Sep 3, 2009

G.O.P. Support May Be Vital to Obama on Afghan War - NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON — As President Obama prepares to decide whether to send additional troops to Afghanistan, the political climate appears increasingly challenging for him, leaving him in the awkward position of relying on the Republican Party, and not his own, for support.

The simple political narrative of the Afghanistan war — that this was the good war, in which the United States would hunt down the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks — has faded over time, with popular support ebbing, American casualties rising and confidence in the Afghan government declining. In addition, Afghanistan’s disputed election, and the attendant fraud charges that have been lodged against President Hamid Karzai, are contributing further to the erosion of public support.

A CBS News poll released on Tuesday reports that 41 percent of those polled wanted troop levels in Afghanistan decreased, compared with 33 percent in April. Far fewer people — 25 percent — wanted troop levels increased, compared with 39 percent in April. And Mr. Obama’s approval rating for his handling of Afghanistan has dropped eight points since April, to 48 percent.

Congressional Democrats, particularly those on the left, report increasing disenchantment among constituents with the idea of a long and possibly escalating conflict in Afghanistan, especially as the American strategy comes to resemble a long-term nation-building approach rather than a counterterrorism operation.

“I and the American people cannot tolerate more troops without some commitment about when this perceived occupation will end,” Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, said Wednesday in an interview. He said he had been to 60 town hall meetings in his state so far this year. During the first half of the year, he said, there were no comments about Afghanistan or Iraq. But in the past two months, that has changed, with more people focused on troop losses in Afghanistan.

Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of international relations and history at Boston University, said, “There was a time, back in 2003 and 2004, when it was possible to drum up popular support for the war by attaching to the argument claims that the United States of America was eliminating evil and advancing democracy and women’s rights.

“But this is many years later, with the economy in shambles, 5,000 American soldiers dead in Iraq and Afghanistan, and those notions are no longer as compelling as they might have been. War exhaustion sets in,” said Professor Bacevich, author of “The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism.”

Even one strain of conservative thinking has turned negative on the war. The syndicated columnist George F. Will wrote in a column published Tuesday that the United States should substantially reduce its presence in Afghanistan.

But despite Mr. Will’s argument, national security hawks in the Republican Party — not Mr. Obama’s most natural support base — still back the president on Afghanistan.

“So far, to their credit, they’ve either remained silent or they’ve been supportive, guys like McCain and Graham,” said Matt Bennett, vice president of Third Way, a moderately left-wing think tank, referring to Senator John McCain of Arizona and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, both Republicans.

At the moment, Mr. Obama appears to still have the support of Democratic leaders in the Senate and the House, including Senator Harry Reid of Nevada and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California. Representative Howard L. Berman, a California Democrat who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, indicated on Wednesday that he was not ready to jump ship. But he was not sounding a ringing endorsement, either.

“I was O.K. with the president’s efforts and goals in Afghanistan,” he said in a phone interview. “At the same time, I’m open to hearing whether those are achievable, and as we debate that, we also need to think about what are the costs of reversing course.”

But it was the Republican National Committee, and not the Democrats, that was sounding more solidly behind the president on Afghanistan. After Mr. Will’s abdication on Tuesday, the Republican National Committee quickly sent out an e-mail message and posted a statement, “Stand Strong, Mr. President,” on its Web site to take issue with the conservative columnist.

“We agree with President Obama that ‘we have to win’ in Afghanistan and make sure that our commanders on the ground have the troops and resources they need,” the committee chairman, Michael Steele, said in the statement. He urged Mr. Obama to “stand strong and speak out for why we are fighting there,” adding that Mr. Obama has said too little so far “about why the voices of defeat are wrong.”

Similarly, Senator Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia, said he would continue to back Mr. Obama “as long as we’re making progress.”

Senator Graham, for his part, was in Afghanistan last week, putting in a stint as Colonel Graham as he served out his Air Force Reserves duty rotation. He met with military officials and soldiers, and talked to Obama administration officials in Kabul, the capital, as well, and is supporting Mr. Obama’s Afghanistan strategy.

Afghanistan, Mr. Graham said Tuesday in an interview, “is where 9/11 was planned and executed.

“This is not Vietnam.”

