The Principal Assistant Secretary of State in the US state department’s Bureau of South & Central Asian Affairs, Alice Wells gave an extraordinary briefing in Washington on March 5 on the Trump administration’s outlook on the Afghan peace talks and reconciliation. The fact that the briefing was on record is itself of significance, underscoring the cautious optimism that the 4-way contacts and below-the-radar discussions between Washington, Islamabad, Kabul and the Afghan Taliban have gained traction.
Wells has touched on all aspects of the situation and they are almost entirely in consonance with my own assessments contained in the opinion piece, which appeared in The Tribune newspaper on March 5. (Joint gains from Afghan Peace, The Tribune, March 5, 2018 )
The most significant thing will be that Wells has forcefully, unequivocally – even euphorically – backed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s peace offer on February 27 to the Taliban, and has pledged that Washington intends to promote the process, no matter what it takes. Equally, Washington estimates that the Taliban has not yet “officially responded”, various media reports attributed to Taliban spokesmen notwithstanding. Wells pointedly urged the Taliban to accept the peace offer.
The Trump administration expects Pakistan too to put its weight behind the Taliban leadership to bring them to the negotiating table. The Pakistani Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua arrived in Washington on March 5 for talks. Pakistan is confident of taking the process forward. Wells said,
- We’re certainly not walking away from Pakistan. There will be very intensive dialogue through both our military and our civilian channels to discuss how we can work together. I mean, Pakistan has an important role to play in helping to stabilize Afghanistan.
Second, the Afghan peace process is not taking place in isolation but forms part of the broad framework of Pakistan-US strategic relationship.
From the Indian perspective, the salience of Well’s briefing lies in the US’ acknowledgement of Pakistan’s centrality in the Afghan peace process and, notably, Pakistan’s “legitimate concerns”, which Washington intends to address. This is how Wells framed the US policy:
- Pakistan has a very important role to play in a peace process. We believe that Pakistan can certainly help to facilitate talks and to take actions that will put pressure on and encourage the Taliban to move forward towards a politically negotiated settlement. And our engagement with Pakistan is on how we can work together, on how we can address Pakistan’s legitimate concerns and Afghanistan’s stability through a negotiated process as well. Obviously, as Pakistani officials have underscored, they see a variety of issues, whether it’s border management or refugees or terrorism that emanates from ungoverned space in Afghanistan, as important issues, and we would agree that all of these need to be resolved during the course of a reconciliation process.
Two vectors that are going to shape the agenda of the forthcoming peace talks are: a) Washington accepts that Taliban has “legitimate grievances… (that) will have to be addressed at the negotiating table”, and, b) the US does not “preordain” any factions or elements within the Afghan Taliban movement to be “irreconcilable.” The latter means, plainly put, that it is entirely up to the Haqqani network to bid farewell to arms and join the peace talks and reconciliation. Wells chose her words carefully:
- I think there are always going to be elements and factions that do not participate – the irreconcilable, so to speak. I think a political process defines who is reconcilable, who is prepared to come to the negotiating table, who is prepared to adhere to an agreement that is negotiated through a political process. And so rather than preordain who is irreconcilable, let the process determine that. But certainly, we would anticipate that there will continue to be elements, not just Taliban elements, that will pose a terrorism threat and will need to be taken care of by the Government of Afghanistan with the support of its partners.
Of course, it is unthinkable that the Haqqanis will defy the Pakistani diktat and continue to pose a terrorism threat. It is hugely significant that at one point, Wells went out of the way to openly acknowledge without caveats as to what is it that distinguishes the Taliban from the ISIS – simply put, Taliban is a legitimate Afghan entity:
- I think all of us recognize that while the Taliban may be – represent an insurgency, they stand for and are Afghan nationalists of one type. ISIS is a nihilistic force that is bent on the very destruction of Afghanistan. And so there is a seriousness, an extreme seriousness of effort, in defeating ISIS.
Then, there is the tantalizing question of the fate of the US military bases in Afghanistan. Here, Wells parried, pleading evasively that it is entirely up to the future government in Kabul to decide whether continued US military presence is needed or not. But then, en passé, she added meaningfully, “No one is precluding any formula…” To my mind, there is going to be some sort of trade off.
Indeed, it may suit Pakistan too that there is continued US military presence in Afghanistan. For one thing, there is the searing experience of the Mujahideen takeover in Kabul in 1992 and the ensuing anarchy. Fundamentally, Pakistan has always sought that Taliban enjoyed US recognition, and, in the given situation, it is in Pakistan’s interests too that the US remains a stakeholder in the post-settlement era in Afghanistan. For, that would inevitably translate as US/NATO dependence on Pakistani cooperation, resuscitation of Pakistan’s role as a “non-NATO ally”, US interest in strengthening the strategic partnership with Pakistan, a US mediatory role in India-Pakistan issues, and, most importantly, the US as a guarantor that what has been shored up by way of an Afghan settlement doesn’t get undermined by other regional states that might harbor revisionist tendencies. The bottom line is that the Pakistani elite cannot think of a future for their country without an enduring strategic partnership with the US.
Unsurprisingly, Wells singled out Russia in almost adversarial terms. What emerges is that the US approach is to try to forge a regional consensus at the forthcoming Tashkent conference this month, which would pile pressure on Russia to fall in line. Evidently, Washington proposes to bypass Moscow and deal directly with the Central Asian capitals to create a regional consensus and support system for the peace process leading to a settlement.
Finally, Washington is still keeping its fingers crossed that Pakistan rises to its expectations, which is not surprising, given the backlog of distrust. Wells said,
- We’ve not seen decisive and sustained changes yet in Pakistan’s behavior, but certainly we are continuing to engage with Pakistan over areas where we think they can play a helpful role in changing the calculus of the Taliban.
