Cause for concern from Pakistan:

Yousuf Gilani, Pakistan’s prime minister, has escaped an apparent assassination attempt after shots were fired at his motorcade in Rawalpindi, officials said.

Kamal Shah, Pakistan’s interior secretary, said Gilani and his staff were not in the car when the shots were fired at the bullet-proof car.

The Taliban claimed responsibility.

This is especially bad news given that presidential elections are scheduled for this Saturday, when the PPP may solidify its dominance by putting Bhutto’s widower Ali Zardari into the presidency. That victory may not go over well in some parts of the country - and with Nawaz Sharif’s exit from the governing coalition recently, the PPP is more vulnerable. The loss of any of its leaders would speed up the ongoing destabilization of Pakistan. And that’s not something we need.

This week, we want to know if John McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin as his running mate was a good choice, but first, the results from our last poll.

In our last poll, we asked you what the appropriate response to Russia’s invasion of Georgia is. 41% of you said diplomatic pressure was the right course, and 35% of you said we shouldn’t do anything. Not surprisingly, only 7% of you were for international military intervention, with only 4% for unilateral intervention. 14% of you said UN sanctions were appropriate.

This week, we want you to weigh in on McCain’s gamble. By choosing Sarah Palin, he’s chosen an extremely inexperienced and scandle-ridden candidate, but one who might play very well with certain demographics like women and social conservatives. So, was Sarah Palin a good pick for McCain? Or does it show arrogance, rashness, and lack of judgement? Voting begins now in the sidebar at your left.

With four months and a few days left, I have little faith that the Bush administration will achieve its stated goal of negotiating peace in Israel/Palestine by the end of 2008. Rice, finishing up her 17th trip to the region in the last two years, says that peace is still possible. But with Israel’s settlement activity in the West Bank “doubling” recently, according to the Israeli group peace now, major issues block the peace process.

Statements from Rice on settlement activity are vague and spineless, while those of Israeli Foreign Minister (and possible Olmert successor) Tzipi Livni are condescending and counterproductive:

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking during a visit to the region to push forward peace negotiations, said settlement activity was not “helpful”, and said “anything that undermines confidence between the parties ought to be avoided”.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who is a favourite to replace scandal-hit Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said settlement building had been reduced “in a most dramatic way” - although she did not specify the timeframe she was referring to - and was limited to “small activities”.

“Israeli government policy is not to expand settlements, it’s not to build new settlements, it’s not to confiscate land from Palestinians,” she said.

She urged the Palestinians not to use the issue as “an excuse” to avoid talks, but also said she understood their “frustration”.

If the Israeli government denies problems and belittles those who bring them up, it’s hard to see peace moving forward.

(On a different note, the New York Times calls Rice’s remarks “criticism” - take a look and see what you think.)

Sources also say that Israel is insisting on Hamas’ exit from power in Gaza before going through with any peace deal. That, I would say, is extremely likely. If that’s a precondition, we will not see peace any time soon.

And we can see the consequences of letting the conflict fester: across the region, tension continues. Iran says it “can hit Israel with missiles if attacked.” Obviously Iran is being provocative here, but it’s silly to say that a peace agreement in Israel/Palestine would not help defuse some of the tension. With Iran also threatening US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have a stake in the peace process as well. Go ahead, call me an appeaser - and then you can explain exactly how the current strategy of no real diplomacy is working out and keeping our troops safe. (And tensions with Russia aren’t helping matters in the Middle East either.) Are we going to fight everybody, or are we going to start actually solving problems?

Last but not least, (our ally) Egypt calls on Israel to stop making threats against Lebanon.

Hear that, Condi? That’s the sound of all of your and your boss’s meaningless rhetoric sliding down the toilet.

A UN report released today informs us that opium production,a crucial source of funds for the Taliban has dropped in Afghanistan.

Why?

The report’s authors say they are two key factors to explain the countrywide reduction in poppy production.

One reason is strong political and religious leadership, particularly in the eastern province of Nangahar, for pressuring farmers not to grow the crop.

The other is the drought this year, which led to a large-scale crop failure in the north and north-west of the country.

Which of those two reasons seems stronger to you? “Pressure” - with unspecified effects - mainly in one province, or drought, whose effects can be measured more thoroughly? My money’s on drought. I think the UN mentioned the “pressure” just to toss everyone a bone - hell, six months ago the UN was predicting that this year’s crop would come close to last year’s record levels, and wasn’t waxing too optimistic about the efforts of local leadership to stomp out production. Maybe the crops just failed.

Also, the center of opium production in Afghanistan, Helmand province, is a place where we appoint former Taliban commanders as local governors. Is that the kind of “local pressure” that will stop cultivation?

As for eradication, the UN attempts to stay neutral.

Another way of reducing poppy production is eradication of the crop.

However, the report says there was a dramatic reduction in crop eradication - down to 25% compared with last year.

