India has been strengthening relations with Vietnam for some time, with delegates and politicians from both the countries visiting each other.
In the 46th year of diplomatic relations, India and Vietnam have witnessed several high level visits and exchange of delegations. The forthcoming visit by the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind, will be the third such bilateral visit this year, which was earlier preceded by the visit of the late President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Tran Dai Quang in March 2018 and the Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc visit earlier in January 2018. Several ministerial level delegations and inking of defence agreements between the two countries have also happened this year. It is hoped that the President’s visit will consolidate the already existing political trust and cement strong defence and security cooperation between the two countries.
Some of the potential areas of cooperation in the non-traditional security areas include information technology, artificial intelligence, cyber security, solar alliances, traditional medicine, agricultural innovation, disaster management and climate change. As an emerging market and supplier in the regional value chain, Vietnam together with India could play a significant role in the global value chain. Capacity building and entrepreneurship development under development cooperation initiatives are already making progress and leaving their imprints.
Ram Nath Kovind is also expected to visit the ancient relics of Cham civilisation in My Son, which stand a time-tested testimony to our civilisational inheritance. The historical and cultural linkages between the two civilisations abound our mythologies and ancient literature. It is believed that Hinduism and Buddhism became the mainstream religion of the Chams living in the central and southern part of Vietnam. The architectural style of My Son relics, which is today a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the ancient archaeological remains scattered in the coastal areas of Vietnam from Da Nang to Binh Thuan, speak about these historical legacies.
Over the years, Vietnam has emerged as a significant player in India’s foreign policy projection — a partner in sub-regional, regional, and multilateral fora. It is an integral member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and plays an important role in India’s Act East policy. India is one of the three countries with whom Vietnam shares Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, together with China and Russia.
The elevation of the strategic partnership between the two countries to that of comprehensive strategic partnership is a clear indication of goodwill, trust and importance the two countries place on their relationship. It is also an acknowledgment of the existing strong bilateral defence and security ties and our mutual desire to contribute to regional peace, stability, cooperation and prosperity. Moving beyond the ideological linkages, both countries have endeavoured to revamp their relations in the changing geo-politics of the Indo-Pacific.
From strategic partnership in 2007 to a comprehensive partnership in 2016, the two countries have built up synergies for deeper cooperation between them. These have been envisaged in a multi-faceted and a multi-sectoral cooperation on a wide range of issues covering political, defence and security relations; trade and commerce; energy cooperation; science and technology; capacity building; connectivity links; health, education, culture, tourism and people to people exchange; and cooperation in international, regional and sub-regional forums.
Vietnam’s geographical location in Asia Pacific has added to its geo-political importance for the regional players like China, India, Australia and Japan and also for the external powers like the United States and its re-balancing strategy in the Asia-Pacific. In the changing architecture of the world politics from trans-Atlantic to the Asia-Pacific, Vietnam emerges as a significant actor shaping the ‘great game’ politics in the region.
Given the evolving regional architecture in the Indo-Pacific, role of Vietnam in the emerging quadrilateral partnership in the region becomes significant. As Vietnam faces mounting pressure from China amidst its growing assertiveness in the disputed waters of its East Sea, it is looking to multiple partners in Asia and beyond. Vietnam has reached out to the United States and stepped up security cooperation with Japan, Australia long with India and a number of its Southeast Asian neighbours.
Amidst Vietnam’s quest for multiple partners in Asia and beyond, India has been of very special strategic interest to Vietnam. Over the years, New Delhi has gradually expanded its defence and naval cooperation with Vietnam and assisted in its efforts in modernising the military force. India’s outreach to Vietnam has been a clear indication of its open challenge to China in its backyard. It is believed that Vietnam’s growing engagement with India will also lead to a stable balance of power and as a security provider in the region.
Fearing the growing aggression of China, Vietnam has welcomed and embraced India in this particular stance. The high-level comprehensive strategic partnership between India and Vietnam is equally important as it shares the anxieties and act as deterrence against the increasing Chinese presence in the region.
According to security experts, since China continues to increase its influence, defence and maritime cooperation and procurements from countries like India, the United States and Japan enable Vietnam to uphold its position.
Internal synergies between India and Vietnam have also played a significant role in bringing the two countries on the same page building upon mutual trust and cooperation over the years.
Vietnam as an emerging middle power and India as a net security provider in the region has the convergence which makes them an ideal partner for all seasons at the sub-regional, regional and multilateral forums.
Given the cultural-religious linkages, based on their closer association with the historical kingdoms and the impact of Buddhist philosophy to the anti-imperialist struggle during the colonial rule and foreign intervention during the Second World War and thereafter, both the countries have developed closer ties and a shared destiny based on a shared world view.
In the context of the geo-strategic paradigm and the forces shaping the internal dynamics of Vietnam, its foreign policy orientations vis-à-vis the great powers in the region and its engagement with India is a critical area of concern.
(The writer is a Fellow at Nehru Memorial Museum and Library and Assistant Professor at University of Delhi)
Writer: Sonu Trivedi
Courtesy: The Pioneer
In promotion of Buddhism, China is keen to become the world leader. However, this will never happen due to the gap between the Marxist theory and repression on the ground
China is a country full of dichotomies. Take Buddhism. On one side, China promotes Buddhism; on the other hand, Beijing severely represses the Buddha dharma. On October 28, the World Buddhist Forum opened with fanfare at Putian, in Fujian Province. According to the official release, it was attended by a record number of over 1,000 Buddhist monks, scholars and representatives from 55 countries. Zong Xing, Vice President of the Buddhist Association of China (BAC) and Xiao Hong, a deputy secretary of the China Religious Culture Communication Association (CRCCA), the joint hosts, gave a press conference.
Xiao announced that the forum wanted “to carry forward the positive Buddhist cultural spirit, promote exchanges between Buddhism and other religions and make contributions to building a community with a shared future for humanity.” That sounds good. One of the themes of the meet was “Buddhism and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)”, a project dear to President Xi Jinping. A couple of weeks earlier, the Global Times had reported that a two-day symposium in Qinghai Province discussed the way Buddhism could better serve the BRI and resist separatism.
The website tibet.cn noted: “Guided by the core socialist values, the symposium aims to encourage Tibetan Buddhism to adapt to the socialist society and teach the religion to serve the construction of the BRI.” Was the Fujian Forum a great success? It does not appear so reading the rare comments which appeared in the Chinese Press. One of the problems was that Master Xuecheng, the BCA president and Abbot of Longquan Temple in Beijing, had to resign in a hurry in August.
The 52-year-old was accused to have coerced nuns into having sex, overseen illegal construction work and embezzled funds. The claims were made in a 95-page document published on July 31; it immediately went viral on Chinese social media, bringing support to China’s #MeToo movement. It is not that Xuecheng was not well-connected with the Communist Party; he was a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), but in the present days, even tigers fall (President Xi had warned the ‘tigers’ and the ‘flies’ that he would not accept corruption).
