Subin Nepal
Sitting on a theoretical possibility of producing 84,000 megawatts of hydro-electricity, Nepal currently produces
about 700 megawatts of hydro-electricity. The demand for electricity has risen upwards of 20% each year over the last decade; yet Nepal’s production has not seen
any significant rise. As a result, the population, during extreme situations, faces over 18-hour power-cuts each day.
Holding on to the historical paranoia of Indian expansionist policy, no Nepali government after 1990 has been able to create a situation to multiply
hydroelectricity production. After a long stalemate over the power trade issue, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s foreign policy to focus more on the
neighborhood seems to have given renewed impetus on both the sides for a revitalised power trade deal. India plans to propose a new Power Trade Accord (PTA) when Modi visits Nepal in August. Though some details
of the agreement are yet to be made public,
speculations are on the rise and as usual there is public outcry in Nepal as to how this agreement might not benefit Nepal.
Several Nepali scholars have pointed out that the 2014 PTA undercuts Nepali sovereignty by fueling Indian interests of power while making the Nepali private
power sector weak and selling energy that Nepal would require in the future for its own development projects. The PTA – that is in fact beneficial for Nepal in at
present as well as in the future – doesn’t appear to undermine Nepali sovereignty at all. In fact, for the present it is one way to create more jobs for newer power projects and increase electricity distribution, as
this accord doesn’t plan on selling electricity to India before fulfilling demands within Nepal.
Even for the distribution, majority of the infrastructure will be built by Indian corporations. Increased distribution within Nepal would give the country an
opportunity to focus on other development projects. The dissenting side of this argument seems to be holding on
to the idea of the effects of selling electricity to India at a lower rate than Nepal would want. However, the ground reality is that at the moment, Nepal neither has the infrastructure nor the capacity to mobilise its own domestic industry to create mega hydro-power projects that could sell output to India at a rate it would want.
The best compromise would be what has been proposed from the Indian side: consume as much electricity as you need at home and sell the rest of it at a rate that
has been agreed upon by both sides.
In the long run, these mega power projects that have been envisioned by India are sure to provide a consistent supply of power to the country to make a move towards clean energy and cut back on the consumption of gasoline – thereby decreasing Nepal’s
international trade deficit as well as dependency on fossil fuel. Nepal already does a great job of leaving very little carbon footprint internationally and this move
would only help strengthen Nepal’s environmental record. While Indian power companies build power projects, Nepal has a unique opportunity to study and implement ways to make hydro-electricity the main source of power for the country.
There is a fear that any Indian proposal to Nepal is to turn it into Bhutan – that is still considered an Indian “protectorate.” However, Nepali leaders seem to be
either unaware or deliberately ignoring that Bhutan’s case is different as India influences its foreign policy.
Kathmandu has full control over what it decides to sign off on, and the PTA, at the moment, is highly suitable for various reasons such as: India’s successful
experiment with such a project(s) in Bhutan; the India- Nepal, geographical and cultural proximities; the Indian power sector’s familiarity with regional geography; the Indian interest to invest in Nepal and India’s energy needs. One faction of Nepali leaders has been discussing the possibility of selling electricity to either
Pakistan or Bangladesh via India. They seem to be unaware of the historical baggage India carries in its relations with these countries. Hence, the voices
dissenting this power proposal seem to be stemming out of the paranoia towards anything tagged as Indian.
Nepal’s biggest challenge in moving forward with the PTA with India would be the ability to balance the growing Chinese interest in the country. Recently, Chinese companies were awarded contracts to build a few mega hydro-power projects, and this trend might continue. If balanced diplomatically, Nepal might in fact
be able to utilise this race between its two neighbours for increased infrastructure in the country; or turn into a playground if not balanced carefully. The Nepali leadership alone has the ability to decide where they
would like to head towards.
5 Aug 2014
INDIA-SRI LANKA: STRENGTHENING REGIONAL COOPERATION
Asanga Abeyagoonasekera
August marks the death anniversary of the late Lakshman Kadirgamar, a remarkable Foreign Minister brutally assassinated by the LTTE. He once said, “India and Sri Lanka relationship is lost in the mist of time,” which signifies the deep bond that the two nations share. The gift of Buddhism is perhaps the most enduring of all ties and lays the foundation for this long-rooted friendship. The most sacred symbols of
Buddhism - the Sacred Tooth, a relic of Lord Buddha gifted by King Guhaseeva, and the sapling of Sri Maha Bo tree in Anuradhapura, which is believed to be from the same tree under which the Buddha attained Nirvana - were gifted from India. South Indian kings ruled the island nation from time to time. The last few kings who ruled the Island were Nayakkar kings. Yet, they protected the Sacred Tooth relic and respected Buddhist values and Sinhalese culture.
Despite the shared history, culture and religion, India-Sri Lanka relations in the present context is discussed with regard to three key areas: the India’s position on the
13th Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka, its stand with regard to the UNHRC resolution against Sri Lanka, and the fishermen issue in Tamil Nadu. One of
the main topics of discussion between President Rajapaksa and the newly appointed Prime Minister of India Mr Narendra Modi was the 13th Amendment. Sri Lanka was advised to fully implement the 13th Amendment.
Among the many challenges that the Sri Lanka-India relationship faces at present, the Tamil Nadu fishermen issue has gained widespread attention. When Indian
fishermen illegally violate the maritime boundary of Sri Lanka, the Sri Lankan Navy arrests and detains them. A few days ago, 50 such fishermen were arrested.
According to news reports, 93 fishermen are currently under arrest and detention in Sri Lanka. In a context in which territorial boundaries are located in close proximity, these types of issues can happen. Failure to
agree on a suitable solution by both countries will only result in continuation of this problem.
In finding a solution to the fishermen issue neither Sri Lanka nor the Government of India can ignore South India. During his recent visit to Colombo, Dr
Subramaniam Swamy, one of the most influential policy advisors to the BJP Government said, “One weakness in
India’s policy towards Sri Lanka is the veto power Tamil Nadu has.” Explaining further, he suggested that this situation will not remain the same under the current
government. Even though this is a positive remark for Sri Lanka, one cannot ignore the fact that South India is Sri Lanka’s closest neighbour. As the tension between South India and Sri Lanka heightened after the war, strong remarks were made by both sides. This affected the Sri Lanka-India
relationship. In order to avoid such a situation in the future, it is important to count the concerns of Tamil Nadu in finding a solution to the fishermen issue. One technical way of mitigating and minimising this issue could be by introducing strict regulations on fisheries’ practices such as having a vessel monitoring system (VMS) with transponders on board all the
vessels. That gives the ability for the coast guards from both nations to monitor the path of the vessels. Geo fencing to determine the boundary between the two
nations can also be used. This would help in preventing any illegal vessel from entering each other’s territorial water. This in turn will help to identify and minimise
bottom trolling to protect the marine environment. Declaring the maximum amount of fish to catch would control excessive over fishing (Quota Management
System). There are many technical measures that could ease tensions between the two countries. India should have strong and close relations with all its
neighbours to achieve its goal as a regional economic power. The SAARC meeting due in November would be a good opportunity for the newly appointed Indian
Government to strengthen its bond and take some important decisions beneficial to both India and to the South Asian region as a whole.
In terms of the future goals of SAARC, it has been discussed that its future progress depends heavily on bordering countries such as Pakistan and India overcoming deep-rooted ethnic conflict. SAARC does
have the potential to be a platform for increased communication and engagement over these issues. Prime Minister Modi’s proposal of having a common satellite for the SAARC region would be one initial step.
As a Nepalese newspaper recently reported, the reduction in the soap industry ingredient import tariff in India would flood the Nepalese market with Indian soap,
which could destroy the Nepalese soap manufacturers.
While trade is one of the areas in which SAARC can strengthen its ties, it should be done in a way that is mutually beneficial and helpful to all the SAARC countries.
The behaviour of South Asian countries clearly indicate that they are derived more from a nationalistic agenda. RWhile looking inward is important for a country, it should
also note that improving and strengthening regional cooperation among the South Asian Nations is equally important in this globalised world.
August marks the death anniversary of the late Lakshman Kadirgamar, a remarkable Foreign Minister brutally assassinated by the LTTE. He once said, “India and Sri Lanka relationship is lost in the mist of time,” which signifies the deep bond that the two nations share. The gift of Buddhism is perhaps the most enduring of all ties and lays the foundation for this long-rooted friendship. The most sacred symbols of
Buddhism - the Sacred Tooth, a relic of Lord Buddha gifted by King Guhaseeva, and the sapling of Sri Maha Bo tree in Anuradhapura, which is believed to be from the same tree under which the Buddha attained Nirvana - were gifted from India. South Indian kings ruled the island nation from time to time. The last few kings who ruled the Island were Nayakkar kings. Yet, they protected the Sacred Tooth relic and respected Buddhist values and Sinhalese culture.
Despite the shared history, culture and religion, India-Sri Lanka relations in the present context is discussed with regard to three key areas: the India’s position on the
13th Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka, its stand with regard to the UNHRC resolution against Sri Lanka, and the fishermen issue in Tamil Nadu. One of
the main topics of discussion between President Rajapaksa and the newly appointed Prime Minister of India Mr Narendra Modi was the 13th Amendment. Sri Lanka was advised to fully implement the 13th Amendment.
Among the many challenges that the Sri Lanka-India relationship faces at present, the Tamil Nadu fishermen issue has gained widespread attention. When Indian
fishermen illegally violate the maritime boundary of Sri Lanka, the Sri Lankan Navy arrests and detains them. A few days ago, 50 such fishermen were arrested.
According to news reports, 93 fishermen are currently under arrest and detention in Sri Lanka. In a context in which territorial boundaries are located in close proximity, these types of issues can happen. Failure to
agree on a suitable solution by both countries will only result in continuation of this problem.
In finding a solution to the fishermen issue neither Sri Lanka nor the Government of India can ignore South India. During his recent visit to Colombo, Dr
Subramaniam Swamy, one of the most influential policy advisors to the BJP Government said, “One weakness in
India’s policy towards Sri Lanka is the veto power Tamil Nadu has.” Explaining further, he suggested that this situation will not remain the same under the current
government. Even though this is a positive remark for Sri Lanka, one cannot ignore the fact that South India is Sri Lanka’s closest neighbour. As the tension between South India and Sri Lanka heightened after the war, strong remarks were made by both sides. This affected the Sri Lanka-India
relationship. In order to avoid such a situation in the future, it is important to count the concerns of Tamil Nadu in finding a solution to the fishermen issue. One technical way of mitigating and minimising this issue could be by introducing strict regulations on fisheries’ practices such as having a vessel monitoring system (VMS) with transponders on board all the
vessels. That gives the ability for the coast guards from both nations to monitor the path of the vessels. Geo fencing to determine the boundary between the two
nations can also be used. This would help in preventing any illegal vessel from entering each other’s territorial water. This in turn will help to identify and minimise
bottom trolling to protect the marine environment. Declaring the maximum amount of fish to catch would control excessive over fishing (Quota Management
System). There are many technical measures that could ease tensions between the two countries. India should have strong and close relations with all its
neighbours to achieve its goal as a regional economic power. The SAARC meeting due in November would be a good opportunity for the newly appointed Indian
Government to strengthen its bond and take some important decisions beneficial to both India and to the South Asian region as a whole.
In terms of the future goals of SAARC, it has been discussed that its future progress depends heavily on bordering countries such as Pakistan and India overcoming deep-rooted ethnic conflict. SAARC does
have the potential to be a platform for increased communication and engagement over these issues. Prime Minister Modi’s proposal of having a common satellite for the SAARC region would be one initial step.
As a Nepalese newspaper recently reported, the reduction in the soap industry ingredient import tariff in India would flood the Nepalese market with Indian soap,
which could destroy the Nepalese soap manufacturers.
While trade is one of the areas in which SAARC can strengthen its ties, it should be done in a way that is mutually beneficial and helpful to all the SAARC countries.
The behaviour of South Asian countries clearly indicate that they are derived more from a nationalistic agenda. RWhile looking inward is important for a country, it should
also note that improving and strengthening regional cooperation among the South Asian Nations is equally important in this globalised world.
NUCLEAR USE: NEED FOR THINK ON POLITICAL-LEVEL CONSIDERATION
Ali Ahmed
In a recent op-ed, 'Counter Pak Nuke Tactics ', nuclear strategy expert Manpreet Sethi rightly states in the conclusion that “The purpose of the Indian nuclear weapon is narrow and limited to safeguarding the
country against nuclear coercion, blackmail or its possible use.”
Sethi, a long time Pakistan military watcher, is spot-on in her understanding that Pakistan’s military is using the Nasr nuclear missile system to deter India from
exercising its conventional advantage in case push comes to shove in the form of a mass terror attack, a’la Mumbai II. It would like to use this to catalyse foreign
intervention into moderating India’s nuclear response.
Many analysts advocate that, faced with this challenge, India needs to reinforce its existing nuclear doctrine. The existing nuclear doctrine calls for inflicting
unacceptable damage in retribution for Pakistani nuclear first use, even if this in the form of a lower order tactical nuclear strike. While many want to strengthen its
credibility, a few, such as professors Basrur and Rajaraman , want a shift in thinking on what deters.
There is a consensus among the competing schools that nuclear retaliation must greet nuclear first use. The difference is in the nature of the nuclear retaliation. If Pakistan resorts to ‘asymmetric escalation’, to use Vipin Narang’s phrase for escalation across the nuclear firebreak between conventional and nuclear levels of war, the former school argues for holding out the threat of escalation. The argument goes that India can withstand the loss of a couple of cities; Pakistan having just a few, cannot. This will stay Pakistan’s nuclear finger, the objective of deterrence. All India needs to do is to ensure that it unmistakably conveys to Pakistan its implacable intention, even if it is at the risk of a few Indian cities.
However, with nuclear warheads in the lower three digits, Pakistan may venture bold to get even. Taking this seriously, the ‘flexible’ response school does not rule out consideration of proportionate response. They believe that the credibility of disproportionate response is questionable. But a proportionate response can be assured and serves to deter equally.
As can be seen, both sides base their arguments on strategic level considerations focused on deterrence. Strategists dealing with deterrence are at a level lower than the political, at which the political decision-maker functions. For a political decision-maker, theirs’ is an important input to inform the nuclear decision but not to determine it. At the political level there are also other considerations over and beyond deterrence. These must override input from the strategic level on the nature of nuclear response.
First are political consequences. The Indian way of life and India as we know it cannot be endangered inordinately. Losing a few cities can perhaps be absorbed, but the communities that have lost cities lose
out on life chances. This is particularly so in relation to relatively unscathed neighbours. Perceiving that India has let them down, sub-nationalisms may come to fore. Next are social consequences. These will be long-term from the perspective of environmental effects. The number of nuclear mushrooms that need to sprout across Pakistan to deprive it of a retaliatory capability, stashed away at locations numbering in two digits, will be at least 30. Since Pakistan has second strike capability, the ability to fire back even after receiving a debilitating nuclear strike, it would be able to lob back
at least 20. Fifty bombs going off is half the total of the 100 that formed the basis for 2013 estimate by environmental scientists of two billion casualties from nuclear winter induced famine. The price will be paid at the cost of inter-generational equity.
Finally are strategic consequences. Winning the war is seldom as important as winning the peace. Though Pakistan will not be on the map, it will remain as a piece of land with severely disadvantaged people. India
will have to bear the additional burden of its recuperation for its own stability. It will consequently have to abandon its dream of parity with China for at least half a century.
Given these political level considerations, the political decision-maker will have to outthink his strategic advisers. Strategists have a role to play. Their discharging this role is good for deterrence. They keep nuclear dangers at the fore, lest the adversary take these as bluff. However, political level considerations trump strategic level input.
Nuclear doctrine is primarily meant for deterrence. The ‘massive’ retaliation school emphasising the dreadful possibilities helps deter, since inexorable escalation can
well occur. However, for an NFU abiding power such as India, nuclear employment will be when deterrence has failed. Therefore, a deterrence doctrine can at best
inform, but not determine, nuclear weapons employment decisions.
Eschewing Cold War thinking helps in sealing off a particular direction, but does not tell which direction to go. While deterrence relevant considerations have found reflection in the discourse, missing is thinking on what the content and checklist political level considerations needs to be for India.
In a recent op-ed, 'Counter Pak Nuke Tactics ', nuclear strategy expert Manpreet Sethi rightly states in the conclusion that “The purpose of the Indian nuclear weapon is narrow and limited to safeguarding the
country against nuclear coercion, blackmail or its possible use.”
Sethi, a long time Pakistan military watcher, is spot-on in her understanding that Pakistan’s military is using the Nasr nuclear missile system to deter India from
exercising its conventional advantage in case push comes to shove in the form of a mass terror attack, a’la Mumbai II. It would like to use this to catalyse foreign
intervention into moderating India’s nuclear response.
Many analysts advocate that, faced with this challenge, India needs to reinforce its existing nuclear doctrine. The existing nuclear doctrine calls for inflicting
unacceptable damage in retribution for Pakistani nuclear first use, even if this in the form of a lower order tactical nuclear strike. While many want to strengthen its
credibility, a few, such as professors Basrur and Rajaraman , want a shift in thinking on what deters.
There is a consensus among the competing schools that nuclear retaliation must greet nuclear first use. The difference is in the nature of the nuclear retaliation. If Pakistan resorts to ‘asymmetric escalation’, to use Vipin Narang’s phrase for escalation across the nuclear firebreak between conventional and nuclear levels of war, the former school argues for holding out the threat of escalation. The argument goes that India can withstand the loss of a couple of cities; Pakistan having just a few, cannot. This will stay Pakistan’s nuclear finger, the objective of deterrence. All India needs to do is to ensure that it unmistakably conveys to Pakistan its implacable intention, even if it is at the risk of a few Indian cities.
However, with nuclear warheads in the lower three digits, Pakistan may venture bold to get even. Taking this seriously, the ‘flexible’ response school does not rule out consideration of proportionate response. They believe that the credibility of disproportionate response is questionable. But a proportionate response can be assured and serves to deter equally.
As can be seen, both sides base their arguments on strategic level considerations focused on deterrence. Strategists dealing with deterrence are at a level lower than the political, at which the political decision-maker functions. For a political decision-maker, theirs’ is an important input to inform the nuclear decision but not to determine it. At the political level there are also other considerations over and beyond deterrence. These must override input from the strategic level on the nature of nuclear response.
