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Understanding Saudi Arabia’s Role in Post-Coup Sudan

By Adam Garrie | EurasiaFuture | April 18, 2019

In previous times, when Saudi Arabia sought to intervene in the affairs of foreign nations, it did so overtly. Whether funding foreign masjids to advance Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi school of Sunni Islam or sponsoring militant groups with unambiguous links to Riyadh, it used to be that when Saudi Arabia wanted change in a foreign nation, there was no real attempt to hide such developments.

Under the de facto leadership of Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, this has partly changed. While western media has struggled to form a cohesive narrative through which to portray military strongman and US citizen Khalifa Haftar’s ongoing attempt to take Tripoli, Haftar’s own movements make it clear just how much Saudi Arabia is backing the renegade military man who once fled Libya as a traitor in the late 1980s.

Haftar was in Riyadh where he met the Saudi monarch just days before he began his assault on Tripoli. It has further been reported that Haftar has received millions of dollars from Riyadh. Thus, it is clear that in spite of Riyadh’s US partner’s support of the fledgling and endlessly corrupt Tripoli regime, Saudi Arabia along with its Egyptian and Emirati allies are firmly behind Haftar.

Recent events in Sudan have served as a reminder to the world that whilst long serving and recently ousted President Omar al-Bashir came to power in 1989 with the backing of the Muslim Brotherhood, since then, Bashir had become something of a post-ideological/poly-ideological political survivor. At various times Bashir has been friendly with and had disputes with countries as diverse as Iran, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Gaddafi’s Libya, Assad’s Syria, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey. In many ways, the only two nations with whom Bashir has had consistently good relations were China and Russia. In respect of just about every other country that seeks strategic relations with Khartoum, Bashir’s career was something of a geopolitical game of ping-pong.

Recent years however had seen Bashir’s Sudan greatly improve relations with Turkey and also Turkey’s closest Arab ally Qatar. To this end, Turkey has signed an agreement with Khartoum to construct a modern port at the location of a once prominent Ottoman Port at Suakin. Yet whilst this apparently win-win project did not immediately radiate political overtones, there were in fact many to be found. Suakin was a traditional Ottoman port of call for those on the Hajj to the Holy City of Mecca. From Suakin, pilgrims would take a short maritime journey to Jeddah before moving on to Mecca. For Saudi Arabia, this was seen as a Turkish attempt to influence what could once again become a major route for those on the Hajj. As Turkey and Saudi Arabia continue to compete for influence among the region’s millions of Sunni Muslims, Riyadh certainly took notice of the Turkey-Sudan port deal.

Although Sudan continues to provide mercenaries to the Saudi coalition in nearby Yemen, Bashir’s juggling act between Saudi Arabia on the one hand and the Turkey-Qatari partnership on the other, proved to be one that has self-evidently been a source of consternation in Riyadh.

To be sure, issues of poverty, corruption, genuine human rights concerns and a general political fatigue in the face of Bashir’s lengthy rule were in fact sources of the protests which led to the former President’s ouster. That being said, the rapidity with which Sudan’s new military rulers have moved against Bashir suggests that there is more to the situation than meets the eye.

Reports have now emerged that Bashir is under arrest whilst the country’s new self-proclaimed rulers issue frequent statements of extreme disapprobation against their former boss. This combined with the fact that Turkeys’ calls for calm and moderation are becoming increasingly vocal whilst Saudi state media is celebrating the fact that Sudan’s new regime has refused to receive Qatar’s foreign minister, makes it clear that the new forces in Khartoum are acting in a manner that leans heavily towards Riyadh and away from the Turkey-Qatar partnership that Bashir had been drawing ever closer to in his final years in power.

Although the situation in Khartoum remains fluid to the point of being chaotic, it is already becoming clear that while the origins of the coup where in many ways organic, the management of events since the ouster of Omar al-Bashir has been one that is incredibly favourable towards Saudi Arabia whilst being notably less so to Turkey and Qatar.

This likewise proves that in the age of Muhammad bin Salman, direct intervention into foreign nations via religious groups and militants has been replaced by using Riyadh’s economic influence to force rulers of poorer nations to do as Saudi Arabia wishes.

April 18, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Trump & the Bolton-Pompeo Axis

By Patrick Lawrence | Consortium News | April 16, 2019

Moon Jae-in’s Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump last Thursday marked an important step forward for both leaders. The South Korean president appears to have drawn Trump away from the all-or-nothing “big deal” he proposed when he last met Kim Jong-un — an offer we now know was intended to precipitate the North Korean leader’s rejection. Trump won, too: The encounter with Moon has effectively put the Dealmaker back on his feet after the calamitous collapse of the second Trump–Kim summit in Hanoi two months ago. A top-down agreement on the North’s denuclearization is once again within reach.

