Politics and Governance

“I am not a fascist, a nazi, a terrorist, a criminal or violent. But I am constantly being forced on the defensive”. This is one piece of the evidence of a Muslim student to a Dutch court hearing race-hate charges against Geert Wilders, a member of parliament in October this year. According to Wilders: “Islam is not a religion, it's an ideology, the ideology of a retarded culture. I have a problem with Islamic tradition, culture, ideology.” In another place he says: “The Koran is a fascist book which incites violence.” He called for it to be banned, like Hitler’s book Mein Kampf.

The current Netherlands government, currently a minority government, has come to office by relying on the support of Wilders’ party. This was a sad day for democracy and for the Netherlands.

Switch to the United States and Newt Gingrich, former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives. He called Muslim organizers of a planned religious centre near Ground Zero in New York “radical Islamists” interested in “supremacy” and likened them to Nazis wanting to put up a sign beside the Holocaust memorial or Japanese wanting to put up a sign at Peal Harbor.

New York’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg, countered Gingrich by saying it would be a “sad day for America” if opponents of the planned religious centre got their way. President Obama also backed the right of the organizers of the centre to go ahead with their plans.
Islamophobia is now at the centre of national politics in a number of liberal democratic countries. It has surfaced strongly in international politics. The Organization of Islamic Conference, an international grouping of 57 countries, has initiated a global campaign against Islamophobia.  Al Qaeda has taken note of the rising hostility to Muslims and threatened retaliation for it. There is an escalating climate of fear and hate around this religion in too many places.

What is Islamophobia? According to the Runnymede Trust, it has many faces that include the following. Islam is seen “as a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to change”. It is seen as inferior to the West, barbaric, irrational, primitive, sexist, violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive of terrorism and engaged in a 'clash of civilizations'. It is seen as a political ideology. The Trust also noted that hostility towards Islam is used to justify discriminatory practices towards Muslims.

Runnymede, a name taken by the Trust mentioned above, is the place in Britain where the Magna Carta was signed, the document seen as one of the principal sources of political and civil rights enjoyed across Europe today. Ironically, the document was bound by its time. The first provision in it does not grant religious freedom but grants freedom to organized religion, the “Church”. That tells us something. Religion has always been highly politicized and remains so.  In fact, religious freedom (freedom of conscience) is arguably one of the last freedoms to arrive, is often the most politically contested and the most fragile. One reason is that because a religion offers potentially decisive views on what is right and wrong, all sorts of demagogues see it as very fertile ground for sowing the seeds of division and hate to produce a false flower of legitimacy for their own political goals.

The revolutions of Europe and the United States over two centuries ago were supposed to have forced the separation of state and religion, and to have guaranteed freedom of conscience. All citizens might therefore reasonably expect governments in liberal pluralist democracies (and their parliamentarians) not to implement policy or act in any way to appease religious hate or an irrational discomfort with Islam. Oppose Islamophobia, now.  

Land borders are not what they used to be. Finance and investment values are traded through the ether in what often seems like a new borderless world. Even in terms of physical borders, which of course still exist, the air borders of most countries now seem more important. High value trade comes by air cargo as do the tourist dollars. The new threats, such as pandemic and terrorism, also come across the air border more often than across dry ground. In 2009, EU countries refused entry to more than 50,000 people at their air borders.

But this relationship between air frontiers and the land is worth a second look. In 2009, Spain turned away almost 400,000 people at its land borders, and Poland just over 25,000 people. The bigger pressure for illegal migration is on the ground not by air. And of course pandemics and terrorists do cross land borders.

We can look at the changed military strategic significance of ground and air borders in a similar way. Only a few countries of the world guard their ground borders with divisions and tanks. The ground borders have definitely become much less important, relatively speaking. Modern aircraft and missiles allow attack from remote distances with little effective warning time. And as American military leaders remind us, cyber warfare capabilities allow “global strike in milliseconds”.

How do these changed relationships between air and land boundaries play out in geopolitical terms for Europe? For the moment, Europe (the EU) looks very comfortable. There are no strategic military threats from any bordering country and almost no military defence of any kind for ground borders. The one low intensity exception is Cyprus.

For NATO Europe, the picture is very different. Turkey has land borders with Iran, Iraq and Syria that present a range of low level and high level strategic risk, and an active cross-border threat of terrorism and insurgency.

For OSCE Europe, the picture becomes even more complicated. Not only does that include the Turkish frontier’s challenges, but it raises the stakes considerably. Suddenly there are “European” land borders with Afghanistan, China and North Korea.

