Khamenei will have found the line he can hold.

If no demonstrations occur, that usually signifies the opposition has gone to ground because the leaders know people power is not strong enough to challenge the regime’s goons and guns. They will wait and prepare for a more favorable opportunity to demonstrate its views. They also will gather guns. The absence of demonstrations on 20 June might not be newsworthy, but it will be ominous about the extent of political dissidence in Iran. If almost makes certain that there will be more demonstrations in the coming months,

During this Watch, however, the latest reports are that Mousavi is under house arrest and his offices have been ransacked. He is said to have been denied all outside communications.

Kuwait: The government is expected to arrest and deport nearly 100,000 expatriates who are registered with counterfeit companies, Arabian Business reported 19 June, citing a report from Al Watan daily. According to the report, several businesses have been issued commercial licenses but are not involved with business in the country. As of 2008, expatriates comprised 69 percent of Kuwait's total population.

It is probably premature to evaluate this development, but this looks like a backlash against the large Iranian expatriate population in Kuwait which voted overwhelmingly for Ahmadi-Nejad. No more remittances/informal subsidies from Kuwait to Iran.

End of NightWatch for 19 June.