Moon facing Trump in DC, April 11, 2019. (White House/ Shealah Craighead via Flickr)

The importance of the Moon–Trump summit, while eclipsed by news of Julian Assange’s arrest in London the same day, is not be underestimated. Even before receiving Moon, Trump announced for the first time that he is willing to summit with Kim for a third time. While still stressing the North’s complete denuclearization as the U.S. objective, Trump also said he is open to the incremental diplomacy he precluded with his everything-at-once offer in Hanoi.

“There are various smaller deals that maybe could happen,” Trump said before he and Moon withdrew to the Oval Office. “Things could happen. You can work out step-by-step pieces, but at this moment we are still talking about the big deal.”

New Stance

This new stance is a big deal in itself. Moon and Kim — with Chinese and Russian support — have advocated talks based on gradualist reciprocity from the first. “Action for action,” Moon calls it. This strategy is widely accepted at the other end of the Pacific as the only plausible path to a sustainable denuclearization agreement. The U.S. has been the only nation engaged on the Korean question to argue otherwise.

In addition, Trump appeared to signal that Moon may get something he dearly wanted when he arrived in Washington: dispensation to proceed with inter–Korean economic projects — including transport links, an industrial park, and a joint-venture resort in the North — that are now blocked by a plethora of U.S. and UN–imposed sanctions. Moon views these as essential confidence-builders and the first steps toward integrating the North into a Northeast Asian economic hub that will also include South Korea, China, and the Russian Far East.

In Pyongyang, Kim responded to the events in Washington when he addressed the Supreme People’s Assembly last Friday. The speech was carefully balanced between optimism and caution, the latter reflecting Kim’s view that he was betrayed in Hanoi when Trump marshaled an offer he could not possibly embrace. “I am willing to accept if the United States proposes a third North Korea — United States summit,” Kim told North’s legislative body, “on condition that it has a right attitude and seeks a solution that we can share.”

Kim had other things to add. “We don’t like — and we are not interested in — the United States’ way of dialogue, in which it tries to unilaterally push through its demands,” he said. “We don’t welcome — and we have no intention of repeating—the kind of summit meetings like the one held in Hanoi.” The North Korean leader went on to set a year-end deadline “for the United States to make a bold decision.”

While Washington and Pyongyang had sharply conflicting versions of what transpired in Hanoi — each blaming the other for the summit’s failure — there is now little question that the U.S. side was at fault. A post–Hanoi Reuters exclusive reports that, prior to their famously canceled lunch, Trump handed Kim a sheet of paper listing, in English and Korean, extensive U.S. conditions that began with “a blunt call for the transfer of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and bomb fuel to the United States,” according to the piece filed by Leslie Broughton and David Brunnstrom.

The English-language version of the letter, the Reuters team reports, went on to demand “fully dismantling North Korea’s nuclear infrastructure, chemical and biological warfare program and related dual-use capabilities; and ballistic missiles, launchers, and associated facilities.”

The Libya Model 

In simple terms, this was a kitchen-sink proposition — effectively a demand for unilateral disarmament — that was intended to prompt Kim to walk away. The Reuters reporters suggest that the fatal gambit was the work of John Bolton, Trump’s hyper-hawkish national security advisor. They quote North Korean officials as also implicating Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, another administration hawk, in what amounts to an act of diplomatic sabotage. The device used was Bolton’s “Libya model,” a laden reference if ever there was one. When Muammar Gaddafi gave up his chemical and nuclear weapons programs in 2003, he did so by sending Libya’s nuclear materials and equipment to the U.S. Eight years later, of course, he was assassinated in the wake of a NATO bombing campaign led by the U.S.

“The document appeared to represent Bolton’s long-held and hardline ‘Libya model’ of denuclearization that North Korea has rejected repeatedly,” Broughton and Brunnstrom report. “It probably would have been seen by Kim as insulting and provocative, analysts said.” One of those analysts was Jenny Town, a North Korea specialist at the Stimson Center in Washington. “‘This is what Bolton wanted from the beginning and it clearly wasn’t going to work,’” Reuters quotes Town as observing. “‘If the U.S. was really serious about negotiations, they would have learned already that this wasn’t an approach they could take.’”

Formidable Challenges

As this record of the Hanoi proceedings makes plain, Trump and Moon will assume formidable challenges to the extent they agree to work together toward a resolution of the Korea question on new terms. It is not clear why Trump — who went to Hanoi eager to cut his “big deal” with Kim — accepted the Bolton-inspired design and handed it on to the North Korean leader. But he has now set himself up for another in what appears to be a long line of conflicts with his foreign policy minders, Bolton and Pompeo chief among them.

The outlook in this connection is mixed at best. Trump was able to overrule new sanctions against North Korea that were announced several weeks after the Hanoi debacle. It is a matter of interpretation, but he effectively lost a battle with the Bolton–Pompeo axis when the administration designated the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization earlier this month. That move is understood widely to have pushed renewed negotiations with Tehran, for which Trump had been hoping, well beyond the point of no return.