What then is the fundamental geopolitical character of Europe’s land borders and where in strategic terms, do these borders actually sit? Few would imagine in strategic terms that the EU is the geopolitical essence of “Europe”. Surely, at the very least, Turkey is part of Europe’s land frontier.  But “strategic Europe” (OSCE Europe) might also include Russia and Ukraine at least, even if more conservative views would be ambivalent or negative about including the Central Asian states that border Afghanistan.

Who is looking after border security of “strategic Europe”? What are the common plans or concepts for geopolitical security in the arc from Antakya to Almaty (via Kirkuk and Kunduz)? As we go into the summit season (NATO in November and OSCE in December), who will take up this question?

It is very plain that the United States will not. It would be seen to be against US interests to do so. That is perhaps understandable at one level. For countries of Europe, however defined, continued collective disregard of the security of their geopolitical land borders on the east and south of both Turkey and Russia, or on the OSCE border with Afghanistan in terms of hard security planning can no longer be justified.

In the 20-30 year time frame to which defence planners must look, these frontiers may well be the biggest source of potential land-based threat to Europe. The prospects of war may remain remote. But, on a balance of reasonable probabilities, in the coming decades, this is the area where Europe’s ground forces will most likely be needed.

Sidhu observes that before Obama visited India, it seemed he could do nothing right – and after he visited, nothing wrong. “The reality, as always, lies somewhere in between,” writes Sidhu.

Sidhu points out that although Obama expressed support for India’s permanent membership into the United Nations Security Council, the United States alone cannot guarantee its entry: “China, which has still to fully endorse New Delhi’s case, might use its powerful veto to keep India out.” 

India also has the problem of troublesome neighbors – Afghanistan, Myanmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka – whose relationships with India will ultimately work against the country’s permanent membership into the UNSC regardless of U.S. support.  India will need to make a concerted effort to find a balance between its national interests and its international responsibilities.

Overall, U.S.-India relations are looking at a bright future, but India’s role on the UNSC will prove complicated.

“As Oscar Wilde noted, ‘There are only two tragedies in life: ones is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it,’” quotes Sidhu. “India might suffer the latter.”

Click here to read Sidhu's article on livemint.com

After considering the potential expectations from the American and Indian perspectives, Kanwal concludes that while the expectations were not met on every level, the visit was not unsuccessful.

There were four main focus points during Obama’s visit to India: the economy, India’s candidacy for permanent UNSC membership, terrorism and defense in India and the India-Pakistan relationship. 

Obama expressed concern about U.S. outsourcing, which did not bode favorably for the U.S.: “Obama has overplayed the outsourcing card and unnecessarily targeted India as a source of job losses.”  India-U.S. trade only accounts for one percent of the 2009 U.S. trade deficit.

Regarding India’s permanent membership to the UNSC, Sibal assesses, “His words do not amount to an unqualified support for India’s claim.”
Kanwal asserts that Obama made symbolic gestures regarding terrorism in India, but merely skimmed the surface of the issue.  At the heart of this are the conflicted relationships between the U.S., Pakistan and India.

Sibal concludes that the U.S.-India relationship will continue to have its challenges, but that Obama’s visit was an overall success: “All in all, he would merit a B+ grade.”

Click here to read Sibal's piece in The Telegraph

In August 2003, NATO took over the leadership of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan under the mandate of the United Nations. As the ISAF website notes: “The Alliance became responsible for the command, coordination and planning of the force.”

But who is running this Alliance? Where is the Allied command at political level that binds together these allies around a political strategy agreed by all of the Allies? According to ISAF, the North Atlantic Council (NAC) “provides overall coordination and political direction”, working “in close consultation” with non-NATO troop-contributing countries. The NAC meets at least weekly, often more frequently, at Ambassadorial level in Brussels, and twice yearly at Ministerial level, and occasionally at Head of State level. Is the NAC really making the political command decisions for the counter-insurgency war in Afghanistan? Should it be?

The answer is no, on both counts. The NAC is not and cannot be a supreme decision making body for the politics of war inside Afghanistan. This gap in political control and accountability for war waged by the international community needs to be fixed.