One of the BCA’s Vice Presidents was Gyaltsen Norbu, the Chinese-selected Panchen Lama. He made a timid appearance on the first day. He spoke on, “to live together in harmony through the Middle Path”, a purely religious topic; Norbu emphasised a common future for humanity and the fact that the creation of a ‘common-destiny community’ is more and more accepted the world over. He mentioned the Buddhist precepts of living in symbiosis, equality, tolerance, compassion and harmony: “We are one family living in the same house,” he said. There was no word of praise for Xi.
His presence was hardly reported by the Chinese media, probably because he did not eulogise Xi Jinping and he ‘forgot’ about the BRI in his speech. The only big shot was You Quan, director of the United Front Work Department, which looks after religious affairs for the Party’s Central Committee. He hoped that “Buddhist communities would look deeper into Buddhism values and contribute wisdom to promoting the well-being of humanity and safeguarding world peace.”
Here comes the dichotomy. While Beijing promotes Buddhism’s humanitarian precepts, it takes repressive measures against Buddhist practitioners. For the third consecutive year, the authorities banned a major Tibetan prayer festival in Larung Gar, the largest Buddhist institute in Tibet, situated in Serthar County in the Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province. The monastery had a population of 30,000 Buddhist nuns and monks before it was partially destroyed by the ‘authorities’ last year.
According to Radio Free Asia (RFA), a Chinese official announced that the Dechen Shingdrup festival would be banned this year. He cited Chinese ‘religious affairs management laws’. Further, outsiders should not be invited to Larung Gar. A source told RFA’s Tibetan Service: “The notice advised village leaders and Chinese Communist Party committee members to inform the public that they would not be allowed to enter the village for any religious events. …In past years, when it was allowed, the festival lasted for a whole week.” Human Rights Watch published a new report on the ‘Four Standards Policy’ recently introduced in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR). The ‘standards’ are competence in Buddhist studies, political reliability, moral integrity capable of impressing the public and willingness to play an active role at critical moments. In other words, be good Communist Buddhists.
Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch, commented: “Chinese authorities have always placed heavy constraints on religious freedom, especially in Tibetan and other minority regions, compelling Tibetan monks and nuns to be propagandists for the Communist Party takes Government intrusion in religion to abhorrent new levels.”
The new policy is a continuation of the 2005 Regulations on Religious Affairs but with more oppressive clauses. On October 25, the Global Times said that the TAR Government was encouraging Tibetan monks and nuns “to learn about the laws, a move experts hailed as using education to raise local people’s legal awareness.”
Tibet’s Department of Justice announced that “professional working teams organised by the regional department of justice taught the monks about legislation and law enforcement in the region. …Teams are composed of prestigious monks, legal professionals and officials that were dispatched to temples.” Xiong Kunxin, a professor at Tibet University in Lhasa, summarised the issue: Legal education on law enforcement was weak in Tibet “because some Buddhist practitioners consider themselves as people beyond judicial reach.”
Already in August, when Wang Yang, the CPPCC Chairman and a member of the Politburo’s Standing Committee, visited the Sera monastery near Lhasa, he mentioned the new theme of Xi Jinping’s religious campaign, “Sinicisation of the religions in China.” Wang said that more efforts should be made to integrate Tibetan Buddhism into China’s socialist society; he asked the monks “to firmly uphold the leadership of the CPC, inherit and promote patriotism and be courageous to battle all separatist elements, in order to further protect the national reunification, ethnic unity and social stability.”
Though China is keen to become the world leader in promotion of Buddhism, it will never happen because of the gap between the Marxist theory and the repression on the ground, which are incompatible.
(The writer is an expert on India-China relations and an author)
Writer: Claude Arpi
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Just as she has responded to Pak allegations on human rights violations in Kashmir, India must raise the issue of human rights violations of the Baloch minority in Pakistan.
On October 12, 2018, the 73rd UN General Assembly (UNGA) elected 18 new Council members that will serve for a period of three years, starting January 1, 2019. India got re-elected to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which comprises of 47 elected member states. India had previously been in the UNHRC during 2011-2014 and 2014-2017. India’s last tenure ended on December 31, 2017, and in accordance with the rules, it wasn’t eligible for immediate re-election since it had already served two consecutive terms.
India got elected getting 188 votes in the Asia-Pacific category, bagging the highest number of votes among all the 18 countries in the five regional categories. The 193-member UNGA held elections for new members to the UNHRC and 18 new members were elected by an absolute majority through a secret ballot. Countries need a minimum of 97 votes to get elected to the Council.
Bangladesh, Philippines, Bahrain and Fiji were also elected to the UNHRC in the Asia Pacific category. India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin, told PTI that India’s win with the highest number of votes “reflects India’s standing in the international comity”.
The Baloch leadership congratulated India on its re-election to the UNHRC and hoped that India would speak about the human rights violations by Pakistan on the Baloch minority. The oppressed Baloch have been looking towards India after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2016 Independence day speech, where he drew attention to the grave human rights violations by Pakistan in Pakistan-occupied Jammu & Kashmir (PoJK), which is the Indian territory of Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, occupied by Pakistan since 1947 and Balochistan. India has, however, not raised the plight of the Baloch independently at the UNHRC, the way the Palestine issue was raised in the Muslim world.
Till now, India has only responded to Pakistani claims of Indian human rights violations in Kashmir under the right of reply at UNHRC, by mentioning that the Pakistani claims on Kashmir are baseless. This has been seen in the famous issue of the photo of a Palestinian girl being passed as a Kashmiri at UN by Pakistan’s representative. India had in its right to reply arguments added that Pakistan should enforce disappearances and targeting of political dissidents in Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is probably time that human rights violations on the Baloch minority, caught between Pakistan and China, are raised independently and prominently by India.
Given that Indian media is free, the Government cannot ask it to cover Baloch human rights issue the way All India Radio or Doordarshan do. However, at times, the Foreign Ministry could in its weekly briefings react to urgent developments. One such example was two months after the speech by Prime Minister Modi. There were weeks-long intense military operations against civilians — houses of the whole village were burnt down in ‘collective punishment’ — the way the British used to in the Pashtun areas under its occupation. At that point, certain Baloch leaders and activists expressed sadness at Indian media not responding to their pleas to cover the news of the ongoing brutal repression.
Baloch leader Mehran Marri said: “We hope it (India) will speak out against the atrocities being carried out by the Pakistan military to carry out ethnic cleansing of us from our land and hand over our resources to China as Beijing builds its noose around Islamabad to control the country as its de facto ruler. The Baloch would like New Delhi to play its historic role in the region the way it did when China invaded Tibet and when Pakistan carried out a genocide in Bangladesh.”