Once bitten, twice shy? At any rate, the Trump administration has no alternative but to take Pakistan at its word. Despite the bravado about the US military strategy making headway, Pentagon would know that the Taliban cannot be defeated through air strikes and this is a hopeless stalemate what needs to be addressed on the political and diplomatic track. Wells said,
- We’re certainly not walking away from Pakistan. There will be very intensive dialogue through both our military and our civilian channels to discuss how we can work together. I mean, Pakistan has an important role to play in helping to stabilize Afghanistan.
All in all, Wells’ briefing augurs the opening of a new page in the chronicle of the Afghan war. It signifies that that the war is most likely drawing to a close and the ending is going to be like how all insurgencies in history rooted in native soil finally ended – via reconciliation with the insurgents. The full transcript of Wells’ briefing is here.
March 7, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | Afghanistan, India, ISIS, Pakistan, Russia, Taliban |
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The mystery of the Supreme Court judges in Male promoting democracy in their beloved country is deepening. One of the three judges who gave the ruling to destabilize the political situation had unaccounted money to the tune of $220000 in his possession and a second judge in the troika had a big amount of $2.4 million transferred to him by “a private firm.” Evidently, democracy doesn’t come cheap.
We do not know who is spending all that money to promote democracy in the Maldives – at least, not yet. But Maldives is such a small country that nothing remains secret for long. All we know for the present is that “the investigation is not limited to Maldives.” Put differently, there has been the ubiquitous “foreign hand” pushing the regime change agenda in Maldives.
Male has approached unspecified foreign governments for assistance in conducting the enquiry. Hopefully, India is not one of them. It seems India – along with Sri Lanka, Malaysia, the Netherlands and the UK – is one of the countries the two debonair judges involved in the scam had visited in the past one-year period. (Gulf Today )
There is obviously more – much more – to the events in Maldives than meets the eye. The Xinhua news agency carried an extraordinary commentary last Thursday attacking by name the former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed (who is spearheading the democracy campaign from his locations in Sri Lanka and India) for spreading canards about the Chinese “presence” in Sri Lanka. Nasheed recently told the Hindu newspaper, “Without firing a single shot, China has grabbed more land than what the East India company had, at the height of the colonial era. They have weaponised foreign direct investments.”
Evidently, the Chinese found it an outrageous remark even by Nasheed’s yardstick. Xinhua tore into him. The commentary disclosed, inter alia, that Nasheed himself was once an enthusiastic promoter of Maldives’ relations with China when he was president, and, in fact, the commentary drops a bombshell saying, “However, as a former Maldivian president, who has also experienced the benefits from the fruitful cooperation between the Maldives and China, Nasheed this time chose to turn a blind eye to the fact.”
The Counselor in the Chinese embassy in Male Yang Yin told Xinhua, “Why did Nasheed support this normal economic and trade cooperation during his tenure and now turns to oppose it? Let alone fabricating statistics to tarnish the normal bilateral cooperation between the two countries? These doubts remain in the mind of the Chinese side.”
Hmmm. This Nasheed fellow is turning out to be quite a guy. He always seemed a bit of a maverick. (He once made the immaculate decision on the opening of the Chinese embassy in Male to coincide with the arrival of the then PM Manmohan Singh in the Maldives on official visit in November 2011.) Indeed, it now appears that he has dark secrets that only he and the Chinese could be privy to. But, Yang has asked a good question: Why did Nasheed become a turncoat? Conceivably, some people made an offer to him in recent years that he couldn’t refuse.
To my mind, however, the fascinating thing about the Xinhua commentary is the snippet of information it shared in regard of the scale of the “Chinese presence” in the Maldives. Of course, there have been dark rumors circulating in the Indian press for months on this topic, making it out that the Chinese are building a military base in the Maldives. Well, it seems the plain truth is that the “Chinese presence” in the Maldives actually adds up to seven resort hotels that Chinese companies are constructing on seven islands (out of the country’s total 100 islands) for foreign tourists. To be sure, enterprising Chinese business people see that with the big influx of Chinese tourists into the Maldives, there is good money to be made.
According to Forbes magazine, Maldives figures 7th among the first ten eco-tourist hot spots that Chinese jet setters are choosing. The number of Chinese tourists visiting the Maldives tripled from 1 lakh in 2010 to 3.6 lakhs in 2014, accounting for nearly one-third of the entire tourist traffic to the island, representing the single biggest source market for Maldives. Tourism is the main source of income for Maldives and Male is smart enough to know that China already accounts for more than a fifth of the money spent by outbound tourists worldwide, twice as much as the next-biggest spender, the US (according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization.)
Read the Xinhua commentary here – Spotlight: Former Maldivian president’s statement on China “grabbing land” false, irresponsible.
February 18, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Economics | China, India, Maldives |
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Developments in Maldives have begun unfolding according to script. India, the United States and Britain are spearheading the demand that Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen comply with the order by his country’s Supreme Court to release his political opponents from prison and reinstate 12 former lawmakers as members of Parliament.
The script has a striking resemblance to what happened in Sri Lanka in 2014, with some minor variations on the fundamental theme – regime change. Thus, as in Sri Lanka, sworn enemies who had been at each other’s throats for decades suddenly made strange bedfellows to oust the strongman in the presidential palace, and as dawn broke one fine day, the ground beneath the regime shifted dramatically.
In the earlier case, a defecting faction of the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party aligned with its sworn enemy, the United National Party, undermining thereby the towering incumbent president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s grip on power. Now a similar realignment has happened in Maldives, which now threatens President Yameen’s continuance in power.
This latest unholy alliance is between two former presidents, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom (a cousin of the incumbent president) and a man who once overthrew Gayoom, Mohamed Nasheed. Gayoom and Nasheed have been sworn enemies. What adds to the intrigue is the mysterious role by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Abdullah Saeed – who was, incidentally, appointed to the top court in 2009 by Nasheed when he was in power.
To what extent external powers promoted this opportunistic alliance to dethrone Yameen is a moot point. The US ambassador (based in Colombo) has been working closely with New Delhi to “promote” democracy. Nasheed and Saeed have visited Delhi in recent months at India’s invitation. Nasheed even addressed a panel at Brookings India to present his case for regime change in his country. Nasheed is a cult figure in London and Washington.