For Moon, the challenges ahead are two. Most immediately, he must keep both Trump and Kim seated at the chess table between now and the end of the year. If no third summit is set by then, Kim has already signaled, he will consider this chapter in the long history of U.S.–North Korean negotiations closed — another story of failure. In such a case, the question facing Moon could hardly be more daunting: Can a South Korean leader determined to end nearly seven decades of enmity between the Koreas decisively wrest control of the diplomatic process from the U.S.?

That would amount to an unprecedented showdown between Seoul and Washington. Despite Moon’s admirable dedication, this is unlikely to materialize — not in the near term, in any case. Moon has formidable allies in Beijing and Moscow; Kim is plainly eager to break North Korea out of its isolation. But the U.S., perfectly satisfied to act as “spoiler” in Northeast Asia (as elsewhere), remains too powerful an obstacle despite the many signs that it is in the sunset phase of its global preeminence.

Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International Herald Tribune, is a columnist, essayist, author, and lecturer. His most recent book is “Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century” (Yale).

April 16, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Pakistan Should Not Blindly Surrender to Modi Over Sikh Demonstrations

By Adam Garrie – EurasiaFuture – 2019-04-14

Sikh civil society groups have condemned Pakistan’s decision to ban activities of Sikhs peacefully campaigning for “Referendum 2020”  in which Sikhs plan to defy New Delhi and exercise their democratic right to vote on the issue of self-determination. Next year, Sikhs intend vote “yes or no” on the question of whether Khalistan should be formed as an independent state that would separate from the Indian state of Punjab. Similar votes have happened throughout the world with a wide array of results.

In 2014, Scotland narrowly voted to remain part of the United Kingdom in such a vote whilst in 2017, in a vote that was not recognised by Spain, Catalonia voted to become an independent republic.

In Indonesia’s Western New Guinea (often referred to as West Papua internationally), there have long been calls for a new referendum after the initial vote in 1969 in which the region voted to integrate with Indonesia has been described as un-free and unfair to ordinary people in the region. Even more recently, the French overseas territory of New Caledonia voted to remain politically united with France. Perhaps the most politicised referendum in recent years was when Crimea voted to leave Ukraine and rejoin Russia. The result of this vote has been recognised by Russia, the DPRK and Syria but few other nations.

Of course, the world’s most controversial self-determination referendum is one that the UN first called for in 1948. This is the yet unrealised vote for self-determination in Kashmir.

In 2020, Sikhs in Indian Punjab are planning to hold a referendum on whether they want to form an independent nation known as Khalistan or whether they want to remain within India. India’s reaction thus far has been to browbeat, bully and threaten those who allow pro-Khalistan activities on their soil. Canada, Britain and some mainland European countries have refused to ban the Khalistan movement but India seems to have forced Pakistan’s hand in the matter.

While Pakistan has generally warm relations with the global and domestic Sikh community, it appears that Pakistan effectively succumbed to bullying from its militant BJP ruled neighbour. Of course, it is Pakistan’s domestic right to ban whatever political or activist groups it desires, including peaceful ones like the Khalistan movement. In this sense, the biggest problem is that Pakistan moved against a very small group of Sikhs who planned on hoisting banners and handing out literature at a time when India’s RAW continues to work with the Kabul regime to promote terrorism in Pakistan’s Balochistan province. Likewise, Indian occupation forces continue to inflict supreme violence against the civilians of Kashmir.

In this sense, Pakistan has leverage that it refused to exercise against India. If New Delhi is so desperate for Islamabad to prohibit insignificantly small groups of Sikhs from handing out non-violent political literature outside their places of worship, Islamabad could have said ‘we will only prohibit Khalistan activism if India gives Pakistan all of the details of the last 50 years worth of Indian meddling in Balochistan, ceases its promotion of terrorism in Balochistan via Kabul, begins a ceasefire in occupied Kashmir and renounces all forms of military violence as a means of conflict resolution with Pakistan’.

In other words, it takes two to tango. If India wants Pakistan to ban peaceful symbols of a Khalistan referendum on its soil, India had better cease fomenting violent separatism in south-western Pakistan. But in typically anti-strategic fashion, Pakistan simply capitulated to India’s bullying and got less than nothing for it. The concept of getting less than nothing for it can be proved by the fact that major pro-government Indian media outlets continue to claim (without evidence) that Pakistan is officially promoting the Khalistan movement in Indian Punjab when in fact the Khalistan movement’s presence outside of India is almost all in either Canada or the UK with other activists present in the United States and parts of continental Europe.

Forgetting any moral arguments, from a purely strategic view, Pakistan made a blunder. Islamabad could have asked India for something in return for actively prohibiting low level Khalistan activists and instead, Pakistan asked for nothing.