Nabi Bakhsh Baloch, leader of the Baloch National Movement in North America, said, “India must support Baloch national struggle and as a neighbour we have lot of expectations from the Indian Government to support our national struggle. We, the Baloch, are struggling against terrorism and for our own land.”
Hafeez Hassanabadi, senior leader of the Hyrbyair Marri-led Free Balochistan Movement (FBM), who also served as Pakistan’s Minister of State for Defence in the 1950s, said, “For the last 15 years in an unending and relentless military operation (since Musharraf killed Nawab Akbar Bugti, former Governor of Balochistan Province in Pakistan), thousands of people have been victims of enforced disappearances, numerous villages have been burned down and numerous people have been ‘killed and dumped’ on the roads, in open fields and in deserted, desolate areas. The Baloch look towards India as a regional power, who would use its mandate at the UNHRC to highlight the realities of brutal human rights violations of the Baloch population by Pakistan.”
Noted Baloch Human Rights Lawyer Kachkol Ali, who has been a speaker, former Minister and Opposition leader in Balochistan provincial Assembly of Pakistan also averred, “While it is the obligation of the UN and civilised countries to initiate appropriate action in a country where the following unimaginable atrocities — namely crimes against humanity, genocide, ethnic cleansing and war crimes — are being committed, it is regrettable that the aforesaid element of international crimes are being severely committed by Pakistani security forces and the international community and the UN are silent.”
To me, the principle of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is not being complied with given the atrocities against the innocent Baloch population by the security forces in Pakistan. Their miserable behaviour is questionable in light of R2P as well as international humanitarian law which dictate that it is the responsibility of the civilised world to intervene in an altruistic manner without any consideration to end impunity against any nation. Pakistan has been committing genocide, ethnic cleansing, crime against humanity and war crime but the world is silent and they are vicariously guilty of self-seeking apathy and of culpability by their silence. To quote Bernard Shaw: “The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: That’s the essence of inhumanity.” (The Devil’s Disciple, Act 11)
In the same vein of Kenyan judge said, “If leaders of a state, who normally have the duty to uphold the rule of law and to respect human rights, engage in a policy of violent attacks against a civilian population, it is the community of states which must intervene and prevent, control and repress this threat to the peace, security and well-being of the world.”
The aforesaid observations hold good for Balochistan, especially Gwadar, where security forces of Pakistan with support from China are slaughtering Baloch indigenous people and their homes and cottages are being mercilessly incinerated in the vicinity of the CPEC project.
They have been unjustifiably and forcibly deported and transferred from their villages and towns. These atrocities of Pakistan and China constitute the elements of the atrocities of genocide and crime against humanity according to the Rome Statute of International Criminal Court.
Courtesy: The Pioneer
The Afghanistan Elections actually taking place and the fact that a large number of women formed a queue for parliamentary elections represents a win-win of democracy.
It is easy to run down the elections to Afghanistan’s 250-member Wolesi Jirga, the lower House of its bicameral National Assembly, on October 20 and 21. There were technical and administrative glitches. Many polling centres opened late on October 20. Consequently, the Independent Election Commission, holding the elections, declared that these would remain open until 8 p.m. against the original deadline of 4 p.m. Those that did not open until 1 p.m. would remain open on October 21 as well. Besides, while the deployment of over 70,000 security personnel ensured that security was, on the whole, reasonably good in Kabul and the cities, violent attacks by the Taliban either disrupted or prevented polling in outlying districts like Roghistan and Imam Saheb in Badakhshan and Kunduz Provinces respectively. Trouble has also been reported from districts in the Maidan Wardak, Logar, Paktia and Taghar Provinces.
It remains to be seen how the elections in Kandahar Province, postponed to October 27, are held. No date has been announced for elections in Ghazni Province which have also been postponed. As officially indicated, it will not be held this year. Article 104 of Afghanistan’s electoral law lays down, “When security situations, natural disasters and other similar conditions” make “the principle of general and fair representation” impossible to uphold “and undermine the credibility of the electoral process,” the latter should be postponed from the specified date for a period of up to four months. It adds, “The postponement or suspension is proposed by the IEC and approved by a committee, which should comprise head and members of the National Security Council, speakers of the two Houses of the Parliament, Chief Justice, and chair of the Independent Commission of Oversight of Implementation of the Constitution of Afghanistan.” It further states, “If the situation mentioned above which led to postponement or suspension of the elections does not improve within the period of four months, the committee may extend the postponement or suspension of elections for a period of another four months.”
The fact, however, is that elections have been held in 32 of Afghanistan’s 34 Provinces and four million out of the 8.8 million registered voters have voted. Despite the killing of 10 candidates in the violence preceding the elections, the rest of the 2,500 candidates, including 400 women, remained in the field. And all this despite the fact that, stating that the elections were a project of the invading Americans, the Taliban had declared that resisting these was a religious duty. Announcing that they would do everything possible to prevent the elections, they had asked candidates to withdraw and had warned people against venturing out on the polling day as they would then risk being killed or hurt. Not only that, their violent attacks had killed hundreds in the weeks prior to the elections.
Significantly, the postponement of the elections in both Kandahar and Ghazni Provinces were due to violence unleashed by the Taliban. The latter has claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack in Kandahar on October 18, that killed General Abdul Raziq, the police chief of Kandahar and one of Afghanistan’s most powerful and important security officials, the provincial Governor, Zalmay Wesa, and intelligence chief, Abdul Mohmin and two policemen. The Taliban further claimed that the targets of the attack — shooting by one of Raziq’s own elite guards — were General Raziq as well as NATO-led Resolute Support Mission Commander General Austin Scott Miller.
The elections in Ghazni have been postponed because of two reasons. The first is a volatile security situation. The Taliban occupied the provincial capital of Ghazni on August 10 and were ousted, after fierce fighting, on August 15-16 by teams of United States Special Forces operating with Afghan commandos, and military and police personnel, and with air support. They, however, have continued to be strongly entrenched in the countryside which has, according to the authorities, remained too disturbed to hold elections.
The other factor behind the decision to postpone the elections was a dispute over ethnic representation among Hazaras, Pashtuns, Tajiks and Sayyeds. The Pashtuns, particularly, demanded the division of the Province into smaller units to ensure balanced ethnic representation. On June 25, 2018, the IEC decided to split the Province into three separate electoral constituencies for the parliamentary elections. Tensions, however, continue as the feeling persists among sections that the splitting has not been fair to all the ethnic groups.
