Assuring Victory in Afghanistan

The failed Mayday bombing incident in Times Square exposed the involvement of the Pakistan Taliban in a jihadist plot against the United States. Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized American citizen, was apparently distraught over collateral damage caused by Predator drones along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Increasingly in the past year, disgruntled Pakistani-Americans have made various attempts to avenge for stepped-up drone attacks in the critical AfPak border area. This latest effort – another foiled attack on the homeland – brings a new sense of urgency to our overall mission in the Afghan theater of operations.

A recent New York Times editorial lamented that

“Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, has a clear military strategy. We are less certain about the administration’s political strategy.”

It should be pretty obvious to anyone that if these two strategies are not in sync, failure is no longer an option, but becomes almost certain. We were experiencing a similar situation in Iraq until late 2006, when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was fired and the current Defense Secretary Robert Gates took charge. Secretary Gates quickly aligned the Bush Administration’s political strategy namely, to defeat the insurgency and stabilize Iraq, with its military strategy, which was to surge forces with a clear, hold and build objective – and, thus ensured success. Today, the U.S. is on target to withdraw most of its combat troops from Iraq by late summer.

More curiously, the Times editorial appeared to have analyzed the Karzai problem strictly within the confines of Afghanistan, ignoring its larger geopolitical context. Pakistan’s influence on the outcome in Afghanistan is as much, if not more relevant than, what Iran’s influence would have been to the outcome in Iraq without the surge. President Karzai’s weakness is, in part, due to the Pakistani military’s ongoing covert relationship with the Afghan Taliban.

The Obama administration’s political strategy in Afghanistan is thus compounded by the “what do we do about Pakistan” factor? Gen. McChrystal will not be able to effectively clear, hold and build in Afghanistan until President Obama delivers an enforceable ultimatum to the Pakistan military’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. President Obama should warn the ISI in no uncertain terms to cease and desist from further meddling in Afghanistan – a good start would be to give the Pakistan military a deadline to begin its much-delayed operations in North Waziristan to flush out all of the Al Qaeda and Taliban leadership. Only then, can President Obama seriously expect to achieve his own goal of starting to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan by mid-2011.

Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist, wrote recently in the Washington Post about the selfsame Pakistan factor. Mr. Rashid’s analysis of the dilemma facing the United States boiled down to “Karzai vs. the ISI.” Even he acknowledged that Pakistan is trying to influence the outcome in Afghanistan to its advantage. The ISI is again hedging dangerously with respect to the Taliban – turning against them at home to satisfy the U.S., but coddling them in Afghanistan to counter the Indians.

The bottom line is just as the “Sunni Awakening” preceded the Iraqi surge, the U.S. needs to feverishly work with Karzai on a “Taliban Awakening” in Afghanistan to guarantee the success of the surge there. The United States cannot let the ISI dictate the terms of its Afghan policy; else it is bound to fail. Pakistan must focus its energies internally to rid itself of a compounding “Jihadi” menace; else it will continue to degenerate into chaos akin to a Somalia of the subcontinent – a situation that would not be beneficial to the world at large. Pakistan must accept the role of the Predator drone in today’s war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban leadership as it did the role of the Stinger missile launcher in yesteryear’s war against the Soviets – as a necessary instrument to drive out foreign fighters from Afghanistan. Only then can Afghanistan achieve a lasting peace with a stable government.

Eight in ’08 – Crude Summer, Black Fall!

I have been unable to post a new blog in the past couple of months due to various commitments. Nonetheless, I discovered eight wonderful commentaries that I had written back in 2008 and posted on the “Syndicated News” web site. They were penned during a sizzling summer, shortly after the price of crude oil hit a record high of $147.27 in July 2008 and during a black fall, when in a single week the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 1,874 points, or 18%, in its worst weekly decline ever on both a point and percentage basis.