First are political consequences. The Indian way of life and India as we know it cannot be endangered inordinately. Losing a few cities can perhaps be absorbed, but the communities that have lost cities lose
out on life chances. This is particularly so in relation to relatively unscathed neighbours. Perceiving that India has let them down, sub-nationalisms may come to fore. Next are social consequences. These will be long-term from the perspective of environmental effects. The number of nuclear mushrooms that need to sprout across Pakistan to deprive it of a retaliatory capability, stashed away at locations numbering in two digits, will be at least 30. Since Pakistan has second strike capability, the ability to fire back even after receiving a debilitating nuclear strike, it would be able to lob back
at least 20. Fifty bombs going off is half the total of the 100 that formed the basis for 2013 estimate by environmental scientists of two billion casualties from nuclear winter induced famine. The price will be paid at the cost of inter-generational equity.
Finally are strategic consequences. Winning the war is seldom as important as winning the peace. Though Pakistan will not be on the map, it will remain as a piece of land with severely disadvantaged people. India
will have to bear the additional burden of its recuperation for its own stability. It will consequently have to abandon its dream of parity with China for at least half a century.
Given these political level considerations, the political decision-maker will have to outthink his strategic advisers. Strategists have a role to play. Their discharging this role is good for deterrence. They keep nuclear dangers at the fore, lest the adversary take these as bluff. However, political level considerations trump strategic level input.
Nuclear doctrine is primarily meant for deterrence. The ‘massive’ retaliation school emphasising the dreadful possibilities helps deter, since inexorable escalation can
well occur. However, for an NFU abiding power such as India, nuclear employment will be when deterrence has failed. Therefore, a deterrence doctrine can at best
inform, but not determine, nuclear weapons employment decisions.
Eschewing Cold War thinking helps in sealing off a particular direction, but does not tell which direction to go. While deterrence relevant considerations have found reflection in the discourse, missing is thinking on what the content and checklist political level considerations needs to be for India.
AND THEN THERE IS THE MIDDLE-EAST: THE LACK OF AN END-GAME
Amit Gupta
US’ policy towards the turmoil in the Middle East, or the lack of it, is shaped by three factors: traditional ties and alliances that continue in the post-Cold War era; the complex regional environment that has emerged after the so-called “Arab Spring;” and the events of 9/11 and Iraq that have forged American opinion on the subject.
Yet none of these factors are any help in resolving the current political turmoil in the Middle East.
The US’ traditional ties in the Middle East have been with conservative Arab regimes, particularly in the Gulf, and with the state of Israel. Neither set of ties has changed much in the 21st century and if anything the ties with Israel have become even stronger since 9/11. International observers now, in fact, complain of an American media bias towards Israel in the current Gaza conflict that is much more marked than in past Arab- Israeli conflicts. The US is unlikely to change this relationship given the impact of the other two factors
mentioned above. The Arab Spring was a bombshell that policymakers, academics, and the American media were not expecting and a coherent American policy took some time to develop. What eventually emerged was a policy that supported a democratic transition with a preference for
moderate political forces having their hands on the wheel. In none of the Arab countries did events play out the way policymakers expected. In Egypt, the military dismissed the legally elected president and was able to get its own candidate elected in a new election. In
Tunisia, the nation which has seen the best potential transition to democracy, a conservative Islamic party came to power and has subsequently called for
parliamentary and presidential elections in October/ November 2014. In Libya, Colonel Gadhafi was removed from power but the country is now headed into a civil war and Western embassies, aid workers, and journalists are leaving the country en masse. In Bahrain, the fledgling movement for democracy was crushed by the authorities while in Yemen cosmetic changes were made to the regime. Iraq and Syria are engulfed in civil war and have seen the rise of ISIS - a group so brutal that
even al Qaeda has had to disown them.
As for the Palestinians, the rise of Hamas was viewed with disquiet by Israel, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation on the West Bank, and by the conservative Arab states and even the new government in Egypt. The Arab countries’ governments have remained by and large silent over the events in Gaza because of the turn the Arab Spring took. The elites and the middle class
were stunned by the rise of extremist elements and voted instead for stability which in actual terms meant withdrawing support from the Muslim Brotherhood and
Hamas. Paradoxically, it is the non-Arab states - Turkey and Iran - that have been the most vocal supporters of Palestinian nationhood. Add to these concerns the fact that in the post-9/11 world the West is worried by the rise of radical groups in the Middle East, all these events only works to strengthen the relationship with Israel which is seen as a loyal ally. What then is the likely endgame for the US, if any, in the
region?
Given the US’ economic concerns, the bill for the Afghan and Iraq wars, and war fatigue in the general population, long-term military intervention will be difficult to
achieve. At the same time, the chaos in the Middle East makes it likely that the global powers are going to have to adopt a wait-and-see approach on what type of
political formations emerge from this volatile situation.
The one threat which might prompt US-led intervention is if oil supplies from the Gulf were threatened especially from Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf states - although these states are as of now peaceful and in the case of the UAE and Qatar booming economically. Even in Iraq, despite the success of ISIS, oil exports continue since the insurgents are not targeting what could eventually be their cash cow - although this may lead to hard choices if ISIS continues to take over oil fields and thus impact on the international petroleum market.
So wait-and-see becomes the narrative.
Israel-Palestine is more problematic since given Israeli domestic politics and security concerns, Palestinian political cleavages, and the fact that the US can do little
to really pressure either side, it is likely that there will simply be more of the same. At some point of time both the Palestinians and the Israelis will agree to a ceasefire
and it will be back to business as usual. Having said that, there are no realistic expectations of a political breakthrough in the near to medium-term. John Kerry,
who has racked up more frequent flyer miles than Hillary Clinton, is seeing his carefully crafted peace solution crumble in the dust of Israeli air strikes and Palestinian
missiles.
In conclusion, one should raise the point that in the digital age it is hard for the general public to focus on anything and, therefore, a consistent well-thought out
American foreign policy becomes difficult. In this year American attention has wandered from the crisis in Crimea to Boko Haram kidnapping 300 schoolgirls to
ISIS in Iraq to the Gaza strip. And there are still five months left in this year. Given this public attention deficit, expecting a long-term focus on any region is just not possible.
US’ policy towards the turmoil in the Middle East, or the lack of it, is shaped by three factors: traditional ties and alliances that continue in the post-Cold War era; the complex regional environment that has emerged after the so-called “Arab Spring;” and the events of 9/11 and Iraq that have forged American opinion on the subject.
Yet none of these factors are any help in resolving the current political turmoil in the Middle East.
The US’ traditional ties in the Middle East have been with conservative Arab regimes, particularly in the Gulf, and with the state of Israel. Neither set of ties has changed much in the 21st century and if anything the ties with Israel have become even stronger since 9/11. International observers now, in fact, complain of an American media bias towards Israel in the current Gaza conflict that is much more marked than in past Arab- Israeli conflicts. The US is unlikely to change this relationship given the impact of the other two factors
mentioned above. The Arab Spring was a bombshell that policymakers, academics, and the American media were not expecting and a coherent American policy took some time to develop. What eventually emerged was a policy that supported a democratic transition with a preference for
moderate political forces having their hands on the wheel. In none of the Arab countries did events play out the way policymakers expected. In Egypt, the military dismissed the legally elected president and was able to get its own candidate elected in a new election. In
Tunisia, the nation which has seen the best potential transition to democracy, a conservative Islamic party came to power and has subsequently called for
parliamentary and presidential elections in October/ November 2014. In Libya, Colonel Gadhafi was removed from power but the country is now headed into a civil war and Western embassies, aid workers, and journalists are leaving the country en masse. In Bahrain, the fledgling movement for democracy was crushed by the authorities while in Yemen cosmetic changes were made to the regime. Iraq and Syria are engulfed in civil war and have seen the rise of ISIS - a group so brutal that
even al Qaeda has had to disown them.
As for the Palestinians, the rise of Hamas was viewed with disquiet by Israel, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation on the West Bank, and by the conservative Arab states and even the new government in Egypt. The Arab countries’ governments have remained by and large silent over the events in Gaza because of the turn the Arab Spring took. The elites and the middle class
were stunned by the rise of extremist elements and voted instead for stability which in actual terms meant withdrawing support from the Muslim Brotherhood and
Hamas. Paradoxically, it is the non-Arab states - Turkey and Iran - that have been the most vocal supporters of Palestinian nationhood. Add to these concerns the fact that in the post-9/11 world the West is worried by the rise of radical groups in the Middle East, all these events only works to strengthen the relationship with Israel which is seen as a loyal ally. What then is the likely endgame for the US, if any, in the
region?
Given the US’ economic concerns, the bill for the Afghan and Iraq wars, and war fatigue in the general population, long-term military intervention will be difficult to
achieve. At the same time, the chaos in the Middle East makes it likely that the global powers are going to have to adopt a wait-and-see approach on what type of
political formations emerge from this volatile situation.
The one threat which might prompt US-led intervention is if oil supplies from the Gulf were threatened especially from Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf states - although these states are as of now peaceful and in the case of the UAE and Qatar booming economically. Even in Iraq, despite the success of ISIS, oil exports continue since the insurgents are not targeting what could eventually be their cash cow - although this may lead to hard choices if ISIS continues to take over oil fields and thus impact on the international petroleum market.
So wait-and-see becomes the narrative.
Israel-Palestine is more problematic since given Israeli domestic politics and security concerns, Palestinian political cleavages, and the fact that the US can do little
to really pressure either side, it is likely that there will simply be more of the same. At some point of time both the Palestinians and the Israelis will agree to a ceasefire
and it will be back to business as usual. Having said that, there are no realistic expectations of a political breakthrough in the near to medium-term. John Kerry,
who has racked up more frequent flyer miles than Hillary Clinton, is seeing his carefully crafted peace solution crumble in the dust of Israeli air strikes and Palestinian
missiles.
In conclusion, one should raise the point that in the digital age it is hard for the general public to focus on anything and, therefore, a consistent well-thought out
American foreign policy becomes difficult. In this year American attention has wandered from the crisis in Crimea to Boko Haram kidnapping 300 schoolgirls to
ISIS in Iraq to the Gaza strip. And there are still five months left in this year. Given this public attention deficit, expecting a long-term focus on any region is just not possible.
NORTH KOREA: SEEKING NEW FRIENDS?
Sandip Mishra
North Korea appears to have become increasingly desperate in its behaviour. It executed its number two leader Jang Song-thaek in December 2013, called South
Korean President Park Geun-hye a ‘prostitute’ and the US President a ‘pimp’ in April 2014, characterised China as ‘spineless’ in July 2014, and fired around one hundred short-range missiles in the East Sea in June- July 2014. North Korea’s desperate behaviour has not been able to bring any change in the US and South
Korean postures but it has definitely alienated China.
South Korea’s tough posture, the US policy of ‘strategic patience’ and the growing economic and political hardships and isolation of North Korea have been
problematic for the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. North Korea had tried to come out of the crisis by being tough and uncompromising as it did in the past.
Through nuclear and missile tests in early 2013 and escalation of military tensions in mid-2013, it tried to show that pressure and sanctions would not work and South Korea and the US must go back to placating
North Korea. However, North Korea miscalculated not only South Korean or American responses but also Chinese in the latest round of hostilities. It is important to underline that China provided North
Korea the strategic space in which it could
independently deal with the US and South Korea, and China did not either intervene in it or find it discomforting. However, it seems that North Korea went beyond this strategic space. Military tension escalated
in the region when North Korea loudly opposed - both in words and actions – the South Korea-US joint military exercise in April 2014. The North Korean justification
was that the US had brought its more advanced weaponry in the region as well as installed a missile defence system in Guam. North Korea-China relations became estranged and China started cooperating more substantially with the international community in putting sanctions on North Korea. The execution of Jang Song- thaek was symbolic of the growing distance between North Korea and China as he was supposed to be close to China. Rather than amending its ways, North Korea in a way challenged or warned China not to expect any compromise from it. This growing distance can be understood from the fact that the new Chinese and South Korean Presidents have been able to have two summit meets in both countries but there has been no visit by China’s top leaders to North Korea.
North Korea probably wants to convey to both its rivals and friends that it would not succumb to any pressure and the only way to deal with it is engagement. It wants to send this message by resorting to the
escalation of military tension and rhetoric. But it seems that the new Chinese leadership is not in agreement with this North Korean strategy. China has also been
looking at the broad regional equations in which it has to deal with an assertive Japan, ambivalent US and a possible partner in South Korea. North Korea has also been looking to inculcate new partnerships and entertained a Japanese official delegation in Pyongyang for talks on the issue of
Japanese abductees in April 2013. Japan and North Korea have been meeting to discuss this issue since May 2014. North Korea has been exploring in Japan a
potential partner, which might be able to lessen the international isolation and pressure. North Korea thus appears to be utilising the Japanese isolation in the region in its own favour. Since 2013, North Korea has also been trying to reach out to Russia as its relations with China have not been smooth. In May 2014, Russia wrote off US$10 billion in loans to North Korea and
there have also been a few important bilateral visits from both sides.
In an unprecedented move in July 2014, the North Korean media called for the strengthening relations with Russia on the 11th anniversary of a summit between
Kim Jong-il and Vladimir Putin. In the same context, there was no official statement on China-North Korea relations in on the 33rd anniversary of its Friendship Treaty with China. It has also been reported that North
Korea’s trade with Russia reached up to US $104 million in 2013 with a rise of 37.3 per cent. To further the exploration of new relations, the North Korean foreign minister is to visit Vietnam, Laos, Singapore, Indonesia and Myanmar before he attends the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) meeting in Myanmar.
However, this search for new partners would not be able to compensate for its growing distance from China. There are still expectations that not everything is lost in
China-North Korea relations and it is also not easy for China to fully abandon North Korea. However, Pyongyang’s overture towards Japan is going to be the key and would be most keenly watched in Beijing. If
North Korea crosses the Rubicon, China will have to seriously re-think its North Korea policy.
North Korea appears to have become increasingly desperate in its behaviour. It executed its number two leader Jang Song-thaek in December 2013, called South
Korean President Park Geun-hye a ‘prostitute’ and the US President a ‘pimp’ in April 2014, characterised China as ‘spineless’ in July 2014, and fired around one hundred short-range missiles in the East Sea in June- July 2014. North Korea’s desperate behaviour has not been able to bring any change in the US and South
Korean postures but it has definitely alienated China.
South Korea’s tough posture, the US policy of ‘strategic patience’ and the growing economic and political hardships and isolation of North Korea have been
problematic for the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. North Korea had tried to come out of the crisis by being tough and uncompromising as it did in the past.
Through nuclear and missile tests in early 2013 and escalation of military tensions in mid-2013, it tried to show that pressure and sanctions would not work and South Korea and the US must go back to placating
North Korea. However, North Korea miscalculated not only South Korean or American responses but also Chinese in the latest round of hostilities. It is important to underline that China provided North
Korea the strategic space in which it could
independently deal with the US and South Korea, and China did not either intervene in it or find it discomforting. However, it seems that North Korea went beyond this strategic space. Military tension escalated
in the region when North Korea loudly opposed - both in words and actions – the South Korea-US joint military exercise in April 2014. The North Korean justification
was that the US had brought its more advanced weaponry in the region as well as installed a missile defence system in Guam. North Korea-China relations became estranged and China started cooperating more substantially with the international community in putting sanctions on North Korea. The execution of Jang Song- thaek was symbolic of the growing distance between North Korea and China as he was supposed to be close to China. Rather than amending its ways, North Korea in a way challenged or warned China not to expect any compromise from it. This growing distance can be understood from the fact that the new Chinese and South Korean Presidents have been able to have two summit meets in both countries but there has been no visit by China’s top leaders to North Korea.
North Korea probably wants to convey to both its rivals and friends that it would not succumb to any pressure and the only way to deal with it is engagement. It wants to send this message by resorting to the
escalation of military tension and rhetoric. But it seems that the new Chinese leadership is not in agreement with this North Korean strategy. China has also been
looking at the broad regional equations in which it has to deal with an assertive Japan, ambivalent US and a possible partner in South Korea. North Korea has also been looking to inculcate new partnerships and entertained a Japanese official delegation in Pyongyang for talks on the issue of
Japanese abductees in April 2013. Japan and North Korea have been meeting to discuss this issue since May 2014. North Korea has been exploring in Japan a
potential partner, which might be able to lessen the international isolation and pressure. North Korea thus appears to be utilising the Japanese isolation in the region in its own favour. Since 2013, North Korea has also been trying to reach out to Russia as its relations with China have not been smooth. In May 2014, Russia wrote off US$10 billion in loans to North Korea and
there have also been a few important bilateral visits from both sides.
In an unprecedented move in July 2014, the North Korean media called for the strengthening relations with Russia on the 11th anniversary of a summit between
Kim Jong-il and Vladimir Putin. In the same context, there was no official statement on China-North Korea relations in on the 33rd anniversary of its Friendship Treaty with China. It has also been reported that North
Korea’s trade with Russia reached up to US $104 million in 2013 with a rise of 37.3 per cent. To further the exploration of new relations, the North Korean foreign minister is to visit Vietnam, Laos, Singapore, Indonesia and Myanmar before he attends the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) meeting in Myanmar.
However, this search for new partners would not be able to compensate for its growing distance from China. There are still expectations that not everything is lost in
China-North Korea relations and it is also not easy for China to fully abandon North Korea. However, Pyongyang’s overture towards Japan is going to be the key and would be most keenly watched in Beijing. If
North Korea crosses the Rubicon, China will have to seriously re-think its North Korea policy.
INDIA AND THE CONFLICT IN GAZA
Ranjit Gupta
The creation of Israel in Palestine was a Western venture to expiate their guilt for their historical ill treatment of the Jews, and, at the time it was finally done, also to implant a permanent base for safeguarding
their own interests for the future in the vital West Asian region. The Western ‘divide and rule’ policies and the arbitrary drawing of boundaries were at the heart of
imperial control of colonised peoples and territories. The legacy thereof continues. Unfortunately, history and international relations are not about fairness but about
the exercise of power in one’s own interest.
Meanwhile, Israel has become fully integrated economically and politically into the international comity of nations. Many non-Western countries, including China
and India, have developed a strong relationship with Israel. The leading Arab country, Egypt, and Jordan have had diplomatic and stronger than merely normal relations with Israel for decades; Turkey had exceptionally close relations with Israel until a few years ago; so did Iran under the Shah; Oman and Qatar have
had quasi-diplomatic relations with Israel; Tunisia and Morocco have had interactions with Israel; several GCC countries, and Saudi Arabia in particular, have
encouraged an increasingly close working relationship between their intelligence services and that of Israel’s, especially over the past three-four years.
The current hostilities in Gaza are essentially a war between Hamas and Israel and not a war between Israel and Palestine; that is how governments of many Arab
countries as well as the Palestinian National Authority are viewing the conflict; and they, not excluding Fatah, are also treating it as an intrinsic element of the current strong confrontation between the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is an offshoot, and its Arab opponents.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia consider Hamas a terrorist organisation. In strong contrast to each of the earlier such confrontations, except for Qatar’s support, Hamas is politically isolated in the Arab world this time. Another stumbling block is that Hamas does not officially recognise the existence of Israel. The uncomfortable truth is that each of these parties, without exception, is cynically pursuing its own broader geopolitical agenda.