The attacks in these two Provinces are a part of the roll of violence unleashed by the Taliban over the years from their sanctuaries in Pakistan’s tribal territories. The situation had been made worse by competitive violence by the Islamic State which sought to establish a base in the country. The combination of the two largely accounted for the surge of insurgent/terrorist attacks in the country during February-March this year. The Islamic State’s challenge seems to have receded, but Pakistan-backed Taliban violence has continued to escalate, United States’ President Donald Trump’s repeated warnings to Islamabad notwithstanding.
In this context, the targeting of General Miller in the Kandahar attack was significant. Metaphorically, it would have been tantamount to slapping President Trump on the face had it succeeded. Indeed, the very fact that it was not only undertaken but announced was clearly meant to deliver to him and the US the message that the Taliban thought nothing of trying to administer humiliating blows to their respective faces in public. Since the Taliban could not have done this without at least Pakistan’s approval — if not at its behest — the entire attack reflected the Imran Khan Government’s message to Washington, DC, that it would teach the Trump Administration a lesson for effecting the aid cuts it had imposed on Islamabad for not doing enough to combat the terrorist groups operating from its soil.
It remains to be seen how the Trump Administration sorts this out or if it can at all do so. Meanwhile, the escalating level of violence, which prevented the elections to the Wolesi Jirga, due in 2015, from being held till now, continues. The very fact that voting has taken place, many of the candidates have been young men and women, and a large number of women queued up to vote, is significant. It clearly shows that Afghans want democracy and not the retrograde, medieval theocracy of Pakistan-backed Taliban that would reduce women to, at best, domestic slavery.
(The writer is Consultant Editor, The Pioneer, and an author)
Writer: Hiranmay Karlekar
Courtesy: The Pioneer
As the White House has a new tenant now, who needs treaties? Although, the blame is equally on the Russians for creating the intermediate-range missile provocation.
The last time I wrote about the treaty banning ‘intermediate-range’ nuclear missiles was 31 years ago, and I really thought I’d never have to visit that tedious subject again. More fool me.
John Bolton, the ideologically rigid and bad-tempered man, whom you send when you don’t want a negotiation to succeed, has just been in Moscow to tell the Russians personally that US President Donald Trump is going to tear up the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
That’s what you would expect from the new US National Security Adviser and his impulsive and ill-informed boss, but the Russians in this case are just as much to blame for creating the provocation in the first place. It’s one of those distressingly frequent occasions when idiots are in charge on both sides.
The INF Treaty, signed by US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, bans land-based ballistic or cruise missiles with a range of between 500 and 5,500 km. What the Russians have actually done, it seems, is to take a perfectly legal sea-launched cruise missile, the Kalibr, which has a range of up to 2,500 km, and put it on a mobile land-based launcher.
The Kalibr is a quite useful weapon that can deliver about 500 kg of conventional explosives or a nuclear warhead on an enemy, although it would take at least three hours to reach a target 2,500 km away. (Cruise missiles travel at about the same speed as airliners.)
In 2015, Russia made a show of firing 18 Kalibrs (with conventional warheads) at Syrian targets from ships in the Caspian Sea.
Why would the Russians want to put these missiles on land-based launchers, which violates the INF rules? The only plausible explanation is that there are some Chinese targets that Russia cannot hit with its sea-based cruise missiles. (There are no US/NATO targets that cannot already be reached by the sea-launched variety.) This is plausible, but it is not rational.
Russia is perfectly capable of reaching those Chinese targets with ballistic missiles, both land- and submarine-launched, that would get to their targets far faster than the new land-based version of the Kalibr cruise missile, called SSC-8 by NATO.
Being able to do the same thing, a third, slower way hardly justifies the potential political cost of violating the INF Treaty for Russia as a whole. It may nevertheless appeal to the particular branch of the Russian armed forces that would control that third way, for inter-service rivalries are as sharp and stupid in Russia as they are in the United States.
From a Western point of view, the SSC-8, while illegal, does not pose any new threat. The real reason the INF Treaty was needed three decades ago was that the Russians were then introducing intermediate-range BALLISTIC missiles, the once-famous SS-20s, that could reach their targets in Western Europe within a few minutes of launch.
The border between North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) and Soviet forces was then about 500 km closer to Western capitals than it is now, and there were huge tank-heavy armies stacked up on either side of the so-called Iron Curtain. An ultra-fast Russian strike by nuclear-tipped SS-20s on Nato army bases and airfields, followed immediately by an all-out ground invasion, could theoretically have succeeded (although only a fool would have chanced it).
In any case, the Russians and Americans negotiated instead, and ultimately agreed to scrap all the Soviet SS-20s and their American equivalents, the Pershing missiles. Since the US had also deployed some land-based cruise missiles in Europe (the Russians did not), the INF Treaty also banned those. Almost 2,700 missiles were destroyed, and the whole issue went away for three decades. It isn’t really back now.
There are no massive tank armies ready to roll in Europe anymore, and the Cold War is long over. The details of the Russian-American ‘military balance’ are of concern mainly to the experts, many of whom make their living by discovering some imbalance or discrepancy that will enable their (military) clients to demand more or newer weapons to counter the new ‘threat’.
The Russians have broken the rules by developing and testing the land-based SSC-8 cruise missiles, but they haven’t actually deployed them in meaningful numbers. They may never do so, because it would not give them any significant strategic advantage. This was the logic that led former US President Barack Obama to protest to the Russians about the new weapon in 2014, but not to abrogate the INF Treaty. What would that gain, except to legalise what the idiots in the Russian military were doing?
Obama probably assumed that the adults were still in charge in the Kremlin, and that they were engaged in the same struggle to contain the random enthusiasms of Russian military planners that all US presidents must wage against their Pentagon equivalents. But the White House has a different tenant now.
(The writer is an independent journalist)
Writer: Gwynne Dyer
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Although making Germany great again will be difficult as it is still haunted by the past, the entire motion is a great initiative. However, to achieve results, Germany needs to pull itself together.
Twenty eight years after the German reunification — east Germany (formerly German Democratic Republic) became a part of the Federal Republic of Germany on October 3 — Germans are better off, economically, and more prosperous. But politically, Germany, the engine of growth in Europe, is still haunted by its past and unable to feel its influence and clout. Reason: Flux in domestic politics, where mainstream parties are being eclipsed by single issue parties like the new Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Greens. That’s what one discovered last week in Berlin while interacting with politicians, security analysts and bureaucrats.
Is Germany abdicating its leadership of Europe and responsibility in shaping contours of world order and Western values to France which is politically and militarily more compact with an independent nuclear deterrent? James Bindenagel and Philip Ackerman of the University of Bonn write that Germany is coping with its past, Cold War et al, still devoid of strategic culture, passive, timid and with a guilt conscience. But morally uncompromising. It needs a national strategy…
How is India seen in Germany? Its red Rajasthan sandstone embassy in central Berlin, a novelty a decade ago, has lost its aura and charm. Considered a middle power in the class of Japan, South Korea and Australia, India is also seen as a rising power; though all eyes are trained on China. Germany is India’s biggest economic partner in Europe and sixth largest at the global level. India-German development cooperation operates at different levels — cleaning the Ganga, cleaning India, wildlife protection, metro projects in Lucknow, Bhubaneswar, Kochi, Bengaluru and much more.
