We are addressing Pakistan in two successive entries for the simple reason that we feel the condition in a nation on Afghanistan's border—a nation which has long been important to the stability of the region and the progress of the war to the west—should be followed up on. Also, the Democratic National Convention means that our only two television news options are: a) turn on any major news station/website and be assaulted by hope/change/love/peace; or b) turn on the local news and be captivated by the plight of local kudzu farmers. Since both carry the threat of producing massive internal bleeding, we have opted to steer clear of the DNC entirely and discuss an issue which is actually significant.

Unfortunately, the Pakistanis are being reminded that civilian government does not necessarily mean happiness, especially when your last system of government was not a democracy. Relative stability is easy with a ruler like Musharraf in power, but easy stability comes at a price – a price deemed unacceptable by the Pakistanis, leading to the August 18th resignation. Now, the people of Pakistan are going to have to figure out very quickly how to address the rapidly expanding violence in the country and the flow of insurgents into Afghanistan.
In terms of US interests, little has occurred to indicate that Islamabad is capable of holding the country together (much less worrying about Afghanistan) as the New York Times points out:
...doubts are growing among American officials over the level of cooperation they can expect from the new army chief, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, a former head of intelligence who took over the post from Mr. Musharraf last November.
After glowing initial reviews by the Americans, General Kayani has appeared less interested in how to deal with the Taliban than with the sagging morale of his undertrained, underequipped troops.
“In my view they won’t do aggressive counterinsurgency because they can’t,” said Christine Fair, senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, of the Pakistani Army.
Kayani has been meeting with Admiral Michael Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and there are hints of progress. The trouble is, the current US-Pakistan dialogue may change once Pakistan's new president is elected – as the Pakistani army chief has said himself, it is now the army's job to serve the civilian government, and Pakistan's competence against the Taliban only goes so far as the competence of its next president, who will be elected on September 6. Although the current Pakistan Peoples Party co-chairman, Asif Ali Zardari, was initially seen as a likely candidate, an August 29 article in The Australian suggests he may withdraw from the race, opening a window for his sister, Faryal Talpur (see previous entry).

According to an Aug. 19th article in the Hindustan Times, the resignation of Pervez Musharaff was widely viewed as an improvement by Pakistanis (who we suspect may have just been waiting for a chance to party-when your day is filled with such banalities as throwing acid in women's faces, you've just got to have a release).
"The coalition partners said, the "exit of Musharraf would result in political stability". The surge in the stock market and jubilation in the streets proved that the "people of Pakistan regarded the dictatorship of Gen Musharraf as a stumbling block".
In any case, not everyone is so thrilled. Pakistan's condition is certainly deplorable-it was rated the 9th most failed state in 2008 by Foreign Policy mag-but there are eight higher positions on that list, and it is not inconceivable that if the Pakistanis aren't careful with who they select as the new president, they could move up in the ratings.
Who are a few of the potential candidates for the Pakistani presidency? According to the same article in the Hindustan Times:
Among the leaders being tipped for the post are National Assembly Speaker Fehmida Mirza, ANP chief Asfandyar Wali Khan and Zardari's sister and PPP lawmaker Faryal Talpur.
Now, Pakistan has long subscribed to the tried-and-true method of electing leaders based on bloodlines rather than actual ability. According to the prevailing Pakistani mindset, who a politician is related to is just as important-if not more so-than what experience they have. This system helps to weed out the undesirable candidates, leaving only the best-bred to rule. But, we're going to humor the West and list those funny little things the democratically successful world likes to call "qualifications":
Fehmida Mirza
Dr. Fehmida Mirza, born on December 20, 1956 in Karachi, is an agriculturist and business woman by profession and is politically affiliated with the PPPP. She was previously elected MNA in 1997.Dr. Fehmida Mirza did her M.B.B.S degree from Liaquat Medical College, Jamshoro in the year 1982. Married, with two sons and two daughters, she has travelled to U.S.A, U.K, Canada, Switzerland, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand. She enjoys reading. (source:http://www.elections.com.pk/candidatedetails.php?id=1569)
Asfandyar Wali Khan
Asfandyar Wali, the elected president of ANP, is also heir to the legacy of Ghaffar Khan. An astute politician, he has been an elected senator since 2003. Previously, he served in the NWFP provincial assembly (1990) and two national assemblies of Pakistan (1993, 1997).
(For the full text of an outstanding background of Asfadyar Wali by Hassan Abbas, click here)
Faryal Talpur
Faryal Talpur is a Member National Assembly. She previously ran in the 2007 presidential election as a Pakistani Peoples' Party candidate. (source:http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=126119)

There are other potential candidates, of course, and the next president will likely come from the Pakistani People's Party. For better or for worse, the new leader will be elected within 30 days of Musharraf's resignation, according to the Pakistani constitution.