The minimum fundamental requirement for meaningful forward movement on the Palestinian issue, including the lifting of the Israeli economic blockade of Gaza, is
substantive unity amongst the Arabs. The Arab world has enormous financial clout which has never been concertedly used for the Palestinian cause. In the absence of this, the rest of the non-Western world cannot meaningfully pressurise Israel. It is all these factors that have made possible Israel
getting away with the extreme brutality of its current onslaught on Gaza.
This broad brush backdrop must be kept in mind in evaluating India’s policy in relation to ongoing events in Gaza. What is the objective of a foreign policy? It should
primarily be to promote and protect the country’s national interests, national security and national welfare. An important guiding principle must be to avoid taking
stances that will have zero impact on realities on the ground but which could adversely affect important bilateral relationships. Though difficult, emotion and
ideological biases must be eschewed.
The establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel in 1992 was a right decision courageously taken by the Narasimha Rao Government as part of a sorely needed
revamp of India’s economic and foreign policies. Since then, Israel has emerged as a particularly important defence equipment supplier and a multi-sectoral hi-tech
partner of vital strategic significance. However, this has not come in the way of India maintaining excellent relationships with Arab countries in general; and with
the GCC countries, in particular, the latter developed mainly in the past decade and a half. This relationship is in fact India’s most spectacular foreign policy success. Meanwhile, India continues its strong
traditional support for the Palestinian cause consciously, deliberately and rightly. There is no contradiction in simultaneously pursuing these approaches that are
politico-strategic imperatives for India.
In the context of the current crisis in Gaza, India has maintained complete continuity with past stances in relevant international fora and in statements made by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). Nevertheless, India’s reactions and policies have come in for strong domestic criticism focused on two counts: first, regarding mention of the use of rockets by Hamas in the MEA spokesperson’ statement of July 10. In 2008, when Israeli retaliatory actions killed 1417 Palestinians in a much shorter conflict, it was mentioned in the MEA
spokesperson’s statement on 27 December, 2008. Both times, these statements accorded factually with observable ground realities.
Another reason for criticism is rejection of a demand for a Parliamentary Resolution; there was neither a demand nor any initiative for a resolution when the UPA
government was in power. It is wrong to politicise issues of national interest. Adopting resolutions on foreign policy issues should be avoided as it does not
promote solutions but only constrains governmental flexibility and options. However, discussions in the parliament should not be prevented. There have been demands to stop buying military equipment from Israel. This would hurt Israel only
marginally but will be an utterly devastating self- inflicted wound on ourselves; and no Indian government has or should consider such an utterly absurd and irresponsible proposal.
India’s stance is highly unlikely to adversely affect relations with important Arab countries as these are based on symbiotic mutually beneficial pragmatism, not
emotion.
The creation of Israel in Palestine was a Western venture to expiate their guilt for their historical ill treatment of the Jews, and, at the time it was finally done, also to implant a permanent base for safeguarding
their own interests for the future in the vital West Asian region. The Western ‘divide and rule’ policies and the arbitrary drawing of boundaries were at the heart of
imperial control of colonised peoples and territories. The legacy thereof continues. Unfortunately, history and international relations are not about fairness but about
the exercise of power in one’s own interest.
Meanwhile, Israel has become fully integrated economically and politically into the international comity of nations. Many non-Western countries, including China
and India, have developed a strong relationship with Israel. The leading Arab country, Egypt, and Jordan have had diplomatic and stronger than merely normal relations with Israel for decades; Turkey had exceptionally close relations with Israel until a few years ago; so did Iran under the Shah; Oman and Qatar have
had quasi-diplomatic relations with Israel; Tunisia and Morocco have had interactions with Israel; several GCC countries, and Saudi Arabia in particular, have
encouraged an increasingly close working relationship between their intelligence services and that of Israel’s, especially over the past three-four years.
The current hostilities in Gaza are essentially a war between Hamas and Israel and not a war between Israel and Palestine; that is how governments of many Arab
countries as well as the Palestinian National Authority are viewing the conflict; and they, not excluding Fatah, are also treating it as an intrinsic element of the current strong confrontation between the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is an offshoot, and its Arab opponents.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia consider Hamas a terrorist organisation. In strong contrast to each of the earlier such confrontations, except for Qatar’s support, Hamas is politically isolated in the Arab world this time. Another stumbling block is that Hamas does not officially recognise the existence of Israel. The uncomfortable truth is that each of these parties, without exception, is cynically pursuing its own broader geopolitical agenda.
The minimum fundamental requirement for meaningful forward movement on the Palestinian issue, including the lifting of the Israeli economic blockade of Gaza, is
substantive unity amongst the Arabs. The Arab world has enormous financial clout which has never been concertedly used for the Palestinian cause. In the absence of this, the rest of the non-Western world cannot meaningfully pressurise Israel. It is all these factors that have made possible Israel
getting away with the extreme brutality of its current onslaught on Gaza.
This broad brush backdrop must be kept in mind in evaluating India’s policy in relation to ongoing events in Gaza. What is the objective of a foreign policy? It should
primarily be to promote and protect the country’s national interests, national security and national welfare. An important guiding principle must be to avoid taking
stances that will have zero impact on realities on the ground but which could adversely affect important bilateral relationships. Though difficult, emotion and
ideological biases must be eschewed.
The establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel in 1992 was a right decision courageously taken by the Narasimha Rao Government as part of a sorely needed
revamp of India’s economic and foreign policies. Since then, Israel has emerged as a particularly important defence equipment supplier and a multi-sectoral hi-tech
partner of vital strategic significance. However, this has not come in the way of India maintaining excellent relationships with Arab countries in general; and with
the GCC countries, in particular, the latter developed mainly in the past decade and a half. This relationship is in fact India’s most spectacular foreign policy success. Meanwhile, India continues its strong
traditional support for the Palestinian cause consciously, deliberately and rightly. There is no contradiction in simultaneously pursuing these approaches that are
politico-strategic imperatives for India.
In the context of the current crisis in Gaza, India has maintained complete continuity with past stances in relevant international fora and in statements made by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). Nevertheless, India’s reactions and policies have come in for strong domestic criticism focused on two counts: first, regarding mention of the use of rockets by Hamas in the MEA spokesperson’ statement of July 10. In 2008, when Israeli retaliatory actions killed 1417 Palestinians in a much shorter conflict, it was mentioned in the MEA
spokesperson’s statement on 27 December, 2008. Both times, these statements accorded factually with observable ground realities.
Another reason for criticism is rejection of a demand for a Parliamentary Resolution; there was neither a demand nor any initiative for a resolution when the UPA
government was in power. It is wrong to politicise issues of national interest. Adopting resolutions on foreign policy issues should be avoided as it does not
promote solutions but only constrains governmental flexibility and options. However, discussions in the parliament should not be prevented. There have been demands to stop buying military equipment from Israel. This would hurt Israel only
marginally but will be an utterly devastating self- inflicted wound on ourselves; and no Indian government has or should consider such an utterly absurd and irresponsible proposal.
India’s stance is highly unlikely to adversely affect relations with important Arab countries as these are based on symbiotic mutually beneficial pragmatism, not
emotion.
THE ISLAMIC CALIPHATE AND SECTARIAN VIOLENCE: RAMIFICATIONS FOR PAKISTAN
Rajeshwari Krishnamurthy
Following the unilateral declaration of an Islamic ‘Caliphate’ in Iraq and Syria, the self-declared ‘Caliph’ Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, reviling the Shia Muslims as Rafada (rejectionists), announced their campaign
against the Shias of the region. While a lot of it has to do with al-Baghdadi’s imprisonment in an Iraqi prison after his serving time at Camp Bucca, and is more
about political ambition than ideological differences, this has fuelled the already simmering issue of sectarian strife in the delicate societal structures in West Asia.
Repercussions are felt in South Asia, where Pakistan has witnessed similar but more worrisome crises over the past few years. What is the nature of the connection
between the rising Islamist militancy in the region and sectarian violence? Do Islamist jihadists residing in the country fuel sectarian differences and as a result,
violence, or do they merely exploit the existing differences for their benefit? What is the role of the State institutions in this issue? What implications does
this phenomenon hold for Pakistan?
Pakistan’s Sectarian Schism
The anti-Shia nature of Sunni Islamist militants in Pakistan and their regional counterparts stems from the hard-line Sunni Wahabbi interpretations of the Quran and the Sharia law several of these militants learn in the Madrasas along the Durand line – funded by fundamentalists from Saudi Arabia to strengthen the
Sunni wall around a Shia Iran. In addition to the Saudi Arabia-Pakistan nexus, Islamabad’s own paranoia that
Iran might influence its Shia population has led to it not eliminating the hard-line Deobandi militant groups entirely. Furthermore, the sectarian nature of these
jihadist militants does not stop at Shia killings. Other groups, especially the Ahmadiyyas and the Sufis, and some minority Sunni sub-groups, are heavily targeted.
Pakistan: The Role of Sectarianism in the IslamistJihadist Agenda
Although numerous Islamist jihadist groups in Pakistan have varying endgames and work in silos, their agendas converge on various levels – especially as a result of
the origins of their funding sources. Sectarian violence by Sunni Islamist jihadists intensified in 2007, alongside
the rise of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), after a comparatively peaceful period from 2002-2006. The jihadists in an attempt to escape US military strikes started taking shelter in the Federally Administered
Tribal Areas (FATA) in North-western Pakistan. The timeline of the pattern can be traced alongside the leadership of the TTP under Baitullah Mehsud, and later, under Hakimullah Mehsud – whose relationship with the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat helped establish a strong Wahabbi Islamist jihadist network across the country.
There are considerable Shia settlements along the country’s north, western and south-western borders, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, FATA, and Balochistan. These areas share international borders with Afghanistan and Iran, where too there are significant Shia settlements.
While there is a back-and-forth movement of Afghan Shias, especially Hazaras from Afghanistan into Pakistan in the north, Pakistan’s Balochistan province borders Iran’s Sunni majority Sistan Baluchestan
province.
The jihadist groups, while generally anti-Shia in character, have a more practical reason to exploit the sectarian schism. Their access routes into Afghanistan,
especially ones via Khurram Agency, pass through Shia- controlled areas, where Shia extremist groups have banded together to fight the Taliban’s anti-Shia campaigns. Sunni Islamist Jihadists from Sistan
Baluchestan often interact with similar groups based in Balochistan.
Sustenance of Sectarian Violence
The escalation of sectarian violence in the Af-Pak border region, and in the rest of Pakistan, finds greater fuel in the Pakistani governance and justice systems than
terrorists alone. The Pakistani State’s Sunni Islamic leanings have muddled the functioning of state structures. Often, investigations carried out following
incidents of sectarian violence are either never thoroughly followed up or are laced with a sectarian bias. The conviction rate of perpetrators and/or aides in such acts is extremely low and as a result, external
actors fund groups within Pakistan to provide solidarity. This results in a vicious cycle of funding for opposing militant groups by entities with vested interests. The
problem intensifies when sectarian organisations findvtheir way into the politics of the country. The increasing
political clout of these actors, coupled with the government’s treatment of terrorist groups as equals during negotiations, has further entrenched the problem.
Sectarian violence in Pakistan is therefore primarily a product of misinformed political manoeuvres than purely
ideology. The Islamist jihadists simply exploit the phenomenon to their benefit.
Bleak Prospects
Unless the Pakistani State takes comprehensive measures to undo the political clout enjoyed by sectarian actors and regulates the funding of the tens of
thousands of Madrasas, sectarian violence will only escalate in the country. Additionally, those battle- hardened Pakistani-origin jihadist returnees of the
Syrian war will try to force their writ in the region, regardless of sectarian definitions, and will bring heavy losses not limited to just religious minorities. The vicious cycle with continue, and the militants’ attempts
to turn Pakistan into a Salafist Wahabbi nation will not only destabilise Pakistan internally, but also fuel ablarger regional instability involving Afghanistan, Iran and
Saudi Arabia. Therefore, given the developments in West Asia, Pakistan, if it seeks stability, must clamp down on
terrorists of “all hue and colour,” especially the ambitious TTP chief Mullah Fazlullah, and the relatively unknown Jaish-e-Khurasan group, to crush Pakistan’s
own Khurasan movement – and in alliance with Afghanistan, weed out those militants hiding in Afghanistan’s Khost, Kunar and Nuristan provinces to escape Operation Zarb-e-Azb.
Following the unilateral declaration of an Islamic ‘Caliphate’ in Iraq and Syria, the self-declared ‘Caliph’ Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, reviling the Shia Muslims as Rafada (rejectionists), announced their campaign
against the Shias of the region. While a lot of it has to do with al-Baghdadi’s imprisonment in an Iraqi prison after his serving time at Camp Bucca, and is more
about political ambition than ideological differences, this has fuelled the already simmering issue of sectarian strife in the delicate societal structures in West Asia.
Repercussions are felt in South Asia, where Pakistan has witnessed similar but more worrisome crises over the past few years. What is the nature of the connection
between the rising Islamist militancy in the region and sectarian violence? Do Islamist jihadists residing in the country fuel sectarian differences and as a result,
violence, or do they merely exploit the existing differences for their benefit? What is the role of the State institutions in this issue? What implications does
this phenomenon hold for Pakistan?
Pakistan’s Sectarian Schism
The anti-Shia nature of Sunni Islamist militants in Pakistan and their regional counterparts stems from the hard-line Sunni Wahabbi interpretations of the Quran and the Sharia law several of these militants learn in the Madrasas along the Durand line – funded by fundamentalists from Saudi Arabia to strengthen the
Sunni wall around a Shia Iran. In addition to the Saudi Arabia-Pakistan nexus, Islamabad’s own paranoia that
Iran might influence its Shia population has led to it not eliminating the hard-line Deobandi militant groups entirely. Furthermore, the sectarian nature of these
jihadist militants does not stop at Shia killings. Other groups, especially the Ahmadiyyas and the Sufis, and some minority Sunni sub-groups, are heavily targeted.
Pakistan: The Role of Sectarianism in the IslamistJihadist Agenda
Although numerous Islamist jihadist groups in Pakistan have varying endgames and work in silos, their agendas converge on various levels – especially as a result of
the origins of their funding sources. Sectarian violence by Sunni Islamist jihadists intensified in 2007, alongside
the rise of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), after a comparatively peaceful period from 2002-2006. The jihadists in an attempt to escape US military strikes started taking shelter in the Federally Administered
Tribal Areas (FATA) in North-western Pakistan. The timeline of the pattern can be traced alongside the leadership of the TTP under Baitullah Mehsud, and later, under Hakimullah Mehsud – whose relationship with the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat helped establish a strong Wahabbi Islamist jihadist network across the country.
There are considerable Shia settlements along the country’s north, western and south-western borders, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, FATA, and Balochistan. These areas share international borders with Afghanistan and Iran, where too there are significant Shia settlements.
While there is a back-and-forth movement of Afghan Shias, especially Hazaras from Afghanistan into Pakistan in the north, Pakistan’s Balochistan province borders Iran’s Sunni majority Sistan Baluchestan
province.
The jihadist groups, while generally anti-Shia in character, have a more practical reason to exploit the sectarian schism. Their access routes into Afghanistan,
especially ones via Khurram Agency, pass through Shia- controlled areas, where Shia extremist groups have banded together to fight the Taliban’s anti-Shia campaigns. Sunni Islamist Jihadists from Sistan
Baluchestan often interact with similar groups based in Balochistan.
Sustenance of Sectarian Violence
The escalation of sectarian violence in the Af-Pak border region, and in the rest of Pakistan, finds greater fuel in the Pakistani governance and justice systems than
terrorists alone. The Pakistani State’s Sunni Islamic leanings have muddled the functioning of state structures. Often, investigations carried out following
incidents of sectarian violence are either never thoroughly followed up or are laced with a sectarian bias. The conviction rate of perpetrators and/or aides in such acts is extremely low and as a result, external
actors fund groups within Pakistan to provide solidarity. This results in a vicious cycle of funding for opposing militant groups by entities with vested interests. The
problem intensifies when sectarian organisations findvtheir way into the politics of the country. The increasing
political clout of these actors, coupled with the government’s treatment of terrorist groups as equals during negotiations, has further entrenched the problem.
Sectarian violence in Pakistan is therefore primarily a product of misinformed political manoeuvres than purely
ideology. The Islamist jihadists simply exploit the phenomenon to their benefit.
Bleak Prospects
Unless the Pakistani State takes comprehensive measures to undo the political clout enjoyed by sectarian actors and regulates the funding of the tens of
thousands of Madrasas, sectarian violence will only escalate in the country. Additionally, those battle- hardened Pakistani-origin jihadist returnees of the
Syrian war will try to force their writ in the region, regardless of sectarian definitions, and will bring heavy losses not limited to just religious minorities. The vicious cycle with continue, and the militants’ attempts
to turn Pakistan into a Salafist Wahabbi nation will not only destabilise Pakistan internally, but also fuel ablarger regional instability involving Afghanistan, Iran and
Saudi Arabia. Therefore, given the developments in West Asia, Pakistan, if it seeks stability, must clamp down on
terrorists of “all hue and colour,” especially the ambitious TTP chief Mullah Fazlullah, and the relatively unknown Jaish-e-Khurasan group, to crush Pakistan’s
own Khurasan movement – and in alliance with Afghanistan, weed out those militants hiding in Afghanistan’s Khost, Kunar and Nuristan provinces to escape Operation Zarb-e-Azb.
IRAN-P+5 NUCLEAR NEGOTIATIONS: WHAT'S HOLDING IT UP?
Ruhee Neog
The six-month interim Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) between the P5+1 and Iran expired on 20 July with the negotiating parties failing to reach an understanding on
a longer-term comprehensive agreement. This was not a shock ending – there was a growing sense, towards the conclusion of the stipulated time frame of the interim deal, that overarching consensus would not be reached by the deadline. The talks have now been extended by four months, and are due to expire by 20 November 2014 – a year since the negotiations first began.
Sticking Points for the Negotiating Parties
One of the primary concerns that have delayed the conclusion of a comprehensive deal is the question of Iran’s enrichment capacity, on which the negotiators have thus far been unable to reach any kind of
consensus. Iran wants to hold on to the 19,000 centrifuges in its possession. It has also repeatedly stressed its need for an enrichment capacity that meets, among others, the requirements for the fuelling of the nuclear power reactor at Bushehr, built by Russia under an Iran-Russia contract. Russia currently supplies the low enrichment uranium (LEU) to fuel the reactor, a job that Iran sees itself taking over once the contract expires in 2021. Significantly, this would require Iran to
increase its uranium enrichment capacity, which could be at cross-purposes with the eventual aim of a comprehensive agreement: to curb the possible
weaponisation element of the Iranian nuclear programme in perpetuity. The P5+1, on the other hand, seek a reduction where Iran desires an expansion.