Two issues dominate the German discourse: Re-energising Germany and keeping Europe together. Berlin seeks to establish an alliance of multilateralists to prevent unilateralist behaviour. We were told that Indians do not realise that European Union (EU) countries have ceded some of their sovereignty to Brussels. This shared sovereignty is under stress due to US President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recall of the Ottoman Empire, uncertain Brexit, China’s blistering rise and worldwide surge of nationalism. “We are a trading nation. Now China is setting the rules of trade,” said one official interlocutor, adding “two-thirds of our cargo containers pass through the Indian Ocean”.
Germany’s revived interest in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) mirrors EU’s new maritime security strategy and action plan. This renewed interest in the IOR is marked by plans to strengthen a decaying German Navy with new Frigates. Berlin has also put some money in the Indian-Ocean Rim Association, headquartered in Mauritius. It also supported the recent statement by Sri Lanka Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) must become the foundational pillar of IOR to prevent a repeat of fait accompli in the South China Sea.
Afghanistan, with which India’s security is inextricably woven, has become a peripheral issue in Germany. With 1,300 troops located at Mazar-i-Sharif, the recurring phrase one heard is: “Time is running out. Germans are not interested but politicians are, to demonstrate solidarity with Nato and the fragile Transatlantic Partnership.” Germany does not want Afghanistan to become another Syria. It will continue providing development aid and maintain its security forces.
A top politician commented that former US President Barack Obama made a big mistake by pulling out US troops from Afghanistan. Our conversations were held in the background of recent bloody and disorderly parliamentary elections last weekend, which were delayed for three years but miraculously held. China is very sensitive about its image in Europe. It has divided the wealthy North and low growth countries in South over the development of infrastructure. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) resonates in smaller countries, like Montenegro, Hungary, Poland, Italy, Greece and Czech Republic. They show their loyalty to China by differing from Germany and the EU in their stance on BRI.
Like India, Germany and EU have questioned issues of transparency, debt entrapment, sovereignty and implementation while not endorsing the BRI. Smaller countries have signed Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreements with China, and Czech Republic has called itself the unsinkable aircraft carrier for China. This has shown the fault lines in Europe and absence of consensus in foreign policy in Brussels. China has succeeded in extending its string of pearls from South Asia to parts of Europe.
Brussels has come out with a connectivity document as riposte to BRI, like Trump greenlighted last month a new $60 billion United States International Development Finance Corporation to bankroll projects in Asia and Africa. But there is no money on the table, though the European Investment Bank is worth Euro 90 billion. Meanwhile, China is buying up companies in Europe.
German elections in Bavaria and Hessen later this year have/will reveal chinks in the vision of the mainstream parties — the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the ruling grand coalition in sharp decline. Last Friday, October 19, visiting the Willy Brandt Haus, the citadel of the SPD in Berlin, we heard charged debates on the future of the party and the grand coalition.
Questions of leadership, internal restructuring and possible alternative to the present coalition are likely to be resolved by next year if the AfD is to be contained and rolled back on immigration and hyper-nationalism. One million Syrian refugees are in Germany along with millions of Turks, Russians and Italians as guest workers. Germans are being encouraged and incentivised to produce children.
Making Germany great again is not kosher as it conflicts with the past. But making Europe great again is fine. As the writers from University of Bonn have noted: German public aversion to militarism has not changed. Sixty seven per cent support the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) but only 40 per cent would want to defend a Nato ally if attacked by Russia.
Inward-looking Germans have forgotten how during the 1971 India-Pakistan war, which led to the creation of Bangladesh, Chancellor Brandt — Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) not being a member of the UN, an ally of the US and embedded in the Cold War, still punched above its weight in its mediation between the three countries. A secret agreement between the FRG and India for the latter not recognising the GDR before it had first, contained the quid pro quo of the FRG becoming the first Western country to recognise Bangladesh on February 4, 1972. Further, Brandt was able to persuade Dacca not to insist on war trials of 195 Pakistani prisoners of wars (PoWs), paving the way for the release of 300,000 Bangladeshis in Pakistan.
Germany proved it could rise to the occasion if its domestic politics was stable. For their own good and for Europe, Germany has to pull together to become great again.
(The writer is a retired Major General of the Indian Army and founder member of the Defence Planning Staff, currently the revamped Integrated Defence Staff)
Writer: Ashok K Mehta
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Though the US has warned the pact between India and Russia could attract sanctions under the US law, the BJP-led government still decided to go ahead with the $5-billion deal.
The signing of the deal for S-400 air defense systems worth $5.43 billion earlier this month between India and Russia is significant in many ways. It is not just another deal but an exemplification of the coming of age of a regional powerhouse which is now confident of its moves and does its homework well before taking calculated risks.
More than its efficacy of being a technological marvel, which has the potential to neutralise almost all kinds of aerial threats emanating from China, Pakistan or Pakistan-based radical terror groups, the purchase of S-400 is the pinnacle of India’s diplomatic statecraft wherein it meandered most skillfully through the tumultuous contours of American sanctions and yet reached its objective without antagonizing too many.
At best, there will be awe; at worse, there will be a grudging acknowledgment of India’s grit beneath the soft smiles. But punitive sanctions can be ruled out for the moment. The outcome, it seems, has been thought out by the Modi Administration to the end before throwing the dice.
The acquisition of S-400, coupled with the Indo-Israeli project on the development of Medium-Range Surface-to-Air Missile (MR-SAM), in addition to the progress on development of indigenous anti-ballistic missile systems, namely Advanced Air Defence and Prithvi Air Defence, would invariably make India much better equipped in air defence capabilities than it was a few years back.
It is generally not easy to buy weapon systems or to even do businesses with a country on which sanctions have been imposed by the US Administration. Among others, the Countering American Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) is aimed at imposing punitive sanctions against any country which would actively engage in ‘significant transactions’ with Russia’s defense and intelligence sectors. These sanctions are in addition to the sanctions imposed previously on Russia by the US Administration in the aftermath of the Ukraine-Russia face-off.
Incidentally, under the aegis of the Modi Administration, the S-400 deal is not the first but the second major business deal involving Russia despite American sanctions. The first was the acquisition of Essar Oil by Russia’s energy behemoth, Rosneft and its partners in a $12.9 billion deal in 2017 that stamped Russia’s first major investment in India’s downstream energy business. Though a private deal, it undoubtedly had blessings from both Governments since it involved similar meandering through American sanctions.