April 14, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

US Threatens Venezuela at UNSC as IMF Freezes Funds

Diplomatic battles rage on at international bodies such as the UNSC, the OAS and the IMF

US VP Mike Pence called on the UN to recognize Guaido as Venezuela’s president. (EFE)
By Ricardo Vaz | Venezuelanalysis | April 11, 2019

Caracas – The United States pressured the United Nations to recognize self-proclaimed “Interim President” Juan Guaido during a Security Council (UNSC) meeting on Wednesday.

US Vice President Mike Pence told the UNSC that “the time has come” for the UN to recognize Guaido as Venezuela’s “legitimate president” and accept the latter’s representative to the world body. He added that the US would circulate a resolution to this effect, but offered no details on its timetable. A previous US resolution at the UNSC was vetoed by Russia and China on February 28.

Pence went on to reiterate the warning that “all options are on the table” to oust the Maduro government. “This is our neighborhood,” he told reporters afterward, calling on Russia to cease its support to the Maduro government.

Venezuela’s UN representative, Samuel Moncada, slammed what he called a “clear move to undermine” Venezuela’s rights, adding that his legitimacy depended on UN recognition and not on the declarations of the US vice president.

Russian ambassador Vassily Nebenzia accused the US of causing Venezuela “billions of dollars in losses” as a result of sanctions.

“[The US] deliberately provokes a crisis in Venezuela in order to change a legitimately elected leader for a US protege,” Nebenzia said in his speech.

Chinese representative Liu Jieyi likewise affirmed that Venezuelan affairs should be handled internally and criticized the imposition of sanctions, while his South African counterpart, Jerry Matjila, called for the UNSC to take a “constructive approach.”

Wednesday’s UNSC meeting came on the heels of a session at the Organization of American States (OAS) which approved Guaido’s appointment, Gustavo Tarre, as a representative to the body “until new elections are held.” The proposal had 18 votes in favor, 9 against, six abstentions and one absence.

Venezuelan authorities denounced the move as a violation of international law and of the OAS charter. The Foreign Ministry reiterated that Venezuela is due to leave the OAS on April 27, having started the process two years ago. Caracas denounced meddling in its internal affairs after the OAS had repeatedly tried to apply its democratic charter. However, it never managed to secure the necessary 24 votes.

Diplomatic battles surrounding Guaido’s recognition have extended to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). According to Bloomberg, the IMF cut off Caracas’ access to almost US $400 million in special drawing rights (SDR). While the IMF has shown no signs of recognizing Guaido, and lists Finance Minister Simon Zerpa as Venezuela’s representative, sources told Bloomberg that a government must be recognized by a majority of the Fund’s members to access its SDR reserves.

Venezuela remains mired in a deep economic crisis that has seen its international reserves shrink to around $9 billion. The cash crunch has been further compounded by US and allies freezing Venezuelan assets held abroad. In one such case, the Bank of England has refused to repatriate an estimated $1.2 billion worth of Venezuelan gold held in its vaults.

International tensions have also flared around the issue of humanitarian aid, with US and Venezuelan opposition ultimately failing to force an estimated $20 million worth of aid across the Venezuela-Colombia border on February 23. The operation faced strident criticism from international agencies such as the United Nations and the Red Cross, who refused to take part in the “politicization” of aid.

During Tuesday’s UNSC meeting, UN aid chief Mark Lowcock stated that Venezuela is facing a “very real humanitarian problem” and talked about the need to step up UN efforts in the Caribbean country. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres later tweeted that the UN estimates there are 7 million people in need of aid in Venezuela, and that the UN is working to increase its assistance “in line with the principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence.”

UN agencies have increased their work in Venezuela in recent months, most recently via an agreement between Caracas and the UN’s Central Emergency Resource Fund for US $9.2 million to address the health and nutritional impacts of the country’s severe economic crisis. President Maduro has also appealed for UN assistance in countering US sanctions to bring medicines and medical equipment to Venezuela.

Likewise, the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) recently announced a scaling up of its activities in Venezuela, doubling its annual country budget to $60 million as part of an agreement with the Venezuelan government.

Maduro met a Red Cross commission headed by IFRC President Peter Maurer on Tuesday to coordinate the agency’s work in Venezuela. Maurer had previously met Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza to “strengthen cooperation agreements.”

April 12, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Pakistan Asks India to Provide Intel Proving Pakistan’s Involvement in Pulwama Attack

Sputnik – 11.04.2019

Pakistan has handed over a “request for more information” to the India High Commissioner in Islamabad on the Pulwama dossier, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Dr Muhammad Faisal told reporters on Thursday.

The minister added that India had so far not provided any actionable intelligence that could lead to concluding Pakistan’s involvement in the Pulwama attack that took place on 14 February this year. The attack took the lives of more than 40 Indian soldiers.

“We hope India will answer these questions soon”, Dr Faisal said during a weekly briefing, adding that the reply to previous questions had so far also not been given.