In sum, there is close coordination between New Delhi and Washington to get rid of Yameeen, who is branded as “pro-China.” Indeed, geopolitics is at the root of the current crisis in Maldives.
The missing link has been the secret move by the administration of US president Barack Obama in early 2013 to negotiate with Maldives about a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), which would have led to increased military cooperation between the two countries, possibly including US bases there. But someone leaked a draft of the agreement to the press, and the US was forced to concede that such talks were indeed going on.
The negotiations got derailed when Yameen was elected president in November 2013 by narrowly defeating Nasheed. If Nasheed returns to power, the negotiations for the conclusion of the SOFA would be back on the table. Despite China’s firm and repeated denials that it has any intention of setting up a military base in Maldives, the China bogey has been whipped up by India.
The real US-Indian game plan is to create a “second island chain” (similar to the one in the Western Pacific) connecting Maldives with Diego Garcia (and Seychelles, where India has a base on one of the islands and has just concluded an agreement to build an airstrip and a sophisticated “monitoring station” at a cost of US$45 million) to curb the presence of Chinese submarines in the Indian Ocean and to control the sea lanes through which China conducts the bulk of its foreign trade. By the way, the US and India closely cooperate in monitoring the presence of Chinese submarines in the Indian Ocean.
As part of the overall US-Indian strategy, New Delhi signed a Bilateral Agreement for Navy Cooperation with Singapore last November that provides Indian Navy ships temporary deployment facilities and logistics support at Singapore’s Changi naval base, which is near the disputed South China Sea, enabling India to engage in more activity in the Strait of Malacca through which China’s oil and natural-gas imports pass.
India also maintains a big naval base in the Bay of Bengal in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands near the Strait of Malacca. Clearly, institutionalized mechanisms are being put in place to monitor Chinese naval activities in both the Strait of Malacca and the Arabian Sea – and to develop “chokepoints” to strangulate the Chinese economy in the event of a confrontation.
Suffice to say, control of the Maldivian atolls is a crucial template of the overall US-Indian strategy to counter China’s rapidly growing blue-water navy and its capacity to project power in the Indian Ocean.
The big question is whether India will intervene in Maldives and chase the recalcitrant Yameen out of power and put some amiable face like Nasheed in power, who can be trusted to act as “our man in the Arabian Sea.” Of course, any such intervention would constitute a violation of international law and the UN Charter.
Traditionally, India has taken a pragmatic approach toward “democracy deficits” in its neighborhood – in Myanmar and Bangladesh, for instance – or its extended neighborhood of West Asia or Central Asia. But the US has been encouraging India to shed its shyness and become assertive, worthy of a great power in the making.
To be sure, if India intervenes in Maldives, no matter its legality or legitimacy, New Delhi can be 100% certain of Anglo-American backing.
In Washington’s calculus, a unilateral Indian intervention in Maldives would signify a leap of faith on New Delhi’s part in the direction of a strategic alliance with the US. The Donald Trump administration has identified India as a key partner in its Asian strategies, but has found that getting India to shed its “strategic autonomy” and “independent foreign policies” has been an exasperating experience so far. An intervention in Maldives would signify that India is willing to cross the Rubicon, finally, and act shoulder-to-shoulder as America’s ally in Asia. To be sure, Maldives presents a defining moment for Indian foreign policy.
However, this is India’s Haiti moment, too. Simply put, the mulattoes and blacks of the Arabian Sea have locked horns and are seeking foreign intervention. The US Navy sent ships to Haiti 19 times between 1857 and 1913 to “protect American lives and property” and finally occupied Haiti in 1915 – until, ultimately, Haitians united in resistance of the US occupation and American forces had to leave in 1934. A repressive dictatorship took over from that point.
February 8, 2018
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Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | India, Maldives, United States |
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Writing in the Guardian newspaper, J. J. Robinson, the well-known journalist and author of Maldives: Islamic Republic, Tropical Autocracy, reflected as follows:
- Ultimately the ongoing telenovela of Maldivian political intrigue is a distraction from the real crisis – the illegitimacy of the judiciary. Handpicked by Gayoom during his rule and illegally given life tenure under the new constitution in 2010, the judges have been at the centre of most of the Maldives’ recent ills; at least 50% of the 200-odd judges and magistrates have less than seventh-grade education, while a quarter had actual criminal records, including convictions for sexual misconduct, embezzlement, violence and disruption of public harmony.
- Resoundingly discredited by groups such as the International Committee of Jurists and the UN’s special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, the institution demands wholesale reform, and likely the presence of foreign judges on the bench. However excited the opposition at their recent good fortune, current events are far from a triumph of judicial independence.
The Maldives President Abdulla Yameen hit the nail on the head when he disclosed on Tuesday that the Chief Justice of Supreme Court Abdulla Saeed was bribed to give such a ruling on February 1, by ordering the release of a clutch of politicians viscerally opposed to the regime and reinstating 12 erstwhile lawmakers (which would have made the ruling Progressive Party of Maldives forfeit majority support in the parliament.) Yameen didn’t say who bribed Saeed but he referred to a plot to overthrow him and vowed to get to the bottom of it.
One can only hope that Yameen doesn’t mention India in a fit of rancor. He has an alibi if he wants to put India on the mat, since Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed (who is in police custody) had paid an extended official visit to New Delhi in late October, soon after the visit by former president Mohamed Nasheed to India in end-August. By the way, while in Delhi, Nasheed addressed a panel at Brookings India to present his case for regime change in Maldives, openly soliciting Indian support. Like icing on the cake, subsequently, the US ambassador in Colombo Arun Kashyap (who is accredited to Male) also dropped by for consultations over the situation in Maldives with the then Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar.
Nasheed himself is based in Colombo. But why would Sri Lankan government encourage Nasheed to overthrow Yameen? To my mind, all this looks like a replay of the botched-up attempt by the CIA to eliminate Turkish President Recep Erdogan in July 2015. The US state department statement on Tuesday, here, betrays a sense of fury and despair that Yameen survived.