Everyone accepts the need for a clear transition from the massive intervention by NATO and other allies to a politically sustainable future premised on a self-confident and secure Afghanistan. To do this, we need a new (a genuine) political command council that is dominated not just by a handful of NATO members but by the key political players in the war, of which the Afghanistan government has to be one.
Because support from inside NATO for Afghan combat operations is weakening, the UN Allies and the NAC need to think rather urgently about creating a new structure that provides for a durable, representative and workable political command. The United States has been the pre-eminent policy designer for NATO in this war (and still runs its own independent forces in Afghanistan) but it is not a credible long-term leader for the political transition we now need. The United States, like NATO, has to pass the baton, but to whom and to what?

The answer may lie in how the main actors address the need for a second requirement: effective regional security arrangements that can counter the violent extremists using Islam as their cover. That problem has to be solved primarily by Muslim states and Muslim communities.
The only answer may be to create a new standing Council at head of state level that brings together key stakeholders from the region and the major external powers. It might comprise the UN Secretary General (as chair), Afghanistan, Pakistan, UAE, Saudi Arabia, the Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), the United States, the European Union, Russia, China and India. There would have to be a place for Iran at the table. This Council would not be a command authority for Afghanistan alone, but a political stabilization council and allied command authority for the South and West Asia regions.

The Council could devise, fund and execute a clear set of complementary political, military and economic action plans for these regions in their entirety, even if discrete elements might need to be packaged country by country according to political sensitivities and practicalities. These measures could include a Muslim Peace Corps building on the OIC’s youth initiative from 2003. The Council could serve under UN mandate for renewable periods.

This might be a path marked by controversy, division and failures, but it is the only sustainable path. Such a step would serve to force the pace on regional security cooperation in a part of the world where it is so embryonic, so mistrusted and so visibly needed.

Sidhu begins by unraveling commonly-held myths correlating presidential visits to the bilateral relationship, including the idea that Republican presidents have stronger relationships with Indian leaders than Democrat presidents. Sidhu writes, “The reality, however, is far more nuanced. It is determined by domestic politics, quest for exceptionalism, lack of trust and inherent complexity of any relationship, which is becoming increasingly intertwined.”

Sidhu writes that, at its root, discord between India and the United States lies in the countries’ differing approaches to democracy and innate sense of exceptionalism – or belief that they are somehow exempt from playing by the rules.

“Indian exceptionalism is based on its rich civilizational past, its freedom movement, its leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement and its desire to be an autonomous actor in a world of alliances,” Sidhu explains. For the United States, Sidhu cites the “Bush doctrine of preventive war, which was evident in the unprovoked attack on Iraq in 2003.” 

For Sidhu, this sense of exceptionalism ultimately hinders the bilateral relationship, as it can preclude constructive international military and defense decisions. He points out, “India and the U.S. have chosen to test the limits of their exceptionalism on some of the most contentious military, nuclear and security issues on which they have had little or no interaction or serious differences. For instance, New Delhi was reluctant to accept the end-user monitoring arrangement with the U.S. (a standard even for Washington’s closest and oldest allies), which is essential for any transfer or military equipment to take place.” 

Sidhu concludes that on both sides, diplomatic efforts should extend beyond Obama’s visit to such forums as India-US Strategic Dialogue and the UN Security Council.

How will we know if Obama’s visit has been a success? “The litmus test will be the joint declaration that will follow from the visit,” Sidhu writes. “If it candidly acknowledges the challenges and opportunities, then the relationships will benefit.  Otherwise, it will be a clear signal that the relationship will descend into familiar and meaningless platitudes.”

Click here to read Sidhu's article on livemint.com

During the midterm elections, candidates largely ignored foreign policy. Not even the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq stirred much interest. In a period of economic unease and disillusionment with President Barack Obama’s leadership, the domestic agenda dominated the campaign.

But don’t be fooled: there is a strong undercurrent of debate that can have a big impact on America’s world view. Also, don’t assume that the divisions on these issues always break neatly according to party lines. Some Democrats and Republicans describe what has gone wrong in the world in eerily similar terms. With the Republicans controlling the new House of Representatives and the Democrats the Senate, there could be surprising alliances.

True, there will be predictable battles. The Russians have good reason to be worried about the fate of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed by Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in April. The administration needs to get the support of 67 senators to ratify the agreement in the lame-duck session. If it fails to do so then, this centerpiece of the U.S.-Russia “reset” in relations could be doomed. Similarly, Cuban-born Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, in line to take over the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is likely to apply the brakes to any effort by Obama to ease sanctions on Cuba. She and other Republicans also have warned against any weakening of American backing for Israel.