Diplomatic sources told Sputnik that Islamabad has sought a specific response with regards to an individual who is allegedly based in India. Dr Faisal told reporters that Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had credible intelligence that India is preparing another act of aggression against Pakistan between 16 and 20 April.

“India will receive the same response as February 27 if it challenges our resolve,” Dr Faisal told reporters on Thursday.

On the basis of the first dossier submitted by the Indian government on 27 February, Pakistan’s Foreign Office on 28 March stated that it had thoroughly investigated the entire dossier related to the Pulwama terror attack and had neither found any evidence of terror camps at the locations mentioned by India, nor of any of the persons mentioned therein that could be linked to the said attack.

“While 54 detained individuals are being investigated, no details linking them to Pulwama have been found so far. Similarly, the 22 pin locations shared by India have been examined. No such camps exist. Pakistan is willing to allow visits, on request, to these locations”, the Foreign Ministry added.

The tensions between the two nuclear-armed nations escalated in February after the Pulwama terror attack, which expanded into a full-fledge aerial clash on 27 February. An Indian MiG-21 Bison was shot down by the Pakistanis, while India has claimed that it too shot down a Pakistani F-16. Pakistan has rubbished the Indian claims.

April 12, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Pakistan is blackmailing Modi and Doval

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | April 11, 2019

Doublespeak is commonplace in statecraft. A celebrated case is of the former US President Barack Obama who was facing re-election in 2012. Battered by criticism by his Republican contender Mitt Romney for being “soft” on Russia, Obama sought a private understanding with the Kremlin leadership that he couldn’t afford to be seen by the American public as flexible on relations with Russia until the presidential election in November that year got over.

Obama and his interlocutor then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev were unaware that their deal-making conversation on March 26, 2012 in Seoul was caught on open microphone, with the latter agreeing to Obama’s proposition that Russians would be patient until he secured his second term as president.

Quite obviously, the strong likelihood is that Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s reported optimism was not intuitively arrived at when he told the international media on Tuesday that if Prime Minister Narendra Modi won a second term in office, a Kashmir settlement was entirely conceivable.

Imran Khan would only have spoken with the full awareness of Modi’s complex political personality. In particular, he has the great advantage of being privy to the confidential exchanges between then Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Modi during the latter’s celebrated surprise visit to Lahore in December 2015 as well as the ‘back channel’ conversations between the National Security Advisors of the two countries. Unlike in our dysfunctional system in the most recent years, Pakistan’s ISI keeps meticulous track of all high-level exchanges with India.

The Indian public knows hardly anything about what transpired between Modi and Nawaz in Lahore — or for that matter, during their famous “informal conversation” in Paris 25 days earlier, which probably set up the Lahore meeting.

(Nawaz Sharif and Modi in “informal” conversation, Paris, Nov 30, 2015)

But make no mistake that the ISI kept track. The Pakistani side was actually expecting Modi’s surprise visit to Lahore and had made elaborate arrangements for a red carpet reception for the visiting Indian leader. Beyond doubt, every move that Modi made on Pakistani soil and every word he spoke to Nawaz was stored away as memory in the ISI archives.

Suffice to say, it is only Modi who is today in a position to clarify on what basis Imran Khan could have said with such audacity, “Perhaps if the BJP – a right-wing party – wins, some kind of settlement in Kashmir could be reached.”  

(Nawaz Sharif receiving Modi at the tarmac of Lahore airport, Dec 25, 2015)

Equally, Imran Khan’s caustic remark about the Congress is not unwarranted, when he said he didn’t expect the grand old party to deliver on a Kashmir settlement. Imran Khan cannot be unaware that although Manmohan Singh (or his NSAs) didn’t hang tough on Pakistan in the Indian media, he was tough as nail when it came to defending India’s national interests and didn’t make any concessions whatsoever to Pakistan.

In fact, Congress Party’s record has been consistently “hardline”, although it couldn’t match Modi’s rhetoric. Bangladesh war, occupation of Siachen, maritime boundary in Sir Creek — these are just three templates in India-Pakistan relations that alone should testify to the legacy of Congress rule. It must be remembered that the systematic erosion of Kashmir’s autonomy and India’s breach of promises to the Kashmir people took place in the decades since the fifties right up to the eighties only under Congress governments when BJP wasn’t even around as a gadfly.

(Indian troops defending Siachen.)

So, the big question is about the signal that Imran Khan is giving when he reposes confidence in Modi to settle the Kashmir problem. Contextually, he would have three objectives — one, cautioning Modi against going too far in demonising Pakistan in his election rallies, no matter his political compulsions; two, projecting to the international audience an air of reasonableness in Pakistani policies ; and, three, forestalling any precipitate move by Modi to ratchet up tensions with Pakistan in the coming weeks between now and May 23, especially if a spectre of defeat haunts him in the election.