He said he would support a push for more troops in Afghanistan, but added that Mr. Obama would have to make a public case for it to convince wavering people on both the right and the left.

“The president needs to be more aggressive about taking ownership of this strategy, and reinforcing to this country the consequences of Afghanistan being lost and becoming a safe haven for Al Qaeda,” Mr. Graham said.

The debate over Afghanistan will play out in the coming weeks, as the military decides whether to ask for more troops; commanders in Afghanistan have already said their forces are insufficient to get the job done. Mr. Obama himself must decide whether to make a more public push for a deeper United States commitment. Administration officials say privately that they believe that they have 12 months to show significant progress in Afghanistan before they totally lose public support.

One danger for Mr. Obama is that he may be forced to abandon his own party on Afghanistan for the right, which could put him in a perilous position if Republicans at any point decide they do not want to support a Democratic president on the issue.

“Some people on the right think Afghanistan is hopeless, some people think this is Obama’s war and want to do to Obama the same thing the left did to Bush with Iraq,” Mr. Graham said.

State of the Nation: Brooks vs Lind - Nation

Franklin D. Roosevelt via last.fm

by Eyal Press

According to David Brooks' latest column, Barack Obama's approval ratings are falling because his administration "has joined itself at the hip to the liberal leadership in Congress." Hmm. On the basis of… what exactly? Appointing extreme liberals such as Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner to bail out the banks and Wall Street? Signaling that inclusion of a "public option" in a healthcare overhaul – the fervent hope of the liberal leadership in Congress – is not essential?

"This is a country that has just lived through an economic trauma caused by excessive spending and debt," argues Brooks, which is why he thinks the "animating issue" among disgruntled citizens is "fiscal restraint." Over at Salon, Michael Lind offers a different view, pointing to some other animating issues, like resentment at the "Wall Street elites who wrecked the economy" while working-class people lost their jobs and houses. Where Brooks counsels fiscal restraint, Lind advises Obama to find his inner Franklin Roosevelt. "We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob," declared FDR in 1936. "Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me and I welcome their hatred."

I'm with Lind. For the past three decades, few Democrats have dared to voice such populist sentiments, ceding the ground to Republicans, who have rallied ‘the people' against every special interest imaginable save for the corporations and wealthy elites who have persistently benefited from their policies. Frustrated Democratic strategists have then wondered why the public's anger is misdirected while refusing to look in the mirror and ponder whether perhaps the reason rests in their own party's silence. Passing serious health care reform presents Obama with the perfect opportunity to reverse the equation. So far, he hasn't taken it. The familiar pattern is playing out.

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Australian Journal of International Affairs, Volume 63 Issue 3 2009

Risk, regulation and new modes of regional governance in the Asia-Pacific

Journal of the Australian Institute of International Affairs

2008 Impact Factor: 0.525

ISSN: 1465-332X (electronic) 1035-7718 (paper)

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Subjects: Asia Pacific Studies; International Relations Theory;

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	Regulatory regionalism in the Asia-Pacific: drivers, instruments and actors Kanishka Jayasuriya Pages 335 – 347 Abstract \| References \| Full Text PDF \| Full Text HTML \| Request Permissions Cited By \| Related Articles	FREE
	The region within: RAMSI, the Pacific Plan and new modes of governance in the Southwest Pacific Shahar Hameiri Pages 348 – 360 Abstract \| References \| Full Text PDF \| Full Text HTML \| Request Permissions Related Articles	FREE
	Economic surveillance as a new mode of regional governance: contested knowledge and the politics of risk management in East Asia Helen E. S. Nesadurai Pages 361 – 375 Abstract \| References \| Full Text PDF \| Full Text HTML \| Request Permissions Related Articles	FREE
	Risk management, neo-liberalism and coercion: the Asian Development Bank's approach to ‘fragile states’ Andrew Rosser Pages 376 – 389 Abstract \| References \| Full Text PDF \| Full Text HTML \| Request Permissions Related Articles	FREE
	Losing control? The privatisation of anti-piracy services in Southeast Asia Carolin Liss Pages 390 – 403 Abstract \| References \| Full Text PDF \| Full Text HTML \| Request Permissions Related Articles	FREE
	Risky riparianism: cooperative water governance in Central Asia Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario Pages 404 – 415 Abstract \| References \| Full Text PDF \| Full Text HTML \| Request Permissions Related Articles	FREE
	Managing risk within international society: hierarchical governance in the Asia-Pacific William Clapton Pages 416 – 429 Abstract \| References \| Full Text PDF \| Full Text HTML \| Request Permissions Related Articles	FREE
	Beyond methodological nationalism, but where to for the study of regional governance? Shahar Hameiri Pages 430 – 441 Abstract \| References \| Full Text PDF \| Full Text HTML \| Request Permissions Related Articles	FREE