AUGUST 25 UPDATE:
For an article from the Cato Institute on Pakistan after Musharraf, follow this link.

The government of the Russian Federation, for all its supposed shortcomings, has hardly been inept in its war with Georgia, which encompasses everything from old-fashioned tanks and troops to digital assaults which, as James Jarrafano points out, may have begun well in advance of the Russian invasion. Hardly enthusiastic about Georgia's bid for NATO membership (which has been delayed since April because of the instability of South Ossetia and Abkhazia), Russia has jumped at the chance to reduce the odds of Georgia becoming a NATO member – and to interfere with its aspirations for acceptance into the EU, as globalsecurity.org explains.
But Condoleezza Rice may have put the interests of Russia best back in 2000:
“Moscow is determined to assert itself in the world and often does so in ways that are at once haphazard and threatening to American interests.”
Georgia is hardly the only nation which is directly affected by Russia's “assertion.” In the same James Jarrafano report cited earlier, he mentions that
“the widely publicized cyberassault against Estonia in 2007 increased suspicion that Russia is using online malicious activity as a tool of national policy. The assault disrupted public and private Estonian information networks with massive denial-of-service attacks. The attacks targeted the websites of Estonian banks, telecommunication companies, media outlets, and government agencies.”
As with Georgia, the digital attacks were only one component of the problem. Russia also ceased the shipment of oil to Estonia, and protesters broke into the Estonian embassy in Moscow. The root of the unrest, according to Russia, was the relocation of the Soviet war memorial in Estonia – which, in our opinion, is not a reassuring sign of Russia's earnestness in the pursuit of democracy.
Russia's real trouble with Estonia is similar to that with Georgia in that both countries constitute, in the eyes of Moscow, an effort to surround and suffocate the Russian Federation with Western influence – principally NATO and the EU – even as it attempts to expand in power. Regardless of how the situation in Georgia concludes, Russia's behavior suggests that it intends to contribute to regional and global instability for years to come.

In Peter Brookes' recent Heritage Foundation article, he discusses Venezuela's aggressive military and economic stance. Hugo Chavez is increasingly doing all those silly things so popular with aspiring dictators, from militarization to political indoctrination. Venezuela's arms purchases from Russia (The TJ Maxx of arms exporters) are expanding even as Chavez continues to consolidate power within his country. Although a June report by a Caracas-based agency indicates a drop in support for Chavez, particularly with respect to his political ideology, he doesn't seem to be too shattered, as his push for socialism isn't slowing down.
Another point of Brookes' article which caught our attention was the relationship between Venezuela and Iran. The two countries seem to have reached a point where one can hardly make a move without it being duplicated by the other. Consider Chavez's threats to the US naval presence in the South Atlantic:

Just this week, Latin America's troublemaker-in-chief, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, threatened the recently reactivated US Fourth Fleet with two squadrons of newly arrived Russian Su-30 fighter planes, part of a $3 billion arms package he bought in 2006.
Engaging in his unique brand of saber-rattling, Chavez said: "Any gringo ship that sails into brown [i.e., coastal] waters will itself turn brown and go to the bottom, because they'll not get through."

Chavez's words come on the heels of the Iranian announcement of a new naval weapon (The “Death Crescent,” see below) as the Islamic Republic performs missile tests and assures the world that it will triumph over any opponent.
Venezuela is notorious for fueling political unrest in the Americas, just as Iran is one of the most powerful destabilizing influences in the Middle East. Indeed, Brookes points out that Venezuela may also be jumping on the Islamic terrorism bandwagon as a platform for Hezbollah.
The startlingly similar pace of the two countries makes us wonder: if the situation explodes with one, can the other be far behind?

It is impossible to comprehend China's human rights progress in the years leading up to the current Olympics without first recalling the challenge the PRC volunteered for when it began its fight for the Beijing Games. So let's take a step back and glance over some of the human rights standards China was expected to meet prior to the Olympics, courtesy of olympicwatch.org:

1) "RATIFICATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS (ICCPR)."
2) "NO USE OF MILITARY FORCE AGAINST PEACEFUL DEMOCRATIC ACTION."
3) "GUARANTEED DEMOCRACY IN HONG KONG."
4) "ABOLITION OF THE LAOGAI / LAOJIAO CAMPS."

So, how successful were the Chinese with these conditions? We'll allow you to judge for yourself, in the spirit of harmonious glorious loving worldwide Olympic sappiness:

-"RATIFICATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS (ICCPR)."
-Though China signed the ICCPR a decade ago, the treaty has not yet been ratified.