This last point is relevant if we factor in the decision by Islamabad only last Sunday to publicise “reliable intelligence” and “authentic information” available with it to the effect that India might make some military moves against Pakistan in the second half of April, once the elections got under way in India, out of which Modi could make political capital by whipping up jingoism.

(BJP election poster with Modi and Indian soldier providing backdrop)

The intriguing part in all this is what Imran Khan really thinks of Modi as a politician. Historically, there is a perception in Pakistan that the BJP is a “Baniya party” of wheeler-dealers. But the past five years of BJP rule would have somewhat dispelled such notions. Imran Khan cannot but be aware that Modi is a creation of the RSS and unless and until he broke that umbilical cord, he cannot plough a de-ideologised furrow toward Pakistan.

Now, this is where the Modi-Nawaz exchanges and the back channel conversations between Ajit Doval and his counterpart in Islamabad, former NSA Lt. Gen. Nasser Khan Janjua, come into play. The Indian public knows nothing about the contents of these exchanges and conversations. But ISI knows, the GHQ in Rawalpindi knows and Imran Khan knows. (And, indeed, Modi and Doval know.)

Importantly, therefore, a Pakistani Prime Minister for the first time in the past 7 decades has interfered in an Indian general election and showed his preference for a particular political leader. This is unacceptable. This is blackmail.

Yet, Modi only is responsible for it. Figuring out that he has nothing positive to project before the Indian electorate, Modi made Pakistan the centre piece of his election campaign to malign and embarrass Congress and to deflect attention from burning issues such as unemployment, agrarian crisis, Rafale scam, etc. But by doing so, Modi held open a door through which Imran Khan has simply walked in.

Look at the kind of things Imran Khan says on the eve of an Indian general election — that he prefers Modi (to Rahul Gandhi) as his interlocutor; that “Muslim-ness is being attacked” in India; that Muslims in India are unhappy; that Modi is electioneering  like Israel’s Netanyahu, exploiting “fear and nationalist feeling”; that J&K’s special status is under attack; that Kashmiris are waging a political struggle and there is no military solution to it; that “there is still the possibility if the polls turn against Modi in the next few weeks that India could take some further military action against Pakistan” and so on.

The most intriguing remark Imran Khan made was that Modi’s much-touted Balakot attack on February 27 was only an act of dissimulation and so  the Pakistani retaliation the next day was a pro forma act — as if it were an elaborate  pantomime being played out with Modi as the master choreographer. As he put it, the IAF bombed trees and the PAF retaliated by bombing stones.

These are exceptional remarks for the leader of a foreign country to make. But Modi cannot take exception, because he only invited this Pakistani slur on India’s democracy and its leadership. Clearly, Pakistan is blackmailing Modi and Doval. This seems like Modi’s “Obama moment” in Seoul 7 years ago.

April 11, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Hamas Won Again

By Gilad Atzmon – April 10, 2019

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won a decisive victory yesterday. He is likely to carry on to a fifth term in office. As of this morning, the right-wing bloc has a clear advantage of 65 seats (out of 120) over the centre/left parties and seems more likely to form a coalition.

The meaning of yesterday’s election results are obvious and undeniable. The Israeli left is now marginal, verging on non-existent. The Israeli Labour party has been reduced to a miniature caricature, pretty much the size of Meretz, themselves a parody of left thinking. Needless to mention that these two parties are Zionist to the core. They deny the Palestinian right of return and believe in segregation between Jews and Arabs by means of a two-state solution.

Netanyahu is, beyond doubt, the most sophisticated player in the Israeli political theatre. In the weekend he vowed to annex the West Bank Settlements. By performing this election ploy, he managed to completely obliterate his hard-line rivals on the right such as Bennett-Shaked’s New Right and even Zehut, which promised to be a ‘rising political force.’ As for this morning neither Zehut nor Bennett, who promised his voters he would be the next Defence Minister, made it to the Knesset. Netanyahu has also managed to reduce the USA into a subservient colony. We saw President Trump working hard for his friend in Jerusalem, recognising Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and castigating Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a ‘terror organisation’. But most significantly, Netanyahu is also Hamas’s favourite prime minister.

Hamas knows very well that Israeli centrist government are genocidal in their approach to Arabs and Palestinians in particular. Hamas remembers Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak. They clearly prefer Bibi. They know very well that Bibi has been anxious to operate in Gaza. Hamas knows very well that Israel is running out of military and political options, let alone solutions to the conflict. Hamas voted Bibi. It entered ceasefire negotiations with Israel just a few days before the election. There is good reason to believe that Hamas would prefer to deal with Netanyahu rather than with a ‘centrist’ party led by three war criminals. Hamas won again, it has pushed Israel into a state of further paralysis. Israel does not have a prospect of a future in the region. Israel may not be defeated by Quasam rockets but by its own Ghetto mentality.