As it currently stands, Iran has voiced its opposition to reduce the number of centrifuges in existence, a position
that is seen as unacceptable to the P5+1. Continued Iranian maintenance of the Arak heavy water reactor and the uranium enrichment facilities at Fordow and
Natanz as components of the Iranian civilian nuclear programme have also been challenged, and Fordow’s location inside a mountain and therefore fortification
against a potential conventional strike has hardened this position. Although there have been some vocal demands for a complete end to Iranian uranium enrichment as an
end-goal of the comprehensive agreement, it has also been recognised that this would not be politically realistic.
Iran's stand is that it will not forego its right to enrich uranium for peaceful means as promised to it by the NPT (Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty). This right, used
often and publicly by Iranian statesmen to define their expectations from the P5+1, informs the Iranian approach to the talks and is therefore non-negotiable.
In this light, therefore, a lower capacity for enrichment is being sought. It has been argued that this would be a win-win for Iran and the P5+1. First, it would still allow
Iran to meet the “practical needs” as recognised in the JPOA of its civilian nuclear programme, such as fuel for
the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR), Bushehr, and the four light-water research reactors that Iran has expressed an interest in building. Second, this is expected to extend Iran's “break-out” in the event that
it decides to bow out of the agreement, and enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels for a nuclear bomb.
Additionally, Russia may apparently be willing and able to extend its contract to supply fuel to Bushehr post 2021. Also, as Mark Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace argues, “Iran has no agreement with Russia licensing the Atomic Energy Agency of Iran (AEOI) to make Bushehr fuel, giving Iran access to the
intellectual property for the design of the reactor core internals, for the design of the fuel assemblies, and for the chemical and physical specifications of the fuel.” If
Russia, given its commercial interests in retaining the contract, is unwilling to hand over fuel supply to Iran, then Iran’s argument for greater enrichment capacity on this basis can be considered invalid.
Since the negotiations began, technical issues were expected to throw a spanner in the works – a misgiving that has since been justified. Recent frustration notwithstanding, this extension provides the necessary space for a stock-taking of where the negotiations stand, what the sticking points are, and how best to
move forward in the right diplomatic direction. Also, this extension should not read as failed diplomacy, and take
away from the good work done so far and the noteworthy achievements made under the JPOA. Most importantly, Iran and the West have met at the negotiating table for the first time since Iranian President Hassan Rouhani led the last (failed) talks in
his former avatar as Iran’s top nuclear negotiator. As starting points go, therefore, the deal itself is a diplomatic breakthrough, and in this give and take, it is hoped that the negotiating parties build on past mileage
by focusing not so much on what is ideal, but what is achievable.
The six-month interim Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) between the P5+1 and Iran expired on 20 July with the negotiating parties failing to reach an understanding on
a longer-term comprehensive agreement. This was not a shock ending – there was a growing sense, towards the conclusion of the stipulated time frame of the interim deal, that overarching consensus would not be reached by the deadline. The talks have now been extended by four months, and are due to expire by 20 November 2014 – a year since the negotiations first began.
Sticking Points for the Negotiating Parties
One of the primary concerns that have delayed the conclusion of a comprehensive deal is the question of Iran’s enrichment capacity, on which the negotiators have thus far been unable to reach any kind of
consensus. Iran wants to hold on to the 19,000 centrifuges in its possession. It has also repeatedly stressed its need for an enrichment capacity that meets, among others, the requirements for the fuelling of the nuclear power reactor at Bushehr, built by Russia under an Iran-Russia contract. Russia currently supplies the low enrichment uranium (LEU) to fuel the reactor, a job that Iran sees itself taking over once the contract expires in 2021. Significantly, this would require Iran to
increase its uranium enrichment capacity, which could be at cross-purposes with the eventual aim of a comprehensive agreement: to curb the possible
weaponisation element of the Iranian nuclear programme in perpetuity. The P5+1, on the other hand, seek a reduction where Iran desires an expansion.
As it currently stands, Iran has voiced its opposition to reduce the number of centrifuges in existence, a position
that is seen as unacceptable to the P5+1. Continued Iranian maintenance of the Arak heavy water reactor and the uranium enrichment facilities at Fordow and
Natanz as components of the Iranian civilian nuclear programme have also been challenged, and Fordow’s location inside a mountain and therefore fortification
against a potential conventional strike has hardened this position. Although there have been some vocal demands for a complete end to Iranian uranium enrichment as an
end-goal of the comprehensive agreement, it has also been recognised that this would not be politically realistic.
Iran's stand is that it will not forego its right to enrich uranium for peaceful means as promised to it by the NPT (Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty). This right, used
often and publicly by Iranian statesmen to define their expectations from the P5+1, informs the Iranian approach to the talks and is therefore non-negotiable.
In this light, therefore, a lower capacity for enrichment is being sought. It has been argued that this would be a win-win for Iran and the P5+1. First, it would still allow
Iran to meet the “practical needs” as recognised in the JPOA of its civilian nuclear programme, such as fuel for
the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR), Bushehr, and the four light-water research reactors that Iran has expressed an interest in building. Second, this is expected to extend Iran's “break-out” in the event that
it decides to bow out of the agreement, and enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels for a nuclear bomb.
Additionally, Russia may apparently be willing and able to extend its contract to supply fuel to Bushehr post 2021. Also, as Mark Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace argues, “Iran has no agreement with Russia licensing the Atomic Energy Agency of Iran (AEOI) to make Bushehr fuel, giving Iran access to the
intellectual property for the design of the reactor core internals, for the design of the fuel assemblies, and for the chemical and physical specifications of the fuel.” If
Russia, given its commercial interests in retaining the contract, is unwilling to hand over fuel supply to Iran, then Iran’s argument for greater enrichment capacity on this basis can be considered invalid.
Since the negotiations began, technical issues were expected to throw a spanner in the works – a misgiving that has since been justified. Recent frustration notwithstanding, this extension provides the necessary space for a stock-taking of where the negotiations stand, what the sticking points are, and how best to
move forward in the right diplomatic direction. Also, this extension should not read as failed diplomacy, and take
away from the good work done so far and the noteworthy achievements made under the JPOA. Most importantly, Iran and the West have met at the negotiating table for the first time since Iranian President Hassan Rouhani led the last (failed) talks in
his former avatar as Iran’s top nuclear negotiator. As starting points go, therefore, the deal itself is a diplomatic breakthrough, and in this give and take, it is hoped that the negotiating parties build on past mileage
by focusing not so much on what is ideal, but what is achievable.
3 Aug 2014
IN CHINA, AN IRRATIONAL INDICTMENT
Ellen Bork
On July 30, Chinese communist authorities
indicted Ilham Tohti, a Uighur intellectual, on charges of separatism, a charge that could carry the death penalty. Tohti was detained in mid-January, and the timing of the indictment seems related to an attack the Chinese authorities claim was carried out by knife-wielding militants in the Uighur homeland, which China calls Xinjiang, near Kashgar. An overseas Uighur group says the violence took place around a protest against Chinese restrictions on the observance of Ramadan.
It is impossible to know what really
happened. China allows no independent
monitoring and little access to Xinjiang, a
large but remote area that is home to China’s Turkic Muslim Uighurs.
Tohti, however, is an open book. He is an
academic economist who focuses on China’s
policies toward its minorities. He is known
for rejecting violence and seeking improved
conditions for Uighurs under Chinese rule,
including by telling the Party how their
policies backfire. Tohti’s daughter Jewher,
now a student in the U.S., testified before a
congressional commission about her father in April.
He is, she said, exactly the sort of person a rational Chinese political structure would seek to engage with in order to address the conditions of the Uyghur people. Instead, by arresting my father and threatening him with charges that carry the severest of penalties it has driven many Uighurs to a point at which they can’t even imagine that their wholly justified grievances can get any sort of a hearing under Chinese rule.
Tragically, for Tohti and other citizens of
China, the Party is not rational when it comes to those who question their rule.
Worse, Beijing’s propaganda about the
Uighurs frequently goes unchallenged. It
would be a full time job to bat down each
and every pernicious Chinese Communist
Party statement about the Uighurs. But not to do so puts the U.S. in the position of
appearing to accept Beijing’s policies. On July 16, the Obama administration hosted Chinese officials in Washington for a
“Counterterrorism Dialogue.” According to a terse official announcement from the State Department, “the two sides noted their
opposition to terrorism in all forms.” In light of China’s depiction of Uighurs’ cause as “terrorist,” the Obama administration should clarify the U.S. definition of terrorism publicly—explicitly excluding non-violent, peaceful speech and association—and refuse cooperation with China so long as it peddles nonsense, and arrests and tries people like Tohti.
Tohti should be released. His treatment will
be a test of how far the Chinese Communist
Party will go to conflate non-violent,
intellectual opposition with crimes that carry long prison terms and even the death
penalty. It is also a test of how far the U.S.
Congress and the Obama administration will go to speak up for Tohti who is, in his
daughter’s words, “an honest, outspoken
dissident.”
On July 30, Chinese communist authorities
indicted Ilham Tohti, a Uighur intellectual, on charges of separatism, a charge that could carry the death penalty. Tohti was detained in mid-January, and the timing of the indictment seems related to an attack the Chinese authorities claim was carried out by knife-wielding militants in the Uighur homeland, which China calls Xinjiang, near Kashgar. An overseas Uighur group says the violence took place around a protest against Chinese restrictions on the observance of Ramadan.
It is impossible to know what really
happened. China allows no independent
monitoring and little access to Xinjiang, a
large but remote area that is home to China’s Turkic Muslim Uighurs.
Tohti, however, is an open book. He is an
academic economist who focuses on China’s
policies toward its minorities. He is known
for rejecting violence and seeking improved
conditions for Uighurs under Chinese rule,
including by telling the Party how their
policies backfire. Tohti’s daughter Jewher,
now a student in the U.S., testified before a
congressional commission about her father in April.
He is, she said, exactly the sort of person a rational Chinese political structure would seek to engage with in order to address the conditions of the Uyghur people. Instead, by arresting my father and threatening him with charges that carry the severest of penalties it has driven many Uighurs to a point at which they can’t even imagine that their wholly justified grievances can get any sort of a hearing under Chinese rule.
Tragically, for Tohti and other citizens of
China, the Party is not rational when it comes to those who question their rule.
Worse, Beijing’s propaganda about the
Uighurs frequently goes unchallenged. It
would be a full time job to bat down each
and every pernicious Chinese Communist
Party statement about the Uighurs. But not to do so puts the U.S. in the position of
appearing to accept Beijing’s policies. On July 16, the Obama administration hosted Chinese officials in Washington for a
“Counterterrorism Dialogue.” According to a terse official announcement from the State Department, “the two sides noted their
opposition to terrorism in all forms.” In light of China’s depiction of Uighurs’ cause as “terrorist,” the Obama administration should clarify the U.S. definition of terrorism publicly—explicitly excluding non-violent, peaceful speech and association—and refuse cooperation with China so long as it peddles nonsense, and arrests and tries people like Tohti.
Tohti should be released. His treatment will
be a test of how far the Chinese Communist
Party will go to conflate non-violent,
intellectual opposition with crimes that carry long prison terms and even the death
penalty. It is also a test of how far the U.S.
Congress and the Obama administration will go to speak up for Tohti who is, in his
daughter’s words, “an honest, outspoken
dissident.”
DID IRAN SCUTTLE THE CEASEFIRE IN GAZA?
Lee Smith
Ninety minutes into the 72-hour
unconditional ceasefire announced this
morning, Hamas launched a suicide attack in which two IDF soldiers were killed and
another was kidnapped. Word on the ground in Israel is that Palestinian Islamic Jihad, rather than Hamas, may be responsible for the operation. If those rumors prove accurate, some analysts speculate, it would mean that Iran, PIJ’s longtime patron, is behind the operation and is responsible for scuttling the ceasefire.
The reality is that regardless of PIJ’s
involvement, it is virtually certain that Iran
played a large role in this morning’s
operation. Mounting evidence points to the
fact that Hamas’s nearly month-long
campaign, now bracketed by the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli civilians and the killing and the kidnapping of IDF soldiers, was an Iranian project from the beginning.
As Iran analyst Ali Alfoneh noted yesterday,
“Arm Hamas . . . was the main message of
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s speech on
the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, the feast marking
the end of the month of Ramadan.” Support
for Hamas marked a shift in Khamenei’s
rhetoric, as Alfoneh explains. Relations
between Hamas and Tehran have been chilly ever since the two parties came down on different sides of the Syrian conflict, with Iran fully backing its client Bashar al-Assad and Hamas wary of supporting a brutal suppression of their Sunni co-religionists.
But both sides have been trying to mend
relations for some time. Hamas needs Iranian money and arms, and with Hezbollah spread increasingly thin fighting in Syria as well as Iraq, the clerical regime needs to shore up its deterrence against Israel. Hamas’s campaign over the last month was effectively a tryout to
rejoin Team Iran.
As Tony Badran, a research fellow at
Foundation for Defense of Democracies,
explains in an important column for NOW
Lebanon today, Iran and Hamas have been
clearly signaling each other during the
conflict. “After the war broke out,” Badran writes, “senior Iranian officials, including Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani,
expressed strong support for the leaders of
Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Hezbollah
Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah also
phoned the head of Hamas’s politburo,
Khaled Meshaal, and Islamic Jihad chief
Ramadan Shallah. Iran's relationship with
Hamas has been strained for the past couple of years, so these statements mark a
reinvigoration of the ‘Resistance Alliance.’
The rebirth of the Iranian-led axis provides
the essential ingredient for a new
explanation of Hamas's decision to go to war with Israel.”
The Gaza conflict should come as a sharp
reminder that what we’re watching unfold in the Middle East at present is less a region- wide Sunni-Shiite war but rather a regional cold war where sectarian conflict and the rise of sub-state actors is a byproduct of a larger struggle between real nation states, often fighting through proxies. On one side are traditional American allies or partners like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates,
Jordan, the Palestinian Authority and Israel.
This is the status quo camp that wants to
preserve the U.S.-backed order of the Middle East, a task increasingly difficult with the Obama administration all but absent from the region.
Iran and the resistance axis, including Assad, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shiite militias and even Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki are on the other side. Turkey and Qatar are somewhere in the middle, looking to make themselves relevant, like by backing the Muslim Brotherhood. In the Gaza conflict, Doha and Ankara are acting as Hamas’s lawyers, for instance presenting John Kerry with the pro- Hamas terms for a ceasefire agreement last week. However, their attempts at mediation notwithstanding, Qatar and Turkey are secondary players. Yes, Khaled Meshaal lives in Doha, but Hamas’s political officials aren’t directing the war on the ground. Rather, it’s
in the hands of Hamas’s military
commanders, like Mohamed Deif and
Marwan Issa.
As Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
research associate (Ret.) Brigadier General
Shimon Shapira told me recently, Iran has
gone over the heads of the politburo officials and reached out directly to the military commanders. If Meshaal can afford the luxury of tending to his garden in his lovely Doha home, it’s different for the
organization’s military commanders that
have to pay and feed men to maintain their
own power on the ground. There’s war in
Gaza because the interests of Hamas’s men in uniform are aligned with those of the clerical regime in Tehran. As Badran writes, the war “was a necessary gateway for Hamas to resume its place in the resistance axis.” The current conflict, Badran concludes, “has served to clarify Hamas’s mission and place on the regional map.” In short, it has returned to the Iranian fold.
The key question then is why did Tehran plot an operation—the abduction of an IDF officer —that was certain not only to scuttle the ceasefire but also further steel Israel’s will, while making it nearly impossible for the Obama administration to restrain the
Netanyahu government? After Israel’s 2006
war with Hezbollah, Operation Cast Lead in
Gaza in 2009, and most recently 2012’s
Operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza, Iran’s
proxies didn’t throw gas on the fire as Hamas did this morning. What’s different this time around?
Insofar as it is a regional cold war, the reality is that Iran’s proxy in Gaza has few real triumphs. Yes, Hamas kidnapped and killed three Israeli teenagers in June. With the assistance of the FAA, it virtually closed down Ben Gurion airport for 48 hours. It also fired hundreds of missiles on Israel and its attack tunnels will feed the nightmares of Israeli officials and parents for many years to come.
To date, some 60 IDF troops have lost their
lives. Now consider the other side of the ledger: The Iron Dome succeeded in deflecting the vast majority of missiles. As of yesterday, the IDF
claimed that 90 percent of Hamas’s attack
tunnel network was destroyed, as was half of its missile arsenal. Further, the IDF assesses that Operation Protective Edge has killed some 1,000 Hamas fighters . Even the
ceasefire presented terms unfavorable to
Hamas, since, among other things, it allowed Israel to continue destroying tunnels. In short, Hamas comes out of the conflict a clear loser. However, the operation this morning represents a tangible victory, a kidnapping that Hamas and its Iranian backers understand from experience will eat at the Israeli public.
The dominant issue however is the strategic
picture. The P5+1 has extended the interim
agreement with Iran until November when it hopes to reach a permanent deal over the
nuclear weapons program. From this
perspective, the war in Gaza is, first, a
delaying tactic meant to get the nuclear issue off the front page. Second, and most
important, it’s a threat: Iran can turn up the
heat around the region, from Iraq to Gaza, at will. The problem for America’s traditional allies is that those hot spots are on their borders—Israel, for instance, now has Iran on three of its frontiers: Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza. An even graver concern for our allies is that the White House still seems incapable of understanding the nature of the regime in Tehran.
Ninety minutes into the 72-hour
unconditional ceasefire announced this
morning, Hamas launched a suicide attack in which two IDF soldiers were killed and
another was kidnapped. Word on the ground in Israel is that Palestinian Islamic Jihad, rather than Hamas, may be responsible for the operation. If those rumors prove accurate, some analysts speculate, it would mean that Iran, PIJ’s longtime patron, is behind the operation and is responsible for scuttling the ceasefire.
The reality is that regardless of PIJ’s
involvement, it is virtually certain that Iran
played a large role in this morning’s
operation. Mounting evidence points to the
fact that Hamas’s nearly month-long
campaign, now bracketed by the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli civilians and the killing and the kidnapping of IDF soldiers, was an Iranian project from the beginning.
As Iran analyst Ali Alfoneh noted yesterday,
“Arm Hamas . . . was the main message of
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s speech on
the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, the feast marking
the end of the month of Ramadan.” Support
for Hamas marked a shift in Khamenei’s
rhetoric, as Alfoneh explains. Relations
between Hamas and Tehran have been chilly ever since the two parties came down on different sides of the Syrian conflict, with Iran fully backing its client Bashar al-Assad and Hamas wary of supporting a brutal suppression of their Sunni co-religionists.