When Democrats and Republicans echo each other, it doesn’t necessarily make for good policy, though. During the campaign, Democrats—tied to the trade unions and prone to protectionism—bashed Republicans for their business links to China. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid attacked his Tea Party opponent, Sharron Angle, for “outsourcing to China and India.” Republican John Boehner, the presumptive House speaker, charged that Obama’s stimulus package “shipped jobs overseas to China instead of creating jobs here at home.” Not exactly elevating rhetoric from either side.

Where left and right agree is that America feels adrift right now. George W. Bush was seen as pursuing single-minded policies that polarized the country and the world; Obama seems not to be sure what he wants to do to change the perception that America’s best days may be in the past. Even once enthusiastic supporters see him as equivocating at every step.

Many Republicans argue that Obama has abandoned the idea of “American exceptionalism.” California Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon declared earlier this year that he yearns “for the days of an American president who proclaimed around the world that America is a ‘shining city upon a hill.’ ” The Republican charges that Obama has embraced a “declinist vision.”

Some on the other side of the spectrum agree with the premise that America is in decline. “We really have become a modern-day Gulliver—tied up by small, determined powers whose interests aren’t our own,” writes analyst Aaron David Miller at ForeignPolicy.com. He urges Obama to keep “his ambitions small” and steadily decrease the U.S. role in conflicts like Afghanistan, where Miller sees no possibility of winning.

The Democratic left may feel diminished American power isn’t a bad thing, and the Republican right may resent it, but both often conclude that the country should avoid “foreign entanglements,” as George Washington famously put it. It’s a vision of a more isolated America, trying to keep the world’s problems at bay. Savvier politicians understand that the big -problems—everything from economic troubles to terrorist threats—cannot be cordoned off, and in a divided Congress, their voices could be heard. If Obama wants bipartisan successes, he could reach out to the Republicans who still support free trade, tempering the shrill rhetoric on both sides. If Republicans want to disprove the charge that they are the Party of No, they can suggest specific ways to bolster American power—for instance, by working with the Obama team on ensuring an effective ballistic-missile-defense system. Washington needs leaders who understand the world, and don’t run from it.

To paraphrase Mark Twain: “Rumours about Pakistan’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.” By any measure, the country has defied the odds, and we are one of the most resilient nations on earth. How many nations are capable of surviving the manmade and natural catastrophes that we are periodically subjected to, not counting the disaster that is our democratic leadership? Even incurable optimists like me do not cease to wonder at our inherent ability to rise from the ashes. Something like Razzak’s amazing century the other day in Abu Dhabi.

In 2009, parliament (which is “supreme”) voluntarily surrendered sovereign authority in Swat, with hardly any debate and in less than one day. The public mask for the evil designs of Fazlullah, his murderous son-in-law, Sufi Mohammad gave away the jihadis’ hand by publicly heaping scorn on the Supreme Court. For good measure, he added that the militants did not recognise the country’s Constitution. Had the media darling of that time not shot off his mouth prematurely, Swat’s population would today be subject to the Fazlullah brand of Shahriah, thanks to parliament that has never revoked that despicable Resolution. With Islamabad only 60 kms away as the crow flies. The “domino theory” was very much a possibility in the adjoining districts. The outraged public reaction and the continuing atrocities perpetuated by Fazlullah was “casus belli,” giving space to the army deal with them effectively.

Once given the green signal and with the population firmly behind its campaign the army showed no reluctance or hesitation in going after the insurgent terrorist menace within our borders. The successful counterinsurgency overcame the psychological barrier, the feeling that the jihadis could not be beaten. The battlefield momentum was thereafter extended to South Waziristan. The Mahsuds provided the supposedly impenetrable outer ring around the non-Pakistani Al-Qaeda stronghold. But the myth of their invincibility, created with the help of uninformed media hype, soon evaporated. Many cadres of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were killed. Some were taken captive but a substantial number melted away, many of them seeking (and receiving) refuge in North Waziristan from the Haqqani group.

Not that the army is infallible. The other day someone mentioned that the Pakistani army was working on a new doctrine. One was not surprised that an enquiry about the national security strategy on which the doctrine should be based produced blank looks. One may be forgiven for being rather skeptical. But, after all, who can forget the brilliance (and the after-effects) of the last two “doctrines”: (1) the defence of the East lies in the West, and (2) Afghanistan gives us strategic depth.