Sep 2, 2009

Shift in Japan Presents U.S. With a Stranger as a Partner - NYTimes.com

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By MARK LANDLER and MARTIN FACKLER

WASHINGTON — Japan’s landmark election presents the Obama administration with an untested government, creating a new set of imponderables for a White House already burdened by foreign policy headaches in Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea.

Inside the administration, the historic change in Tokyo is raising concerns that Japan may back away from supporting key American priorities like the war in Afghanistan or the redeployment of American troops in Asia, according to senior officials.

Specifically, the newly elected Democratic Party says it may recall the Japanese naval forces from a mission to refuel American warships near Afghanistan. And it wants to reopen an agreement to relocate a Marine airfield on Okinawa, which requires Japan to pick up much of the cost for moving thousands of Marines to Guam.

The victory of the Democrats on Sunday means the White House must deal, for the first time in decades, with a Japanese government that is a complete stranger, and one that has expressed blunt criticism of the United States. The party’s leader and presumptive prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, recently spoke out against American-led globalization and called for a greater Japanese focus on Asia.

Despite the party’s campaign rhetoric, its leaders insist they will not threaten the alliance with the United States, particularly when Japan faces a fast-rising China and a nuclear-armed North Korea. Senior American officials said they expected Japan to remain a bulwark in Asia, even noting that the new government, unburdened by history, could play a more central role in negotiating with North Korea.

But for the most part, the United States is perplexed by what one official described as a “seismic event,” with unknown consequences for one of its most important relationships.

“The election of a new party could produce new ways of doing things, which we will have to adjust to,” said a senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter. “You’ll have this period of unpredictability.”

The big question many in Washington are asking is whether the vote was a harbinger of a deeper change in Japan, away from its historic dependence on the United States.

“There is a fear of dramatic change in the U.S.-Japan alliance,” said Michael Auslin, an expert on Japanese foreign policy at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “No one knows what will happen next, or even who to talk to for answers.”

The Democratic Party struck a chord with its talk of improving ties with China and other neighbors, reflecting the fact that Japan’s $5 trillion economy has grown more dependent on commerce with its neighbors.

Fears of Japanese drift seemed to be confirmed last week when an article by Mr. Hatoyama, excerpted and translated from a Japanese journal, appeared on the Web site of The New York Times. It stirred a hornet’s nest in Washington by casting Japan’s embattled economy as the victim of American-inspired free-market fundamentalism. Yet it also stressed the importance of the American alliance.

Mr. Hatoyama’s views sent many in Washington’s diplomatic establishment scurrying to learn more about him and the Democrats. That highlighted a problem: While American officials and academics have spent decades cultivating close ties with the Liberal Democrats, who have governed Japan for most of the last half century, they have built few links to the opposition.

Some Japan experts said it would be a mistake to read too much into Mr. Hatoyama’s remarks, and Japanese officials privately conveyed that same caution to the Obama administration.

“It was an indication they still haven’t figured out what they’re going to do in power,” said Michael J. Green, a professor of international relations at Georgetown University who served on the National Security Council during the last Bush administration. “This could get confused and dysfunctional for a while.”

Stung by the reaction, Mr. Hatoyama appears to be back-pedaling and engaging in damage control. On Monday night, he said he had not intended for the article to appear abroad, and said it was being misinterpreted. “If you read the entire essay, you will understand that it is definitely not expressing anti-American ideas,” he said.

Professor Green noted that in many ways, relations between the United States and Japan were smoother now than in years past because the trade disputes of the 1980s and 1990s were largely settled.