But both sides have been trying to mend
relations for some time. Hamas needs Iranian money and arms, and with Hezbollah spread increasingly thin fighting in Syria as well as Iraq, the clerical regime needs to shore up its deterrence against Israel. Hamas’s campaign over the last month was effectively a tryout to
rejoin Team Iran.
As Tony Badran, a research fellow at
Foundation for Defense of Democracies,
explains in an important column for NOW
Lebanon today, Iran and Hamas have been
clearly signaling each other during the
conflict. “After the war broke out,” Badran writes, “senior Iranian officials, including Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani,
expressed strong support for the leaders of
Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Hezbollah
Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah also
phoned the head of Hamas’s politburo,
Khaled Meshaal, and Islamic Jihad chief
Ramadan Shallah. Iran's relationship with
Hamas has been strained for the past couple of years, so these statements mark a
reinvigoration of the ‘Resistance Alliance.’
The rebirth of the Iranian-led axis provides
the essential ingredient for a new
explanation of Hamas's decision to go to war with Israel.”
The Gaza conflict should come as a sharp
reminder that what we’re watching unfold in the Middle East at present is less a region- wide Sunni-Shiite war but rather a regional cold war where sectarian conflict and the rise of sub-state actors is a byproduct of a larger struggle between real nation states, often fighting through proxies. On one side are traditional American allies or partners like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates,
Jordan, the Palestinian Authority and Israel.
This is the status quo camp that wants to
preserve the U.S.-backed order of the Middle East, a task increasingly difficult with the Obama administration all but absent from the region.
Iran and the resistance axis, including Assad, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shiite militias and even Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki are on the other side. Turkey and Qatar are somewhere in the middle, looking to make themselves relevant, like by backing the Muslim Brotherhood. In the Gaza conflict, Doha and Ankara are acting as Hamas’s lawyers, for instance presenting John Kerry with the pro- Hamas terms for a ceasefire agreement last week. However, their attempts at mediation notwithstanding, Qatar and Turkey are secondary players. Yes, Khaled Meshaal lives in Doha, but Hamas’s political officials aren’t directing the war on the ground. Rather, it’s
in the hands of Hamas’s military
commanders, like Mohamed Deif and
Marwan Issa.
As Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
research associate (Ret.) Brigadier General
Shimon Shapira told me recently, Iran has
gone over the heads of the politburo officials and reached out directly to the military commanders. If Meshaal can afford the luxury of tending to his garden in his lovely Doha home, it’s different for the
organization’s military commanders that
have to pay and feed men to maintain their
own power on the ground. There’s war in
Gaza because the interests of Hamas’s men in uniform are aligned with those of the clerical regime in Tehran. As Badran writes, the war “was a necessary gateway for Hamas to resume its place in the resistance axis.” The current conflict, Badran concludes, “has served to clarify Hamas’s mission and place on the regional map.” In short, it has returned to the Iranian fold.
The key question then is why did Tehran plot an operation—the abduction of an IDF officer —that was certain not only to scuttle the ceasefire but also further steel Israel’s will, while making it nearly impossible for the Obama administration to restrain the
Netanyahu government? After Israel’s 2006
war with Hezbollah, Operation Cast Lead in
Gaza in 2009, and most recently 2012’s
Operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza, Iran’s
proxies didn’t throw gas on the fire as Hamas did this morning. What’s different this time around?
Insofar as it is a regional cold war, the reality is that Iran’s proxy in Gaza has few real triumphs. Yes, Hamas kidnapped and killed three Israeli teenagers in June. With the assistance of the FAA, it virtually closed down Ben Gurion airport for 48 hours. It also fired hundreds of missiles on Israel and its attack tunnels will feed the nightmares of Israeli officials and parents for many years to come.
To date, some 60 IDF troops have lost their
lives. Now consider the other side of the ledger: The Iron Dome succeeded in deflecting the vast majority of missiles. As of yesterday, the IDF
claimed that 90 percent of Hamas’s attack
tunnel network was destroyed, as was half of its missile arsenal. Further, the IDF assesses that Operation Protective Edge has killed some 1,000 Hamas fighters . Even the
ceasefire presented terms unfavorable to
Hamas, since, among other things, it allowed Israel to continue destroying tunnels. In short, Hamas comes out of the conflict a clear loser. However, the operation this morning represents a tangible victory, a kidnapping that Hamas and its Iranian backers understand from experience will eat at the Israeli public.
The dominant issue however is the strategic
picture. The P5+1 has extended the interim
agreement with Iran until November when it hopes to reach a permanent deal over the
nuclear weapons program. From this
perspective, the war in Gaza is, first, a
delaying tactic meant to get the nuclear issue off the front page. Second, and most
important, it’s a threat: Iran can turn up the
heat around the region, from Iraq to Gaza, at will. The problem for America’s traditional allies is that those hot spots are on their borders—Israel, for instance, now has Iran on three of its frontiers: Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza. An even graver concern for our allies is that the White House still seems incapable of understanding the nature of the regime in Tehran.
DAZED AND CONFUSED
Irwin Stelzer
At last, some good news about the U.S.
economy. Sort of. The government’s Bureau
of Economic Analysis (BEA) reckons the
economy grew at an annual rate of 4 percent in the second quarter of the year (data subject to revision). If that rate continues, five years of a lackadaisical recovery would be replaced
by a growth rate more consistent with past
recoveries. The government also revised its
estimate of a 2.9 percent decline in the
economy in the first quarter to a less-
disastrous drop of 2.1 percent. But hold the
bubbly. Put the quarters together and the
-2.1 percent first quarter combined with the
+4 percent second quarter means that the
tepid growth rate that has characterized the
economy for too long was essentially
unchanged in the first half of the year.
The real question is whether the 4 percent
reported growth rate is a new normal, the
first step on the long road to a rapidly
growing economy, or a one-off fluke. As
always, the evidence is mixed. The bad news is that 1.7 percentage points of the second quarter spurt were accounted for by a build- up of inventories: real final sales of the stuff the economy produced were up only 2.3 percent. In the past, growth based on churning out goods that piled up on retailers’ shelves or in wholesalers’ warehouses has slowed as production was cut back to allow a draw-down of the inventory overhang.
As one Texas oilman told me in a year in which drilling activity slowed, “You don’t plant ‘taters when you have a cellar full of
‘taters.”
Then there is the role of catch-up. Goldman
Sachs is telling its clients that estimates
suggest that “Catch-up from the effect of
adverse weather in Q1 … added about one
percentage point to Q2 growth.” So the pile-
up of inventories and a one-time offset to
weather-related sluggishness combined to
account for 2.7 percent of the 4 percent
second quarter growth.
Finally, there are several factors creating the oft-cited headwinds that are retarding
growth. Corporate profits are running below expectations. Continued fiscal tightening by the federal government will have a dampening effect on future growth, probably offsetting any increase in spending by state and local governments. And the wave of regulations that the president has unleashed by asserting an expanded version of his prerogatives – using his pen, as he puts it – is driving up energy costs and adding to the uncertainty created by the upcoming mid- term elections, now only 94 days away. That’s a short time for corporate decision makers to hold off investing until they find out whether Republicans will seize control of the Senate and constrain the president’s ability to increase regulatory and cost burdens on private-sector actors.
Add these factors to the uncertainties facing
corporate boards, and it is a surprise that
they don’t rein in spending even more:
· Hamas rockets and terrorist tunnels
aimed at the destruction of Israel,
· Putin’s support of separatists in Ukraine,
and his vision of an expanded New Russia,
· The uncertain effect on European
economies of new sanctions on Russia,
· Still another default by Argentina, and
· The complete collapse of politicians’
interest in reforming our tax structure to
make our companies more competitive with overseas rivals, and our entrepreneurs more willing to risk their capital.
Before returning the champagne to the wine cellar, consider this somewhat cheerier set of facts:
· The BEA revised its estimates of growth in
the third and fourth quarters of 2013 from
4.1 percent to 4.5 percent, and from 2.6
percent to 3.5 percent, respectively.
· Business investment in the second quarter
of this year rose by 5.5 percent after rising a
meagre 1.6 percent in the first quarter.
Policy makers have been hoping that
corporations would replace cash-hoarding
with spending, and they might be getting
their wish despite all the uncertainties listed above.
· Investment in housing rose by 7.5 percent
after two quarters of decline, suggesting that the housing market might be heating up after cooling earlier in the summer.
· Consumers remain cheerful enough to
continue snapping up new vehicles. A
prominent Los Angeles dealer told me his
only problem is that he can’t get enough of
GM’s giant Suburbans to satisfy his
customers’ demand.
· The manufacturing sector expanded in
July for the 14 consecutive month.
Add to this plethora of data what we learned about the job market at week’s end. Some 209,000 new jobs were created in July,
extending the streak of above-200,000 new
jobs to six months, the longest such run since 1997. The unemployment and labor-force participation rates, and the number of long- term unemployed were little changed from levels at the beginning of the summer. Most observers characterized the news on the jobs front as not so hot as to force the Federal Reserve Board to bring forward its plan to raise interest rates in mid-to-late 2015, and not so cold as to compel it to end the gradual reduction of its bond-buying stimulus. A Goldilocks report in the jargon of Wall Street.
The central bank’s monetary policy
committee is now concentrating on selecting from among the many tools in its kit which ones will push interest rates up without aborting the recovery. Investors know an increase is inevitable, but are hoping that with nineteen million Americans either un- or underemployed, the labor force participation rate at historically low levels and wages more or less stuck, Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen, who is extremely sensitive to the social consequences of joblessness, will not bring forward the inevitable tightening. My guess is that the Fed will stick with its mid- or late-2015 date rather than heed the calls of those Fed governors who are arguing that the economy has already achieved lift-off and that the bank should push rates up earlier, perhaps very early in 2015. These dissidents believe Yellen is wrong to believe that faster growth will bring millions back into the labor force, reducing upward pressure on wages and therefore inflation. Instead, the inflation hawks fear that by waiting too long to raise interest rates, the Fed is repeating past errors, and storing up inflationary pressures.
So here is where matters stand after a
confusing, mind-boggling, data-rich week.
The economy is neither as strong as the
headline 4 percent growth rate suggests, nor as weak as the first-quarter 2.1 percent
shrinkage of the economy indicated. The jobs market continues to recover, but at a rate not so rapid as to force the Fed to raise interest rates sooner than it has planned. Some day Yellen will enter a policy meeting humming, “The party’s over, now you must wake up, all dreams must end.” But not for another year.
At last, some good news about the U.S.
economy. Sort of. The government’s Bureau
of Economic Analysis (BEA) reckons the
economy grew at an annual rate of 4 percent in the second quarter of the year (data subject to revision). If that rate continues, five years of a lackadaisical recovery would be replaced
by a growth rate more consistent with past
recoveries. The government also revised its
estimate of a 2.9 percent decline in the
economy in the first quarter to a less-
disastrous drop of 2.1 percent. But hold the
bubbly. Put the quarters together and the
-2.1 percent first quarter combined with the
+4 percent second quarter means that the
tepid growth rate that has characterized the
economy for too long was essentially
unchanged in the first half of the year.
The real question is whether the 4 percent
reported growth rate is a new normal, the
first step on the long road to a rapidly
growing economy, or a one-off fluke. As
always, the evidence is mixed. The bad news is that 1.7 percentage points of the second quarter spurt were accounted for by a build- up of inventories: real final sales of the stuff the economy produced were up only 2.3 percent. In the past, growth based on churning out goods that piled up on retailers’ shelves or in wholesalers’ warehouses has slowed as production was cut back to allow a draw-down of the inventory overhang.
As one Texas oilman told me in a year in which drilling activity slowed, “You don’t plant ‘taters when you have a cellar full of
‘taters.”
Then there is the role of catch-up. Goldman
Sachs is telling its clients that estimates
suggest that “Catch-up from the effect of
adverse weather in Q1 … added about one
percentage point to Q2 growth.” So the pile-
up of inventories and a one-time offset to
weather-related sluggishness combined to
account for 2.7 percent of the 4 percent
second quarter growth.
Finally, there are several factors creating the oft-cited headwinds that are retarding
growth. Corporate profits are running below expectations. Continued fiscal tightening by the federal government will have a dampening effect on future growth, probably offsetting any increase in spending by state and local governments. And the wave of regulations that the president has unleashed by asserting an expanded version of his prerogatives – using his pen, as he puts it – is driving up energy costs and adding to the uncertainty created by the upcoming mid- term elections, now only 94 days away. That’s a short time for corporate decision makers to hold off investing until they find out whether Republicans will seize control of the Senate and constrain the president’s ability to increase regulatory and cost burdens on private-sector actors.
Add these factors to the uncertainties facing
corporate boards, and it is a surprise that
they don’t rein in spending even more:
· Hamas rockets and terrorist tunnels
aimed at the destruction of Israel,
· Putin’s support of separatists in Ukraine,
and his vision of an expanded New Russia,
· The uncertain effect on European
economies of new sanctions on Russia,
· Still another default by Argentina, and
· The complete collapse of politicians’
interest in reforming our tax structure to
make our companies more competitive with overseas rivals, and our entrepreneurs more willing to risk their capital.
Before returning the champagne to the wine cellar, consider this somewhat cheerier set of facts:
· The BEA revised its estimates of growth in
the third and fourth quarters of 2013 from
4.1 percent to 4.5 percent, and from 2.6
percent to 3.5 percent, respectively.
· Business investment in the second quarter
of this year rose by 5.5 percent after rising a
meagre 1.6 percent in the first quarter.
Policy makers have been hoping that
corporations would replace cash-hoarding
with spending, and they might be getting
their wish despite all the uncertainties listed above.
· Investment in housing rose by 7.5 percent
after two quarters of decline, suggesting that the housing market might be heating up after cooling earlier in the summer.
· Consumers remain cheerful enough to
continue snapping up new vehicles. A
prominent Los Angeles dealer told me his
only problem is that he can’t get enough of
GM’s giant Suburbans to satisfy his
customers’ demand.
· The manufacturing sector expanded in
July for the 14 consecutive month.
Add to this plethora of data what we learned about the job market at week’s end. Some 209,000 new jobs were created in July,
extending the streak of above-200,000 new
jobs to six months, the longest such run since 1997. The unemployment and labor-force participation rates, and the number of long- term unemployed were little changed from levels at the beginning of the summer. Most observers characterized the news on the jobs front as not so hot as to force the Federal Reserve Board to bring forward its plan to raise interest rates in mid-to-late 2015, and not so cold as to compel it to end the gradual reduction of its bond-buying stimulus. A Goldilocks report in the jargon of Wall Street.
The central bank’s monetary policy
committee is now concentrating on selecting from among the many tools in its kit which ones will push interest rates up without aborting the recovery. Investors know an increase is inevitable, but are hoping that with nineteen million Americans either un- or underemployed, the labor force participation rate at historically low levels and wages more or less stuck, Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen, who is extremely sensitive to the social consequences of joblessness, will not bring forward the inevitable tightening. My guess is that the Fed will stick with its mid- or late-2015 date rather than heed the calls of those Fed governors who are arguing that the economy has already achieved lift-off and that the bank should push rates up earlier, perhaps very early in 2015. These dissidents believe Yellen is wrong to believe that faster growth will bring millions back into the labor force, reducing upward pressure on wages and therefore inflation. Instead, the inflation hawks fear that by waiting too long to raise interest rates, the Fed is repeating past errors, and storing up inflationary pressures.
So here is where matters stand after a
confusing, mind-boggling, data-rich week.
The economy is neither as strong as the
headline 4 percent growth rate suggests, nor as weak as the first-quarter 2.1 percent
shrinkage of the economy indicated. The jobs market continues to recover, but at a rate not so rapid as to force the Fed to raise interest rates sooner than it has planned. Some day Yellen will enter a policy meeting humming, “The party’s over, now you must wake up, all dreams must end.” But not for another year.
30 Jul 2014
AMERICAN VOICES
Rachel Marsden
Barack Obama's foreign policy disasters are
about what one might expect from a leftist
community organizer elected to be leader of the free world. So many of the countries this administration has touched -- Ukraine, Libya, Iraq -- have descended into acute civil war on Obama's watch. It's worth asking why, exactly, this has been the case.
It's not quite as simple as "the left sucks at
war." French Socialist President Francois
Hollande, for example, isn't too bad at it. He's been successfully running a series of ongoing foreign interventions in Africa.
So what does a French Socialist have that
Obama doesn't? Two things: a French public that's relatively pragmatic in its views of military interventionism, particularly within their nation's sphere of influence; and an above-board public coupling of military and business interests, to the point where the French public fully accepts that there is no daylight between the two sectors. If France stages a military intervention, the president doesn't need to perform political gymnastics to justify subsequent corporate involvement.
This clearly isn't the case in America.
It's childishly naive to think that conflict and interventionism are avoidable when you're a superpower. Especially in a time of economic crisis, the pressure is always on to enlarge your nation's slice of the global pie.
The problem is that leftists can't handle this
reality, nor can they digest the idea that it's
natural for humans to fight over the planet's limited resources. Unfortunately for Obama, leftists elected him and likely still comprise whatever is left of his support base. They thought they were electing a magic unicorn who would woo the world with hope, change and rainbows, because he didn't seem to have any oil, gas, and defense contractor friends.
But then the community organizer was
mugged by reality. Not by "the military-
industrial complex" or any other shady
conspiracy entity; just plain reality.
Rather than be up front with the public about the cold hard facts of global competition, leftists like Obama feel compelled to get sneaky and invoke pretext to triangulate their non-interventionism with the real world. Ultimately, it doesn't work, because this is the era of social media and extreme transparency. The only pretext that can be employed discreetly is the initial one. For example, a president can convince the public that intervention is strictly based on humanitarian grounds, but other motivations -- notably economic ones -- will eventually come to light.
The inevitable transition from pretext to
more enduring reality is what vexes this
administration. Take the current events in
Ukraine, for instance. The entire conflict was predicated on the notion that now-deposed former Ukrainian President Viktor
Yanukovych was too pro-Russian. For that to be a problem that merits intervention to the level of coup d'etat, Russian President
Vladimir Putin had to be perceived as the
devil incarnate. To maintain support for
ongoing intervention in Ukraine and any
related spending, that image of Putin would
require persistent maintenance.
Ergo, if Russian troops are guarding their
own border, they have to be portrayed as
being on the verge of imminent invasion. Yet if rogue separatists fire a missile at a
passenger jet, then Russia must be blamed for not having secured the breakaway region by sending in troops.
Within the same week, the U.S. State
Department blamed Russia for the surface-to- air missile attack on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, and U.S. intelligence officials said there was no evidence of direct Russian
involvement. Still, Russia was hit with more
sanctions soon after the crash.