Some of these essays on our fragile political, economic and foreign policy landscape at that time, now seem quite prescient, if I might say so myself. I wish mainstream pundits would review their writings from a couple of years ago to see if they had the requisite foresight on some of the pressing issues of the day. As the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20, but it’s foresight that really qualifies you as a pundit. So here are the links to my syndicated efforts from that turbulent period in 2008:

In the War on Terrorism: A Passage Through India (8/14/2008)

Can a new, expanded NATO avert Cold War II? (8/21/2008)

Obama-Biden his time, as McCain-Palin to irrelevance! (9/3/2008)

Victory in Iraq (9/8/2008)

The Great Regression (9/30/2008)

For U.S. Foreign Policy: A "New Clear" Passage Through India (10/20/2008)

The Political Pendulum: Swinging To Liberalism (10/27/2008)

Too Much, Too Little, Too Late From The Fed: We Are All Keynesians Now! (10/30/2008)

So do I qualify as a pundit?

New START be damned, it’s the beginning of the END… an END to Armageddon!

In its March 27th editorial, “A worthy U.S.-Russia arms control treaty,” the Washington Post calls the new arms control agreement “a solid diplomatic achievement” for President Obama. While it is great to hear that the U.S. and Russia have agreed to slash their nuclear arsenals to the lowest levels in half a century, the reality is that the original START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was signed in 1991 towards the end of the Cold War!

Five years earlier, President Reagan had remarked privately to his Secretary of State, George Schultz, “Why wait until the end of the century for a world free of nuclear weapons?” Ten years into the new millennium and we are nowhere close to what President Obama more recently called as “a world without nuclear weapons." Nonetheless, the current accord is being dubbed a “New START” and the White House emphasized that this new treaty does not in any way restrict U.S. missile defense plans.

Meanwhile Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, at a White House Press Briefing on March 26th, made it clear that

“I don’t think anybody expects us to come anywhere close to zero nuclear weapons anytime soon.”

So I have a symbolic gesture that could go a long way to show the world that we are indeed serious about a nuclear weapons-free world. Given that over the past two decades, we have had a successful START I, followed by an un-ratified START II, and now another New START – I would imagine we should be way beyond the starting gate at this point. I therefore humbly suggest to President Obama that the new treaty be called END as in Eliminating the Nuclear Deterrent.

Symbolism plays a big role in the politics of the Middle East and Asia, where we face the biggest threat of nuclear proliferation. In fact, the Post concludes its March 27th editorial by lamenting that “it’s hard to see how new treaties will bring about the disarmament of North Korea or stop Tehran’s centrifuges.” If the U.S. and Russia were to sign an END Treaty, as opposed to a New START Treaty, we might just signal to the world that the end game is actually in sight. Also, in the age of the Internet and social media that demands remarkable content with catchy headlines, an “END to Armageddon” makes for one memorable tweet! But seriously, the END treaty will likely gain more popular acceptance because as the old adage goes “well begun is half done.” So, Mr. President, please let’s make it the END.

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of “Universal Healthcare”

It was barely a week ago that the Wall Street Journal published my letter, “Stock Markets Reflect Nation's Monetary And Fiscal Policies,” in which I had posited that

“if the Dow has gained 62% since its March 9, 2009, low, I would expect that the markets have done this after digesting the realities of President Obama's $787 billion stimulus package, his pending $1 trillion health-care bill, his projected $1.6 trillion budget deficit for fiscal 2010, and the end of the Bush tax cuts in 2011, etc.”

A few days later on Sunday night, I was watching the House debate ObamaCare and I could literally see history repeating itself. The last time Republicans voted lock, stock and barrel against a signature Democratic initiative by a near identical margin was the Clinton Administration’s Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993. Back then, the GOP had predicted similar dire consequences of a deep recession, significant job losses and horrendous deficits – by the time the 1990s ended, we had actually achieved diametrically opposite results!

Nonetheless, it was with trepidation that I waited for the markets to react on Monday to the reality of ObamaCare. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) had closed at 10735 on Friday evening and when it dipped 40 points at Monday’s opening bell, my heart sank. But that initial dip was more related to overnight trends in overseas markets according to most analysts. By the end of the day on Monday, the DJIA eventually closed up 50 points at 10785. On Tuesday, President Obama signed ObamaCare, officially known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, into law. Lo and behold, the DJIA went up another 100 odd points and closed at 10889. In fact, all three major stock market indices –S&P 500, Nasdaq composite, and DJIA–are now at 18 to 19 month highs!