Defense deals involving billions of dollars do not happen at the blink of an eye. The signing of contracts is generally preceded by years of hard negotiations. Interestingly, since 2015, even as the Modi Government continued with its price negotiations with Russia for the purchase of S-400 air defense systems, India also simultaneously continued to deepen its relationship with the US, which was validated by America declaring India as a ‘major defense partner’ in 2016. This was followed by India’s eventual entry into the coveted Missile Technology Control Regime or MTCR club, Wassenaar Arrangement and Australia Group, albeit with strong support from the US, without which these entries would have been an uphill task. The Modi Administration deserves credit for successfully pursuing the US in supporting India’s candidature.
Recently, India was also accorded the STA-1 or Strategic Trade Authorisation Level-1 status by the US, thereby paving way for exports of high-tech equipment to India. Additionally, India is now also eligible to avail critical high-end communication and imagery technologies from the US after New Delhi signed the Communication Compatibility and Security Agreement with the US.
In between, the Trump Administration renamed the Asia Pacific Command into the US Indo Pacific Command, a reflection of the increasing importance that Washington was given to the regional powerhouse. All this while, the US was well aware of India’s negotiations with Russia on S-400, even as India made it clear about its reluctance to toe the US line on issues of sanctions on Iran and Russia.
For the US, even though its defense and energy companies would want CAATSA to be imposed vigorously in order to wean away many countries from Russian client list, the path for the same was not that easy. Apparently, the Modi Government seems to have been successful in convincing the US that if it wants India to be a net provider of security in the Indo Pacific region, then it has to take care of India’s considerations.
The issue at stake is not just about S-400, but a legacy of issues related to a huge chunk of Indian weapons platforms being of Russian origin which needs spares and support from Russian manufacturers. Thus, while India would deepen its defense ties with the US, it is for sure that it would not ditch Russia either.
Further, it would not be wrong to presume that India also read well the divergence of views that exists between US President Trump and the US Congress on the issue of Russia. During his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Trump tweeted the following, “Our relationship with Russia has never been worse, thanks to many years of US foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!”
Eventually, it was his reluctance to go ahead with the implementation of CAATSA and India’s hardball negotiations that were perhaps the reasons for the US Congress to allow provisions for a presidential waiver to sanctions on CAATSA under the NDAA-2019, specifically for countries like India, in the greater interest of protecting Indo-US alliance. If the US had apprehensions about the confidentiality of radar signatures of some of its critical aerial platforms sold to India, that concern has already been addressed by India through assurances of not sharing any such signature with Russia platforms like S-400.
After having declared India a ‘major defense partner’ it would have been difficult for the US to declare sanctions on India. Besides, the American experience of imposing sanctions on India post-nuclear test in 1998 was proof enough that sanctions simply do not work.
India did not collapse and on the contrary, emerged stronger while the US lost considerable business opportunities because of self-imposed sanctions. Eventually, the US was forced to lift the sanctions. Today’s India is far bigger economically and more resilient than what it was in 1998. The ball, as is being said, is in an American court. It would be interesting to see what Trump eventually does.
Reports indicate that the Modi Administration might not just stop at the purchase of the S-400 system. Also on cards are deeper engagements with Russia with purchase of four additional upgraded Krivak Class frigates, 48 Mi-17V5 helicopters, collaboration on joint production of Ka-226 Helicopters and AK-103 assault rifles in India.
Rarely in the recent past has there been any country like India which has been able to extract so much concession from the US even while successfully meandering through US sanctions to buy state-of-the-art defense systems from Russia. If elections could have been won on geopolitical statecraft, then the Modi Administration’s diplomatic brinkmanship would have been good enough for him to win the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
(The writer is a New Delhi-based strategic affairs analyst)
Writer: Pathikrit Payne
Courtesy: The Pioneer
New York State neighbours unnerved by creepy playing cards
Residents of a New York state neighbourhood said they were unnerved to find playing cards in their mailbox as part of an apparent Halloween prank. Neighbors in the Nevins Road area of Henrietta said they have found Joker playing cards in their mailboxes in recent days bearing what appears to be fake blood and the date “10/31” — Halloween.
“Is it a sign that they’re going to come back on Halloween and do something to my property? To my dog?” resident Michelle Meyer told WHEC-TV. “I think the intent was to scare people and I don’t understand why this was funny.” Meyer said he believes at least six neighbours have found similar cards in their mailboxes. “It seems small and I want to hope it’s a prank but you can’t assume it’s a prank,” Meyer said. “Not anymore.” The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office is investigating.
(UPI)
Philadelphia building taken over by tentacles
A sculpture installation in South Philadelphia makes it appear as though a building is being attacked by a many-tentacled sea monster. The sculpture at Building 611 in the Philadelphia Navy Yard features more than a dozen inflatable tentacles protruding from the building’s windows, as though a giant sea monster is attempting to escape.
The installation is a partnership between the Navy Yard and art collective Group X. “Earlier this year, Group X pitched us on doing this piece,” Jennifer Tran, director of Navy Yard marketing and communications, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “Out of all the designs, this one spoke to us because we thought it was really unique. It’s never been seen before in Philadelphia. We thought it really pushed the boundaries.” The installation is scheduled to last until November 16.
(UPI)
Oink oink, honk honk: Rogue pig goes hog wild in traffic
It was a classic case of a ham on the lam. Police in Maine’s capital city are looking for the owner of a 50-pound piglet that wore itself out while dodging traffic Saturday evening after presumably escaping. The Portland Press Herald reports Augusta police went door to door looking for the animal’s owner without any luck. They say the pig is being cared for by a person familiar with farm animals until the owner can be found. The animal was in good condition other than being tired out from running around.
(AP)
Scuba divers compete in underwater pumpkin carving
Scuba divers in the Florida Keys took their Halloween spirit 30 feet below the surface for an underwater pumpkin carving contest. The contest, organised by the Amoray Dive Resort, saw the divers going 30 feet below the surface at the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary to carve sub-aquatic jack-o-lanterns.
Participants said the task was complicated by the fact that their buoyant pumpkins kept trying to float away mid-carve. Brothers Sebastian and Gabriel Gimeno, ages 16 and 14, were declared the winners with their pumpkin carving, which portrayed a dolphin and a half moon. The Gimeno brothers were awarded a return dive trip with Amoray Dive Resort.
(UPI)
Houston couple creates ‘Good Boy’ beer for dogs
A pair of Houston bar owners who started brewing beer for their ailing canine a few years ago are now selling Good Boy Dog Beer at more than 20 locations. Megan and Steve Long said they learned how to brew beer for dogs, which does not contain alcohol, when their Rottweiler mix, Rocky, started having digestion problems a few years ago. The brews are called beer “because we use a lot of the same equipment a brewery does. We just skip the fermentation process,” Megan Long told USA Today. She said the beer contains all natural ingredients, including vegetables, meat and turmeric, a spice known to aid digestion in canines.