India should distance itself from the tragic happenings in Maldives. Importantly, we should nip in the bud any misperceptions arising of being party even remotely to an American plot to overthrow the leadership of a friendly neighboring country. Therefore, we should reach out to Yameen quickly, decisively and demonstrably. After all, he had sent his foreign minister as special envoy to Delhi only recently (soon after Nasheed, Saeed and Kashyap’s visit) in an extraordinary diplomatic gesture to convey to PM Modi that ‘India first’ has been, still is and will forever be the cornerstone of Male’s foreign policy priorities. See the reports on the special envoy’s talks with the Indian leadership on January 11 in New Delhi — here, here and here.)
A hot summer lies ahead for Indian diplomacy since elections are due in the Maldives and Yameen will pull out all the stops to consolidate his position. Delhi’s approach should be ditto what the UPA government took when Sheikh Hasina got re-elected as prime minister in January 2014 in Bangladesh – the boycott of the main opposition party Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the abysmally low voter turnout (22%) notwithstanding. We had rejected Washington’s entreaties to join its campaign to arm-twist Hasina and get a ‘pro-American’ leadership installed in Dhaka.
But the heart of the matter is that times have changed during the past three years. The Indian establishment seemed to think that what was good for Uncle Sam was ditto what India should work for and that all that crap about ‘strategic autonomy’ had become archaic. Basically, bureaucrats had a field day setting their own agenda in the absence of assertive political leadership.
We should never have entertained Kashyap and Brookings India (franchise of a notorious American think tank of Cold War vintage with links to the US intelligence) should never have sponsored activities directed against India’s friendly neighbors. We do not realize that India’s small neighbors take us very seriously and read meanings and motives into our behavior.
February 8, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Sri Lanka, United States |
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Frankly, it was hard to believe when some newspapers mentioned a few months ago that PM Modi was planning to travel to Palestine in a near future. No Indian prime minister ever visited Israel or Palestine. A de-hyphenation of India’s Israel relationship and its ties with Palestine has been the stated Indian policy all along, ever since 1991 when India established relations with Israel, hardly three years after recognizing Palestine – one of the first countries to do so – in 1988. But it is mere sophistry.
The fact remains that India carefully calibrated the dynamics of the two tracks. Paradoxically, Modi will be flagging openly for the first time that hyphenation firmly continues to be the Indian policy. Every time Delhi adds a new dimension to relations with Israel, it feels a compulsion to burnish the ties with Palestine. After Modi’s visit to Israel, he is left with no option but to travel to Palestine.
Modi can be very excessive in the diplomatic arena – such as introducing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Gandhi recently in Ahmedabad (“Ghandi”, as Netanyahu spells the famous name.) Perhaps, Modi’s intention was good, because Netanyahu is the very antithesis of Gandhi’s doctrine of non-violence and he hoped that something of the principles of ‘ahimsa’ might rub on the militant Israeli leader. (Gandhi would never have condoned the assassination of foreign adversaries as state policy, no matter the pretext.)
There was no rational explanation to hype up the relationship with Israel, a country with which India has a trade volume of $4 billion (including arms purchases). But Modi went overboard, and a Palestine visit became unavoidable. Would Netanyahu get upset with Modi for visiting Palestine? Why should he? The world leaders routinely visit Palestine – Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, Shinzo Abe, Vladimir Putin and so on. Even Donald Trump dropped by Bethlehem while visiting Israel.
But the real significance of Modi’s visit to Palestine on February 9, which was announced by South Block on Saturday, lies elsewhere. The visit is being scheduled within a few weeks of the Trump administration’s announcement to withhold $65 million out of the $125 million in annual support it gives to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, and to freeze an additional $45 million it had authorized in December for food relief to refugees in Gaza and the West Bank. The stony heart of Netanyahu applauded Trump’s decision. Netanyahu seeks “a new model” for aid disbursement that would entail greater Israeli control over Palestinian funds as a means to arm-twist the Palestine Authority, and he and Trump would seem to be working in tandem.
To the extent that Modi’s visit is a gesture of solidarity at a juncture when Trump brutally threatens to pass a death sentence on Palestine by cutting all aid, Delhi’s move is invested with a lot of political symbolism. Certainly, it will be interesting to see what Modi says while on Palestinian soil. His joint statement with Netanyahu was almost ditto a narrative of the Israeli position on Palestine. It even omitted any reference to a two-state solution. Will Modi make amends?
More importantly, it remains to be seen what Modi has to offer to the Palestinian people to alleviate their suffering. When he could offer $1 billion to the beleaguered Mongolians who are sandwiched between Russia and China, a similar gesture to the Palestinian people will be noted regionally and internationally as a noble gesture.
Of course it will be a far more fitting tribute to Gandhi’s legacy on Modi’s part than escorting Netanyahu to Sabarmati Ashram.
Read a dispatch in the weekend Guardian newspaper on what awaits Modi in Palestine.
January 28, 2018
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Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | India, Israel, Palestine |
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From the Indian perspective, today’s announcement by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi that Beijing and Islamabad are open to extending the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to Afghanistan dramatically changes the power dynamic in the region. Wang was speaking at a press conference following the first meeting in Beijing today of the newly created China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Dialogue format at foreign minister level, which has been a Chinese initiative. (Xinhua )
Some early deductions are possible. First, for the first time in the region, China is deploying the Belt and Road Initiative to leverage regional security and stability in South Asia. Of course, the economic aspects are there in terms of connectivity, infrastructure development, expansion of trade and investment and so on, but if Kabul becomes a CPEC partner, something fundamentally changes in the 3-way Afghan-Indian-Pakistani equation. That this would be happening under China’s mentorship is important.