April 10, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | Leave a comment

Putin Open to Provocation-Free Dialogue With Ukraine’s Zelenskiy – Kremlin

Sputnik – 08.04.2019

MOSCOW – Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to discuss any pressing issues with the Ukrainian presidential hopeful, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, if such a dialogue is free of provocations, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday.

“In general, Putin is always open for dialogue, except for the situations when [Kiev] is trying to couple this dialogue with various provocations, sabotage and so on. In such cases, Putin’s reaction is very clear, unequivocal and decisive,” Peskov said.

Ukrainian frontrunner Zelenskiy said Sunday he was ready for talks with Putin on the Donbass conflict in the presence of Western powers.

Ukrainian presidential hopeful Zelensky has won first election round with 30.24 percent of votes, final results of the ballot count revealed, while Poroshenko has gained 15.95 percent of votes.

April 8, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Iran, Iraq ‘agree on aerial defense cooperation’

Press TV – April 7, 2019

Iran’s top military commander says the country and its neighbor Iraq have agreed to cooperate in the area of air defense to fend off the challenges facing their respective air spaces.

Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri made the announcement to reporters following a meeting in Tehran with his visiting Iraqi counterpart, Lieutenant General Othman al-Ghanimi, Tasnim News Agency reported on Sunday.

The cooperation, Baqeri said, will be aimed at confronting aerial threats.

The meeting addressed “the integrated defense of Iran and Iraq’s skies, because we might sense threats coming from the direction of [our] western borders,” he added.

“Accordingly, it was agreed that the countries’ air defense sectors work together and more coordination be made in this regard,” the Iranian commander said.

Baqeri said the two sides also agreed on potential training cooperation, the transferring of Iran’s defensive experiences to Iraq, and joint military exercises. Agreements on these, he added, will be finalized during a future visit by the Iraqi military chief.

Ghanimi was in the Iranian capital as part of a delegation accompanying Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi. On Saturday, the delegation met with Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani.

Baqeri cited the Iraqi commander as saying that Baghdad would be exercising stricter control on the United States’ military presence on its soil.

The American forces are only there to train Iraqis and their activities are under the Iraqi Army’s oversight, Baqeri added, citing al-Ghanimi.

In his meeting with Ghanimi, Ayatollah Khamenei had stressed that the Iraqi government should make sure that US forces leave Iraq as soon as possible.

April 7, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Venezuela FM takes Middle East tour, set to meet Nasrallah

Press TV – April 3, 2019

Venezuela’s foreign minister has embarked on a Middle East tour taking him through Turkey, Lebanon, and Syria, amid US measures to prop up the Latin American country’s opposition figure and self-proclaimed “interim president” Juan Guaido against President Nicolas Maduro.

Jorge Arreaza arrived in Turkey on Monday and was assured by his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu of Ankara’s support for the Latin American nation in the face of US pressure. “It should not be in a way that ‘I am a big country and I can determine entire rules,’” Cavusoglu said, referring to Washington’s sanctions against Venezuela and its efforts to oust Maduro, Turkish paper Hurriyet reported.

On Tuesday, the top Venezuelan diplomat traveled to Lebanon on a two-day visit. Lebanese President Michel Aoun received him at the presidential Baabda Palace in Beirut. Arreaza, who conveyed a message from Maduro to Aoun, also met with his Lebanese counterpart Gebran Bassil.

He was also slated to meet with Lebanese Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri, Lebanese news portal Naharnet reported. According to Lebanese daily al-Joumhouria, he will also be holding a meeting with the Hezbollah resistance movement’s Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah.

Back in January, Hezbollah conveyed its support for Maduro amid mounting US pressure for him to resign and hand over power to Washington-backed Guaido. Hezbollah-associated lawmaker Mohammad Raad was cited by Lebanese TV channel Al Manar as saying at the time that “Nasrallah stands with the Venezuelan people and with its free leadership.”

The Venezuelan foreign minister, meanwhile, expressed satisfaction with the visits to the countries in remarks to Prensa Latina. “They are two countries that respect international law and with which there are friendly and fraternal relations,” the Cuban news agency cited him as saying.

The visit to Lebanon “opens a new stage in bilateral ties with the possibility to expand economic cooperation, especially Venezuela’s advisory in the country’s energy sector,” the agency added, citing the top diplomat.

Also in January, the US took the lead in recognizing Guaido as Venezuela’s president after the head of the opposition-ruled Congress named himself the country’s interim chief executive. Washington has been pressuring other countries into following suit and has not ruled out using the military option to oust Maduro’s government.

Many countries, including Iran, Russia, China, and Cuba, however, back Maduro, spurning the subversive American efforts targeting Venezuela’s sovereignty.

Arreaza is next to travel to Syria, with which Caracas has similarly warm relations.