This is often a dangerous job, inflaming locals as their harvest is ruined, and a number of Afghans were killed while doing this work.

They’re damn right it’s dangerous - it’s not just Afghans who don’t want to participate in eradication efforts, it’s our own Marines. Military commanders, who rightly fear alienating the local population if they destroy crops, put our troops in a catch-22: allow the crops to remain, and come up against firepower purchased with opium money further down the road; or destroy the crops and face immediate danger. It’s all part of the shortsighted strategy in Afghanistan, says Barnett Rubin:

An expert on Afghanistan’s drug trade, Barnett Rubin, complained that the Marines are being put in such a situation by a “one-dimensional” military policy that fails to integrate political and economic considerations into long-range planning.

“All we hear is, not enough troops, send more troops,” said Rubin, a professor at New York University. “Then you send in troops with no capacity for assistance, no capacity for development, no capacity for aid, no capacity for governance.”

This whole debate about opium also underscores how much we’ve misunderstood the Taliban by sensationalizing them. In so many ways (but not all), they’re like a mafia; that’s particularly true when we read about their “protection fees” and “taxes” on opium growers that let the Taliban walk away with drug money to the tune of $100, $200, even $400 million last year, according to some. Rubin is right; more troops is not the answer. Better strategies are the next step: killing fewer civilians, adopting integrated solutions to military/development issues, and broader diplomatic engagement throughout the region.

Defying all odds and Israeli threats of force to stop them, two boats of the Free Gaza Movement reached port in Gaza earlier today:

Two boats carrying dozens of international activists sailed into the Gaza Strip Saturday in defiance of an Israeli blockade, receiving a jubilant welcome from thousands of Palestinians.

The boats docked in Gaza City’s tiny port after a two-day journey marred by communications troubles and rough seas. As they arrived, children swarmed around and leaped into the water in joy, while thousands of cheering residents looked on from the shore.

It is the first time that anyone has broken the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza, in force since Gazans chose Hamas to represent them in 2006 elections.

The boats were greeted by scores of Gaza fishing vessels which sailed out to meet the peace activists who began their journey in Crete two weeks ago and reached Gaza after a 180 mile, 30 hour journey from Cyprus.

This is bad, though not unexpected: Nawaz Sharif is pulling out of Pakistan’s ruling coalition. Disagreements over the issue of reinstating judges fired by Musharraf as well as Ali Zardari’s submission of himself as candidate for president drove Sharif from his alliance with Zardari’s (and his late wife Benazir Bhutto’s) PPP. Sharif’s decision already sent some shock waves through the economy, forcing the Pakistani rupee even lower, and it may have some huge consequences for US-Pakistan relations. With the Bush administration wary of Pakistan’s civilian leaders even before their schism, now we may see even stronger pressure for military escalation against Taliban militants inside Pakistan, rather than negotiations. Zardari’s pessimistic pronouncement that the Taliban are winning the war may be a sign that he is moving closer to the Bush administration’s position.

For the moment, Al Jazeera reports, the PPP has enough seats to hold its coalition together, so Sharif’s withdrawal will not immediately force new elections. The upcoming presidential race, scheduled for early September, is the real problem.

“We are now looking at a situation where there is going to be a potentially bruising presidential race,” Mike Hanna, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Islamabad, said.

“You are looking at a situation where the electoral process is going to be divided … a process that should have been the shining light and the final move towards re-eastablishing democracy is going to be a process that threatens to create more and more division within a country it was trying to unite.”

But the New York Times’ take is that Zardari may end up the big winner of all this. His support in the national assembly and provincial parliaments, who decide the presidential race, may be enough for him to survive without Sharif - especially if he can count on increased American support. But where does that leave him, if he gains the presidency at the price of his independence from Bush? Wouldn’t that just make him a slightly more legitimate Musharraf? Will he become just another funnel for American dollars that fund, instead of fight, terror?

What a mess. Reuters has some scenarios if you want more.

Kashmir started to get bad a few weeks ago, with increasing sectarian/ethnic tensions and the death of a major separatist leader, which lead to massive Muslim protests and tensions between India and Pakistan. This week saw more protests, with one yesterday drawing crowds in the hundreds of thousands.

The New York Times has a somewhat sensationalized report on the protests, dwelling on the imagery of “angry young Muslims,” but if you cut past that the article does underline the threat to Indian-Pakistani relations that the Kashmir crisis poses. They also cite the disconcerting news that Pakistani and Indian forces have clashed near the Line of Separation.

Separatists have seized the day, it seems, and have real popular support. Where this goes is anyone’s guess, and beyond my abilities to predict, but it’s definitely something for everyone to keep an eye on.

Following closely on the heels of 10 French casualties in Afghanistan and a visit by Sarkozy to Kabul to reaffirm French commitment to the war, we learn via the New York Times that not all French leaders - or Frenchmen - share that sentiment. In late September, the French parliament will debate France’s involvement in Afghanistan and then vote on whether to continue deployment or not.

