Category Archives: Politics

“Brief Thoughts on US-Israel and US-India Relations” By F. Sheikh

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The both issues are hot topics and NYT has two articles on these issues. I wrote comments in NYT on both issues and I would like to share those comments with our participants.

“A Strained Alliance; Netanyahu-Obama Rift Grew Over Years”

The article describes how the relationship have soured due to strained relations between Obama and Netanyahu, especially recent incidence where Netanyahu has accepted invitation from Speaker Boehner to address Congress without prior clearance from White House. Below is my comment in NYT which received 232 recommend from NYT readers. This article has total 1254 comments.

Comment:

FS

NY Yesterday

The terms of our relations with Israel are inherently flawed. The Israel and its backers in USA believe that Israel’s interests take precedent over our national interests. The Israel feels no qualms over going against our stated policies but it feels USA has no such a right even if such a policy is in the American national interests. To make matters worse, Israel and its backers think they have more political clout than a sitting US President. If that was not the case, Mr. Netanyahu would not have behaved this way. There is something terrible wrong in this relationship. There is a dire need to bring some balance and backers of Israel in USA has a duty to address it-for Israel’s own interest.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/31/world/middleeast/a-strained-alliance-obama-netanyahu-rift-grew-over-years.html?comments#permid=13987850

“US-India Ties Deepen; China Take in Stride” 

This article in NYT describes how China is showing a calm and cool attitude towards recent visit by Mr. Obama and strengthening military ties between India and USA. I wrote following comment in NYT which was one of the top two comments. This article has total 47 comments.

 Comment;

FS

NY 2 days ago

Are we encircling China as a precaution in case of military conflict? Or are we wooing china to start a Cold War and bankrupt it like Soviet Union?
China has a different mindset. China is establishing relations with democratic as well as oppressive regimes in search for natural resources and does not want to pass judgment on their method of governance. Its relations are mostly limited to economic ties.
China is a different breed and will not take bait ofcold war , because historically China is neither interested in expansionism nor spreading of any ideology. China will continue to arm itself to leave no doubt that any ill designs on China’s sovereignty will be ill affordable. Despite territorial disputes with neighbors, China’s main focus is economy and trade with its neighboring countries. Today Vietnam’s main trading partner is China and trade is increasing 20 % per year. In 2013 it rose to $ 60 billion. China will not follow the course of old Soviet Union
There is an inherent danger of misunderstandings in developing our military ties with countries surrounding China. These countries counting on American help, may start a war with China over territorial dispute, and that can lead to a bigger war which neither country can afford. We are already involved in many military conflicts. We are doing some of the things which made Soviet Union bankrupt. China is more focused on economic future than anything else, and that is where our focus should be.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/28/world/asia/china-tries-to-stay-aloof-from-warming-us-india-relationship.html?comments#permid=13951872:13963362

 

A JOURNEY THROUGH PAKISTAN

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A Journey Through Pakistan
Nasik Elahi

Pakistan is a country that defies ordinary explanations.  After spending six weeks I am still confused with an equal measure of negative and positive sentiments.  

A good measure of a country is in its traffic.  In Pakistan traffic is a state of functional chaos:  congestion compounded by disregard of the basics of courtesy and rules.  The structure of roads and traffic lights is basically overwhelmed in most urban centers.  Police traffic control is virtually nil; the few police present are routinely ignored and even issuing traffic summons can make cops lose their jobs.
 
Law enforcement is the vital aspect of national life that is teetering on the edge.  Crime is rampant, police corruption is endemic and many police stations are better described as torture chambers where few citizens dare to enter.  The professionalism in police ranks is best described as pathetic.  Nearly sixty percent of the force is employed as security guards for the VIPs and their extended families while the ranks of the officers are politicized to answer to their political overlords rather than perform as professionals. 
 
A good example of such dysfunction is the forensic program in the country.  The government of Punjab has spent nearly $30 million to establish an unfunctional program, most of which was spent on a kickback scheme involving Cleveland;  the Cleveland connection was jailed by the local US authorities but the Pakistani players continue with no threat of accountability.  I had specifically warned against such developments in my capacity as a national consultant on forensic programs some six years ago.  My advice was ignored by Punjab and other provincial and central authorities and they continued to develop their schemes.  There exist a paltry forensic program at the national level and provinces like KPK, Baluchistan, Karachi and Sindh have made little progress over the past six years.
 
As a result, policing cannot address the challenges of either crime or terrorism.  The forensic evidence is nonexistent and cases are so badly prepared that they fail the basic standards of acceptability.  The court system is equally politicized into a state of ineptitude where few cases are adjudicated;  there also exist functional disparities between the lower and higher judiciary that is similar to the police ranks.
 
