Obama's Bold Game of Russian Roulette (UPI)

M.D. NALAPAT

With the same confidence that allowed the junior senator from Illinois to launch a campaign for the presidency of the United States, Barack Obama has decided to "reset" U.S.-Russian relations, banking on the forward-looking vision he shares with Russian President Dimitry Medvedev.

For the U.S. president this has been a high-risk operation, given the undercurrent of suspicion toward Russia within the U.S. strategic community as well as the citizenry. But the benefits are clear. The securing of transit rights through Russian territory and airspace for U.S. military materiel to Afghanistan, as agreed Monday, will reduce Washington's current dependence on Pakistan.

A further warming of ties also may encourage the Moscow-leaning former Afghan Northern Alliance groups to stop sulking and participate in the war against the Taliban. Leaving this struggle to the ethnic Pashtun groups alone would be a mistake that could cost Afghan President Hamid Karzai at least one-fifth -- if not one-third -- of his country. The Taliban has to be rooted out of both Pakistan and Afghanistan if the region is to have a chance at rapid social and economic development.

NATO's substantial outsourcing of Afghan strategy to the Pakistan army has resulted in the neglect of former elements of the Northern Alliance, despite the group's experience in fighting the Taliban. This should be rectified through reconciliation between the former anti-Taliban fighters and NATO, a process that the Obama-Medvedev initiative begun in Moscow on Monday could accelerate.

The geopolitics of Michael Jackson (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — Given the many allegations that he endured, as well as the fall in stage appearances in the past few years, pop star Michael Jackson may have been surprised by the emotion caused by his death. Admirers in every continent gave voice to their feelings, making it impossible for traducers to attempt one final stab at Jackson’s reputation.

The legacy of the singer includes a geopolitical factor; he provided the proof that while prejudice may exist on the surface, deeper inside each person is the recognition of a common humanity. He represented the need for unity in a world where communications and travel have melted boundaries.

Many, if not most, of Jackson's mourners were of European ethnicity, the group that has led the world for close to six centuries, till the middle of the last century. This success has created resentment in some other groups, of which pronounced manifestations can be seen in leaders such as Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The first has bankrupted his country by launching a war that is in significant ways racial; the other seems to be following the same path, though hopefully will reconsider before his country becomes another Zimbabwe.

Both leaders have made an error common in post-colonial societies, which is to ascribe all current ills to the single factor of external rule, avoiding internal factors that may have contributed to social disintegration even before colonization or even facilitated the original takeover of the nation.

Khamenei Turns on Khomeini's Own (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — When Iran’s Assembly of Experts chose Ali Khamenei as the country’s Supreme Leader on June 4, 1989, it was because he was seen as a "consensus" man. After a decade under Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as Supreme Leader – a title he created to ensure that the clerics would dominate Iran – people were fatigued by the austere leader's style and his air of near infallibility.

The country had been through the cauldron of war with Iraq and was bleeding and in disarray. Earlier, as president of Iran, Khamenei had impressed many with his willingness to consult a wide range of people and to give precedence to the views of experts over those of the more impulsive clerics.

Indeed, he was not even an ayatollah – he was given the title only after Imam Khomeini passed away. Even so, several of the country's grand ayatollahs opposed the move, pointing to Khamenei's lack of significant theological contributions and to the fact that his role had been largely political.

These were ignored by the Assembly of Experts. They needed a Supreme Leader who would allow them the freedom to make the country functional again. In particular, Khomeini’s men rallied behind Khamenei, pointing out that the Imam had himself appointed Khamenei to lead Friday prayers in Tehran toward the second half of 1989.

For nearly a decade the new Supreme Leader kept a low profile, in contrast to his predecessor. He allowed the elected government a genuine say in the administration of Iran, and reined in clerics who were eager to resume the dominance they enjoyed under Grand Ayatollah Khomeini.

Rudd in Denial About Ozzie Racism (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat 

Manipal, India - At least 12 Indian students have been attacked in Australia in half that many weeks. This has put at risk not only the country’s multibillion-dollar education industry, but also Australia's image as a tolerant and inclusive country.