He said the new government would find that some of its proposals, like reopening talks on the relocation of the Futenma Marine airfield on Okinawa, were unrealistic, given the years it took to negotiate that deal. For the Obama administration, he said, the challenge will be to give Japan’s new leaders a face-saving way to back down.

Japan, experts said, could play a more muscular role in talks with North Korea if, as expected, the Democrats turn down the heat on the issue of Japanese abducted by North Korea decades ago, a perennial sticking point for the Liberal Democrats.

And Obama administration officials said they were eager to dispel perceptions in Japan that a better relationship with China would somehow undermine its alliance with the United States.

“We have no desire to see our defense commitment tested by battle,” a senior official said. “We see no contradiction between Japan reducing frictions with China and a strong Japan-U.S. alliance.”

In recent years, many Japanese have thought the United States took the relationship for granted, paying more attention to China.

Traditionally, the United States has sent high-powered diplomats or political figures to Tokyo. But the Obama administration chose to send a big campaign donor, John Roos, as ambassador, passing over a longtime Asia hand, Joseph S. Nye Jr., who had been championed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Administration officials counter that Mr. Roos, a Silicon Valley lawyer, will be influential because he has the ear of President Obama.

Political analysts and former diplomats say the Democrats are so sharply divided ideologically — between pacifist former Socialists and flag-flying former Liberal Democrats — that they will avoid treading too heavily on divisive foreign policy issues for fear of splitting the party.

Policy analysts also say the Japanese public would turn against the Democrats if they undermined the Washington alliance, pointing out that the opposition won because of anger with the incumbents’ failed economic policies, not because of a desire to change the nation’s reliance on the United States, which remains widely accepted here.

“They do not have a mandate for changing the alliance with the U.S.,” said Yukio Okamoto, a former adviser to several prime ministers on foreign affairs.

Mark Landler reported from Washington, and Martin Fackler from Tokyo.

Beijing Limits Information on Burmese Refugees Remaining in China - NYTimes.com

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By MICHAEL WINES

BEIJING — Chinese officials imposed an information blackout on Tuesday on the situation along its border with Myanmar and began taking down tents that had sheltered an estimated 30,000 refugees who fled into China to escape recent fighting between Myanmar’s military and ethnic rebels.

But news reports stated that many thousands of refugees remained in China, unwilling or unable to return to Myanmar, formerly called Burma, and it was not clear how the Chinese government intended to address their plight.

The Chinese authorities withheld comment on the border situation on Tuesday, aside from saying, in a Foreign Ministry briefing, that “necessary humanitarian assistance” was being provided. And they began ordering foreign journalists to leave the area around Nansan and Genma, Chinese towns on the mountainous border where the refugees have been housed in seven separate camps.

While about 4,000 refugees had returned to Myanmar on Monday, the day after the fighting ended, the pace has since slowed significantly. Only about 30 people crossed the border into Myanmar in a half-hour period on Tuesday morning, The Associated Press reported.

“It seems to be slowing down,” one foreigner near Nansan said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “There’s still a large number of refugees in and around Nansan, both in the camps and hanging around.” The foreigner, who asked not to be identified, said Chinese Army troops had stepped up patrols in the area.

An unknown number of those who fled to China during the fighting are Chinese citizens who have been conducting business in Myanmar, where China is building dams and other projects and has extensive mining ventures. They are unlikely to return soon.

China has insisted that the northern Myanmar region of Kokang is safe and stable after the fighting last week, in which hundreds of government troops overwhelmed an armed ethnic group, breaking a cease-fire that had prevailed for two decades. Human rights groups and others have warned that the junta’s actions could ignite a wider conflict in the area, where other, better armed, ethnic groups also are resisting government control.

Thai newspapers and The Irrawaddy, an independent magazine that focuses on Myanmar, have reported that the government is sending fresh troops into the northern state of Shan in an attempt to consolidate its control there. The army wants the rebels to disarm and join a government border patrol force, as required under a new Constitution. Most of the rebels have resisted the order, which would effectively place them under government control.

Myanmar’s military junta apparently seeks to take control of the region before elections, the first in almost 20 years, that are scheduled for next year. Outside monitors accuse the military junta of brutal human rights violations as part of its effort to stay in power. The Myanmar government has said that 26 of its soldiers and at least 8 rebels died in three days of battles.