April 3, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

Kremlin Urges No Foreign Interference in Algeria

Al-Manar | April 3, 2019

The Kremlin on Wednesday said it hoped for a transition of power in Algeria without foreign “interference” after President Abdelaziz Bouteflika resigned in the face of massive street protests.

“We expect that the internal processes that are happening in this country and are exclusively the internal affair of Algeria will take place without the interference of any third countries,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

He added that Russia has “mutually beneficial, friendly relations” with Algeria and that the two countries share “many joint projects in the economic sphere.”

Bouteflika, 82, had ruled the former French colony for two decades and had long been accused of clinging to power.

The veteran leader faced mounting pressure to step down following his decision to seek a fifth term, despite rarely being seen in public since suffering a stroke in 2013.

His decision to stand aside was announced on state television late Tuesday.

April 3, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Defence of European empires was original NATO goal

Second in a four-part series on the 70th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization

By Yves Engler · March 30, 2019

The first installment  in this series discussed how NATO was set up partly to blunt the European Left. The other major factor driving the creation of NATO was a desire to bolster colonial authority and bring the world under a US geopolitical umbrella.

From the outset Canadian officials had an incredibly expansive definition of NATO’s supposed defensive character, which says an “attack against one ally is considered as an attack against all allies.” As part of the Parliamentary debate over NATO external minister Lester Pearson said: “There is no better way of ensuring the security of the Pacific Ocean at this particular moment than by working out, between the great democratic powers, a security arrangement the effects of which will be felt all over the world, including the Pacific area.” Two years later he said: “The defence of the Middle East is vital to the successful defence of Europe and north Atlantic area.” In 1953 Pearson went even further: “There is now only a relatively small [5000 kilometre] geographical gap between southeast Asia and the area covered by the North Atlantic treaty, which goes to the eastern boundaries of Turkey.”

In one sense the popular portrayal of NATO as a defensive arrangement was apt. After Europe’s second Great War the colonial powers were economically weak while anti-colonial movements could increasingly garner outside support. The Soviets and Mao’s China, for instance, aided the Vietnamese. Similarly, Egypt supported Algerian nationalists and Angola benefited from highly altruistic Cuban backing. The international balance of forces had swung away from the colonial powers.

To maintain their colonies European powers increasingly depended on North American diplomatic and financial assistance. NATO passed numerous resolutions supporting European colonial authority. In the fall of 1951 Pearson responded to moves in Iran and Egypt to weaken British influence by telling Parliament: “The Middle  East is strategically far too important to the defence of the North Atlantic area to allow it to become a power vacuum or to pass into unfriendly hands.”

The next year Ottawa recognized the colonies of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos as “associated states” of France, according to an internal report, “to assist  a NATO colleague, sorely tried by foreign and domestic problems.” More significantly, Canada gave France hundreds of millions of dollars in military equipment through NATO’s Mutual Assistance Program. These weapons were mostly used to suppress the Vietnamese and Algerian independence movements. In 1953 Pearson told the House: “The assistance  we have given to France as a member of the NATO association may have helped her recently in the discharge of some of her obligations in Indo-China.” Similarly, Canadian and US aid was used by the Dutch to maintain their dominance over Indonesia and West Papua New Guinea, by the Belgians in the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi, by the Portuguese in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau and by the British in numerous places. Between 1950 and 1958 Ottawa donated a whopping $1,526,956,000 ($8 billion today) in ammunition, fighter jets, military training, etc. to European countries through the NATO Mutual Assistance Program.

The role NATO played in North American/European subjugation of the Global South made Asians and Africans wary of the organization. The Nigerian Labour Party’s 1964 pamphlet The NATO Conspiracy in Africa documents that organization’s military involvement on the continent from bases to naval agreements. In 1956 NATO established a Committee for Africa and in June 1959 NATO’s North Atlantic Council, the organization’s main political decision-making body, warned that the communists would take advantage of African independence to the detriment of Western political and economic interests.

The north Atlantic alliance was designed to maintain unity among the historic colonial powers — and the US — in the midst of a de-colonizing world. It was also meant to strengthen US influence around the world. In a history of the 1950-53 US-led Korean war David Bercuson writes that Canada’s external minister “agreed with [President] Truman, [Secretary of State] Dean Acheson, and other American leaders that the Korean conflict was NATO’s first true test, even if it was taking place half a world away.”

Designed to maintain internal unity among the leading capitalist powers, NATO was the military alliance of the post-WWII US-centered multilateral order, which included the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, International Trade Organization (ITO) and the United Nations. (For its first two decades the UN was little more than an arm of the State Department.)

A growing capitalist power, Canada was well placed to benefit from US-centered multilateral imperialism. The Canadian elite’s business, cultural, familial and racial ties with their US counterparts meant their position and profits were likely to expand alongside Washington’s global position.

NATO bolstered colonial authority and helped bring the world under the US geopolitical umbrella, from which the Canadian elite hoped to benefit.

March 30, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

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