“Pakistani Intelligence and the CIA: Mutual Distrust and Suspicion is republished with permission of STRATFOR.”

Pakistani Intelligence and the CIA:

Mutual Distrust and Suspicion

March 3, 2011 | 0956 GMT 

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By Scott Stewart

On March 1, U.S. diplomatic sources reportedly told Dawn News that a proposed exchange with the Pakistani government of U.S. citizenRaymond Davis for Pakistani citizen Aafia Siddiqui was not going to happen. Davis is a contract security officer working for the CIA who was arrested by Pakistani police on Jan. 27 following an incident in which he shot two men who reportedly pointed a pistol at him in an apparent robbery attempt. Siddiqui was arrested by the Afghan National Police in Afghanistan in 2008 on suspicion of being linked to al Qaeda.

During Siddiqui’s interrogation at a police station, she reportedly grabbed a weapon from one of her interrogators and opened fire on the American team sent to debrief her. Siddiqui was wounded in the exchange of fire and taken to Bagram air base for treatment. After her recovery, she was transported to the United States and charged in U.S. District Court in New York with armed assault and the attempted murder of U.S. government employees. Siddiqui was convicted in February 2010 and sentenced in September 2010 to 86 years in prison.

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The second city of Libya fell under the control of anti-government forces as of Monday.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the LDPR and Deputy Speaker of the lower house of the Russian Parliament called for Gadhafi to stop the violence and move to Moscow.  The question here would be if Zhirinovsky extended this offer at the behest of the Russian government.

The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement: “We call on all sides in Libya to peacefully resolve existing problems, on the path to a responsible and broad national dialogue and the conduct of necessary reforms,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “In any case, the violence must be stopped.”

The United Nations and the Arab League called upon Libya to halt its armed aggression against the Libyan people who have been demonstrating.  Both organizations scheduled meetings on the situation in Libya for Tuesday, February 22.  The UN meeting would be a session of the UN Security Council.

It would appear that most governments in the region lack popular support as evidenced by the extent of the demonstrations.  The pace of events is truly breathtaking and CNSIS will continue to study events as they unfold.  It is important to compare and contrast events in each country to those of other states.  There are differences as well as similarities.  The Egyptian military is acting quite differently from that of Libya, though the Libyan Armed Forces are not uniform in their support for the regime and many have defected to the opposition and some to other countries.  Probably, if one had to point to a likely result of the political transformations underway, it would be that there will be governments that will have a different view of their national interest with respect to cooperation with the United States.  Islam will likely play a greater role in public life. These possible trends will be different in every country and some regimes that survive may be forced to bend to popular will by changing their foreign relations, with Jordan being one such example.  Some commentators view Islamic religious political programs as distinct from secular/nationalist ones.  Historically this has been largely accurate and definitely true in the case of Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood tried to assassinate President Nasser thus unleashing decades of repression against the Brotherhood, which indeed modified its approach.  However, might we not see the development of political movements that combine features of nationalism and political Islam.  Certainly there is the possibility that even if parties/movements stay distinct, that the new age of new coalition politics might produce this result.  Perhaps Egypt is moving in this direction.  The new constitution will be crucial particularly in terms of the power that the new presidency will have and what will the role of the military be.  At the present moment, it would appear that in Egypt at least, the various groups want to share power, though the final alignment is yet to be determined.  The Armed Forces are not likely to cede all power and be at the mercy of a civilian government, and yet, they do not want to govern.

According to preliminary research by CNSIS , only two ambassadors were at the swearing in ceremony of internationally designated election usurper Gbagbo in Ivory Coast:  the ambassador from Angola and the ambassador from Lebanon.

The president of Angola finds himself in disagreement with the United Nations and has called for new elections in Ivory Coast.  Angolan diplomacy is on the rise. Check back with CNSIS for more details in the days to come.

President Ben Ali of Tunisia has fled to Saudi Arabia, abandoning power amidst riots that were fueled by anger related to unemployment and apparently commenced with the suicide of a young man who came to grief with officialdom because he was selling fruit without a license.  Ben Ali came to power in 1987.  Tunisia gained independence from France in 1956.

In the previous article a series of questions were posited with respect to North Korea’s intentions and goals.  Questions come before answers, or at least they should.  Upon  setting forth the fundamental questions the next step in the process is to establish a framework or construct that would enable one to interpret if not establish with certitude the political goals of the actor in question, in this case a nation-state. Upon reflection, this author has decided to recur to a terminology and methodology from a half-century ago, or so.. The term is brinkmanship, also occasionally spelled brinksmanship, and was apparently coined by US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to describe a strategic approach to statecraft, manifested in particular incidents, during the Cold War with the USSR, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Brinkmanship may be a variation on the word gamesmanship and could be defined as going to the limit without actually going to war, done deliberately so as obtain a particular advantage, concession or outcome.  The goal is to make the opponent back off or back down especially by creating the impression that one is willing to, or is actually going to resort to even more extreme actions, including war. Escalation is a part of this as well.  A state that uses brinkmanship will often create a crisis.  Does this describe the North Korean approach to international relations?  If it does, have they been successful?  Is it possible to know if a state intended to go to war?  What would be the consequence of one side always backing down?