The Myanmar conflict has thrust the Chinese government, one of Myanmar’s only staunch backers, into an awkward situation. China has provided diplomatic support to the junta in exchange for access to its considerable mineral wealth and cooperation in efforts to suppress a growing cross-border trade in heroin and other illicit drugs. The flood of refugees prompted the Chinese to issue muted criticism of the junta, on Friday calling for it to secure Myanmar’s borders.

Fears of a Purge of Universities Grow in Iran - NYTimes.com

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By MICHAEL SLACKMAN

CAIRO — As Iran’s universities prepare to start classes this month, there is growing concern within the academic community that the government will purge political and social science departments of professors and curriculums deemed “un-Islamic,” according to academics and political analysts inside and outside Iran.

The fears have been stoked by speeches by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as well as by confessions of political prisoners, that suggest that the study of secular topics and ideas has made universities incubators for the political unrest unleashed after the disputed presidential election in June.

Ayatollah Khamenei said this week that the study of social sciences “promotes doubts and uncertainty.” He urged “ardent defenders of Islam” to review the human sciences that are taught in Iran’s universities and that he said “promote secularism,” according to Iranian news services.

“Many of the humanities and liberal arts are based on philosophies whose foundations are materialism and disbelief in godly and Islamic teachings,” Ayatollah Khamenei said at a gathering of university students and professors on Sunday, according to IRNA, the state news agency. Teaching those “sciences leads to the loss of belief in godly and Islamic knowledge.”

For years, the study of subjects like philosophy and sociology has been viewed suspiciously by Iranian conservatives. During the earliest days of the Islamic Revolution, the nation’s leaders closed universities and tried to sanitize curriculums to fit their Islamic revolutionary ideology. The efforts ultimately failed under the weight of more pragmatic forces eager to engage with Western economies, and a student population hungry for contemporary ideas and contact with the West.

But that failure never healed the ideological differences that have made it impossible for the nation and its hybrid elected and religious institutions to agree on one course, even one identity. In recent years, academics who attended conferences abroad, or took part in cultural exchange programs, were often vilified at home or viewed suspiciously. Some were arrested on charges of trying to organize a soft revolution.

The recent speeches by the country’s leaders suggest that they may no longer be willing to live with such ambiguity after months of unsuccessfully trying to extinguish the political and social crisis set off by the election.

“Iran is going through a crisis of legitimacy for the regime, and the crisis is based on the regime’s inability to respond to the demands for reform from the increasingly youthful population,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. “The only response it can think of is to stop teaching of the social sciences.”

Rasool Nafisi, an academic based in Virginia who is an expert on Iran, agreed: “Khamenei’s statement does not bode well for the Iranian universities.”

“He seems to try to pick up where the Islamic republic left off over two decades ago when the late Ayatollah Khomeini expressed similar aversion to ‘Westoxicated learning’ in the universities, and ordered dropping all but natural sciences from the university curricula,” Mr. Nafisi said, referring to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The current supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, called for “the promotion of a spiritual environment in universities” and requested that the government of Mr. Ahmadinejad make this a “serious concern,” according to Iranian news services that reported on the comments the ayatollah made Sunday.

During Mr. Ahmadinejad’s first term in office, his administration forced out many professors and replaced them.

“I think that they don’t like maybe new ideas to get to Iran,” said an Iranian academic now living outside the country. “They don’t like social and cultural figures in the Iranian society to become very popular. That is the aspect which makes problems for them.”

The state’s renewed focus on education took center stage last week when the confession of a prominent reformer, Saeed Hajjarian, who had been the theoretician behind the reform movement, was broadcast on national television.

The confession, dismissed by reform leaders as a reflection of the views of Mr. Hajjarian’s jailers, provided a lengthy criticism of human sciences, especially sociology and political science. The confession also addressed Mr. Hajjarian’s application of political theories to his own work, saying, “For these unworthy interpretations which became the cause of many immoral acts, I ask forgiveness of the Iranian people.”

In another development, Iran’s nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, said that the government had prepared an updated nuclear proposal to give to the West, Iranian news services reported.

Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting.

Tribal Leaders Say Karzai’s Team Forged 23,900 Votes - NYTimes.com

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By DEXTER FILKINS

KABUL, Afghanistan — Just a week before this country’s presidential election, the leaders of a southern Afghan tribe called Bariz gathered to make a bold decision: they would abandon the incumbent and local favorite, Hamid Karzai, and endorse his challenger, Abdullah Abdullah.

Mr. Abdullah flew to the southern city of Kandahar to receive the tribe’s endorsement. The leaders of the tribe, who live in a district called Shorabak, prepared to deliver a local landslide.

But it never happened, the tribal leaders said.

Instead, aides to Mr. Karzai’s brother Ahmed Wali — the leader of the Kandahar provincial council and the most powerful man in southern Afghanistan — detained the governor of Shorabak, Delaga Bariz, and shut down all of the district’s 45 polling sites on election day. The ballot boxes were taken to Shorabak’s district headquarters, where, Mr. Bariz and other tribal leaders said, local police officers stuffed them with thousands of ballots.

At the end of the day, 23,900 ballots were shipped to Kabul, Mr. Bariz said, with every one marked for President Karzai.

“Not a single person in Shorabak District cast a ballot — not a single person,” Mr. Bariz said in an interview here in the capital, where he and a group of tribal elders came to file a complaint. “Mr. Karzai’s people stuffed all the ballot boxes.”

The accusations by Mr. Bariz, and several other tribal leaders from Shorabak, are the most serious allegations so far that have been publicized against Mr. Karzai’s electoral machine, which faces a deluge of fraud complaints from around the country.

The Afghan Electoral Complaints Commission said Tuesday that the number of complaints about vote stealing and other forms of fraud had reached 2,615.

Mr. Karzai’s campaign is accused of forging ballots, stealing votes and preventing people from going to the polls.

In Kandahar Province, where Mr. Karzai’s family is in control, allegations of a type similar to those made in Shorabak have been made in many of the province’s 17 districts. Early election returns show that Mr. Karzai has managed to capture nearly 48,000 votes, compared with only 3,000 for Mr. Abdullah, his nearest challenger.

Slightly less than half of all ballots have been counted. Mr. Karzai leads with about 46 percent of the vote, compared with 33 percent for Mr. Abdullah.

Mr. Karzai and his aides deny any sort of fraud, and they have hunkered down in the presidential palace to await the final results. But the allegations are casting a cloud over his re-election campaign, raising the prospect that even if he wins his presidency could be seriously tainted.

At the same time, the allegations are increasing the pressure on American officials to ensure that the accusations of fraud are properly investigated. An election widely perceived as having been stolen could deal a serious setback to the Obama administration, which has committed itself to prevailing here in the nearly eight-year-old war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Allegations like those described by Mr. Bariz are throwing the basic integrity of the election into question. Much of the story told by Mr. Bariz and the other tribal elders was impossible to verify. But it appeared credible. All three men spoke in great detail. And all of them were willing to be publicly named and to have their photographs taken.

As recently as 10 months ago, Mr. Bariz said, he had considered himself an ally of President Karzai. He had been nominated by a group of Bariz elders to be the governor of the Shorabak District, a desolate stretch of sand and scrub that sits on the country’s southwestern border with Pakistan. Mr. Bariz’s nomination was ratified by Tooryalai Wesa, the governor of Kandahar Province, who was appointed by President Karzai.

But as election day neared, Mr. Bariz and other leaders in his tribe said they could not bring themselves to support Mr. Karzai for another five-year term. The reason, he said, was that Mr. Karzai’s government had done so little good.

“There are no clinics, no schools, no roads, no water dams — nothing,” Mr. Bariz said. “We decided to support someone who would unify the country.” The leaders of the Bariz tribe picked Mr. Abdullah, a former foreign minister.

In theory, the decision by the elders sealed Mr. Abdullah’s victory in Shorabak: nearly everyone in Shorabak belongs to the Bariz tribe. As is common in many such societies, tribal leaders in Afghanistan often negotiate with politicians to deliver the votes of their tribe.