In similar vein, when Mian Nawaz Sharif talks about a 25-year charter drawn up by all stakeholders, one wonders what in the world is he talking about. For example, what really is the PML-N chief doing about the electricity and petroleum rates hiked beyond description? Forget the “vision thing.” The PML-N leader should start playing the role that Pakistanis want from the opposition, both within parliament and outside, providing the checks and balances that are the essence of democracy.
The Supreme Court judgment on the 18th Amendment was quite Solomonic, and hopefully parliament would respond in a mature fashion and correct the anomalies that have slipped into an otherwise commendable Raza Rabbani-led achievement. The PML-N’s ineptitude and the Supreme Court inaction have gifted Zardari time and space time and again. The one public official in Pakistan who does not have to declare his assets, the president has used this repeated let-off quite brilliantly, launching an effective attack against the Supreme Court’s credibility. While the Supreme Court has been forced occasionally to take the opposition’s role by default to ensure and/or enforce the rule of law for the hapless people of Pakistan, it has only itself to blame for vacillating in implementing its judgment on the NRO, whose beneficiaries continue to disfigure at will whatever governance there is in Pakistan.

The US is generous in getting material and monetary aid to us whenever we face either manmade and/or natural disasters. The US Chinooks supplementing Pakistan Army Aviation helicopters made the difference between life and death for millions stranded above the snowline in the high mountains during Earthquake 2005. The Chinooks were joined this time around during the devastating Floods 2010 by Sea Stallions in saving thousands upon thousands from the rising floodwaters, as well as delivering timely material aid. The $2 billion in military aid promised by the US recently is rather niggardly (at $500 million a year beginning 2012), when the amount is compared to the $18 billion largesse for the Afghan National Army (ANA). One must not look a gift horse in the mouth, but one feel more than a little aggrieved at what is being poured into a black hole in Afghanistan. The Pakistani army has lost more than 3,000 killed in the last 18 months, the ANA less than 300 dead (all the coalition forces put together have lost about 600 killed in action this year).

It is a fact of life that our young men in uniform are being killed in the line of duty at a ratio of 10:1 to the number of coalition casualties put together. Compared to the Afghan civilian casualties, our young and old – men, women and children – are dying at about the same rate at the hands of suicide bombers in the streets of Pakistan. While we must own the war against terrorism, it is ours to fight and win, the disparity in our effort compared to the treatment meted out to us rankles with us.

US ambassador Cameron Munter has hit the ground running. That is good, given the rather large shoes of his predecessor that he has to fill. Ambassador Anne Patterson was a class act and, even though one did disagree with her shoring up an inherently corrupt and ineffective leadership in Pakistan which represents everything that the average American can never stomach, she was outstanding in coalescing the core interests of the US with the concerns of Pakistan.

It is no secret that the US has always had (and continues to have) inordinate influence over our rulers, civil and military included, and while Pakistan may not always carry out their express instructions immediately, either because of a lack of resources and/or long-term core interests: e.g., action against the Haqqani group in North Waziristan, the US can (and must) use its considerable clout, Holbrooke notwithstanding, to ensure that our corrupt-to-the-core rulers adhere to the rule of law.

Let’s call a spade a spade and not insult everybody’s intelligence. We should be content being paid a pittance as mercenaries. What else will be made out to look when President Obama visits the real US “strategic partner” in the next few days? While the security of the US president must be the deciding factor, Obama should be persuaded to put himself in harm’s way for “a country that refuses to fail.” Even a few hours on our soil would be a tremendous vote of confidence.

Click here to read this piece online

“India’s ‘strategic relationship’ with each of these countries requires tending,” states Sibal. 

Sibal discusses the formation of the India-France relationship after India’s 1998 nuclear tests: “France sensed the opportunity that had emerged to forge a strategic relationship with an independent-minded country that could be a partner in promoting multipolarity as a response to U.S. unilateralism.”

The India-Russia relationship, which had drifted during the Yeltsin years, was renewed under Putin: “Putin saw the strategic need for Russia to restore its traditional ties with India as part of a more balanced foreign policy that reflected Russia’s Asia dimension.”

The India-U.S. relationship is complicated by nuclear weapons, U.S. arms supplies to Pakistan, and the growing economic interdependence between the U.S. and China. Despite many shared values such as democracy, religious tolerance and respect for human rights, “the burden of responsibility to eliminate the negative elements from the India-U.S. relationship still remains with the U.S.,” Sibal claims. 

Sibal believes that Barack Obama should announce his support for India’s permanent membership to the Security Council during his upcoming visit, in order to strengthen the bilateral relationship.

Sibal concludes, “India would need to finely tune the balance of its defense ties with each of these strategic partners to ensure that all three contribute to India security optimally.”

Click here to read Sibal's piece in The Telegraph