The economy of Pakistan is a mystery to many experts.  The country is faced with a chronic shortage of energy that makes both the industrial and social sectors underperform.  The government has become an employment agency;  both bureaucracy and state owned institutions have become unwieldy because of the bloat imposed by successive governments.   The spotty energy supplies have forced people to resort to highly expensive alternatives;  those who can afford it have generators others use lead acid batteries that is a public health disaster.  The country is kept afloat by billions of dollars in reparations by overseas Pakistanis, loans and grants from US and other countries.  Pakistan has the distinction of one of the lowest ratios of tax paying citizens in the world.
Despite the underperformance of the economy and government the most striking feature is the wealth gap and the conspicuous consumption of the haves.   The country is full of malls with imported luxury products and restaurants teeming with customers.  Another arena of excess is to be found in the marriage halls where people expend beyond their means on clothing, accessories and food.  The main source of such wealth is crony capitalism. corruption that siphons off resources from the national enterprise,  underground economy, drugs and smuggling.  A lot of such wealth is parked in places like Dubai and is also used to spark real estate booms in virtually every city in the country. 
 
Speculative and unplanned developments are placing huge strains upon the poor infrastructure.  Rampant corruption further saps the creative energies and cost overruns that stall rather than further projects.  The catalog of such misadventures, from setting up energy plants to the airport in Islamabad, keeps growing and yet there exists no accountability of either the government or officials.  The power elite are oblivious to the larger national interests and have managed to profit without being responsible as leaders. 
 
Ironically, Pakistan has a thriving media.  The content is mostly entertainment with little public service.  There is a lot of one-sided commentary about what is wrong but there is no effort to build either consensus or hold people responsible.  The Imran Khan wedding got more coverage than Peshawar school massacre or the army campaign in the tribal area combined.
 
The Pakistan army is a behemoth the country cannot afford in its current form.  It is equal parts economic and fighting force.  It has the choicest real estate and industrial holdings in the country that provides significant benefits to its ranking officers.  Strategically, it is fighting on too many fronts and losing them all and yet continues to guide foreign and domestic policies.  The campaign against the militants in the tribal belt has been ramped up but the gains and strategy remain a mystery because they are among the taboo subjects that cannot be discussed in public forums.  The army remains focused on India as its main theater in most conflicts ranging from Afghanistan to the insurgent movements in Sindh and Balochistan and look with considerable concern at the actions of the Modi government and its increasingly close relations with the US after the Obama trip to India.

Politically, Pakistan is at the cross roads.  The conventional makeup of political parties like Muslim League, PPP and MQM with their entrenched familial leaderships are being challenged by Imran Khan and his dharnas.  His movement has eroded some of their influence but since he offers no comprehensive national program beyond his civil disobedience, the canny politicians have come together to ride out the dissident.  The next episode to the political drama has yet to develop.
 
The country is also faced with a highly tenuous situation between state rights and central authority;  Baluch and Sindhi issues are being ignored by the Punjab centric central government.  A long simmering near civil war between intelligence agencies,  militants, criminal and political forces that range from nationalists, waderas, radicals and Indian agent has gone on for years.  The political parties are vested only in their areas and pay little heed to coherent national interests or policies;  PPP runs Sindhi government while Karachi is controlled by MQM with other areas under the control of the religious militants.  Such dysfunction feeds into the violence that has divided the nerve center of Karachi into battle zones that exact a daily toll of dead bodies and businesses.

People are benumbed by the challenges.  They are tuned off to the daily catalog of calamities as a trial by God.  They find solace in an obsessive exercise of religion while dispensing with the ethics or morality associated with it.  Self righteousness by sect and belief is the norm;  those who disagree are deemed guilty of blasphemy and a fate prescribed for nonbelievers.  Since the problems are all deemed as divinely guided individual responsibility is notably absent at all levels of society.  The sense of innocent helplessness is further explained by conspiracy theories for major events as manipulation by some foreign foe; India and US head the list. 
 
Education in Pakistan has undergone a prolonged period of degradation.  It started with the Bhutto nationalization program in the seventies and continued with the increased defunding during the Zia era.  The existing centers of education for the middle class became hollow shells while the education of the poor masses shifted to madrassas funded largely by Saudi and ultraorthodox sources.  The Musharaf era denationalized education but turned every college into a university and further loosened the standards.  Today sham universities registered through paper affiliations hand out degrees in various parts of the country.  The more expensive teaching institutions are extended employment schemes for teachers who augment their incomes as after hour tutors rather than teach during regular classes.  As I have discovered in working to establish a genuine teaching institution for forensic and law enforcement you are encouraged to take shortcuts instead of establishing the appropriate standards.   Despite these profound shortcomings a fair proportion of bright students still come through.  Imagine the results if the system were to be streamlined with better standards.
 
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Pakistan is that despite all the problems the country is mired in it is still intact.  The country has the necessary human capital to move forward but it is being constantly hampered by its existing political, social and religious leadership. The dharna disobedience is giving rise to a challenge to the existing order.  It can either provide a way to remove the abusive excesses in the system towards better governance or it can open the floodgates to even sharper conflicts.  The future of Pakistan remains to be decided.