The Good Boy Dog Beer company now has products available at more than 20 dog-friendly bars and restaurants in the Houston area and they also ship their products in cans. The beer is available in three varieties: “IPA lot in the yard,” “Session…Squirrel!” and “Mailman Malt Licker.”
(UPI)
‘Willy Wonka’ pleads guilty to crimes
The leader of a multistate ATM and vehicle burglary ring known as “Willy Wonka” or the “Chocolate Man” has pleaded guilty to 60 charges. The Salem News reports that 47-year-old William “Willy Wonka” Rodriguez pleaded guilty Thursday to his role in crimes in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut that netted more than $300,000 in property and currency.
The Lawrence man was one of five people arrested in August during a police investigation dubbed Operation Golden Ticket. Rodriguez remains jailed on $500,000 bail pending sentencing November 7 where he faces up to 12 years in prison.
Authorities say the gang wore black clothing and masks, carried police scanners, two-way radios and power tools. They often stole vehicles, which they used to crash into businesses so they could steal ATMs.
(AP)
Writer and Courtesy: The Pioneer
The killing of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was a huge mistake. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is under the impression that he can silent foreigners.
If Mohammed bin Salman did really send a hit team to Turkey to murder dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, what will happen next? Perhaps history can help us here.
A little over two centuries ago, in 1804, the Armies of the French Revolution had won all the key battles and the wars seemed to be over. The rest of Europe had decided in 1801 that it would have to live with the French Revolution and made peace with Napoleon. Everything was going so well — and then he made a little mistake.
Many members of the French nobility had gone into exile and fought against the Armies of the Revolution, and the Duke of Enghien was one of them. In 1804 he was living across the Rhine river on German territory.
Napoleon heard an (untrue) report that Enghien was part of a conspiracy to assassinate him, and sent a hit team — sorry, a cavalry squadron — across the Rhine to kidnap him. They brought him back to Paris, gave him a perfunctory military trial, and shot him. After that things did not go well for Napoleon.
The idea that Napoleon would violate foreign territory in peacetime in order to murder an opponent was so horrifying, so repellent that opinion turned against peace with France everywhere. As his own chief of police, Joseph Fouché, said, “It was worse than a crime. It was a blunder.”
By the end of the year every major power in Europe was back at war with Napoleon. After a decade of war he was defeated at Waterloo and sent into exile on St Helena for the rest of his life. So is something like that going to happen to MbS too?
Nobody’s going to invade Saudi Arabia, of course. (Not even Iran, despite MbS’s paranoia on the subject.) But will they stop investing in the country, stop selling it weapons and buying its oil, maybe even slap trade embargoes on it.
Since it seems almost certain that Khashoggi was murdered by the Saudi Government — Turkish Government officials have even told journalists off the record that they have audio and partial video recordings of Khashoggi’s interrogation, torture and killing — all of Saudi Arabia’s ‘friends’ and trading partners have some choices to make.
US President Donald Trump immediately rose to the occasion, declaring that he would be “very upset and angry” if Saudi Arabia was responsible for Khashoggi’s murder, and that there would be “severe punishment” for the crime.
He even boasted that Saudi Arabia “would not last two weeks” without American military support. Presumably Trump was talking about the survival of the Saudi regime, not the country’s independence, but he was still wrong. He is as prone to overestimate his power as MbS himself.
The Saudis struck right back, saying that “The kingdom affirms its total rejection of any threats or attempts to undermine it whether through threats to impose economic sanctions or the use of political pressure. The kingdom also affirms that it will respond to any (punitive) action with a bigger one.”
But Trump was only bluffing. He really had no intention of cancelling the $110 billion of contracts that Saudi Arabia has signed to buy American-made weapons, because “we’d be punishing ourselves if we did that. If they don’t buy it from us, they’re going to buy it from Russia or… China.”
People have been turning a blind eye to the weekly hundreds of civilian deaths caused by Saudi bombing in Yemen for three years now. Why would they respond any differently to the murder of one pesky Saudi journalist in Istanbul, even if he did write for the ‘Washington Post’?
The difference is that it’s intensely personal — this is an absolute monarch ordering the killing of a critic who annoyed him but posed no threat to his power — and it’s brazenly, breathtakingly arrogant. MbS really thinks he can do something like this and make everybody shut up about it.
He is probably right, so far as the craven, money-grubbing foreigners are concerned — like former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who could barely even bring himself to say that Saudi Arabia should investigate and explain the issue, because “otherwise it runs completely contrary to the process of modernisation.”
But if the foreigners will not or cannot bring Mohammed bin Salman down, his own family (all seven thousand princes, or however many there are now) probably will. It is a family business, and his amateurish strategies, his impulsiveness and his regular resort to violence are ruining the firm’s already not very good name.
He rose rapidly out of the multitudinous ranks of anonymous princes through the favour of his failing father, King Salman, but he could fall as fast as he rose. Killing Khashoggi was definitely a blunder.
Writer: Gwynne Dyer
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Nikki Haley, US politician of Indian-origin, is considering running for Presidency.
With the first Indian-American to hold a Cabinet position in the US as her country’s ambassador to the United Nations having put in her papers (she is to demit office by the end of the year), a star of the Republican Party and of the Donald Trump administration is in political orbit. And nobody seems to know which path her future political orbit will take. While some close to her have put dropped broad hints that she is looking at lucrative private sector assignments come the new year, speculation persists that it is her political career which remains her abiding passion and focus. While Haley seemed to put speculation to rest that she would challenge Trump for the Republican nomination for President in the next election in her resignation letter iterating that she would “not be a candidate for any office in 2020”, the murmurs are refusing to die down around the political plans of the former Governor of South Carolina.
Haley’s is a backstory that grassroot Republicans are enthralled with — the child of Indian Sikh immigrants born Stateside who integrated completely with the American mainstream while retaining pride in her cultural roots, she made her way up the political ladder on her own steam. First marked out as a rising star by Republican elders when she served as a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, she was the second Indian-American to take oath as Governor of the State after fellow Republican Bobby Jindal. Her big moment and coast-to-coast media exposure, however, came when she was chosen to deliver the official response of her party to then President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address in January 2016. When Trump swept to a shock victory in the November 2016 US Presidential poll, she was a shoo-in for an important Cabinet post. Her stand on issues — a strong supporter of America first, a proponent of an integrationist model of multiculturalism including a nod to the US’ Judeo-Christian heritage albeit fuelled by waves of immigration and known to be uncompromising known for her tough stand on America’s trade disputes as well as strategic issues not excluding the use of force such as in the stand-off with North Korea in 2017 — is a much better fit with that of the Republican establishment than Trump’s. The fact that Haley quit just ahead of crucial mid-term elections, though she was effusive in her praise of the President, is also being seen as a desire not to be associated with the Trump legacy and style of politics. Which begs the obvious question — why? Our guess is she may run for President in 2020 anyway but will definitely do so if Trump decides not to run for a second term or is blocked by traditional Republicans from doing so. Otherwise, there’s always 2024; Haley is only 46 years old.