Mr. Abdullah’s campaign manager in southern Afghanistan, Esmatullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name, said the candidate met a large group of Bariz tribal elders in Kandahar on Aug. 12 to receive their endorsement. It was a joyous affair, Mr. Esmatullah said, for which even women turned out. But not everyone who wanted to come to the endorsement ceremony was able to make it.

“The police were blocking the roads,” Mr. Esmatullah said.

The next day, Mr. Bariz said, officials in Kandahar were furious. One of Kandahar’s senior officials, Mohammed Anas, ordered Mr. Bariz not to return to his home in Shorabak. Mr. Anas said he had no choice.

“When I asked him why he wouldn’t let me go home, he said, ‘Because your whole tribe is going to vote for Dr. Abdullah,’ ” Mr. Bariz said.

Mr. Bariz did not speak to Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president’s younger brother, only to more junior officials like Mr. Anas. But few decisions of any import are believed to be taken in Kandahar without the approval of Ahmed Wali Karzai. On the streets, his nickname is “The King of the South.” Last year, for instance, Ahmed Wali Karzai was widely seen as having replaced the governor, Rahmatullah Raufi, when he fell out of favor.

Attempts to contact Ahmed Wali Karzai were unsuccessful.

When election day finally came, the ballots were never delivered to the polling centers in Shorabak, said two Bariz tribal leaders who were charged with overseeing the sites. Instead of going to the polling places, all the ballots and ballot boxes were delivered to the district government’s headquarters. That place, the tribal leaders said, had been commandeered by the Afghan Border Police.

“The ballots were never delivered,” said Abdul Quyoum, a farmer from the village of Karaze, where one of the polling sites was supposed to be. “I waited all day.”

Mr. Quyoum was one of two tribal elders from Shorabak who traveled to Kabul with Mr. Bariz. The other was Fazul Mohammed, who told a nearly identical story.

When the ballots were not delivered to the polling site, Mr. Mohammed said, he walked to the district government headquarters to see what was wrong. The building, he said, was being guarded by officers of the Afghan Border Police. As an election official, Mr. Mohammed said, he was allowed to go inside.

“The border police were stuffing the ballots, hundreds of them, into the boxes,” he said. “And there were other people who were counting the ballots and keeping the records.”

Mr. Mohammed said he protested but was told to leave. Later, he said, he was told that a total of 23,900 ballots had been filled out, all in Mr. Karzai’s name.

“Dr. Abdullah did not receive a single vote,” he said.

Mr. Bariz, the governor, said he had not returned to Shorabak.

“I don’t think I am going to be governor much longer,” he said.

Sangar Rahimi contributed to this report from Kabul.

Iran's Top Nuclear Negotiator Says Tehran Is Ready to Reopen Talks With West - washingtonpost.com

By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 2, 2009

TEHRAN, Sept. 1 -- Iran's top nuclear negotiator said Tuesday that the country is ready to reopen talks with world powers increasingly concerned about Iranian intentions, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.

The announcement by Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili came a day before a meeting in Germany of representatives from six nations, including the United States, that are seeking to develop a strategy for addressing Iran's nuclear ambitions.

"Iran has prepared to present its revised package of proposals . . . and is ready to hold talks with world powers . . . in order to ease common concerns in the international arena," state television quoted Jalili as telling reporters.

Iranian officials did not comment on whether the timing of the proposal is connected to the Sept. 15 deadline set by the White House for Iran to respond to an offer to reopen talks on the nuclear issue.

U.S. officials say Iran has responded to previous offers only with vague generalities that did not provide a basis for negotiations, and President Obama has suggested that if Iran does not make a serious counteroffer by the end of this year, it could face renewed sanctions. U.S. officials said Tuesday that they would reserve judgment until they receive an official communication from Iran.

"We're prepared to respond to some kind of meaningful response," said Ian Kelly, a spokesman for the State Department. "We're not going to respond to something that's made through the media."

Hassan Qashqavi, a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, said sanctions would not be effective. "Using the worthless and ineffectual tool of sanctions will not have any effect on Iran's lawful pursuit of its legal rights," he said, emphasizing that Iran's nuclear program is peaceful and is meant to generate energy. U.S. officials have said that they think Iran is seeking to weaponize its nuclear program.