So after nearly a century of trying, Democrats finally made a new, bold declaration of independence that we are indeed endowed with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of “Universal Healthcare.” At the end of the day, the American people are going to realize that Democratic presidents have always delivered on the seminal issues of our times including Social Security, Civil Rights, Voting Rights, Medicare and now Healthcare Reform.

As President Obama gets ready to hit the road to enlighten the American people on the immediate benefits that will flow from ObamaCare, it is imperative that he links the economics of healthcare to the future health of our economy. Also, he can make a simple case to his skeptics – wider coverage, healthier people, more economic output, and hence more jobs. It’s a “trickle down” argument that even conservatives will appreciate.

Finally on a lighter note, the passage of ObamaCare comes with fringe benefits such as self-imposed exile to Costa Rica for some prominent naysayers, the repudiation of tea over coffee as the quintessential American beverage, and hopefully the defeat of fear-mongering as a political tactic by deep-pocketed interests groups! Republicans might want to think twice about running on a repeal platform because a brand new USA Today/Gallup poll out today shows that Americans by a 49%-40% margin already favor ObamaCare as “a good thing.” Once the people get used to a good thing, they are not likely to give it up and candidates promising to take it away could face voter backlash – to be forewarned is to be forearmed! Let the healing begin!

Mossad on the Move

There has been much brouhaha in the media of late about an Israel vs. United States sparring contest. Following Vice President Biden’s recent contentious visit to Israel, Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times went apoplectic in his March 14th column, “Driving Drunk in Jerusalem.” He accused Israel of making it “look like America’s most dependent ally can push” us around. Then Robert Kagan got into the act with a contrarian viewpoint that not only empathized with Israel but also was more scathing in his judgment of President Obama’s overall foreign policy. In his March 17th column in the Washington Post, “Allies everywhere feeling snubbed by President Obama,” Mr. Kagan suggested that “Israelis shouldn't feel that they have been singled out.”

On the same day, John Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, spouted his usual hawkish tone in the Wall Street Journal. In “Israel and The Crisis With Obama,” Mr. Bolton pointed out that “Israel has sought to accommodate Mr. Obama on two critical issues: negotiations with Palestinians and Iranian nuclear weapons.” After glossing over the distraction of the Israeli settlements, Mr. Bolton reiterated his long-held position that “Americans must realize that allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons is empowering an existential threat to the Israeli state, to Arab governments in the region that are friendly to the U.S., and to long-term global peace and security.”

I suspect that a lot of Americans already recognize that a nuclear-armed Iran is a serious threat to world peace given some of the vile pronouncements of its holocaust-denying leaders. So let me expand on a conspiracy theory that I believe is playing out right now in the Middle East. First, it is almost impossible to believe that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was blindsided by his own Interior ministry during Vice President Biden’s recent visit. Second, the Israelis are too smart to expect anyone to believe as much. Thus, per their master plan, Israel’s Mossad began by intentionally blindsiding the British government with their infamous Dubai operation in January – assassinating a prominent Hamas leader using British identities – and is now making it appear like they can push the United States around as well.

This “modern-day David taking on two western Goliaths back-to-back" is a staged precursor to an imminent Israeli action aimed at taking out relevant Iranian nuclear facilities – without giving Iran any reason to suspect any involvement of the traditional Anglo-American alliance. If the Israeli airstrikes are successful, they will simultaneously achieve both of Mr. Bolton’s stated objectives and additionally contribute to a more favorable outcome in Iraq. It seems to me that Mossad is on the move – setting the stage for what Mr. Bolton has been propagating for a long time, which is “a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear program.” Israel recognizes that such action is the only way to achieve a lasting Middle East peace because it will:

1. Neutralize the Iranian threat and its ascendancy much to the satisfaction of the Arab nations and leadership in the Middle East.
2. Force the Palestinian leadership to jettison “proximity talks” in favor of “direct talks” with them towards a permanent peace settlement.
3. Ensure that Iran will no longer influence the formation of a pro-Iranian government in Iraq following recently concluded parliamentary elections there.

