Obama faces test on Afghanistan, Pakistan

President Obama’s ambitious strategy for Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, dubbed “Afpak” by administration officials, will face its first test Wednesday when he meets with the leaders of both countries — neither of which is seen as able to maintain stability and fight strengthening Islamic insurgencies.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari will meet with Afghanistan’s president and President Obama.

The president will meet separately with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari before holding a joint session with the two leaders. The leaders also will hold talks at the State Department, FBI, CIA and on Capitol Hill.

Obama will try to build an enduring regional alliance with both countries, enlisting them as full partners rather than treating them as battlefields for U.S. soldiers to fight extremists. But both leaders are seen as weak and are deeply unpopular back home.

The Taliban has re-emerged to retake large swaths of Afghanistan, and in recent weeks, Taliban fighters have made alarming advances in Pakistan.

Just last week, the State Department warned that al Qaeda continues to enjoy safe haven along the rugged border between the countries, where al Qaeda plots attacks against the U.S. and its allies.

U.S. concern has focused on Pakistan, which Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-New York, on Monday aptly warned has its “pants on fire.”

In Pakistan’s Swat Valley, the government’s recent peace deal with militants pushing for the establishment of strict Islamic law went awry, allowing the Taliban to advance within 60 miles of the capital, Islamabad. The government’s initial inaction prompted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to accuse Islamabad of abdicating to terrorists. Obama also expressed concern about the fragility of Zardari’s government.

Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s formidable point man for Afpak, insists Pakistan isn’t a failed state. Yet there is plenty of concern in Washington that Zardari’s government could fall, leaving Pakistan’s considerable nuclear arsenal at risk.

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Holbrooke also played down reports the U.S. is courting Zardari’s main political rival, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Rather, officials say the U.S. wants the two men to work together, which would divert Zardari’s attention away from domestic political squabbles and enable him to unite the country in the fight against extremists.

This is the U.S. main challenge — persuading Pakistan to focus on what it considers a “mortal threat,” and not on what Obama himself has called the Pakistani military’s misguided “obsession” with neighboring India.

The Taliban advances seem to have delivered a wake-up call to the government, which has launched an offensive against the militants. To help, Obama has asked Congress to quickly approve hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency aid to help the Pakistanis combat the insurgency and is supporting a $7.5 billion civilian aid package over the next five years.

Concerned about reports that the Pakistani military is working at cross-purposes and, in some cases, aiding the Taliban, Congress is trying to condition the money on progress made by Pakistani forces in rooting out extremists.

A key component of the U.S. strategy is a surge in civilian assistance to boost domestic support for both governments. In an effort to promote more economic development and cooperation between the U.S. and the two countries, the ministers of agriculture and finance from both countries have been invited to Washington to join the talks.

While the U.S. focus clearly has been on Pakistan, violence in Afghanistan has reached its highest levels since Taliban forces were driven from power after the U.S. invaded in the fall of 2001 in response to the 9/11 terror attacks.

The U.S. wants to ensure stability in the lead-up to August elections, which is why Obama has committed 21,000 additional troops, in addition to the much needed economic assistance.

Since talking office in January, Obama and other U.S. officials have been tough on Karzai, criticizing his government as ineffective and weak on corruption. Karzai further angered U.S. officials this week when he named Mohammad Qasim Fahim, a powerful warlord accused of violating human rights, as his vice presidential running mate, despite warnings from Secretary of State Clinton that Fahim would be a polarizing choice.

But despite the belief by many in Washington it is time for Karzai to go, the Afghan president arrived this week in Washington virtually assured re-election, having persuaded his main opposition not to run against him.

In a speech Tuesday, Karzai wisely said “money can’t buy you love” and “force won’t buy you obedience”

Those sentiments illustrate one of the deficits in Obama’s strategy.

While the U.S. hopes the additional assistance will turn both leaders into reliable allies, the administration has yet to unveil a plan for communicating directly to the Afghan and Pakistani populations, both of which are skeptical of the U.S. intentions toward their countries.

Additionally, the U.S. has focused its diplomacy so far on officials at the federal level, and efforts to establish strong and regular lines of communication with provincial government officials are in their infancy. That has contributed to the lack of U.S. influence in Pakistan during the Taliban’s recent advances in the Northwest Frontier.

Creating and implementing an effective strategy toward Afghanistan, and more importantly, Pakistan, is proving to be one of the most challenging, yet important, foreign policy issues facing the Obama administration. Wednesday’s talks will be the first indicator as to whether the U.S. has two partners in what has been dubbed “Obama’s war.”

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Karzai: Afghanistan to review criticized sharia law

Amid mounting pressure from the West, Afghan President Hamid Karzai says his government will review a recently approved version of a law that critics say legalizes marital rape and the U.S. president has called “abhorrent.”

Recently approved version of law also mandates that a woman ask a male relative to leave the house.

“We understand the concerns of our allies in the international community,” Karzai told reporters Saturday.

The minister of justice would study the draft, he said.

“If there is anything that is of concern to us then we will definitely take action in consultation with our [religious clerics] and send it back to the parliament,” Karzai said. “This is something that we are also serious about and we should not allow.”

Karzai’s news conference was in response to a series of news reports by Western media since the president signed the law last month.

He specifically mentioned a March 31 story by London-based The Independent, which called the law “a massive blow for women’s rights” and cited critics who said Karzai “rushed” the bill through parliament in hopes of appeasing Islamic fundamentalists ahead of August elections.

Human rights groups and news reports consistently refer to a report from the U.N. Development Fund for Women which reportedly stated that the legislation — a piece of sharia law, or Islamic law — that affects the Shiite community in the predominantly Sunni nation “legalizes the rape of a wife by her husband” by allowing men to force sexual intercourse on their spouses.

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Shiites make up roughly 10 percent of Afghanistan’s population.

Western leaders attending a NATO conference Saturday also signaled their disapproval of the legislation.

“I think this law is abhorrent,” U.S. President Obama said in Strasbourg, France. “We think that it is very important for us to be sensitive to local culture, but we also think that there are certain basic principles that all nations should uphold, and respect for women and respect for their freedom and integrity is an important principle.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed, with the latter saying, “We very much hope that the draft piece of legislation is to be withdrawn.”

The law was drafted by Afghanistan’s conservative lawmakers after spending more than a year off and on the parliament’s daily agenda. Shia Muslims have been practicing their form of Islam for centuries in Afghanistan, but this law allows them to preserve their identity among the majority Sunni population, one parliamentarian said.

Among its provisions are that women must ask a male relative to leave the house.

“What my fear is, women and children of Afghanistan are always the victims of political games,” Afghan lawmaker Fawzia Koofi told CNN in a recent interview. “I mean, they don’t have a gun to fight, they cannot create a mess.”

Koofi, and other critics of the law, hope that the supreme court will rule that the legislation is at odds with the Afghan constitution, which promises equal rights to all citizens — male or female. Watch Hamid Karzai’s comments »

Still, despite the international outcry against the bill, many in Afghanistan remain unaware of it. Support can be found among those who do, especially the Shiite population.

“Shia people are in Afghanistan,” Shia resident Mohammad Zahir said. “They are a part of Afghanistan and there needs to be a law that they go by and follow.”

Filed under: Afghanistan , Afghanistan, karzai, law, sharia