Iran continues to enrich uranium, though the rate has slowed in recent months, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report issued last week. The enrichment is a violation of four rounds of U.N. sanctions.

Also in Iran on Tuesday, members of parliament demonstrated strong support for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's nominee for defense minister, Ahmad Vahidi, who is wanted by Argentina on suspicion of a role in the bombing of a Jewish community center in 1994. The attack killed 85 people.

The parliament is expected to vote on Ahmadinejad's cabinet picks as early as Wednesday.

Staff writer Glenn Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.

Hamas Objects to Possible Lessons About Holocaust in U.N.-Run Schools in Gaza - washingtonpost.com

By Howard Schneider
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 2, 2009

JERUSALEM, Sept. 1 -- The prospect of United Nations-run schools in the Gaza Strip teaching children about the Holocaust has sparked fierce resistance this week from leaders of the Palestinian Hamas movement and forced international officials to confront a situation fraught with political risk.

U.N. officials, who say they are only discussing changes to a school program on human rights, have not commented directly on whether any new curriculum will reference the Holocaust. But Hamas leaders, saying any such reference would "contradict" their culture, are moving quickly to head off the possibility.

"Talk about the holocaust and the execution of the Jews contradicts and is against our culture, our principles, our traditions, values, heritage and religion," Jamila al-Shanti, a Hamas legislative official, said in a statement distributed Tuesday after a meeting among elected leaders of the radical Islamist group and the head of the Hamas-run Education Ministry in Gaza.

Hamas Education Minister Muhammad Askol used similar language in criticizing the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, saying it was not respecting Hamas's "sovereignty" over Gaza. He said he planned to ask for a meeting with agency officials to "assure the necessary coordination."

His remarks came a day after Hamas spiritual leader Yunis al-Astal said teaching children about the murder of 6 million Jews during World War II would be "marketing a lie." He characterized the possible introduction of the subject into Gaza schools as a "war crime."

UNRWA provides food, education and other services for about half of Gaza's population, including about 200,000 children. It has clashed previously with Hamas on a variety of issues, including whether to support mixed-gender summer camps.

In the latest dispute, the agency risks being caught between its usual practice of deferring to local officials on school curriculums and overlooking central facts about world history.

There is currently no mention of the Holocaust in schools run by UNRWA in Gaza, according to Karen AbuZayd, the agency's commissioner general.

UNRWA follows the curriculum set by local officials but has been supplementing it with lessons on human rights it developed on its own, according to an agency official. AbuZayd said a program on the details of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is being developed for Gaza middle schools. Though still in draft form, the lesson "will go into some history," she said.

The Universal Declaration was issued by the United Nations in December 1948, in the aftermath of World War II and in recognition of Nazi atrocities.

"It is very much a draft," AbuZayd said, adding that before its introduction into classrooms, it would be circulated among community groups for reaction.

The content of school curriculums is a volatile part of the Arab-Israeli conflict and has taken on a heightened pitch in recent months. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu considers Israel's historical claims central to reaching a peace agreement and has said he would support creation of a Palestinian state only if Palestinian leaders acknowledged Israel as a legitimate Jewish homeland.

Israeli Arabs have complained about recent moves by the country's Education Ministry to remove the word "naqba" -- or catastrophe -- from lessons taught in Arab schools about the events surrounding Israel's creation, while Jews feel that the texts prepared by the more moderate Palestinian Authority still diminish the Jewish experience.

Palestinian Authority textbooks, used in the occupied West Bank, refer to Nazi massacres and anti-Semitism as part of high school lessons about World War II but do not go into detail about the scope of the genocide, according to Israelis and Palestinians familiar with the texts.

On both sides, "there is really no mention of the other story -- of how the other side sees it," said Gershon Baskin, co-chief executive of the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information, a think tank that has examined textbooks. Baskin is on an advisory panel for a U.S.-funded study, announced on Tuesday, in which Israelis and Palestinians will review each other's textbooks, while U.S. experts perform a computer analysis of the language used in them.

Although both Palestinian and Israeli schools could do a better job, Baskin said, Hamas's outright denial of the Holocaust, as well as opposition to its mention in Gaza schools, is "a step beyond."

Special correspondent Islam Abdel Kareem in Gaza City contributed to this report.