‘We are adding to our( Pakistan) nuclear arsenal to the point where it has become dangerous’

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Excellent article by Maleeha Hamid Siddiqui in Dawn on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. Recent co-operation agreements between USA and India may make matters even worse. ( F. Sheikh )

KARACHI: What are the perils of nuclear competition? Does amassing nuclear weapons add to the quality of stability in the region? Is there an alternative model of nuclear deterrence? These are some of the hard questions that need to be asked about Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence policy, said Sadia Tasleem, lecturer at the department of Defence and Strategic Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.

She was speaking at a talk on ‘Contemporary security landscape and the perils of nuclear competition in South Asia — is there a way out for Pakistan?’ on Wednesday organised by the department of International Relations, University of Karachi.

Ms Tasleem in her presentation pointed towards changing trends in Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence posture. “Recent developments in Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and missile capabilities indicate a shifting trend in its doctrinal thinking. Many in the west call Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal the fastest growing This might be debatable. However, it is certainly one of the rapidly growing arsenals. Security policy-makers strongly feel that they cannot afford to cap Pakistan’s nuclear ability.” In other words, Pakistan is moving away from minimum credible deterrence posture to full-spectrum deterrence posture.

Explaining this further, she said: “Pakistan publicly adheres to minimum credible deterrence [No to a No First Use of nuclear weapons] to placate international forces. But through ISPR statements we know that Pakistan is diversifying its nuclear arsenal under full-spectrum deterrence. This means deployment becomes essential. Hence, tactical weapons such as Haft-IX with a range of 60kms have been developed and test-fired meant to deter Indian advances in Pakistani territory.”

In her opinion, this deterrence posture is problematic. Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence posture is constantly linked to India’s nuclear and military developments. “This means we cannot set a bar to our nuclear arsenal whereas India has two-faced threats in China and Pakistan.”

Another problem is Pakistan needs to have a large number of deployable tactical weapons placed at several places. “Pakistan has limited short-range missiles and it is important to have fully deployable capable readiness that means Pakistan needs to take out its weapons from wherever it is hiding in caves or tunnels and deploy them swiftly. The enemy can calculate the time gap and based on that calculation inflict damage.”

Nuclear competition versus arms race

She also said questions should be asked that nobody seemed to be asking. For instance, is Pakistan doing the right thing in its national security strategy? Can’t we do without Haft-IX? Will we be annihilated if we do so? Are we engaging in nuclear competition? Is it a folly to enter in such a nuclear competition?

Pakistan is moving towards nuclear competition and not an arms race. It is not the arms race seen during the Cold War years between the US and the Soviet Union. “They had a similar power symmetry and had the resources to engage in such an arms race. The power dynamics were similar between these two countries and they could follow each other.”

This is not the case between Pakistan and India due to asymmetric power dynamics. Consequently, they are developing and modernising their arsenal differently. “India is developing ballistic defence system and Pakistan is spending more on cruise missiles.”

Technology itself and the scientific community’s stake are the factors that are driving nuclear competition. “Since there is psychological pressure on the country to expand its nuclear programme, there is induction of more sophisticated weapons. Hence, technology becomes a driver behind competition.”

http://www.dawn.com/news/1160067/we-are-adding-to-our-nuclear-arsenal-to-the-point-where-it-has-become-dangerous

 

 

A Man of Wisdom And Vision !

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By Kenan Malik

How ironic ,the leaders of the free world who recently attended the freedom of speech Paris march, even some who missed, are headed to Saudi Arabia with their heads bowed to pay respect to a leader who despised freedom of speech and Western way of life. Oil is thicker than blood. A worth reading article by Kenan Malik. ( F. Sheikh)

The world has lost a revered leader’, claimed US Secretary of John Kerry on the death last week of Saudi King Abdullah, a ‘man of wisdom and vision’, in Kerry’s words. David Cameron praised his ‘commitment to peace’ and ordered flags to be flown at half mast on government buildings. Christine Legarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, even hailed him as a proto-feminist, a ‘strong advocate of women’.

In reality, the man that virtually every Western leader has bent over backwards to praise over the past few days  was a vicious tyrant, the absolute ruler of a kingdom that practiced torture and judicial murder, crushed any opposition, flogged and beheaded dissidents, imposed sharia law in the most brutal fashion, and exported jihadism across the world. He governed over a kingdom in which women need the approval of a male relative or guardian to marry, open a bank account, obtain a passport, attend university or to see a doctor, even for serious medical emergencies; a kingdom in which a woman must have a male chaperone any time she leaves home and is forbidden from driving. One would have thought that even the head the IMF should be able to see that this does not amount to ‘strong advocacy for women’.

Apologists for the late King Abdullah claim that he was a ‘reformer’ because he sought to bring about change slowly against the entrenched forces of the clergy and of culture. In fact, both the ‘cultural traditions’ and the ‘traditional’ religious norms of Saudi Arabia have only been established over the past two centuries, created, or appropriated, by the Saud clan, as a means of consolidating and maintaining its power.

https://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2015/01/25/how-a-bunch-of-vicious-chancers-became-men-of-wisdom/