Full plate this a.m. BTW the BBC says the Jordanians killed 4, not 3. Thanks for the excellent links as usual.

Dan, you may find this interview with Sistani's rep. in LA worth your while.

And then there's this bizarreness.

Bizarre isn't the word. With an Islamist MMA parlimentarian as "intermediary," Pakistan basically pulls its troops out of the area and pledges non-interference in return for unverifiable promises.

Al-Qaeda's base across the border in Pakistan is now officially safe.

Am I crazy to see a link between the Basra and Riyadh attacks? Same MO (suicide car bombs), same target (police infrastructure), same day - the similarities seem noteworthy. Or am I missing something - or am I victim of an overactive imagination?

(I notice, after writing this but before posting, that Debka says the same, and suggests that further attacks were foiled).

Al-Qaeda's base across the border in Pakistan is now officially safe.

Agreed.

Hmmm. It seems to me that we need to figure out a way to convince the ISI once and for all that it is not in its interest to keep waging its proxy war against India. There really needs to be a political settlement over Kashmir.

But the problem is that, like in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, our best relationships seem to be on a military-to-military or intelligence-to-intelligence level.

And I really don't trust the GID and the ISI.

We need to figure out how to strengthen the civilian institutions of these regimes at the expense of the military elements, without compromising our security in the short term.

A tough nut to crack.

Pratike:

Joe pretty much explained the situation, but let me just add this: if the report claiming that Pakistan suffered 800 casualties (in contrast to the 60 or so in the official figures) in the recent Waziristan operation is true, the reigning military brass is not going to be at all eager to send additional troops back into the tribal areas any time soon. The MMA appears to be basically giving the government an out for right now and until something major happens like another assassination attempt on Musharraf, the military is likely to going to leave well enough alone.

Also, the GID is the Jordanian intelligence agency, while the Egyptian equivalent is the GDSSI (General Directorate of State Security Investigations or Mubahath al-Dawla if you prefer the Arabic) and if we've ever had problems interacting with either agency I have yet to be aware of it. The US has had considerable problems with the Saudi Mukhabarat and the ISI, which why since at least mid-2002 we've been dealing with the Pakistani military directly rather than their intelligence agency.

As far as strengthening the civilian institutions in Pakistan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, keep in mind the kinds of societies that we are basically dealing with here and that our Western conception of a civilian/military divide in many cases does not apply:

Pakistan - Since Musharraf's coup and even to a certain extent beforehand, the Pakistani military has basically subordinated any and all functions of civilian government to itself, in many cases relying on serving or retired army officers to staff civilian positions. The result is basically the creation of something along the lines of a landed military aristocracy roughly analogous to what we had back in the Middle Ages running the government.

Egypt - The National Democratic Party controls all of the organs of government, including and especially since Sadat's assassination, the military. The NDP originally used to be kind of Marxist, though they don't like to talk about that too much these days. The NDP is basically a modern analogue to the old Egyptian nobility, with Hosni Mubarak as the king and his son Gamal as the heir apparent.

One further point on Kashmir: it actually has quieted down a great deal lately and there are a number of efforts in play to try and get a political settlement worked out on both sides of the line. One of the reasons for this (unintended good consequences?) is that all of the Kashmir or Pakistan-based jihadis who would otherwise be causing trouble to any nascent peace efforts are currently fighting or otherwise en route to Iraq.

David Mader:

I'm not certain whether or not that they were coordinated, but keep in mind that one of the easiest ways for Zarqawi to infiltrate operatives into southern Iraq is not by having them come down from the Sunni Triangle but rather to come across the Saudi border. Saudi al-Qaeda operatives would have been working for al-Muqrin until they got into Iraq, at which point they would have been integrated into Zarqawi's command structure. If they knew that al-Muqrin was up to no good and that something big was going to happen on April 21, they easily could have factored that into their plans.

Also, keep in mind that "officially" al-Qaeda is no longer staging attacks inside Saudi Arabia, the al-Haramain Brigades are. Al-Haramain was an al-Qaeda front organization set up after the second Riyadh bombings in November that was essentially a dumping ground for the vehemently anti-royalist members of the organization while the rest of their organization remains focused on fighting the US in Iraq. The polite fiction that only a "radical fringe" of al-Qaeda is behind the recent bombings is needed to reassure the group's Saudi financiers that their agreements still hold up, which is why Mohammed Jamal Khalifa or any of the other senior al-Qaeda financiers remain free men in the Magic Kingdom.

Thanks, Dan. I thought the Saudi Mukhabarat was also referred to as the GID?

Good point about Kashmir. Musharraf has to tread carefully here, obviously, and to the outside observer it looks like he's trying. Although I remember reading some Indian commentary accusing both sides of engaging in a charade. I supposed both sides have their hard right wings to appease.

Also, didn't Saudi Arabia actually expel a few thousand radicals at one point last year?

Joe,

Declaring victory and pulling out is not a new thing. Ask the Republic of Vietnam if we did it with them.

