Results tagged “NATO” from SpyTalk

Ex-Saudi Spy Chief: Kill Bin Laden Then Leave Afghanistan

By Jeff Stein | June 1, 2009 4:21 PM | | Comments (0)

Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal, an influential member of the Saudi royal family and former head of its intelligence service, says the U.S. should kill Osama Bin Laden and then " get the hell out" of Afghanistan.

Turki, who was also Saudi ambassador to the United States from 2005 to April 2009, likened al Qaeda to a "cult"  and its leader to a  "hydra head with venomous snakes."

To destroy the cult, he said, "you have to cut off the head."

"After that," he advised, "declare victory...then get the hell out of  Afghanistan."

Tags: Afghanistan, Afghan_War, assassination, crown_prince, Faisal, hydra-head, intelligence operations, interrogation, iran, iraq, Karzai, King_Faisal_Center_for_Research_and_Islamic_Studies, NATO, NPR, Osama_Bin_Laden, Pakistan, peace_talks, Prince_Turki, Qaeda, Saudi_Arabia, Special_Operations, Sylvia_Poggioli, terrorism, Zawahiri

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Obama's Kennedy Moment in Afghanistan

By Jeff Stein | March 26, 2009 10:50 PM | | Comments (4)

I had to laugh when I heard our next ambassador to Afghanistan say, "every poll will show that 90 percent of the people firmly reject the Taliban."

You can't make this stuff up.   

Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry may be a great warrior, a very smart guy, and turn out to be a  very fine ambassador. But that's a bunch of baloney.

Tags: Afghanistan, David_Halberstam, Hamlet_Evaluation_Survey, hearts_and_minds, Jere_Van_Dyke, John_F._Kennedy, John_P._Murtha, Karl_W._Eikenberry, KCBS, NATO, Obama, pacification, Pakistan, Predator, Richard_Holbrooke, Rufus_Phillips, Spencer_Ackerman, The_Best_and_the_Brightest, The_Washington_Independent, Vietnam

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Ivo Daalder, Probable NATO Envoy, Tosses a Few Darts in New Book

By Jeff Stein | February 3, 2009 2:53 PM | | Comments (0)

Ivo Daalder, another former Clinton White House official in line for jobs in the new administration, is being tipped to be President Obama's ambassador to NATO, a repair job if there ever was one, considering the "old Europe" cracks that came out of the Bush administration.

But Daalder, a nuclear nonproliferation specialist who ran the Europe desk in Clinton's  National Security Council, is nothing if not diplomatic, as a new book he's coauthored shows.

Tags: Brookings, Daalder, I.M. Destler, NATO, President Bill Clinton, William Cohen

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Why Not Get the Saudis to Send Troops to Afghanistan?

By Jeff Stein | December 22, 2008 3:30 PM | | Comments (2)

Defense Secretary Gates has spent much of his term wheedling, cajoling and begging our NATO allies to send more troops to Afghanistan.

I've got an idea: Why not get the Saudis to pony up, say, 20-30,000 troops for Afghanistan, about the same number that Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said Sunday might be added to the 30,000 we already have there?

After all, we saved the Saudis' bacon in the first Gulf War. And they seemed to have figured out that arresting al Qaeda operatives in the Kingdom is a better alternative to sheltering them. (Arresting terrorist financiers, of course, is another matter.)

And while we're at it, why not demand that all those royal princes who've made a private flying club out of their shiny American F-15s peel off to Afghanistan, where they might be put to the use they were intended for?

They've got maybe hundreds of F-15s parked on the runways, and 75,000 troops in their standing army. 

Oh, sure, they won't do it. They'd be killing fellow Sunni fanatics, yada-yada.

But why not put the Saudis on the spot, at least make them explain their reluctance to fight in their own interests?  After all, they've got as much at stake in Afghanistan -- maybe more -- as we do.

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has sworn to destroy the Saudi royal family for allowing American bases to despoil the "land of the two Holy Mosques," Mecca and Medina, Islam's holiest shrines. 

In a 1998 interview with John Miller of ABC News, bin Laden said of the royals, "They sin and do not value God's gift. We predict their destruction and dispersal."  

So why don't the Saudi take the fight to al Qaeda, which has carried out a score of attacks inside the Kingdom and wants to topple the royal family? Why should we do it for them?

To paraphrase President John F. Kennedy's remarks about Vietnam, why should we send American boys to do what the Saudis boys should be doing for themselves? 

Tags: Adm. Mike Mullen, military aid, NATO, Pakistan, Robert Gates, Saudi Arabia

Time and NATO Will Help Obama Finesse Russia Threat

By Jeff Stein | November 7, 2008 12:03 PM | | Comments (1)

At least on one front, President-elect Barack Obama is going to get some help in defusing a looming confrontation with Russia when NATO foreign ministers gather in Brussels in early December.

Signs are that the ministers are going to blunt the quest of the Bush administration to bring the former Soviet states of Georgia and Ukraine into membership in the Western collective defense organization.

That could remove at least one thorn from the paw of the Russian bear, who Washington needs in its struggles with Iran and preventing nuclear terrorism.

Moscow has also announced it's installing missiles near Poland in response to the Bush administration's plan to install anti-missile sites in Eastern Europe.

Georgia's case wasn't helped today by a report that it may have fired first on the breakaway province of South Ossetia last August, precipitating a Russian invasion.  Some 10,000 demonstrators took to the streets of Tbilisi Friday to protest Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's handling of the war. 

"Ukraine and Georgia were previously anticipated to take the next step toward full NATO membership, attaining Membership Action Plans (MAPs), at an upcoming December NATO Ministerial," writes Kyle Atwell at The Atlantic Review. 

"However, Georgia's conflict with Russia and the destabilizing, perennial internal political squabbles between President Yushchenko and Prime Minister Tymoshenko in Ukraine has made a 2008 MAP for either country all but impossible to imagine."

The White House needs a "Plan B," argues Steven Piper, a former American ambassador to Ukraine.

"Rather than pursuing a quest certain to end in diplomatic failure, Washington needs a Plan B. It should aim to shape a December outcome that sends positive signals to Kyiv and Tbilisi while making clear that NATO does not concede Ukraine or Georgia to Russia's geopolitical orbit."  

As for the missiles, time is Obama's greatest ally -- for the moment. 

"According to military analysts in Moscow, Russia's whole stock of Iskander missiles -- the type Mr. Medvedev is proposing sending to Kaliningrad -- are currently deployed near the Georgian border," the BBC reports.

"Russia is unlikely to move those, so it will need to manufacture new ones and that will be time consuming and expensive."    

Tags: BBC, Bush, Georgia, Iskander, NATO, Obama, Russia, Steven Piper, Ukraine