The leap from pretext to reality is so
gargantuan that poor execution can often
yield comical results. Western sanctions have targeted figures such as the director of
Russia's FSB domestic spy agency, Alexander Bortnikov, and his SVR foreign intelligence counterpart, Mikhail Fradkov. Does anyone really believe that these intelligence chiefs are losing sleep over having one of their unlimited number of identities subjected to restrictions?
Iraq and Libya have been left to disintegrate because the Obama administration hasn't figured out how to run headlong into a massive failstorm without having to actually be seen fighting. It managed to pull that off exactly once, with Syria. But only because Russia took care of the situation -- right before being kicked in the teeth.
Obfuscation and narrative maintenance seem like so much more work than just being honest with the public. Maybe we should just elect leaders who don't have to waste so much effort bridging the gap between convenient untruths and reality. Unless, of course, we're into that sort of thing.
Barack Obama's foreign policy disasters are
about what one might expect from a leftist
community organizer elected to be leader of the free world. So many of the countries this administration has touched -- Ukraine, Libya, Iraq -- have descended into acute civil war on Obama's watch. It's worth asking why, exactly, this has been the case.
It's not quite as simple as "the left sucks at
war." French Socialist President Francois
Hollande, for example, isn't too bad at it. He's been successfully running a series of ongoing foreign interventions in Africa.
So what does a French Socialist have that
Obama doesn't? Two things: a French public that's relatively pragmatic in its views of military interventionism, particularly within their nation's sphere of influence; and an above-board public coupling of military and business interests, to the point where the French public fully accepts that there is no daylight between the two sectors. If France stages a military intervention, the president doesn't need to perform political gymnastics to justify subsequent corporate involvement.
This clearly isn't the case in America.
It's childishly naive to think that conflict and interventionism are avoidable when you're a superpower. Especially in a time of economic crisis, the pressure is always on to enlarge your nation's slice of the global pie.
The problem is that leftists can't handle this
reality, nor can they digest the idea that it's
natural for humans to fight over the planet's limited resources. Unfortunately for Obama, leftists elected him and likely still comprise whatever is left of his support base. They thought they were electing a magic unicorn who would woo the world with hope, change and rainbows, because he didn't seem to have any oil, gas, and defense contractor friends.
But then the community organizer was
mugged by reality. Not by "the military-
industrial complex" or any other shady
conspiracy entity; just plain reality.
Rather than be up front with the public about the cold hard facts of global competition, leftists like Obama feel compelled to get sneaky and invoke pretext to triangulate their non-interventionism with the real world. Ultimately, it doesn't work, because this is the era of social media and extreme transparency. The only pretext that can be employed discreetly is the initial one. For example, a president can convince the public that intervention is strictly based on humanitarian grounds, but other motivations -- notably economic ones -- will eventually come to light.
The inevitable transition from pretext to
more enduring reality is what vexes this
administration. Take the current events in
Ukraine, for instance. The entire conflict was predicated on the notion that now-deposed former Ukrainian President Viktor
Yanukovych was too pro-Russian. For that to be a problem that merits intervention to the level of coup d'etat, Russian President
Vladimir Putin had to be perceived as the
devil incarnate. To maintain support for
ongoing intervention in Ukraine and any
related spending, that image of Putin would
require persistent maintenance.
Ergo, if Russian troops are guarding their
own border, they have to be portrayed as
being on the verge of imminent invasion. Yet if rogue separatists fire a missile at a
passenger jet, then Russia must be blamed for not having secured the breakaway region by sending in troops.
Within the same week, the U.S. State
Department blamed Russia for the surface-to- air missile attack on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, and U.S. intelligence officials said there was no evidence of direct Russian
involvement. Still, Russia was hit with more
sanctions soon after the crash.
The leap from pretext to reality is so
gargantuan that poor execution can often
yield comical results. Western sanctions have targeted figures such as the director of
Russia's FSB domestic spy agency, Alexander Bortnikov, and his SVR foreign intelligence counterpart, Mikhail Fradkov. Does anyone really believe that these intelligence chiefs are losing sleep over having one of their unlimited number of identities subjected to restrictions?
Iraq and Libya have been left to disintegrate because the Obama administration hasn't figured out how to run headlong into a massive failstorm without having to actually be seen fighting. It managed to pull that off exactly once, with Syria. But only because Russia took care of the situation -- right before being kicked in the teeth.
Obfuscation and narrative maintenance seem like so much more work than just being honest with the public. Maybe we should just elect leaders who don't have to waste so much effort bridging the gap between convenient untruths and reality. Unless, of course, we're into that sort of thing.
JAMMU AND KASHMIR: THE NEW BATTLE
Shujaat Bukhari
With Congress and National Conference deciding to go alone in the forthcoming Assembly elections, the electoral battle in Jammu and Kashmir is poised for an
interesting contest. In both the Kashmir and Jammu divisions a triangular contest could throw up some surprises. The ruling coalition partners are, however, making some “thought provoking” statements as to why they parted ways. The NC holds the view that it was not possible to transfer the votes of their respective cadres but Congress has made some interesting points.
Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief Saifuddin Soz blamed the government inefficiency and corruption for the debacle both the parties had to taste in the recent
parliamentary elections.
Generally the coalition parties should have been highlighting the joint achievements and even if they had to fight elections on their own, the reasons could be different. But this is perhaps the only coalition in India that is parting ways on the basis of misgovernance. Soz blames the government, of which his party is a part, as
corrupt. That means whole lot is indulging in corruption.
But if NC leaders are to be believed they maintain that Congress ministers were more corrupt. One thing is clear that both NC and Congress have vindicated the
people’s verdict they gave in recent elections. It reversed all the decisions it had taken in past five years proving that it had no competence to comprehend what
was good for state. Coalition government’s failure to tackle the corruption was main reason for misgovernance and that is why the people rejected them in Lok Sabha elections. In normal circumstances it
would have been ideal for both parties to join hands and go to polls with the “achievements” of six years but they are instead blaming each other for the failures.
Now that the scene is clear all the parties have their knives out to realize the dream of governing the state until 2020. The magic number of “44” is lurking in the minds of these political parties and some of them claim they will achieve it on their own. What is surprising is that the right wing Bharatiya Janata Party has been talking more about “44” given the fact that the results of recently held parliament elections bolstered its confidence. The opposition People’s Democratic Party, though not publicly, is also counting the same figure
and is confident to repeat the performance it showed in the parliamentary elections.
But Congress and NC are two parties, which are yet to make a tall claim of reaching the magic number. Demoralized with the rout they faced in the elections, they even changed the language generally used to nail
the opponents. Whatever way the campaign goes but one thing is clear that the dynamics of the electoral politics has certainly changed in the state. With people
making a beeline to join PDP, it has become clear that the results of the parliamentary elections are being taken seriously and the party is rather expected to repeat the performance in the Assembly elections.
It is very difficult to predict any clear situation as the previous elections were fought for parliamentary seats and the forthcoming one is meant for Assembly.
Though not much difference is expected, it largely is the election, which has lot to do with the local candidate, whether from NC, PDP, Congress or BJP. If the reports
are to be believed, one of the strongest candidates of Congress in Jammu shut his eyes for people voting for BJP candidate in parliament elections thus giving a stunning lead of over 50,000 to Jugal Kishore in this
particular segment. But when it comes to his own election it may be different even as it will be difficult for him to reverse the trend to which he contributed himself.
If the claims of BJP and the independent assessments are taken into consideration, Modi wave still exists in Jammu and in case the BJP’s plan of sending 22 Union
Ministers and the Prime Minister for campaigning materializes it surely will have its own impact. BJP is trying its best to appease its vote bank by continuously
talking about the rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits, refugees and the other contentious issues to lure the voters ahead of the Assembly elections. It may not be
in a position to fulfill its wish list but it surely will gain and that will be at the cost of Congress and to some extent the NC. It has also started roping in some new
faces in Valley to make inroads. It’s working on an arithmetic that may suit it in view of boycott, particularly in Srinagar city. Riding on the goodwill the party has among KPs it is concentrating on a few seats in Srinagar so that the bulk of KPs would vote for its
candidates who could sail through in view of near total boycott.
In case the trend that had been set after 2002 in Jammu and Kashmir gets reversed, Congress will no longer be in a position of being the “King Maker” in state politics. Since 2002 the state has seen the coalition politics thriving and smaller parties and even individuals emerging as potential gainers. Congress with substantial numbers played the role of having the key to
formation of governments. It did pave way for Mufti Mohammad Sayeed to become Chief Minister in 2002 despite his party PDP having only 16 members against Congress’s 20. And in 2008 it joined hands with NC to
form the government. In both these tenures Congress used, rather misused, its position to get the maximum. First by running away with important and “lucrative” portfolios and then “black mailing” the chief ministers of PDP and NC on almost every issue.
This time, however, Congress seems to be on the back foot as the rout the party faced at national level and in the six parliamentary constituencies of J&K has given a severe jolt to its morale. Political pundits are not predicting immediate revival in its fortunes. If that would be the case then a new dynamic will be thrown
up in the state. But it depends a lot on how NC will fare in the assembly elections. If it goes down drastically on its existing number of 28, that would be advantage PDP.
The concern rather a threat that will emerge in case voters do not prefer both NC and Congress is that BJP will have an edge in deciding the future coalition. The
coalitions even with Congress, presumably the secular party, have turned out to be very unfriendly for Kashmir.
If one would go to the extent of saying that Congress ministers have proved to be more communal than BJP it would be fair. In their 12 years of rule, Congress ministers, mostly from Jammu have not allowed any
Muslim to hold an important position such as that of a head of a department or equivalent in Jammu region.
There are many more examples like that. But in case a single party from Kashmir does not get a comfortable majority on its own, then it will be at the mercy of BJP
and other forces who are essentially nurturing anti- Kashmir feeling in Jammu.
Imagine BJP winning nearly 20 seats and a party from Kashmir left with no choice but to join hands with them to form a government. BJP is eyeing 44 seats, which is
very difficult to comprehend at this stage. Since NC conceded its whole space in Jammu to Congress, the voters both Muslims and those who don’t support BJP’s
agenda were left with no choice but to go with them. Congress’s misrule and its failure to replace a regional party like NC in Jammu paved way more for BJP than
for another regional party PDP, which has surely improved its vote bank in the region. In both Kashmir and Jammu it is going to be a triangular contest with BJP, Congress and NC fighting a tough battle in Jammu along with PDP in certain areas, in Kashmir the battle is mainly between NC and PDP with Congress having strong base in few constituencies.
While all the prophecies about the results are premature at this stage, 44 and 2020 are important figurative signs for the health of Jammu and Kashmir for next six years.
With Congress and National Conference deciding to go alone in the forthcoming Assembly elections, the electoral battle in Jammu and Kashmir is poised for an
interesting contest. In both the Kashmir and Jammu divisions a triangular contest could throw up some surprises. The ruling coalition partners are, however, making some “thought provoking” statements as to why they parted ways. The NC holds the view that it was not possible to transfer the votes of their respective cadres but Congress has made some interesting points.
Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief Saifuddin Soz blamed the government inefficiency and corruption for the debacle both the parties had to taste in the recent
parliamentary elections.
Generally the coalition parties should have been highlighting the joint achievements and even if they had to fight elections on their own, the reasons could be different. But this is perhaps the only coalition in India that is parting ways on the basis of misgovernance. Soz blames the government, of which his party is a part, as
corrupt. That means whole lot is indulging in corruption.
But if NC leaders are to be believed they maintain that Congress ministers were more corrupt. One thing is clear that both NC and Congress have vindicated the
people’s verdict they gave in recent elections. It reversed all the decisions it had taken in past five years proving that it had no competence to comprehend what
was good for state. Coalition government’s failure to tackle the corruption was main reason for misgovernance and that is why the people rejected them in Lok Sabha elections. In normal circumstances it
would have been ideal for both parties to join hands and go to polls with the “achievements” of six years but they are instead blaming each other for the failures.
Now that the scene is clear all the parties have their knives out to realize the dream of governing the state until 2020. The magic number of “44” is lurking in the minds of these political parties and some of them claim they will achieve it on their own. What is surprising is that the right wing Bharatiya Janata Party has been talking more about “44” given the fact that the results of recently held parliament elections bolstered its confidence. The opposition People’s Democratic Party, though not publicly, is also counting the same figure
and is confident to repeat the performance it showed in the parliamentary elections.
But Congress and NC are two parties, which are yet to make a tall claim of reaching the magic number. Demoralized with the rout they faced in the elections, they even changed the language generally used to nail
the opponents. Whatever way the campaign goes but one thing is clear that the dynamics of the electoral politics has certainly changed in the state. With people
making a beeline to join PDP, it has become clear that the results of the parliamentary elections are being taken seriously and the party is rather expected to repeat the performance in the Assembly elections.
It is very difficult to predict any clear situation as the previous elections were fought for parliamentary seats and the forthcoming one is meant for Assembly.
Though not much difference is expected, it largely is the election, which has lot to do with the local candidate, whether from NC, PDP, Congress or BJP. If the reports
are to be believed, one of the strongest candidates of Congress in Jammu shut his eyes for people voting for BJP candidate in parliament elections thus giving a stunning lead of over 50,000 to Jugal Kishore in this
particular segment. But when it comes to his own election it may be different even as it will be difficult for him to reverse the trend to which he contributed himself.
If the claims of BJP and the independent assessments are taken into consideration, Modi wave still exists in Jammu and in case the BJP’s plan of sending 22 Union
Ministers and the Prime Minister for campaigning materializes it surely will have its own impact. BJP is trying its best to appease its vote bank by continuously
talking about the rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits, refugees and the other contentious issues to lure the voters ahead of the Assembly elections. It may not be
in a position to fulfill its wish list but it surely will gain and that will be at the cost of Congress and to some extent the NC. It has also started roping in some new
faces in Valley to make inroads. It’s working on an arithmetic that may suit it in view of boycott, particularly in Srinagar city. Riding on the goodwill the party has among KPs it is concentrating on a few seats in Srinagar so that the bulk of KPs would vote for its
candidates who could sail through in view of near total boycott.
In case the trend that had been set after 2002 in Jammu and Kashmir gets reversed, Congress will no longer be in a position of being the “King Maker” in state politics. Since 2002 the state has seen the coalition politics thriving and smaller parties and even individuals emerging as potential gainers. Congress with substantial numbers played the role of having the key to
formation of governments. It did pave way for Mufti Mohammad Sayeed to become Chief Minister in 2002 despite his party PDP having only 16 members against Congress’s 20. And in 2008 it joined hands with NC to
form the government. In both these tenures Congress used, rather misused, its position to get the maximum. First by running away with important and “lucrative” portfolios and then “black mailing” the chief ministers of PDP and NC on almost every issue.
This time, however, Congress seems to be on the back foot as the rout the party faced at national level and in the six parliamentary constituencies of J&K has given a severe jolt to its morale. Political pundits are not predicting immediate revival in its fortunes. If that would be the case then a new dynamic will be thrown
up in the state. But it depends a lot on how NC will fare in the assembly elections. If it goes down drastically on its existing number of 28, that would be advantage PDP.
The concern rather a threat that will emerge in case voters do not prefer both NC and Congress is that BJP will have an edge in deciding the future coalition. The
coalitions even with Congress, presumably the secular party, have turned out to be very unfriendly for Kashmir.
If one would go to the extent of saying that Congress ministers have proved to be more communal than BJP it would be fair. In their 12 years of rule, Congress ministers, mostly from Jammu have not allowed any
Muslim to hold an important position such as that of a head of a department or equivalent in Jammu region.
There are many more examples like that. But in case a single party from Kashmir does not get a comfortable majority on its own, then it will be at the mercy of BJP
and other forces who are essentially nurturing anti- Kashmir feeling in Jammu.
Imagine BJP winning nearly 20 seats and a party from Kashmir left with no choice but to join hands with them to form a government. BJP is eyeing 44 seats, which is
very difficult to comprehend at this stage. Since NC conceded its whole space in Jammu to Congress, the voters both Muslims and those who don’t support BJP’s
agenda were left with no choice but to go with them. Congress’s misrule and its failure to replace a regional party like NC in Jammu paved way more for BJP than
for another regional party PDP, which has surely improved its vote bank in the region. In both Kashmir and Jammu it is going to be a triangular contest with BJP, Congress and NC fighting a tough battle in Jammu along with PDP in certain areas, in Kashmir the battle is mainly between NC and PDP with Congress having strong base in few constituencies.
While all the prophecies about the results are premature at this stage, 44 and 2020 are important figurative signs for the health of Jammu and Kashmir for next six years.
INDIA'S MYANMAR MISSION
Wasbir Hussain
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's neighbourhood push continues in full steam with Indian External Affairs
Minister Sushma Swaraj now set to visit Myanmar within a fortnight, to try and consolidate ties with the leadership in Naypyidaw. Her visit to attend the ASEAN
Regional Forum (ARF) meeting from 9 to 10 August, besides, of course, holding a bilateral dialogue with Naypyidaw comes at a time when non-government actors in Myanmar are increasingly opposing projects in parts of the country being sought to be implemented with Chinese funding. A case in point is the cancellation
of a $20 billion railway line connecting Kyaukpyu in Myanmar and Kunming in China due to public opposition. The construction was to have been carried
out by the China Railway Engineering Corporation. Sushma Swaraj, therefore, has her job well cut out:
prepare the ground for Modi’s November visit to Myanmar to attend the East Asia Summit and engage in robust bilaterals with the leadership in Naypyidaw. It is
widely accepted that Myanmar is in China’s grip insofar as investments or arms supplies are concerned.
However, it is still advantage India insofar as historical ties between the two nations are concerned. As the leader of the Myanmar delegation at the Fifth Indo-
Myanmar Regional Border Committee Meeting, Maj. Gen. Min Nuang said in Imphal, India, on 25 July “We
share a long common border and have close affinity with your historical, cultural and religious background. We always think of India as a true friend.” Myanmar is a country where Indian and Chinese
influences intersect. However, today, with the public opposition in Myanmar towards Chinese-built or Chinese-funded projects, particularly in the Kachin region, there is definitely a space India can try and fill
in. Myanmar isn’t just the gateway to the ASEAN, but iscritical to the furtherance of India’s Look East Policy.
Swaraj would know it better that to push ahead with the Look East Policy by opening and putting in place workable channels of communication by roads and railway, the India-Myanmar region must be free of
violent insurgencies. Even today, despite high-level military-to-military engagement, several Northeast Indian insurgent groups have bases in Myanmar. The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang), and several Manipuri rebel outfits have well-entrenched camps in
the country’s Sagaing Division, bordering North-eastern India.
As recently as on 8 May, India and Myanmar signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Border Cooperation. This MoU provides a framework for security cooperation and exchange of information between Indian and Myanmarese security agencies.