Second, India is getting surrounded by BRI projects – north, east, south and west. It lacks the energy and resources to project and sustain a counter-strategy. All we are left with is our vacuous negative propaganda to malign the BRI for which there are no takers abroad. By implication, Afghanistan is rejecting India’s notions of “territorial sovereignty”, et al. At the same time, China’s interest in Indian participation in the BRI is self-evident. Time is running out for India. New thinking is needed urgently.
Third, Wang’s statement in Beijing on Monday during a media briefing on the agenda for Chinese diplomacy in the coming year singled out North Korea and Afghanistan as two regional problems where China intends to push for peacemaking. Today’s disclosure fits in with that. The trilateral format may eventually provide the platform for a regional initiative. The joint press release issued after today’s meeting called on the Taliban “to join the peace process at an early date.”
Fourth, China is displeased that the US is seeking a military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan. The Trump administration is pursuing a dangerous strategy that can destabilize the entire region surrounding Afghanistan. But China will not confront the US, either. Instead, China is introducing a counter-narrative. The US will increasingly find itself in a false position by threatening Pakistan even as Afghanistan is edging toward the CPEC to “conduct win-win trilateral economic cooperation”.
Fifth, the geopolitical implications are profound. Wang today outlined that the CPEC will eventually extend northward to link with the China-Central Asia-West Asia Economic Corridor (CCWAEC), which connects China with the Arabian Peninsula. The CCWAEC starts from China’s Xinjiang and traverses Central Asia before reaching the Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian Peninsula. It crosses the five Central Asian countries and 17 countries and regions in West Asia (including Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey). It is a vast landmass, which is rich in resources but backward in infrastructure.
Finally, there is a high degree of foreign-policy coordination between Beijing and Moscow. We must anticipate that it is a matter of time before Russia evinces interest in the CPEC in one form or another. President Vladimir Putin disclosed on Monday that during a phone conversation with his Turkmenistan counterpart, the subject of the TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) gas pipeline project came up. “He invites us to participate. Generally, certain projects are indeed implemented there, and quite successfully, including by Turkmenistan. But we must take a look, of course, at how feasible projects of this kind will be,” Putin has been quoted as saying.
Indeed, the bottom line is that the tense relations with Pakistan — and the downhill slide in the relations with China — through the past 3-year period virtually shut India out of the power dynamic in the region and reduces it to a lone bystander. The scenario looks pretty bleak.
December 26, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Economics | Afghanistan, Belt and Road Initiative, China, India, Pakistan |
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It is reasonable to surmise that the Indian decision to vote in the UN General Assembly on Thursday against the US president Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel would only have been taken at the level of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
India has been largely harmonizing its foreign policies with Washington through the past decade. And, to boot it, the Trump administration has openly threatened to punish any country that voted against it. Generally speaking, bureaucrats in the South Block wouldn’t jeopardize their career – or their post-retirement assignments by annoying the Americans. (Read WikiLeaks and you’ll learn more about it.) Conceivably, therefore, they would have passed the Jerusalem buck to the PMO where it was lying until the PM got back from the Gujarat campaign.
Then, there is the personal bonding between Modi and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (who is expected to pay a week-long visit to India in January.) Won’t ‘Bibi’ take it amiss? Frankly, that is a non-issue. The arms sales to India constitute a significant source of budgetary support for Israel. Israelis are a very pragmatic lot. The Haaretz newspaper recently featured a lengthy article highlighting the RSS and affiliated Hindu nationalists as an exotic breed who adore Adolf Hitler and subscribe to the Nazi ideology. But has that prevented Israel from doing business with the Modi government? Of course not.
A third aspect is about the ideological affinities devolving upon Islamophobia between the present Indian ruling elite and their Israeli counterparts. Thus, all in all, Modi took a bold decision. Neither academics who claim expertise in West Asian studies nor diplomats who extensively served in the region – or, even ministers in Modi’s cabinet – probably expected him to take such a bold decision.
No doubt, Modi took a wise decision. India has a relationship with West Asia that goes far beyond the regimes in those countries. The West Asian region is in transition, in a historical sense, and India is doing the right thing by taking into account the groundswell of popular opinion over the Jerusalem question. This is one of those rare opportunities available for India to position itself in terms of time past, time present and time future. As a shrewd political mind, Modi senses it.
Diplomacy is far from a cynical process. The importance of principles cannot but be stressed if foreign policy is to be durable and sustainable. Good diplomacy is about maneuvering and negotiating to safeguard interests, but without jettisoning principles. In such a sense, India has had a principled stance on the Palestine issue, which it has maintained even while developing a pragmatic ‘win-win’ relationship with Israel through the past quarter century. India cannot and should not identify with Zionism. Ironically, there is a very significant body of opinion even amongst Jews who find Zionism to be repugnant as an ideology.
Finally, although Trump’s decision on Jerusalem was largely prompted by considerations of US domestic politics, there is undeniably a foreign-policy dimension to it. A former Turkish diplomat and area specialist Faruk Logoglu (who used to be Foreign Secretary when I served as ambassador in Ankara and whom I highly respect at a personal level) told the Tehran Times in an interview this week,
Trump probably calculated that the reactions from the region, especially from Saudi Arabia and Egypt would be meek and he was actually right. The US President aims to isolate Iran by forming a Saudi-led Sunni alliance in the region with the addition of Israel. Trump’s ultimate target is Iran. The issue of Jerusalem is just a way-station in Trump’s strategy against Iran. (Tehran Times )
Evidently, Trump is putting immense pressure on Saudi Arabia. Trump telephoned Saudi King Salman on Wednesday to rev up the anti-Iran campaign, again. But, interestingly, on the very next day, Salman phoned Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Kremlin readout) Saudi Arabia is doing a delicate balancing act. It cannot afford to displease Trump, given the stark realities of the petrodollar. But it increasingly feels he’s a blood sucker and wants to put some space in between. One gets the impression that Saudis want to focus on their own transition and the much-needed internal restructuring. They hope to get a helping hand from Putin to work out an exit strategy in Yemen.
Israel, on the other hand, is spreading exaggerated reports at regular intervals – largely through sly remarks and innuendos –that it is having a quiet affair with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince. It is a disinformation game that Israelis are good at playing. And they have nothing to lose anyway.