Americans can only hope that Israel gets it right this time just as it did with its pre-emptive strike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear facility back in 1981. Two decades later, we were unable to find WMD in Iraq in large part due to that prescient action. If the United Nations cannot convince Iran to abandon its pursuit of WMD, maybe the mighty arm of the Mossad will?

Yoo Must Be Kidding... but Toensing is not!

John Yoo, who is a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, was a Justice Department official from 2001-03 during the tumultuous post-9/11 years. Mr. Yoo became famous for co-authoring legal memos that saw the evolution of “enhanced interrogations techniques.”

In the February 24th edition of the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Yoo penned a rather pompous commentary, "My Gift to President Obama.” While Mr. Yoo might possess a great legal mind, it is definitely not suffused with humility. Despite being put off by his opening salvo, “Barack Obama may not realize it, but I may have just helped save his presidency,” I still read through his entire hubristic essay.

Most of his diatribe was dedicated to problems with the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), who ran an extended investigation into the CIA's detention and interrogation methods that had evolved from Mr. Yoo’s afore-mentioned legal opinions. In his lengthy invective, Mr. Yoo failed to address President Obama’s basic proposition, which rejects “as false the choice between our safety and our ideals,” and which Mr. Yoo even acknowledged upfront in his article.

Subsequently, Victoria Toensing, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration (1984-88) and chief counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee (1981-84), got into the act. In the March 2nd edition of the Wall Street Journal, Ms. Toensing followed up Mr. Yoo’s generous bestowal on President Obama with her take on the subject in "KSM Deserves Military Justice” – even contradicting President Reagan on this issue!

She began by acknowledging that “In the 1980s, the Reagan administration established a policy for trying terrorists in civilian courts.” And then added “I know the basis for its policy of trying terrorists in federal courts—and why it is no longer applicable.” She then went on to provide a lengthy historical but unconvincing argument – citing the case of Mohammed Ali Hamadi, one of the terrorists involved in the June 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847, which resulted in the murder of U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem. Mr. Hamadi was tried, convicted, jailed and released after a lengthy term by the German court system.

By comparison, her other citation “so-called 20th 9/11 hijacker Zacarious Moussaoui,” was tried by the U.S. criminal justice system and sentenced to six life terms without the chance of parole – a sentence he is now serving in a Supermax prison in Colorado. Nevertheless, Ms. Toensing concluded her article by saying, “We now have a system that provides due process while recognizing there are differences between enemy combatants and bank robbers. We should use it.” One wonders if Zacarious Moussaoui feels like a petty “bank robber” following his lifetime incarceration by the U.S. criminal justice system.

My point is that we are ill-served by ideologues on both sides of this debate, who insist on this false dichotomy between the abilities of our criminal justice system and what Mr. Yoo called “the president’s constitutional ability to fight the enemies that threaten our nation today.” Neither approach in and of its own is sacrosanct and sufficient – executing and winning this war on terrorism will require a judicious application of both, constitutionally granted executive power and the use of our world-famous legal system.

To conclude in the tenor of the Yoo-Toensing debate… So Let It Be Written, So Let It Be Done!

Google Me Once, Shame on You; Google Me Twice or More and Make the Google God Happy…

With apologies to President George W. Bush, I mangle that old adage even more to make a point. In this era of Search Engine Optimization and Social Media, it is becoming imperative for the LinkedIn individual to also show up on Facebook and Twitter as required ̶ for me it’s more about trying to control my online exposure (i.e., my digital footprint) than mere socializing (or as we still call it in the business world ̶ networking ̶ but that’s a topic for another day).