Apart from providing for coordinated patrols on their respective sides of the international border and the maritime boundary by the armed forces of the two
countries, both sides have agreed to exchange information in the fight against insurgency, and trafficking of arms, drug, human and wildlife. Steps to prevent illegal cross-border activities have also been
agreed upon.
While agreements such as these have existed in some form or the other, the conducts of local authorities and
military units in Myanmar have been questionable. These are issues that Swaraj will have to iron out so that the border can turn peaceful and relations can consolidate on the trade and security fronts. India’s Myanmar policy cannot be firmed-up without factoring China in. It is important to note that China has had a threefold objective in pursuing and cementing
its ties with Myanmar. First, it set its eyes on Myanmar’s natural resources of
oil, gas and timber, needed to meet the huge domestic demand. Second, Beijing wanted to better its security capabilities by expanding its access to the Bay of
Bengal and the Andaman Sea and thereby allowing for greater protection of its “southwest silk road” trade routes and the development of a modern maritime
reconnaissance system. Third, China was bent on pushing policies to deny India strategic space in the South Asian region.
One would wait to see what the new Indian
Government’s Myanmar policy would be like. So far, New Delhi’s attempts at improving ties with Myanmar looked nothing more than a response to rein China in and not leaving the field open to it – instead of a concerted bid at building a good neighbourly relationship for a solid hold in the region. Besides, India also needs
to note China’s ‘all-weather friendship’ with Pakistan and a fairly growing Myanmar-Pakistan relation that is bound to have a bearing on New Delhi. Rightly, however, India has changed its policy towards Myanmar over the past five years and one would have to wait and see the turn of events after the visit of External Affairs
Minister Sushma Swaraj – that will be followed by that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's neighbourhood push continues in full steam with Indian External Affairs
Minister Sushma Swaraj now set to visit Myanmar within a fortnight, to try and consolidate ties with the leadership in Naypyidaw. Her visit to attend the ASEAN
Regional Forum (ARF) meeting from 9 to 10 August, besides, of course, holding a bilateral dialogue with Naypyidaw comes at a time when non-government actors in Myanmar are increasingly opposing projects in parts of the country being sought to be implemented with Chinese funding. A case in point is the cancellation
of a $20 billion railway line connecting Kyaukpyu in Myanmar and Kunming in China due to public opposition. The construction was to have been carried
out by the China Railway Engineering Corporation. Sushma Swaraj, therefore, has her job well cut out:
prepare the ground for Modi’s November visit to Myanmar to attend the East Asia Summit and engage in robust bilaterals with the leadership in Naypyidaw. It is
widely accepted that Myanmar is in China’s grip insofar as investments or arms supplies are concerned.
However, it is still advantage India insofar as historical ties between the two nations are concerned. As the leader of the Myanmar delegation at the Fifth Indo-
Myanmar Regional Border Committee Meeting, Maj. Gen. Min Nuang said in Imphal, India, on 25 July “We
share a long common border and have close affinity with your historical, cultural and religious background. We always think of India as a true friend.” Myanmar is a country where Indian and Chinese
influences intersect. However, today, with the public opposition in Myanmar towards Chinese-built or Chinese-funded projects, particularly in the Kachin region, there is definitely a space India can try and fill
in. Myanmar isn’t just the gateway to the ASEAN, but iscritical to the furtherance of India’s Look East Policy.
Swaraj would know it better that to push ahead with the Look East Policy by opening and putting in place workable channels of communication by roads and railway, the India-Myanmar region must be free of
violent insurgencies. Even today, despite high-level military-to-military engagement, several Northeast Indian insurgent groups have bases in Myanmar. The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang), and several Manipuri rebel outfits have well-entrenched camps in
the country’s Sagaing Division, bordering North-eastern India.
As recently as on 8 May, India and Myanmar signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Border Cooperation. This MoU provides a framework for security cooperation and exchange of information between Indian and Myanmarese security agencies.
Apart from providing for coordinated patrols on their respective sides of the international border and the maritime boundary by the armed forces of the two
countries, both sides have agreed to exchange information in the fight against insurgency, and trafficking of arms, drug, human and wildlife. Steps to prevent illegal cross-border activities have also been
agreed upon.
While agreements such as these have existed in some form or the other, the conducts of local authorities and
military units in Myanmar have been questionable. These are issues that Swaraj will have to iron out so that the border can turn peaceful and relations can consolidate on the trade and security fronts. India’s Myanmar policy cannot be firmed-up without factoring China in. It is important to note that China has had a threefold objective in pursuing and cementing
its ties with Myanmar. First, it set its eyes on Myanmar’s natural resources of
oil, gas and timber, needed to meet the huge domestic demand. Second, Beijing wanted to better its security capabilities by expanding its access to the Bay of
Bengal and the Andaman Sea and thereby allowing for greater protection of its “southwest silk road” trade routes and the development of a modern maritime
reconnaissance system. Third, China was bent on pushing policies to deny India strategic space in the South Asian region.
One would wait to see what the new Indian
Government’s Myanmar policy would be like. So far, New Delhi’s attempts at improving ties with Myanmar looked nothing more than a response to rein China in and not leaving the field open to it – instead of a concerted bid at building a good neighbourly relationship for a solid hold in the region. Besides, India also needs
to note China’s ‘all-weather friendship’ with Pakistan and a fairly growing Myanmar-Pakistan relation that is bound to have a bearing on New Delhi. Rightly, however, India has changed its policy towards Myanmar over the past five years and one would have to wait and see the turn of events after the visit of External Affairs
Minister Sushma Swaraj – that will be followed by that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
28 Jul 2014
A NEW DISORDER
Stephen Hayes
Moments of clarity often come when you least expect them. In a speech to contributors last week in Seattle, Barack Obama made the case that his presidency has made America better.
In most respects, it was precisely the kind of
political pablum you’d expect from a
president who seems more concerned with
legacy-polishing than governing. He ticked
off his accomplishments, a list that was equal parts premature celebration (deficit
reduction), hyperbole (Obamacare), and
borrowed glory (rising college attendance, a
strong stock market, increased energy
production).
Even if few in this fawning crowd were going to question him, circumstances required the president to acknowledge the growing tumult around the world. Despite all of this success, he conceded, there are some “big challenges overseas” that have some people anxious.
What are these big challenges and why are
we facing them? It’s worth quoting the entire passage:
I am very proud that we have ended one war, and by the end of this year we will have ended both wars that I inherited before I came into office. (Applause.) But whether people see what’s happening in Ukraine, and Russia’s aggression towards its neighbors in the manner in which it’s financing and arming separatists; to what’s happened in Syria—the devastation that Assad has wrought on his own people; to the failure in Iraq for Sunni and Shia and Kurd to compromise—although we’re trying to see if we can put together a government that actually can function; to ongoing terrorist threats; to what’s happening in Israel and Gaza. Part of people’s concern is just the sense that around the world the old order isn’t holding and we’re not quite yet to where we need to be in terms of a new order that’s based on a different set of principles, that’s based on a sense of common humanity, that’s
based on economies that work for all people.
These are remarkable words from an
American president. They suggest that Obama either doesn’t appreciate the causal
relationship between his policies and the
current crises—or doesn’t care. He is proud
that he has brought about the “end” of the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he seems
not to understand that the unrest he goes on to describe is their direct result: How those wars ended shapes how others perceive the United States and its role in the world.
In Iraq, the president was willing to sacrifice the hard-won gains of U.S. military and diplomatic personnel in the pursuit of his overriding objective—getting out. The United States hadn’t created a stable and peaceful Iraq when the president was sworn in on January 20, 2009. But we had largely defeated our enemies there, and even opponents of the war acknowledged the very real prospect of a relatively secure, democratic Iraq. We lost Iraq by choice.
Afghanistan might be worse. In the early
days of the administration, the president and his team described the outcome of that war as crucial to U.S. national security. The goals of U.S. military and diplomatic efforts there— eliminating safe haven for al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan and reversing the momentum of the Taliban—were essential to keeping Americans safe here at home. But Obama long ago made clear that he was more interested in ending the war than in winning it. In his December 1, 2009, speech at West Point, the president announced the troop surge and the withdrawal in the same breath.
Today, U.S. troops are coming home, U.S.
objectives remain unfulfilled, and President
Obama dismissively refers to Afghanistan as just one of the wars he “inherited.”
It’s not just the wars. With remarkable
consistency, Obama has demonstrated that he is unwilling to accept the responsibilities that come with being the world’s only
superpower. We said little as the Iranian
regime put down a democratic revolution in 2009, for fear of accusations of “meddling.”
We watched as Assad began to kill his citizens by the thousand, calling plaintively for restraint. When the Russian military rolled into Crimea in an audacious land-grab, we announced our disapproval and pushed for sanctions that we knew—that everyone knew —would have little effect beyond allowing us to say we pushed for sanctions.
In Obama’s telling, the chaos Americans see
on their television screens every night—more than 150,000 slaughtered in Syria, a terrorist army taking over major cities in Iraq, dozens of rockets daily targeting citizens of Israel, nearly 300 innocent travelers dead after a surface-to-air missile downs a passenger plane, and continued Russian aggression—is just part of a natural evolution. In the old world order, the United States played a dominant role. In the new one, we will not.
With a rhetorical shrug of his shoulders,
Obama says that these things may be
unpleasant, but better days are ahead—a new order based on a “different set of principles”
with “economies that work for all people” and a “sense of common humanity.”
These views are a radical departure from
decades of bipartisan U.S. national security
and foreign policy, and they can’t be
dismissed as just the careless ramblings of a
president who has checked out. He’s said
much the same thing before. In a speech
before the United Nations General Assembly on September 23, 2009, Obama declared: “In an era when our destiny is shared, power is no longer a zero-sum game. No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation.
No world order that elevates one nation or
group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold.”
This is naïve and dangerous. There are
serious consequences to the United States
relinquishing power and influence. We’re
living them—and so are people in the rest of the world.
Moments of clarity often come when you least expect them. In a speech to contributors last week in Seattle, Barack Obama made the case that his presidency has made America better.
In most respects, it was precisely the kind of
political pablum you’d expect from a
president who seems more concerned with
legacy-polishing than governing. He ticked
off his accomplishments, a list that was equal parts premature celebration (deficit
reduction), hyperbole (Obamacare), and
borrowed glory (rising college attendance, a
strong stock market, increased energy
production).
Even if few in this fawning crowd were going to question him, circumstances required the president to acknowledge the growing tumult around the world. Despite all of this success, he conceded, there are some “big challenges overseas” that have some people anxious.
What are these big challenges and why are
we facing them? It’s worth quoting the entire passage:
I am very proud that we have ended one war, and by the end of this year we will have ended both wars that I inherited before I came into office. (Applause.) But whether people see what’s happening in Ukraine, and Russia’s aggression towards its neighbors in the manner in which it’s financing and arming separatists; to what’s happened in Syria—the devastation that Assad has wrought on his own people; to the failure in Iraq for Sunni and Shia and Kurd to compromise—although we’re trying to see if we can put together a government that actually can function; to ongoing terrorist threats; to what’s happening in Israel and Gaza. Part of people’s concern is just the sense that around the world the old order isn’t holding and we’re not quite yet to where we need to be in terms of a new order that’s based on a different set of principles, that’s based on a sense of common humanity, that’s
based on economies that work for all people.
These are remarkable words from an
American president. They suggest that Obama either doesn’t appreciate the causal
relationship between his policies and the
current crises—or doesn’t care. He is proud
that he has brought about the “end” of the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he seems
not to understand that the unrest he goes on to describe is their direct result: How those wars ended shapes how others perceive the United States and its role in the world.
In Iraq, the president was willing to sacrifice the hard-won gains of U.S. military and diplomatic personnel in the pursuit of his overriding objective—getting out. The United States hadn’t created a stable and peaceful Iraq when the president was sworn in on January 20, 2009. But we had largely defeated our enemies there, and even opponents of the war acknowledged the very real prospect of a relatively secure, democratic Iraq. We lost Iraq by choice.
Afghanistan might be worse. In the early
days of the administration, the president and his team described the outcome of that war as crucial to U.S. national security. The goals of U.S. military and diplomatic efforts there— eliminating safe haven for al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan and reversing the momentum of the Taliban—were essential to keeping Americans safe here at home. But Obama long ago made clear that he was more interested in ending the war than in winning it. In his December 1, 2009, speech at West Point, the president announced the troop surge and the withdrawal in the same breath.
Today, U.S. troops are coming home, U.S.
objectives remain unfulfilled, and President
Obama dismissively refers to Afghanistan as just one of the wars he “inherited.”
It’s not just the wars. With remarkable
consistency, Obama has demonstrated that he is unwilling to accept the responsibilities that come with being the world’s only
superpower. We said little as the Iranian
regime put down a democratic revolution in 2009, for fear of accusations of “meddling.”
We watched as Assad began to kill his citizens by the thousand, calling plaintively for restraint. When the Russian military rolled into Crimea in an audacious land-grab, we announced our disapproval and pushed for sanctions that we knew—that everyone knew —would have little effect beyond allowing us to say we pushed for sanctions.
In Obama’s telling, the chaos Americans see
on their television screens every night—more than 150,000 slaughtered in Syria, a terrorist army taking over major cities in Iraq, dozens of rockets daily targeting citizens of Israel, nearly 300 innocent travelers dead after a surface-to-air missile downs a passenger plane, and continued Russian aggression—is just part of a natural evolution. In the old world order, the United States played a dominant role. In the new one, we will not.
With a rhetorical shrug of his shoulders,
Obama says that these things may be
unpleasant, but better days are ahead—a new order based on a “different set of principles”
with “economies that work for all people” and a “sense of common humanity.”
These views are a radical departure from
decades of bipartisan U.S. national security
and foreign policy, and they can’t be
dismissed as just the careless ramblings of a
president who has checked out. He’s said
much the same thing before. In a speech
before the United Nations General Assembly on September 23, 2009, Obama declared: “In an era when our destiny is shared, power is no longer a zero-sum game. No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation.
No world order that elevates one nation or
group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold.”
This is naïve and dangerous. There are
serious consequences to the United States
relinquishing power and influence. We’re
living them—and so are people in the rest of the world.
THE UNDERGROUND WAR ON ISRAEL
Lee Smith
During the first two weeks of the Gaza
conflict, Hamas landed at least two
significant punches. In firing missiles at Ben Gurion Airport, Hamas convinced the Federal Aviation Authority and European air carriers to temporarily suspend flights to Israel. The fact that relatively primitive rockets falling far short of their targets are nonetheless capable of at least briefly severing an advanced Western democracy with a leading tech economy from the rest of the world is a psychological blow. But perhaps the even greater concern for Israeli officials is the revelation of Hamas’s extensive tunnel network.
Until Operation Protective Edge, it was
generally assumed that Gaza’s tunnel system was simply a feeding tube for a community of 1.8 million people. With both the Egyptian and Israeli borders closed, as well as Israel’s naval blockade, goods entered Gaza mainly through the tunnels from Egypt. So did weapons, including missiles made or designed by Iran, which, as the last two weeks have shown, are capable of reaching any site in Israel. The tunnel economy flourished under
former Egyptian president and Hamas
sponsor Mohamed Morsi but has suffered
under his successor, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has won praise from Jerusalem for shutting down as many tunnels as he can find.
However, there is another system in Gaza as well, a network of attack tunnels that end not in Egypt but in Israel, where over the last two weeks Hamas commandos have attempted several terrorist operations.
“Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said that we
are not under siege, we are imposing a
siege,” says retired IDF officer Jonathan
Halevi, now a senior researcher at the
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. “What he meant was that [Hamas] can use tunnels as a strategic weapon. If you multiply tunnels, you can use them to send hundreds of fighters into Israel and create havoc, totally under cover. According to Hamas, the tunnels have changed the balance of power.”
Israeli officials have expressed amazement at the extent of the tunnel network. “Food,
accommodations, storage, resupply,” one
astonished official told reporters last week.
“Beneath Gaza,” he explained, there’s
“another terror city.” That is, Hamas’s tunnel network is evidence of a military doctrine, both a countermeasure to Israel’s clear air superiority and an offensive capability that threatens to take ground combat inside Israel itself, targeting villages, cities, and civilians as well as soldiers. Israel perhaps should not
have been surprised to discover the size and seriousness of Hamas’s tunnel network
because they’ve seen something similar
before, in the aftermath of the 2006 war with Hezbollah. And indeed it was Iran’s long arm in Lebanon that helped build Hamas’s tunnels.
“The spiritual father of Hamas’s tunnel
system is Imad Mughniyeh,” says Shimon
Shapira, a Hezbollah expert and senior
research associate at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Mughniyeh, assassinated in 2008 in an operation believed to have been conducted by the Israelis, is credited with directing Hezbollah’s 2006 war. He was the head of the organization’s external
operations unit and responsible for countless terrorist attacks. He also served as liaison to the top Iranian leadership as well as other Iranian allies and assets, including Hamas.
“Mughniyeh sent instructors to Gaza and took Hamas members to Iran,” Shapira explains.
While Hamas and Hezbollah’s tunnel
technology, equipment, and funding are
mostly Iranian, the knowledge and the
doctrine date back to the earliest days of the
Cold War.
“The North Koreans are the leading tunnel
experts in the world,” says North Korea
expert Bruce Bechtol. They learned as a
matter of necessity. “The U.S. Air Force
basically exhausted its target list after the
first eight months of the Korean War,”
Bechtol explains. “All the North Korean cities were turned to rubble, so they got good at building large tunnels and bunkers, some of them 10 or 11 square miles. In effect, the North Koreans moved their cities
underground for three years, with hundreds of thousands of people living down there.”
“There is no better protection than the
earth,” says David Maxwell, associate director of the Center for Security Studies at
Georgetown University. But Pyongyang also
has an offensive doctrine. “Defectors tell us
that the North Koreans built 21 tunnels under the demilitarized zone, but only 4 have been discovered,” says Maxwell, a retired U.S. Army colonel who served in South Korea.
“Our concern is that the North Koreans would infiltrate, sending thousands of men through the tunnels in an hour, maybe dressed in South Korean uniforms. You can’t imagine the kind of havoc that would wreak.”
Just last week Hamas tried the same tactic,
sending commando units disguised as IDF
troops through two tunnels. For a short time, they fooled real Israeli soldiers in an
observation post.
It’s nothing new for the North Koreans to
work with terrorist groups, as Bechtol
explains. It started with the Polisario, the
North African, and at one time Soviet-funded, terrorist group fighting the Moroccan government. “The North Koreans built them underground facilities, command and control, hospitals,” says Bechtol. “All of it was supported by Soviets, but that changed with the end of the Cold War, when the North Koreans offered their services on a cash and
carry basis only.”