Suffice to say, Jerusalem is the tip of an iceberg. But looking ahead, Trump’s Iran project is doomed to fail. Unless Israel fundamentally reorients its own strategies (which seems unlikely under Bibi), its own future may become uncertain. Iran and Turkey (plus Egypt, if it can get its act together) are the only two authentic regional powers in the Middle East. This geopolitical reality will manifest – if not already – as time passes. Therefore, keeping the relations with Israel at a transactional level without harboring romantic notions about it is the prudent thing to do.
December 22, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Islamophobia, Timeless or most popular | India, Iran, Israel, Jerusalem, Middle East, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, United States, Zionism |
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The Pentagon’s latest 6-monthly report on the Afghan situation to the US Congress conveys the picture of ‘work in progress’ in regard of President Trump’s new strategy. It exudes an air of optimism. The 100-page report reiterates that the US is determined to bludgeon the Taliban into submission and make them crawl to the negotiating table.
The Pentagon’s assessment of the role of various regional powers, although the unclassified portions, provides food for thought. For a start, the report refrains from any overt criticism of Pakistan’s role. There are references to Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan but no allegation that the insurgents are getting Pakistani support. An indirect reference appears where the report takes note that “certain extremist groups—such as the Taliban and the Haqqani Network—retain freedom of movement in Pakistan.” On the other hand, the report also acknowledges that Pakistani military operations have “disrupted some militant sanctuaries.”
Secondly, the Pentagon underscores that the military-to-military leadership with Pakistan “remains critical to the success of our mutual interests in the region.” But to move forward in regional cooperation, “we must see fundamental changes in the way Pakistan deals with terrorist safe-havens.” The US intends to deploy “a range of tools to expand cooperation with Pakistan in areas where our interests converge and to take unilateral steps in areas of divergence.” Curiously, the latter part regarding “unilateral steps” has been left unexplained.
Interestingly, the report acknowledges that there are sanctuaries on Afghan soil for terrorist groups that create violence in Pakistan and walks a fine line as regards the “mutual security interests” of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It scrupulously refrains from apportioning blame. This is difficult to understand. Does the Pentagon mean that the Afghan government pursues certain policies over which the US has no control? Or, is it that there are rogue elements within the Afghan state structure?
Among regional actors, Pentagon comes down heavily on Russia’s role. Moscow’s intentions have been shown to be hostile, aimed at undermining the US’ influence in the region by “engaging with the Taliban and putting pressure on Central Asian neighbors to deny support to US and NATO efforts to stabilize Afghanistan.” But there is no allegation in the report that Russia is helping the Taliban with arms supplies.
Indeed, the chances are very remote that US and Russia would cooperate in the war effort in Afghanistan. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov disclosed last week that the US is forcing Afghan army to get rid of Kalashnikov rifles, which the military is trained to handle, with a view to eliminate Russia as a partner in any significant way. The Pentagon report claims that Afghan-Russian relations are under strain due to Moscow’s “acknowledgment of communication with the Taliban and support of the Taliban’s call” for US and NATO’s withdrawal.
In comparison, when it comes to China, the Pentagon wears kid gloves. Amazingly, the report says, “China’s low, but increasing levels of military, economic and political engagement in Afghanistan are driven by domestic security concerns… and China’s increasing desire to protect its regional economic investments.” China is seen as a benign presence. China’s involvement with the Quadrilateral Consultative Group is singled out and there is a hint at China’s potential to influence Pakistani policies.
Evidently, the US keeps in view that a need might arise for the Northern Distribution Network to be activated via the Central Asian region if push comes to shove in the relations with Pakistan.
The portion on Iran is highly nuanced. The report says in as many words that “Iran and the United States share certain interests” in Afghanistan and although Tehran on the whole seeks to “limit US influence and presence” in Afghanistan, particularly in western Afghanistan, it “could explore ways to leverage Iran’s interests in support of US and Afghan objectives in the areas of counternarcotics, economic development and counterterrorism.” The report shows understanding that “Iran’s ultimate goal is a stable Afghanistan where Shi’a communities are safe, economic interests are protected and the US military presence is reduced.”
This is a surprisingly positive assessment at a juncture when Trump is ratcheting up anti-Iran rhetoric and Nikki Haley is firing away. Clearly, the rhetoric is meant to appease Israel and Saudi Arabia, while the Pentagon, which is steering the actual policies on the ground, just stops short of acknowledging that Iran could be a factor of stability in Afghanistan.
The most interesting thing about India, of course, is that the US appeals to Delhi to provide more assistance to Afghanistan, but limited to “economic, medical and civic support”. No surprises here.
December 18, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, United States |
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Babri Masjid
The cat is out of the bag – the Modi government will not condemn the US President Donald Trump’s announcement recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The European Union, Russia, China and the entire Muslim world are aghast. But India ducks by claiming it has “independent and consistent… views and interests” that are “not determined by any third country.” (here)
Why such cowardly prevarication? Either the Modi government should show the courage to acknowledge that India has a pro-Zionist West Asian policy or join the vehement international opinion. There’s nothing to hide, really. PM Modi after all went and paid homage at the tomb of the founder of Zionism in broad daylight when he visited Israel, accompanied by PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
Zionism and India’s freedom struggle are antithetical to each other. Period. There is no other way to frame the moral dilemma. But, inevitably, for the Modi government, political expediency trumps morality. It simply cannot bring itself to annoy Trump. Also, Netanyahu expects Modi to stand by – after all, Israeli and Indian companies are entering into co-production of advanced drone aircraft, finally.
But then, there is more to this than an intense family affair. The Modi government has high stakes in Trump’s announcement on Jerusalem. The point is, the Modi government is also preparing for its Jerusalem announcement – construction of a Hindu temple in Ayodhya. (Both are, ironically, “campaign pledges”.)