The vote would take place under new rules requiring parliamentary approval for any deployment overseas that lasts for more than four months; Mr. Fillon will make the Afghan deployment retroactive, even though it began before the constitutional changes.

On Tuesday, the foreign and defense ministers, Bernard Kouchner and Hervé Morin, will testify before a special joint session of the foreign and defense committees of the lower house on France’s Afghanistan policy.

Mr. Sarkozy has strongly defended the need for France to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan alongside its Western allies as part of the fight against terrorism and for the rights of Afghan women. But his promise last April to commit another 700 French troops, bringing the total to nearly 3,000, was not popular.

After the 10 French killed this week, and another 21 wounded – the worst death toll for French forces in an incident since 1983 – French media has lavished attention on Afghanistan, driving Georgia and Russia off the front pages. The dead, wounded and their families have received much coverage, and Mr. Sarkozy presided over an elegant memorial service for the dead on Thursday at the Invalides.

Now I don’t know much about French internal politics, but this move seems to signal an even lower ebb of enthusiasm for the war on the part of our European allies. The Times paints the vote as largely symbolic, saying the legislature will likely approve continued deployment, but American leaders should pay attention to such symbols. Such a public expression of reluctance and doubt about the mission in Afghanistan confirms what I’ve been saying recently - we will not see increased troop commitments from
European countries, and we may even see reductions.

A friend argues that agreements for a timetable in Iraq might even provide political cover for a complete European withdrawal from Afghanistan. He may be right. In any event, the burden remains with us.

I’ve been following with interest the Free Gaza Movement effort to break the Israeli Navy’s blockade of Gaza by sailing two unarmed sloops from Cyprus to the Palestinian enclave. Due to stormy weather, the project has been forced to put back their scheduled departure date from several days ago.

Israel is ratcheting up the pressure on participants in the voyage. Haaretz reveals that the Israeli foreign ministry has released a legal white paper claiming its navy has the right to use force against the ships:

Defense officials favor forcefully blocking two boats which a group of U.S.-based activists plan to sail to Gaza to protest what they call “the Israeli siege on the Strip,” Haaretz has learned.

…Allowing the ships to reach the Gaza coastline could create a dangerous precedent.

…A position paper by the Foreign Ministry’s legal department says Israel has the right to use force against the demonstrators as part of the Oslo Accords, which names Israel as responsible for Gaza’s territorial waters.

This seems typically out of proportion to the “threat” represented by the enterprise. And one wonders what “dangerous precedent” it could create? Hamas militants disguised as peace activists smuggling Iranian missiles into Gaza by boat? It seems ludicrous that Israeli gunboats will have their weapons targeted on a group of defenseless peace activists attempting to do something no more dangerous than deliver two tons of medical supplies to the local population.

I haven’t had time yet to sit down and write up my thoughts on what Musharraf’s exit means, but one thing can be said without much meditation: Pakistan is going through a very uncertain time. And nowhere is that more clear than in the recent wave of violence.

Today, we read that “the deadliest [attack] on a military site in Pakistan’s history,” the bombing of a munitions factory earlier today, has killed at least 63 people. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility.

A spokesman for the Pakistani Taleban said they had carried out the attacks, which he said were a response to army violence in the country’s north-west.

Speaking to the BBC, Maulvi Umar of the Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan said the bombings in Wah were in retaliation for the deaths of “innocent women and children” in the tribal area of Bajaur.

He said more attacks would take place in Pakistan’s major urban conurbations unless the army withdrew from the tribal areas.

Pakistani Prime Minister Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani promised to punish the perpetrators.

(The absurdity of trying to justify attacks that kill women and children by referencing other attacks that killed women and children should be clear. The rationale of this Taliban spokesman is too offensive to pass by without comment.)

Heavy fighting has taken place between the Taliban and the Pakistani army in Bajaur, near the border with Afghanistan, for the last few weeks. Militants have launched fierce attacks on military forts in the region (see next link), just as they did in the spring - when they succeeded in capturing two forts. Then as now, I would call this outright war; low-level war, if you prefer, but war all the same.

Two days ago Pakistan witnessed another deadly attack, this one at a hospital in the North West Frontier Province. The bombing seemed to target Shi’a, who had gathered at the hospital after a Shi’a leader was assassinated. That attack added to fears of rising sectarian tension; this week also saw renewed violence between rival tribes in the Kurram region.

As many have pointed out, all this violence reinforces the urgent need for cooperation among Pakistan’s ruling parties. I’m afraid that if they fail, some military minds might contemplate taking matters into their own hands.

And as if all this wasn’t enough, Pakistan is still being hit by missiles launched from Afghanistan. Who do you think is behind that? And do you think, if one’s aim was to stabilize Pakistan and get violence under control, that such attacks help or hurt?