Their top customer is the Islamic Republic of Iran. The North Koreans, Bechtol says, have helped build some of the Iranians’
underground nuclear weapons facilities, as
well as Hezbollah’s underground network.
“They built it in 2003-04, coming into
Lebanon disguised as houseboys serving the Iranians. Maybe nobody asked, hey, how come these houseboys are speaking Korean?”
The significance of the tunnels became clear in the 2006 war, as Bechtol explains. “It lowered Hezbollah’s casualty rate. The
Israelis wondered why the air force was not
inflicting more damage and it was because of those tunnels. It was the first time Hezbollah was ever truly protected.”
Last week a U.S. federal judge ruled that
North Korea and Iran were liable for
providing support to Hezbollah during the
2006 war. According to U.S. District Judge
Royce Lamberth, North Korea and Iran
assisted “in building a massive network of
underground military installations, tunnels,
bunkers, depots and storage facilities in
southern Lebanon.” Lamberth noted that one Hezbollah commander who received training in North Korea was Mustafa Badreddine, Mughniyeh’s cousin. And as with North Korea, Hezbollah’s heavily reinforced underground network has also given rise to an offensive doctrine—to invade northern Israel.
“Hassan Nasrallah says Hezbollah has a two- part operational plan,” says Shimon Shapira.
“One is rocket fire on Tel Aviv and two is
conquest of the Galilee. I wondered what he
meant by that—how is Hezbollah going to
invade the Galilee, take hostages, capture
villages, and overrun military installations?
But we’re learning from what is happening
now. Nasrallah means Hezbollah is going to
penetrate Israel through tunnels.”
The difference between Hamas’s
underground network and Hezbollah’s,
explain experts, is the topography. It’s easier to dig tunnels in the Gaza sand than in the rocky pastures and rich soil of the Galilee.
The catch is that the latter are also harder to destroy since they are further fortified by
nature.
Several Israeli journalists are reporting that
“the fiasco of the tunnels,” as Yossi Melman
calls it, might have been avoided. Either
military and security officials were aware of the extent of Hamas’s network and didn’t do enough about it, or they ran up against
bureaucratic roadblocks. Whether the IDF
needs to detail a specific unit to monitor and uproot the tunnels that cross into Israel on its southern and northern borders, one fact is plain: For decades Israel’s traditional
military doctrine has been to fight its
enemies on the other side of the wire.
However, its enemies’ new North Korean-
inspired doctrine is to go under the wire. If
Israel doesn’t deal with first Hamas’s tunnels and then Hezbollah’s, the next war it faces may well be inside Israel itself.
During the first two weeks of the Gaza
conflict, Hamas landed at least two
significant punches. In firing missiles at Ben Gurion Airport, Hamas convinced the Federal Aviation Authority and European air carriers to temporarily suspend flights to Israel. The fact that relatively primitive rockets falling far short of their targets are nonetheless capable of at least briefly severing an advanced Western democracy with a leading tech economy from the rest of the world is a psychological blow. But perhaps the even greater concern for Israeli officials is the revelation of Hamas’s extensive tunnel network.
Until Operation Protective Edge, it was
generally assumed that Gaza’s tunnel system was simply a feeding tube for a community of 1.8 million people. With both the Egyptian and Israeli borders closed, as well as Israel’s naval blockade, goods entered Gaza mainly through the tunnels from Egypt. So did weapons, including missiles made or designed by Iran, which, as the last two weeks have shown, are capable of reaching any site in Israel. The tunnel economy flourished under
former Egyptian president and Hamas
sponsor Mohamed Morsi but has suffered
under his successor, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has won praise from Jerusalem for shutting down as many tunnels as he can find.
However, there is another system in Gaza as well, a network of attack tunnels that end not in Egypt but in Israel, where over the last two weeks Hamas commandos have attempted several terrorist operations.
“Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said that we
are not under siege, we are imposing a
siege,” says retired IDF officer Jonathan
Halevi, now a senior researcher at the
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. “What he meant was that [Hamas] can use tunnels as a strategic weapon. If you multiply tunnels, you can use them to send hundreds of fighters into Israel and create havoc, totally under cover. According to Hamas, the tunnels have changed the balance of power.”
Israeli officials have expressed amazement at the extent of the tunnel network. “Food,
accommodations, storage, resupply,” one
astonished official told reporters last week.
“Beneath Gaza,” he explained, there’s
“another terror city.” That is, Hamas’s tunnel network is evidence of a military doctrine, both a countermeasure to Israel’s clear air superiority and an offensive capability that threatens to take ground combat inside Israel itself, targeting villages, cities, and civilians as well as soldiers. Israel perhaps should not
have been surprised to discover the size and seriousness of Hamas’s tunnel network
because they’ve seen something similar
before, in the aftermath of the 2006 war with Hezbollah. And indeed it was Iran’s long arm in Lebanon that helped build Hamas’s tunnels.
“The spiritual father of Hamas’s tunnel
system is Imad Mughniyeh,” says Shimon
Shapira, a Hezbollah expert and senior
research associate at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Mughniyeh, assassinated in 2008 in an operation believed to have been conducted by the Israelis, is credited with directing Hezbollah’s 2006 war. He was the head of the organization’s external
operations unit and responsible for countless terrorist attacks. He also served as liaison to the top Iranian leadership as well as other Iranian allies and assets, including Hamas.
“Mughniyeh sent instructors to Gaza and took Hamas members to Iran,” Shapira explains.
While Hamas and Hezbollah’s tunnel
technology, equipment, and funding are
mostly Iranian, the knowledge and the
doctrine date back to the earliest days of the
Cold War.
“The North Koreans are the leading tunnel
experts in the world,” says North Korea
expert Bruce Bechtol. They learned as a
matter of necessity. “The U.S. Air Force
basically exhausted its target list after the
first eight months of the Korean War,”
Bechtol explains. “All the North Korean cities were turned to rubble, so they got good at building large tunnels and bunkers, some of them 10 or 11 square miles. In effect, the North Koreans moved their cities
underground for three years, with hundreds of thousands of people living down there.”
“There is no better protection than the
earth,” says David Maxwell, associate director of the Center for Security Studies at
Georgetown University. But Pyongyang also
has an offensive doctrine. “Defectors tell us
that the North Koreans built 21 tunnels under the demilitarized zone, but only 4 have been discovered,” says Maxwell, a retired U.S. Army colonel who served in South Korea.
“Our concern is that the North Koreans would infiltrate, sending thousands of men through the tunnels in an hour, maybe dressed in South Korean uniforms. You can’t imagine the kind of havoc that would wreak.”
Just last week Hamas tried the same tactic,
sending commando units disguised as IDF
troops through two tunnels. For a short time, they fooled real Israeli soldiers in an
observation post.
It’s nothing new for the North Koreans to
work with terrorist groups, as Bechtol
explains. It started with the Polisario, the
North African, and at one time Soviet-funded, terrorist group fighting the Moroccan government. “The North Koreans built them underground facilities, command and control, hospitals,” says Bechtol. “All of it was supported by Soviets, but that changed with the end of the Cold War, when the North Koreans offered their services on a cash and
carry basis only.”
Their top customer is the Islamic Republic of Iran. The North Koreans, Bechtol says, have helped build some of the Iranians’
underground nuclear weapons facilities, as
well as Hezbollah’s underground network.
“They built it in 2003-04, coming into
Lebanon disguised as houseboys serving the Iranians. Maybe nobody asked, hey, how come these houseboys are speaking Korean?”
The significance of the tunnels became clear in the 2006 war, as Bechtol explains. “It lowered Hezbollah’s casualty rate. The
Israelis wondered why the air force was not
inflicting more damage and it was because of those tunnels. It was the first time Hezbollah was ever truly protected.”
Last week a U.S. federal judge ruled that
North Korea and Iran were liable for
providing support to Hezbollah during the
2006 war. According to U.S. District Judge
Royce Lamberth, North Korea and Iran
assisted “in building a massive network of
underground military installations, tunnels,
bunkers, depots and storage facilities in
southern Lebanon.” Lamberth noted that one Hezbollah commander who received training in North Korea was Mustafa Badreddine, Mughniyeh’s cousin. And as with North Korea, Hezbollah’s heavily reinforced underground network has also given rise to an offensive doctrine—to invade northern Israel.
“Hassan Nasrallah says Hezbollah has a two- part operational plan,” says Shimon Shapira.
“One is rocket fire on Tel Aviv and two is
conquest of the Galilee. I wondered what he
meant by that—how is Hezbollah going to
invade the Galilee, take hostages, capture
villages, and overrun military installations?
But we’re learning from what is happening
now. Nasrallah means Hezbollah is going to
penetrate Israel through tunnels.”
The difference between Hamas’s
underground network and Hezbollah’s,
explain experts, is the topography. It’s easier to dig tunnels in the Gaza sand than in the rocky pastures and rich soil of the Galilee.
The catch is that the latter are also harder to destroy since they are further fortified by
nature.
Several Israeli journalists are reporting that
“the fiasco of the tunnels,” as Yossi Melman
calls it, might have been avoided. Either
military and security officials were aware of the extent of Hamas’s network and didn’t do enough about it, or they ran up against
bureaucratic roadblocks. Whether the IDF
needs to detail a specific unit to monitor and uproot the tunnels that cross into Israel on its southern and northern borders, one fact is plain: For decades Israel’s traditional
military doctrine has been to fight its
enemies on the other side of the wire.
However, its enemies’ new North Korean-
inspired doctrine is to go under the wire. If
Israel doesn’t deal with first Hamas’s tunnels and then Hezbollah’s, the next war it faces may well be inside Israel itself.
NO SWORD, NO JUSTICE
William Kristol
On Tuesday, President Obama visited the
Dutch embassy in Washington to pay his
respects to the victims of Malaysia Airlines
Flight 17, shot down over Ukraine by forces
armed and backed by Vladimir Putin. Obama wrote in the embassy’s condolence book, “We will not rest until we are certain that justice is done.” Then he rested.
Actually, that’s not fair. Obama didn’t rest.
He flew off to the West Coast on a busy
fundraising trip.
The sad fact is that justice will not be done
with respect to Putin or his executioners.
Justice won’t be done in part because
President Obama won’t lift a finger to do it.
Indeed, a couple of days after the president’s edifying if passive formulation in the condolence book, Obama administration officials weren’t even pretending they had much intention of doing anything significant.
Perhaps that’s what Obama meant when he
promised Putin he’d have more “flexibility”
after his reelection. Flexibility turns out to
mean saying you won’t rest until justice is
done—and then doing nothing. It means
presenting to the world what Leo Strauss
wrote of Weimar Germany, “the sorry
spectacle of justice without a sword or of
justice unable to use the sword.” Under the
Obama administration, we are becoming
Weimar America.
There is, on the other hand, one nation that is presenting to the world the bracing spectacle of justice able and willing to
use the sword: Israel. Israel is fighting a war against Islamic terror. Naturally the
administration isn’t happy about this. As
Obama explained to donors at a Democratic
fundraiser in Seattle several hours after
visiting the Dutch embassy, “Part of people’s concern is just the sense that around the world, the old order isn’t holding and we’re not quite where we need to be in terms of a new order that’s based on a different set of principles, that’s based on a sense of common humanity.”
Based presumably on that sense of “common humanity,” Secretary of State John Kerry was, as Obama spoke, flying around the Middle East trying to “mediate” between Hamas and Israel. It’s great to be on the side of “common humanity.” It protects you from the charge that in practice you often seem to be on the
side of the terrorists. Such a charge would be unfair. The Obama administration isn’t on the side of the terrorists. It’s just not on the side of those fighting against terror. It’s in the middle, mediating between the forces of terror and the forces of civilization.
It’s unfortunate that America is saddled with a Weimar-type administration. We’ve done it to ourselves. But surely we are not really a Weimar-type country. It’s up to the
Republican party to make this clear and save us from such a fate.
This is above all the task of the next
Republican president. But it’s also the task of Republicans in Congress—especially if the GOP wins control of the Senate this fall. A Republican Congress can stop the free fall in defense spending and military capability. A Republican Congress can make it clear that Congress does not accept an executive-
branch-only agreement with the Islamic
Republic of Iran that allows that terror-
sponsoring regime to retain nuclear weapons capabilities, and that a Republican president in 2017 would not be bound by such an agreement. A Republican Congress can stand with Israel in ways that range from defunding terror-friendly elements of the United Nations to countering pressure on Israel to take damaging steps for the sake of a nonexistent (for now) two-state “solution.”
Above all, Republicans—even before
November—can show they understand the
world we live in. The Conservative
governments of Stephen Harper in Canada
and Tony Abbott in Australia seem to
understand. Benjamin Netanyahu
understands. What they understand was put well by Douglas Murray, writing in the
London Spectator. Murray points out that
Israel is a nation which currently has to do what people in countries like this one . . . used to have to do but seem to have forgotten about:
it has to fight for its survival. Israel is
surrounded by enemies, as we have been for much of our history. But today we like to think that enemies are a thing of the past.
There are no enemies, just phobias we
haven’t been cured of yet.
A gap may well be emerging. But not because Israel has drifted away from the West. Rather because today in much of the West, as we bask in the afterglow of our achievements— eager to enjoy our rights, but unwilling to defend them—it is the West that is, slowly but surely, drifting away from itself.
Today Israel is also distinguished by a deep
sense of its values and ethics as well as a
profound awareness of their source—things
we also used to have. Deep questions of
survival, the tragedy and triumph of the past, present and future remain the stuff of every Israeli house I have ever been to. . . .
[I]t is Israel that remains the truly western
country. It is Israel which takes its history
seriously, thinks deeply about where it is
going and what it exists for. It is Israel which takes western values seriously and fights for the survival of those values. . . . [I]t is Israel that is still truly a western country. Far more than many parts of western Europe now are.
Israel is fighting for its safety and security.
But in fighting terror, Israel also fights for
the West. The example of Israel should be a
reminder to all of us—but especially to the
pro-Israel party, the Republican party—that it is not enough to hope for justice. We need to be ready to fight for justice. And the example of Israel should also remind Americans that we need not acquiesce in the downward drift of the West, a drift that President Obama seems to accept and even welcome, a drift that is as dangerous to America’s future as it is unworthy of America’s past.
On Tuesday, President Obama visited the
Dutch embassy in Washington to pay his
respects to the victims of Malaysia Airlines
Flight 17, shot down over Ukraine by forces
armed and backed by Vladimir Putin. Obama wrote in the embassy’s condolence book, “We will not rest until we are certain that justice is done.” Then he rested.
Actually, that’s not fair. Obama didn’t rest.
He flew off to the West Coast on a busy
fundraising trip.
The sad fact is that justice will not be done
with respect to Putin or his executioners.
Justice won’t be done in part because
President Obama won’t lift a finger to do it.
Indeed, a couple of days after the president’s edifying if passive formulation in the condolence book, Obama administration officials weren’t even pretending they had much intention of doing anything significant.
Perhaps that’s what Obama meant when he
promised Putin he’d have more “flexibility”
after his reelection. Flexibility turns out to
mean saying you won’t rest until justice is
done—and then doing nothing. It means
presenting to the world what Leo Strauss
wrote of Weimar Germany, “the sorry
spectacle of justice without a sword or of
justice unable to use the sword.” Under the
Obama administration, we are becoming
Weimar America.
There is, on the other hand, one nation that is presenting to the world the bracing spectacle of justice able and willing to
use the sword: Israel. Israel is fighting a war against Islamic terror. Naturally the
administration isn’t happy about this. As
Obama explained to donors at a Democratic
fundraiser in Seattle several hours after
visiting the Dutch embassy, “Part of people’s concern is just the sense that around the world, the old order isn’t holding and we’re not quite where we need to be in terms of a new order that’s based on a different set of principles, that’s based on a sense of common humanity.”
Based presumably on that sense of “common humanity,” Secretary of State John Kerry was, as Obama spoke, flying around the Middle East trying to “mediate” between Hamas and Israel. It’s great to be on the side of “common humanity.” It protects you from the charge that in practice you often seem to be on the
side of the terrorists. Such a charge would be unfair. The Obama administration isn’t on the side of the terrorists. It’s just not on the side of those fighting against terror. It’s in the middle, mediating between the forces of terror and the forces of civilization.
It’s unfortunate that America is saddled with a Weimar-type administration. We’ve done it to ourselves. But surely we are not really a Weimar-type country. It’s up to the
Republican party to make this clear and save us from such a fate.
This is above all the task of the next
Republican president. But it’s also the task of Republicans in Congress—especially if the GOP wins control of the Senate this fall. A Republican Congress can stop the free fall in defense spending and military capability. A Republican Congress can make it clear that Congress does not accept an executive-
branch-only agreement with the Islamic
Republic of Iran that allows that terror-
sponsoring regime to retain nuclear weapons capabilities, and that a Republican president in 2017 would not be bound by such an agreement. A Republican Congress can stand with Israel in ways that range from defunding terror-friendly elements of the United Nations to countering pressure on Israel to take damaging steps for the sake of a nonexistent (for now) two-state “solution.”
Above all, Republicans—even before
November—can show they understand the
world we live in. The Conservative
governments of Stephen Harper in Canada
and Tony Abbott in Australia seem to
understand. Benjamin Netanyahu
understands. What they understand was put well by Douglas Murray, writing in the
London Spectator. Murray points out that
Israel is a nation which currently has to do what people in countries like this one . . . used to have to do but seem to have forgotten about:
it has to fight for its survival. Israel is
surrounded by enemies, as we have been for much of our history. But today we like to think that enemies are a thing of the past.
There are no enemies, just phobias we
haven’t been cured of yet.
A gap may well be emerging. But not because Israel has drifted away from the West. Rather because today in much of the West, as we bask in the afterglow of our achievements— eager to enjoy our rights, but unwilling to defend them—it is the West that is, slowly but surely, drifting away from itself.
Today Israel is also distinguished by a deep
sense of its values and ethics as well as a
profound awareness of their source—things
we also used to have. Deep questions of
survival, the tragedy and triumph of the past, present and future remain the stuff of every Israeli house I have ever been to. . . .
[I]t is Israel that remains the truly western
country. It is Israel which takes its history
seriously, thinks deeply about where it is
going and what it exists for. It is Israel which takes western values seriously and fights for the survival of those values. . . . [I]t is Israel that is still truly a western country. Far more than many parts of western Europe now are.
Israel is fighting for its safety and security.
But in fighting terror, Israel also fights for
the West. The example of Israel should be a
reminder to all of us—but especially to the
pro-Israel party, the Republican party—that it is not enough to hope for justice. We need to be ready to fight for justice. And the example of Israel should also remind Americans that we need not acquiesce in the downward drift of the West, a drift that President Obama seems to accept and even welcome, a drift that is as dangerous to America’s future as it is unworthy of America’s past.
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