Circumstances may vary, but the powerful symbolism is quintessentially the same – bludgeoning the “other” party into submission by creating a fait accompli. Both Jerusalem and Ayodhya are explosive issues. In a world, which is barely coping with tensions and challenges of various kinds, it is illogical to inject more poison. The toxic act is unwarranted and risky unless based on consensus within a broader framework of reconciliation.
But, on the other hand, it has become necessary to placate the ‘core constituency’ at home as well as to address compulsions that exist or are expected shortly. Certainly, Trump must shore up his Christian support base and counts on the Jewish lobby to rescue him if the Congress attempts to impeach him – that is, if Michael Flynn implicates Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner (a Jew, ironically) by telling FBI special prosecutor Mueller’s team that he had contacted the Russians during the campaign itself while acting on Trump’s instructions.
In India, too, the “core constituency” of the ruling elite is no longer euphoric. Dawood Ibrahim is still in Pakistan; Article 370 remains in the book. Equally, Make in India isn’t taking off. The best option is to follow Trump’s footfalls to shore up the support base and distract public opinion. By a strange coincidence, Trump’s announcement on Jerusalem and the 25th anniversary of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya overlapped on November 6. (Indian Express )
Of course, Trump is going to be pilloried by the international opinion and the US’ Middle East policies will run into headwinds. Hopefully, Trump will reciprocate India’s support. Two is company, as they say.
The bottom line is, China is the winner. Beijing probably anticipates it. This is what the foreign ministry spokesman said in Beijing on November 6 even before Trump made the announcement:
- We have noted the report and are paying close attention to the relevant development. What we worry about is any potential flare-up of regional tensions. The status of Jerusalem is a complicated and sensitive issue. All parties shall bear in mind regional peace and tranquility, proceed with caution, and avoid impacting on the long-standing basis for the settlement of the Palestinian issue or triggering new rivalry in the region.
- China firmly supports and advances the Middle East peace process. We support the just cause of the Palestinian people to restore their legitimate national rights and stand behind Palestine in building an independent, full sovereignty state along the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. We call on all parties to remain committed to resolving disputes through negotiations and promoting regional peace and stability in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions.
There is no daylight possible between China and the Muslim world. Whereas, from now onward, there is not only daylight but also moonlight possible between India and the Muslim world.
December 7, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | Babri Masjid, Hindutva, India, Jerusalem, Zionism |
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The International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) connects India’s Mumbai to Russia’s St Petersburg and beyond
India says it is preparing to send a consignment to Russia through a much-awaited new intercontinental multi-modal corridor that connects its port city of Mumbai to Russia’s St Petersburg.
The consignment would depart for Iran’s Persian Gulf port of Bandar Abbas in mid-January and would be thereon taken through the Iranian territory to Azerbaijan’s Baku through road and rail. It would be then taken to Russia by train.
India’s media reported that this would formally launch the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) that had been in the making for 17 years. Nevertheless, the INSTC would technically function fully in a few months thereafter, reported the Economic Times.
The report added that hectic preparations were already underway to firm up all elements of the corridor in all key stakeholder states and that a Russian railway operator was expected to play key role in the INSTC.
The ship, road and rail route connects India’s Mumbai to the Iranian port of Bander Abbas and further to Baku in Azerbaijan as well as Astrakhan, Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia before stretching to northern Europe and Scandinavia.
Currently, a cargo from India to Russia is carried on freight ships via the Red Sea, Suez Canal, Mediterranean Sea, the English Channel and then the Baltic Sea.
The INSTC – which has an estimated cargo capacity of 20-30 million tonnes of goods per year – is expected to provide faster and more efficient trade connectivity between Europe and Southeast Asia.
Dry runs of the route were conducted in 2014, from Mumbai to Baku and Astrakhan via Bandar Abbas. Results showed transport costs will be 30 percent cheaper and transportation period will be 40 percent shorter than the existing routes.
The INSTC will be India’s second corridor after the Chabahar Port to access resource rich Central Asia and its market, the Economic Times wrote.
The launch of Chabahar Port – whose Phase 1 was inaugurated on Sunday – coupled with INSTC will be a game changer for India’s strategic and economic goals in the Eurasian region, added the report.
INSTC could get linked to the Chabahar Port besides Iran’s Bandar Abbas port, the daily quoted an unnamed official as saying.
India also hopes that INSTC would be connected with various other connectivity projects that the five Central Asian and other Eurasian countries have undertaken among themselves, the official said.
December 6, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Economics | India, INSTC, Iran, Russia |
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Over the past 24 hours, the narrative by India’s self-styled “China watchers” regarding the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been shown to be quixotic. The Pakistani media has carried speculative reports that China is holding up the funding for certain road projects coming within the orbit of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) due to a revision of financial rules.
So, the BRI, after all, is not a devious geopolitical strategy but is also about money. And money doesn’t grow on trees – even yuan. Clearly, BRI is expected to be cost-effective and self-financing. And it is not about investing in unsustainable projects in basket economies with an ulterior agenda to surreptitiously acquire ‘equity’ or to entice those moth-eaten countries into a “debt trap” that eventually forces them to pawn their national sovereignty to the pawn broker in Beijing – which is what our China watchers have been propagating.
Indeed, trust the Chinese to put money only where the mouth is. The BRI is, after all, far more profound than a theatrical imperialist adventure in foreign lands. It’s about money, creation of wealth, primarily. Read up China’s current history to understand that China’s priority has never been any different.
For sure, China has excess industrial capacity and needs to export. But as with any complex architecture, it is impossible to distinguish one thread in the BRI matrix as pre-eminent. If at al, the core element of BRI is about galvanizing the “backward” regions of China. It doesn’t need explanation that China’s economic miracle has created regional imbalances in development.
In a bold statement at the party congress, Xi Jinping pledged to remove poverty from the face of China by 2020, which means lifting 70 million people above poverty line. The CPEC focuses on the development of Xinjiang (spanning a mind-boggling landmass of 1.6 million square kilometers endowed with vast mineral resources but sparsely populated.) China has been encouraging foreign investment in that region. With greater connectivity and market access, Xinjiang can be yet another locomotive of growth for the Chinese economy. Equally, the CPEC is also about creating an access route to the world market that is far more economical than the sea route.