-"NO USE OF MILITARY FORCE AGAINST PEACEFUL DEMOCRATIC ACTION."
-China's less-than-exemplary history with peaceful protests, coupled with the recent flood of “More than 34,000 military personnel and 74 airplanes, 47 helicopters and 33 naval ships...” in and around Beijing, is somewhat unsettling. Not to mention the fact that the thousands of security cameras and monitoring systems put in place for the Olympics will continue to be used after the games, as pointed out by Edward Wong and Keith Bradsher of the International Herald Tribune.

-"GUARANTEED DEMOCRACY IN HONG KONG."
-According to a Congressional Research Service report by Michael Martin, democratic election of the Chief Executive in Hong Kong won't happen until 2017 at best, and don't even think about legislative officials until 2020. Martin's report is based upon a decision by the Chinese National People's Congress.

-"ABOLITION OF THE LAOGAI / LAOJIAO CAMPS."
-A 2008 report by The Laogai Research Foundation lists 298 currently operating “prison facilities” in the PRC. That number includes only verified prisons and labor camps, and does not count many of the more clandestine facilities.

Well, they tried, and that's all that really matters, isn't it? Let's just put China's mockery of democracy and basic freedoms on the back burner and have fun in Beijing – just don't look suspicious, or you'll end up mining coal in the Shanxi Province.

Iran has done the unthinkable. On Monday, Tehran unexpectedly announced its willingness to close the Strait of Hormuz in order to wreak havoc on oil-dependant powers. It backed up its statement with the claim that it now possesses a weapon even more powerful than its dreaded Photoshop missiles: the Death Crescent.

Actually, the Iranians did not say what the secret weapon was, only that they had it. We are convinced it is a battle station capable of destroying entire planets.

However, it is unlikely that the Death Crescent will be used against the West, as it is currently occupied with executing female Iranian citizens accused of sneezing in public. Also, General Mohammad Ali Jafari, head of the Revolutionary Guards, has described the mystery weapon as "unique in the world" - which we believe to mean that it is built from an Erector Set.

The Iranian statements came after the Islamic Republic ignored a Saturday deadline for it to cease the expansion of its uranium enrichment program. In response, the US has called for further UN sanctions to be put in place.

The Russian Federation, currently second behind the US in volume of arms exports according to SIPRI, is showing the sort of take-charge, entrepreneurial attitude that makes it so adored the world over with its testing on Friday of a sea-based ICBM and the continued development of sea-based carriers for its ICBMs. Pravda reported:

"Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky, the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, said that Russia would create five or six aircraft carrier groups in its Northern and Pacific Fleets. The naval command decided to build not only aircraft carriers, but maritime carrier systems. “The construction of such systems will start after 2012. They will be closely linked with space groups,” the official said."

"Space groups." Fantastic. But as unsettling as it is that Russia/Putin's Playground, with its aspirations of space dominance, will soon be providing the primary means of transport to the International Space Station, let us not lose sight of the bigger issue here: Americans have fallen into the habit of regarding post-Soviet Russia as a defanged beast - once powerful, but now pitiful. The trouble is, Russia is pursuing the development of weapons technology with as much aggression as ever, and yet they seem to have completely fallen off Americans' radar. Although it is indisputable that Russia's condition has suffered tremendously for decades, we must keep in mind that even in its relatively poor state, Russia remains a military, financial, and diplomatic force to be reckoned with, and the immense power of certain leaders in Moscow make the future of the country all the more disturbing.

John McCain effectively stated the dark side of Obama's popular image in Orlando on Friday:

“If there’s one thing he always delivers, it’s a great speech,” McCain said. “But I hope you’ll listen carefully, because his ideas are not always as impressive as his rhetoric.”

We wonder just how McCain must feel, running against an opponent whose greatest "merits" are youth and good speaking ability.

In and of themselves, these are hardly solid qualifications for a US president, and they're a little more along the lines of what one would expect from some sort of promising revolutionary-turned autocrat (one minute, it's "change we can believe in," the next it's "change we will conform to for the good of the motherland," or something along those lines).

The fact is that Obama's image is not that of a politician at all. It is the image of a celebrity, who is expected to look good, speak well, and do little else. Obama's supporters seem to grow continually more enamored in the style of teenage semi-obsessed Hollywood heartthrob fans. With regard to the media, he gets the same divine status as the actor who donates some spare change to a charity or actually demonstrates the knowledge that the capital is in Washington, D.C. In short, Obama would make a fine head of state - just not much of a head of government.

Barry Rubin, of the Global Research in International Affairs Center (GLORIA) posted an interesting article online earlier this month. His belief as to the nuclear aspirations of Iran is straightforward:


"The simplest and cheapest--therefore very popular--idea is to talk Iran out of making nuclear weapons. This is silly. The regime wants them, laughs at Western threats not backed by strength, and awaits the next American president (no prizes for guessing who it prefers) hoping he'll follow a surrender strategy.

