That Karzai’s been taking money from Iran has been all over the news. This is not a surprise. Anyone who has watched Casino would have seen it coming. As Joe Pesci (Nicky Santoro) sagely observed:

You gotta know that a guy who helps you steal – even if you take care of him real well – he’s gonna steal a little extra for himself. Makes sense, don’t it?

Nicky was referring to casino workers who were stealing from the casino owners. How does this relate to Afghanistan? Karzai has been wearing an “Open for Business” sign around his neck since George W. Bush & Co.”persuaded” him to become Afghanistan’s president. That he would take bribes from pretty much anyone who offers them is exactly what Nicky would expect.

Jackson Diehl at the Washington Post seems convinced that a new technology can take down the Iranian regime. He knows this because the the makers of the new technology have told him so in what I think is very humble language:

The companies’ volunteer founders and operators say that if they could get $30 million in funding they could ramp up their server networks to accommodate millions more users — and effectively destroy the Internet controls of Iran and most other dictatorships.

Got it? Give us 30 million and we will end monitoring of the internet over the world!  The technology in question is UltraReach, a type of circumvention software that allows users to evade internet firewalls.  The software works well enough, but the company’s servers keep crashing when too many people use it.  This causes them to limit the amount of people who can use it, and limit the amount of sites users can visit through it.   Diehl seems to agree with the makers of the software that they need more money, and he takes the State Department to task for not spending the money quicker to beef up the servers. Read the rest of this entry…

I was writing about the broader Middle East tonight (i.e., the Middle East, North Africa, Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan) and my language was very unwieldy. The problem is that we don’t have any term that refers to these countries, despite their importance (singly and as a group) for US foreign policy. The Arab world doesn’t work as Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are not Arab countries. The Muslim world doesn’t work because lots of Muslims live outside these countries (think India, Indonesia, and Nigeria). The best I can think of is to use an acronym. Everyone knows MENA (Middle East and North Africa), so how about MENAPIA (Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan)? I like it because it rhymes. MENAPIA, MENAPIA!

Getting stoned is not fun. PS: The gruesome picture is a prop.

Readers of this blog know that I am not a fan of the war in Afghanistan. That being said, I am not on board with the increasing calls that we leave. It’s not that I think its a good idea to stay or a bad idea to leave. Rather, the answer is I don’t know what would happen and that’s a problem.

Leaving Afghanistan could lead to renewed civil war between the Pasthun (i.e., Taliban) and non-Pasthuns (an Afghan solution for certain, but likely a very bloody one). It could lead to greater meddling by other countries in the region, primarily India, Iran, and Pakistan. Either could be highly destabilizing and most certainly could have consequences for the US (e.g., increasing tension between India and Pakistan). If parts of this sound familiar, they should because some of this  happened the last time the US hastily abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviets left. Perhaps the negative consequences of these scenarios don’t justify pouring more money into the country. I don’t know the answer to these questions and until we get some clarity on them, calls to leave Afghanistan strike me as irresponsible.

Trying to track the relationships between the major forces in Afghanistan is making my head spin. Consider:

• ISAF is supporting Karzai’s government against the Taliban.
• Karzai wants to negotiate with the Taliban.
• Pakistan is ISAF’s partner (remember the West Point speech?).
• Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is BFF with the Quetta Shura, the Taliban supreme leadership council, headed by Mullah Omar.
• India (like Pakistan) is an ally of ISAF and the Karzai government.
• Part of the reason Pakistan supports the Taliban in Afghanistan is to get cooperation on fighting India.
• Iran, apparently, supports both Karzai and the Taliban.

How did we let ourselves get dragged into this mess?

This reminds me of freedom fries, freedom toast, and freedom vanilla ice cream: using a silly distraction as a cheap way to score political points at home. With an increasingly restive population and growing threats of sanctions, I would figure that the Iranian government has enough to keep itself busy. Appartenly, I was wrong.