Nikki Haley, US politician of Indian-origin, is considering running for Presidency.
With the first Indian-American to hold a Cabinet position in the US as her country’s ambassador to the United Nations having put in her papers (she is to demit office by the end of the year), a star of the Republican Party and of the Donald Trump administration is in political orbit. And nobody seems to know which path her future political orbit will take. While some close to her have put dropped broad hints that she is looking at lucrative private sector assignments come the new year, speculation persists that it is her political career which remains her abiding passion and focus. While Haley seemed to put speculation to rest that she would challenge Trump for the Republican nomination for President in the next election in her resignation letter iterating that she would “not be a candidate for any office in 2020”, the murmurs are refusing to die down around the political plans of the former Governor of South Carolina.
Haley’s is a backstory that grassroot Republicans are enthralled with — the child of Indian Sikh immigrants born Stateside who integrated completely with the American mainstream while retaining pride in her cultural roots, she made her way up the political ladder on her own steam. First marked out as a rising star by Republican elders when she served as a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, she was the second Indian-American to take oath as Governor of the State after fellow Republican Bobby Jindal. Her big moment and coast-to-coast media exposure, however, came when she was chosen to deliver the official response of her party to then President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address in January 2016. When Trump swept to a shock victory in the November 2016 US Presidential poll, she was a shoo-in for an important Cabinet post. Her stand on issues — a strong supporter of America first, a proponent of an integrationist model of multiculturalism including a nod to the US’ Judeo-Christian heritage albeit fuelled by waves of immigration and known to be uncompromising known for her tough stand on America’s trade disputes as well as strategic issues not excluding the use of force such as in the stand-off with North Korea in 2017 — is a much better fit with that of the Republican establishment than Trump’s. The fact that Haley quit just ahead of crucial mid-term elections, though she was effusive in her praise of the President, is also being seen as a desire not to be associated with the Trump legacy and style of politics. Which begs the obvious question — why? Our guess is she may run for President in 2020 anyway but will definitely do so if Trump decides not to run for a second term or is blocked by traditional Republicans from doing so. Otherwise, there’s always 2024; Haley is only 46 years old.
Writer and Courtesy: The Pioneer
There’s deep rooted corruption in Iraq, and there’s not much hope for change – not even with the new leadership.
Fifteen years after George W Bush invaded Iraq to destroy Saddam Hussein’s imaginary ‘weapons of mass destruction’, what have the Iraqis got to show for it? There was a great deal of death and destruction (around half a million Iraqis have died violently since 2003), but they do now have a democratically elected Government. Sort of. Iraqis voted in their fourth free election last April — or rather, fewer than half of them bothered to vote at all; so pessimistic were they about the notion that voting could change anything. And after the election, the politicians seemed to be living down to their expectations.
Almost six months later, the many political parties were still bickering over which of them would be in the Government, as that would give them access to the huge amounts of money which were available to the ministers in one of the world’s most corrupt countries. It looked like business as usual, despite bloody riots in the south (where most of the oil is) over chronic shortages of water, electricity, and jobs. But on October 2, Iraqi Parliament elected a prominent Kurdish politician, Barham Saleh, to the ceremonial office of president. The President had 15 days to nominate the new Prime Minister (who really runs the Government), but Barham Saleh did it within hours. The new Prime Minister will be Adel Abdul-Mahdi — which may be a signal of big changes to come.
Abdul-Mahdi is not himself a revolutionary figure. He is a former Finance and Oil Minister who, like Barham Saleh, has been a familiar fixture in Iraqi politics ever since the invasion. (A stock Iraqi joke claims that the country has the most environmental Government in the world since it constantly recycles its old politicians). But Abdul-Mahdi is the figurehead of a coalition in which a revolutionary outsider, Muqtada al-Sadr, will be a dominant influence. Sadr’s party astonished everybody by winning the largest number of seats in the May election, drawing its support mainly from working-class Shias in Baghdad and the south. But his non-sectarian stance also drew votes from the marginalised Sunni minority of Iraqi Arabs.
Sadr’s sympathy for the Sunni Arabs’ plight is unusual among Iraqi Shia politicians, and all the more remarkable because he is a Shia cleric whose father and uncle were both grand ayatollahs murdered by Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated regime. If any man can bridge the gulf that has opened up between Sunni and Shia Arabs in Iraq, he is that man. His party has been among the least corrupt on the Iraqi political scene, and he is a nationalist who is equally opposed to American and Iranian meddling in Iraqi politics. He has disbanded his own party’s militia and urges others to do the same, and he promised to appoint non-political technocrats instead of usual party stalwarts if his party won power.
That promise will be hard to keep since extreme fragmentation of Iraqi politics means all Governments must be broad coalitions. The coalition Sadr leads (although he will not personally seek office) includes the Iraqi Communist party, which more or less shares his goals, and the group led by former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which emphatically does not. Maliki, in power from 2006 to 2014, proved himself to be viciously anti-Sunni, largely subservient to Iranian interests — and, of course, monumentally corrupt. It will be very difficult to hold this coalition together, let alone to carry out Sadr’s programme of sectarian reconciliation and Government by technocrats.
Corruption in Iraq is a system, not a series of individual crimes, and the beneficiaries of the system will fight tooth and nail to preserve it. The parties use it not only to finance their own activities and reward their own members, but to build a large support base through bribery, mostly in the form of jobs. There are 37 million people in Iraq. In most other countries, a population of that size would require around 600,000-700,000 employees to provide all the normal functions of a Central Government. The Iraqi Government employs 4.5 million people to do the same jobs very badly or not at all. Many of them rarely even show up at work, but they and their families all vote for the right party at the election time. And since they are on the take themselves, they don’t protest when senior politicians in their party steal millions (or in some cases billions) from public funds.
This pattern is almost standard in countries whose income, like Iraq’s, comes largely from exporting a single natural resource (oil, in this case), but Iraq is exceptional in the brazen incompetence of the political class and the utter neglect of those outside the magic circle. This system was tolerated during the 15 years of war because people’s first priority was survival. Now that the fighting has died down, people are starting to protest, and Muqtada al-Sadr has become the repository of their hopes. He will have a hard time living up to them.
Writer: Gwynne Dyer
Source: The Pioneer
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