Asdf:

I've always heard it called the Saudi Mukhabarat, with GID being the English form of the Jordanian intelligence agency, whose Arabic abbreviation is DAM.

I would also suggest that one not rely on traditional Western right/left distinctions and terminology with which to characterize politics in countries to whom our own view of right/left politics is virtually meaningless - for example, the BBC refers to the MMA as the "religious right" despite the fact that their preferred means of economics is more or less communist in its underpinnings.

In the case of India, there are two major national political parties - the Congress party and the BJP, and a whole plethora of small parties with which they form coalitions, including an out-and-out Communist party as well as a number of other groups from all across the political spectrum. Of late, Hindu nationalism appears have come to the fore, hence the increased perception among some Indians that Pakistan and Muslims in general (see Gujarat) are sectarian enemies that need to be destroyed.

However, Musharraf has been playing the political game for some time now with a great deal of success, as can be seen from the fact that he is both in power and still alive. In my experience, a lot of the accusations made by Indian intelligence are occasionally self-serving and exaggerated, but in many cases they are also true.

As for Saudi Arabia, several thousand clerics appear to have been initially rounded up following the Riyadh bombings in May 2003 and told not to call for attacks against the government. Judging from the rhetoric, it would seem that calling for the death of Christians and Jews is still both allowed and encouraged by the Saudi authorities.

OK, thanks Dan. asdf is my secret identity.

Not to be pedantic, but I still think Saudi GID is an OK term to use.

I would say that Musharraf is still alive not only due to his political dexterity but also due to luck and some American technology.

You make a fair point about the BJP. I mean, trying to put this speech on some sort of ideological continuum is tough. Are they some sort of odd reconciliation of Rand and Rawls? If anything, they seem like more mystical Third-Wayers with a strongly Hindu nationalist bent. An unflattering label for the BJP might be "national socialists."

The Hindu nationalism seems to be somewhat opportunistic however, as it seems to wax and wane with events. At some point, you would have to conclude that demographic trends favor coalition building and therefore secularism. Reducing tensions with Pakistan will help in this regard.

praktike,

"An unflattering label for the BJP might be "national socialists."

Truly, you are the master of understatement. "Unflattering"? Um, ya think? =)

Heh. I was toying around with the phrasing for a bit there.

But read their stuff. Some of it is quite cuckoo for cocoa puffs.

Praktike:

I had just always heard it referred to as the Saudi Mukhabarat, just like it's Iraqi counterpart, so I was uncertain as to the correct English form and associated GID with the Jordanians. After checking, it appears that the English form of the Iraqi Mukhabarat is also GID even though the Arabic is Jihaz al-Mukhabarat al-Amma rather than Dairat al-Mukhabarat. Oh well ...

You're probably right about Musharraf being extremely lucky among his other qualities - the double suicide bombings back in December came exceedingly close to killing him. He's also starting to doubt the loyalty of the military brass and now has to worry about a tribal revolt, hence his decision to stand down in Waziristan.

As for BJP, I really don't think it's "right-wing" or the main opposition Congress Party is "left-wing" in any kind of a Western sense of the term. Most of the Pakistani parties are pretty much the same way, take the Pakistan Muslim League or Quaid-e-Azam as they call it over there- where exactly do you classify a party whose entire platform is more or less based around the continuation of a kinder, gentler form of military dictatorship that is arguably more open modernization than an elected civilian government would be? Same thing goes with the "conservatives" over in Iran whose management of the national economy would have been unheard of outside of the Soviet Bloc.

I agree with you that a fair number of BJP folks are quite nutty, and before one argues that the same could be said for our own Christian fundamentalists or radical environmentalists, let me just note that when last I checked neither group has felt the need to establish large, well-armed paramilitary groups like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. However, the RSS's extra-curricular activities are checked by the BJP's desire to win elections, so for the time being they're more or less a dog on a leash. It is also noting that for all of their anti-Muslim demagoguery, it was a BJP government that signed a mutual defense pact with Iran against Pakistan. This implies, at least to me, that their leaders are still able to understand geopolitics through a frame outside of their religious worldviews.

The BJP grew out of the RSS, which was a paramilitary organisation started in the 20's and inspired by the Fascist movements of Italy. In that repect it has a similar background to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Ba'ath Party, and like those groups, they have their own fantasy ideology where Indian, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Afghanistan and Tibet should be united in a state where being a Hindu would have the same meaning as being a Jew ie: both a religion and a nationality.

But perhaps because of India's democracy, the BJP's 6 years of governance has been lead pragmatic men more concerned with econonic development than rebuilding Hindu temples. On the local level though, the BJP attracts many unpleasant people, and the anti-Muslim progrom in Gujarat a few years ago was inexcusable.

As far as ideology goes, IMO the way the BJP is evolving it has some similarities to the Republican Party. It is generally a pro-business, anti-tax party that professes free trade, but has a protectionist current. It hates communism and has a large number of supporters who believe in a conservative interperatation of a religion. They are nationalistic and are opposed to reverse-discrimination and India's "liberal elite" (Left-leaning intellectuals, actors, newspaper editorialists).