Nonetheless, to have any effective say on my digital footprint online, I would have to battle the Google God, which I know I cannot. Sidebar: How about I coin a new pet name for the Google God right now – the GooGod (one pronounces the name so that it almost sounds like “Good God” with the middle D silent!)

Now, back to my feeble attempt to appease the GooGod ̶ in the laundry list below, I am linking to the media that have published me in the past several years. Folks, feel free to click away on the links below and help the good stuff rise in the SERPs ̶ go ahead and Google me twice or more, so that the GooGod makes me look nice for sure! If that doesn’t work, I’ll go back to what good old Popeye used to say, “I yam what I yam” and live with it.

Jack Nargundkar in the New York Times on February 20, 2010, "An Apology, for What It’s Worth”

Jack Nargundkar in the International Herald Tribune on February 7, 2010, "A Shift for U.S. Foreign Policy”

Jack Nargundkar in the Wall Street Journal on January 22, 2010, "Lessons to Learn From Scott Brown's 'Tea Party'"

Jack Nargundkar in the Washington Post on December 31, 2009, "Navigating the nation's course after Flight 253"

Jack Nargundkar in the Wall Street Journal on November 21, 2009, "A Compromise on Muslim Freedom"

Jack Nargundkar in the New York Times on October 10, 2009, "Barack Obama, Nobel Peace Laureate”

Jack Nargundkar in the Washington Post on August 26, 2009, "A Changing Tide on the Wars"

Jack Nargundkar in the Business Week on May 1, 2009, “Securing Government Contracts”

Jack Nargundkar in Digital Signage Today on January 21, 2009, “Broadband creates digital signage opportunities in the SMB market”

Jack Nargundkar in the New York Times on January 20, 2009, "President Obama: A Day of Uplift”

Jack Nargundkar in the Wall Street Journal on September 27, 2008, "Is Marking to Market the Problem or Part of Solution?"

Jack Nargundkar in the New York Times on August 24, 2008, "Russia, Georgia and the West”

Jack Nargundkar in the New York Times on April 14, 2008, "Do Asians Really Want a Red-State America?"

Jack Nargundkar in Digital Signage Today on March 24, 2008, “Digital signage strategies for small-to-medium businesses”

Jack Nargundkar in the Washington Post on November 6, 2007, "If Sen. Clinton Were President Clinton"

Jack Nargundkar in the Wall Street Journal on October 15, 2007, "Elections in Pakistan Don't Equal Democracy"

Jack Nargundkar in the New York Times on October 3, 2007, "Anita Hill vs. Clarence Thomas, Redux"

Jack Nargundkar in the New York Times on July 27, 2007, "What Do We Leave Behind in Iraq?"

Jack Nargundkar in the New York Times on June 22, 2007, "Vetoing Stem Cells, Vetoing Life"

Jack Nargundkar in the New York Times on March 8, 2007, "A Verdict for Libby, a Cloud for the White House"

Jack Nargundkar in the New York Times on November 3, 2006, "A Man, a Cab, a Cellphone, a Laptop"

Jack Nargundkar in the Wall Street Journal on October 24, 2006, "Counting War Dead Is Difficult -- Therefore, Let's Not Exaggerate"

Jack Nargundkar in the Wall Street Journal on October 6, 2006, "Musharraf May Be Our Fair-Haired Boy Now . . . But Watch Out"

Jack Nargundkar in the New York Times on September 4, 2006, "Are We Seeing a Half-Empty Glass?"

Jack Nargundkar in the Washington Post on July 29, 2006, "Still Dreaming"

Jack Nargundkar in the New York Times on March 8, 2006, "Bush and the Nuclear Subcontinent"

Jack Nargundkar in the New York Times on January 8, 2006, "Other Voices: How The Times Handled the Surveillance Story"

Jack Nargundkar in the Washington Post on April 11, 2005, "No Individual Blamed"

Jack Nargundkar in the New York Times on April 1, 2005, "A Life Ends, and a Nation Pauses to Reflect"

Jack Nargundkar in the New York Times on December 16, 2004, "Medals at Odds With Reality of War"