Iran won't be bought off, it merely seeks to buy time."


And his mention of the undermining of diplomatic pressure and sanctions by ever-extensive trade with various members of the EU, which is unashamedly Iran's largest trading partner, reminds us of the fact that the states of Europe can't even devote themselves to their own positions, let alone the fostering of stability abroad.

But most interesting is his assertion that Obama's current policy on Iran would be disastrous for everyone who cringes at the thought of missiles at Iranian command - meaning everyone except for the winners who happen to rule the Islamic Republic. He writes, quite simply, that Obama would, by holding unconditional talks with Ahmadinejad, validate the Iranian president's shrewd policy of "scream psychotically enough from your prison cell and they'll move you to posh quarters in the nuthouse." A friendly dialogue with Iran would give the impression that the United States has been wrong in its position against Iran's nuclear program, eroding American status abroad and, frighteningly, making diplomatic pressure against the radical policies of the Iranian government even less effective. To hold the sort of talks Obama proposes is to automatically put the US on the defensive with regard to its foreign policy,which is exactly the sort of provocation a volatile and aggressive state like Iran needs to carry out its agenda.

Apparently, Raul Castro wasn't feeling too revolutionary on July 26, which marks the 55th anniversary of the date Fidel Castro began to carry out his glorious dream - of NEVER DYING. In fact, that's what Neutrogena should start bottling as a true anti-aging serum - communist revolutionary extract. But we digress.
Aside from Raul's rousing report of the spectacular progress of milk distribution, there was little to suggest that Cuba's economic condition is improving; just as importantly, Raul avoided discussing any notable government reforms. We are not exactly sure what about this constitutes news. It is hardly surprising that the new chief of state of the Republic of Cuba hasn't shown too much enthusiasm about the whole democracy thing. The Communist Party of Cuba has hardly been swayed by international post-cold war pressure, so why expect marked change just because a different old comrade named Castro is in power? Raul, too, was there for the revolution, and although the staunchest Fidel supporters may have him pegged as a dangerously open-minded new leader, that doesn't mean the rest of us should. After all, a good time for these people is building a Che bust out of tobacco plants and rusted 1950s car parts. The fact is that Cuba isn't going to significantly change anytime soon barring more comprehensive US and international reform pressure. Of course, the youth of Cuba could always stage another revolution, but considering the tendency of armed college students to plunge already miserable regions into even lower depths of corruption and despair, we're not so sure that's a good idea.

In light of the continuing drama surrounding Kwame Kilpatrick, the distinguished mayor of America's most miserable city, we have decided to raise the OC blog's idiocy threat level to critical. We realize the threat elevation may come as a surprise to those not familiar with the Detroit mayor's predicament. In short, the accumulated almost-funny-except-for-the-assaulted-people fiascoes that constitute Kilpatrick's terms make us yearn for the relative honesty and good government of Tammany Hall. It would be enough, of course, for the mayor to spend his time partying as his city falls to pieces around him. But not to be outdone, Kilpatrick attacks cops - and that is what gives him "the edge"! His day appears to be filled with figuring out new ways to slap Detroit - and America - and the human race - in the face, and the bowels of Detroit's government appear to be an indispensable aid in this pursuit. Now, of course, he may not be a Ferdinand Marcos, or even an Al Capone, but darn it, he is doing just about as well as our blasted "democracy" will allow him to do. And for the effort, we certainly hope to see him in Judicial Watch's most wanted politicians 2008. Keep on keepin' on, Kilpatrick!

According to an action poll on Congress.org, 65% of respondents agree with John McCain's policy on an Iraq withdrawal timetable -- namely, that there shouldn't be one. On the other hand, 35% of respondents agree with the plan Barack Obama discussed with our pal Nuri (aka captain independent). Now, we're hardly under the impression that those who frequent Congress.org constitute a majority of voters, but it is interesting -- by which we mean COMPLETELY UNSURPRISING -- that people who care enough about politics to wade through stats on key congressional votes and who know the power ratings of the foreign relations committee also tend to agree with McCain on this foreign policy issue.

Finally, some semi-belligerent tees for the right side of the aisle. Check out the goods at http://www.cafepress.com/oldcorps/5778901

In light of the current ratio of Obama/McCain news coverage (72hrs per day/34.6 seconds per week, respectively), we'll be posting regular McCain news supplements to keep you healthy. We realize that "regular" is an ambiguous term. It doesn't matter. Our plan is to publish a weekly post that just says "McCain is still alive." This will be four times his current media coverage, and will thus make us the most trusted news service in the world.