Meanwhile, the CPEC’s second phase is about to begin, which concerns the setting up of special economic zones along the newly-laid infrastructural grid. Again, trust the Chinese to make investments that guarantee returns. That is one thing. China is open to inviting partners from third countries. Pakistan is also an increasingly attractive investment destination for western countries. General Electric is showing interest in power projects in the CPEC.
Make no mistake that Pakistan too is eager to attract US investments. During an animated discussion yesterday at the Carnegie in Washington, Pakistan’s ambassador Aitzaz Ahmad Chaudhry highlighted this aspect. He said:
- Pakistan’s relationship with China is not at the expense of its relations with the US.
- The US still remains Pakistan’s single most important country. It stood by Pakistan for 6 decades and is perceived as a highly benevolent country.
- The US involvement in CPEC not only brings in technology but will also “balance out” Pakistan’s relations with China.
On the other hand, China too hopes to make the BRI a template of its relations with western countries. The Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang held a brain storming session with 250 top Japanese business executives two weeks ago in Beijing to flesh out ideas. Japan anticipates the Chinese motivations, which explains the plan it has drawn up to support participation by Japanese companies and funding for BRI projects.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made a dramatic announcement on this in Tokyo on Monday at a 2-day gathering of Japanese and Chinese business executives. “Meeting robust infrastructure demand in Asia through cooperation between Japan and China will contribute greatly to the prosperity of Asian people, in addition to the economic development of the two countries,” Abe said. He added that he hoped that Xi will visit Japan “as early as possible.” (Straits Times, South China Morning Post )
Clearly, time is not far off when China becomes the “co-investor” – rather than sole investor – in BRI projects. Therefore, China will continuously upgrade the BRI concept and its rules and regulations with a view to ensure conformity with high western standards. If the Pakistani reports are accurate, a major revision of the financial rules of CPEC projects is already going on.
China takes immense pride in the BRI. It is enshrined in China’s constitution now. The bottom line is that BRI enhances China’ stature as the flag-carrier of globalization. China hopes to create a new supply chain where its standards get global acceptability. Which means that the BRI needs to be transparent and accountable and is on par with (or even excel) western financial and banking norms and business practices.
Time is running out for our pundits who spite the BRI out of Sinophobia and keep making apocalyptic predictions. But the tragedy is that they have done immense damage to India’s interests already by propagating falsehoods and prejudices. The BRI could have been — and should have been — a template of PM Modi’s development agenda. The residual hope now will be: “When Abe goes, can Modi be far behind?”
December 6, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Timeless or most popular | China, CPEC, India, Japan, One Belt One Road |
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Yesterday, media reported that the Indian Ministry of Defense scrapped the $500M deal with Israeli arms manufacturer Rafael Advanced Defense Systems for its missile systems. Years in the making, the deal had been celebrated in international media and was finalized after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel in July. In August, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and its Indian partner Kalyani Strategic Systems opened a facility in Hyderabad to manufacture the missile systems.
The deal was cancelled after India’s state-run Defense Research Development Organisation asserted that India should not import this Israeli technology.
Jamal Juma’, coordinator of the Palestinian Stop the Wall Campaign and BNC secretariat member said:
India’s decision to scrap this massive arms deal with Israel is a huge blow to the Israeli weapons industry. This $500 million deal would have fueled Israel’s military industry, which is deeply implicated in war crimes against the Palestinian people.
It is also a major setback for Israel’s propaganda hubris that its technology is indispensable for India’s development and modernization. As many Indians are recognizing, Israel is marketing military and agricultural technologies in India and trying to cement Indian dependence on Israel.
Israel seeks a flow of Indian cash for it’s own profit and to help finance its criminal wars and apartheid regime.
India is by far the globe’s biggest importer of Israeli weapons, and Israel is enjoying almost unparalleled influence in the Indian military system. Israel is equipping the Indian army with Israeli guns, the Indian airforce and navy with Israeli airplanes and missiles, and is also providing communication systems and technology in all levels of the Indian military.
Over the last two decades, Indo-Israeli military relations have continuously increased despite various corruption scandals and technical failures.
Similar patterns have started to surface in other sectors as well. India’s 16 million-strong farmer’s union AIKS has endorsed the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) “in order to stand for the rights of the Palestinian people and to resist the corporate takeover of Indian agriculture sector by Israeli companies.”
Members of Telengana’s state assembly last week denounced state-sponsored trips of Indian farmers to Israel as “a wastage of money.”
Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the BNC said:
We hope this is the beginning of the end of Indian complicity in Israel’s egregious violation of international law and Palestinian human rights. As Palestinians we ask the Indian people to maintain their proud legacy of commitment to independence, to growing local knowledge and to respecting other people’s struggles for self-determination.
Israel’s regime of oppression can never be a model for the great Indian nation that once led the non-aligned movement and upheld the right of all nations to self determination and freedom. Israel exports to India what it knows best — technology that represses, militarizes and dispossesses people of their land and water rights. India is better off without that.
Last week it was announced that Indian Oil and Natural Gas Corporations are bidding for drilling rights in gas fields claimed by Israel, despite the many controversies linked to territorial disputes in such fields. In August, India’s Adventz group signed a Memorandum of Understanding to develop Israel’s Jerusalem Light Rail, which serves Israel’s settlements in and around occupied East Jerusalem in violation of international law.
Omar Barghouti said:
As large multinationals increasingly abandon their illegal projects in Israel due to effective BDS pressure, Israel has started dragging India into deals fraught with legal and political problems. Indian companies would be well advised to avoid getting sucked into Israel’s human rights violations as more and more international corporations refuse to get involved in such complicity.
The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) is the largest coalition in Palestinian civil society. It leads and supports the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement for Palestinian rights.
November 21, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Human rights, India, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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