Jack Nargundkar in the Washington Post on May 27, 2004, "Punctuate a Comma Date"

Jack Nargundkar in the Washington Post on February 4, 2004, "Screening Bush: The Winners"

Jack Nargundkar in the Wall Street Journal on January 27, 2004, "Hey, Big Spender, Spend a Little Less"

Jack Nargundkar in the Business Week on December 29, 2003, "The Challenge From India"

Jack Nargundkar in the Washington Post on December 5, 2003, "'Cut and Run' and the Right Approach in Iraq"

Jack Nargundkar in the Wall Street Journal on May 2, 2003, "Don't Let Conservatives Define Liberals' Views"

Jack Nargundkar in the Washington Post on April 12, 2003, "Next Steps on Iraq"

Jack Nargundkar in the Wall Street Journal on January 8, 1998, "Behind ’90s Success Is Fiscal Discipline"

Jack Nargundkar in the Business Week on March 17, 1997," WEBCASTING: A FEW TANGLES"

Jack Nargundkar in the Business Week on October 25, 1993," THOUGHTS FOR CHAIRMAN GERSTNER"

Jack Nargundkar in the Wall Street Journal on August 12, 1993, "Dear Laura Tyson…"

Jack Nargundkar in the Wall Street Journal on October 19, 1992, "Reap the Silicon Whirlwind"

Jack Nargundkar in the Business Week on July 13, 1992," SELL THE GREEN CARD TO THE AVERAGE JOE"

Axis of Faith

Mahatma Gandhi’s strategy of non-violence might have humbled the British empire of yesteryear, but such subtlety and discretion have little to no effect in this age of terrorism. India’s lack of a military response to the “26/11” Mumbai attacks might have gained it credibility in the western world but have made it appear weak and ineffective in its own backyard. China’s recent verbal saber-rattling over its long-standing border dispute with India is a case in point.

The world discerns between India’s post-26/11 fatalism and America’s post-9/11 realism. However, if India wants to be seriously considered as a major economic and military power in the 21st century, it needs to revamp its 20th century “non-aligned” foreign policy just like it overhauled its antiquated socialist economic model in 1991. India’s economic gains since then are clearly visible to the world; however, its inability to simultaneously defend itself against modern-day terrorism and communist China’s expansionist designs has the potential to mire it in an eternal crisis that can only suppress its growth as a 21st century power.

As far the United States is concerned, there are two significant reasons that it needs to revisit its Cold War foreign policy paradigm:

1. Thirty-odd years of economic engagement with China has not resulted in a concomitant shift in China’s totalitarian political structure – the U.S. should have embarked on a mid-course correction in its China policy shortly after the end of the Cold War in 1991. China’s unchecked power and blatant ambition could result in a New Cold War situation with the western world in the next couple of decades.
2. After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, the U.S. not only abandoned Pakistan, but further slapped it with the Pressler Amendment sanctions – which banned most economic and military assistance to Pakistan unless the President certified annually that Pakistan did not possess nuclear weapons. Any attempt to mollify Pakistan after two decades of neglect will eventually prove to be a waste of time and energy – the Pakistani people no longer trust the U.S. and never will.

Notwithstanding Pakistan’s current offensive against its own homegrown Taliban, it remains a fragile democracy that can be usurped at any time by its powerful military. As soon as President Obama starts winding down military operations in Afghanistan next year, we will see an attendant increase in Pakistan’s meddlesome activities along its eastern border with India. Based on China’s ongoing problems with the United States and India, Pakistan must already be hedging its bets – by renewing old ties with and seeking longer term refuge under Beijing’s expanding Asia-Pacific umbrella.

Thus, in this rapidly evolving new power structure, it only makes sense that the U.S. seek stronger ties with like-minded nations in the Asia-Pacific region – that go beyond its traditional Cold War allies such as Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea. It is imperative for the United States and India to become more closely aligned from a political, economic, technological and military standpoint. Keeping the world’s oldest and largest democracies together – in a new long term “axis of faith” partnership – should become the foundation of 21st century U.S. foreign policy.