The Victorian police have deliberately refrained from releasing details of the attackers, but the odds are that most of the attacks were carried out by youths of Eastern European background. Given the post-war economic chaos and political stunting in these states, the only "distinction" that migrants from such countries have clung to has been their absence of tanned skin.

Many migrants from Eastern Europe to North America and Australia are horrified at the increasing number of immigrants with duskier complexions than theirs. This sentiment was personally witnessed by this columnist during a visit to the United States in 1992, when a group of Eastern European migrants expressed their shock at the number of non-whites admitted to a country they had been taught to regard as a white bastion. These individuals were clear that such migration ought to be banned forthwith.

The same sentiment was expressed this year by those who attacked Indians for being different from Australians. The attackers seemed to be unaware that Australia is almost entirely a country of migrants, albeit mostly from Europe until Fortress White Australia began to be dismantled during the 1980s – almost entirely by white liberals in that country

Will the Maoists defang Nepal's army? (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — Nepal would never have come to be led by Maoists were it not for the help that the rebels got from India. For decades, Maoist guerrillas took refuge in India’s eastern states of West Bengal and Bihar, given sanctuary by an indulgent Indian administration.

Later, the Maoists’ numerous contacts within the Indian security establishment ensured New Delhi’s help in emasculating Nepal’s monarchy – according to courtiers within Kathmandu’s Narayanhiti Palace, because the Nepali king and Sonia Gandhi disliked each other – and subsequently nudged the Nepali Congress into joining a government led by the guerrilla fighters.

Since then things have shifted. China has characteristically reversed its earlier policy of backing the monarchy, and has become the most significant international backer of Nepal's version of the Peoples Liberation Army. This is causing increasing disquiet in India, which – foolishly – has an open border with Nepal.

Now the Maoists seem set to increase their grip on the country by replacing the head of Nepal's military with a stooge of their own. Army Chief Rukmangud Katawal has thus far resisted both threats and inducements to infuse a flood of guerrilla fighters into what is still a professional fighting force. Should he be replaced, the odds are that the Nepali army – the only effective barrier between the Maoists and dictatorial control – will succumb to their pressures.

Interestingly, it is the pro-China – and therefore pro-Pakistan, given the alliance between these two neighbors of India – groups within Nepal's political establishment that are backing the dismissal of Katawal. Because their own coalition partners oppose the move, the Maoists are looking to jettison them and form an alliance with the opposition Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist).

Will Turkey succumb to Wahabbism? (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — Wahabbism, the radical Islam currently advancing around the globe, originated in the 18th century as a philosophy designed to counter the moderate, syncretic Islam that was the heart of Turkey's culture, and which the Ottoman Empire had disseminated among its principalities, including those in the Arabian Peninsula.

Quick to sense the potential of the new faith in weaning away regional loyalties from the Ottomans, Britain early on became a backer of the creed, thus ensuring its rise to dominance within the Arabian Peninsula by the dawn of the 20th century. Beginning in the 1980s it spread to much of the rest of the Muslim world.

Today, because of the unstinted financial support of its principal adherents, Wahabbism has become the fastest-growing faith on the planet. It has succeeded in taking over many of the institutions, as well as the physical infrastructure, of the Sunni branch of Islam. Even within the Shiite branch, it has found in the Khomeinists an ideological twin that since 1979 has controlled the largest country in the region, Iran.

Thus far, only Turkey has remained immune to its relentless advance, steeped as that country was in the Sufi traditions that underpin its culture.

Turkey is the only country in the Muslim-majority world – since the Mongol invasions of the continent nearly nine centuries ago – to have conquered territory in Europe. The memory of this still makes a majority of Europeans flinch from accepting this entirely deserving country into the European Union.

Outside View: Afghanistan -- back to the '90s? (UPI)

M D Nalapat

At the risk of some repetition, it is worth mentioning two facts that seem unknown to policymakers such as U.S. envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke. The first is that the Asia of the 21st century is a tad different from that of the 19th; hence dredging up stored wisdom on how European colonial powers handled situations on the continent during that era may not be an entirely accurate guide to sensible policy.

The second is that the ideology of the Pakistani army is based not on military needs and capabilities but on a vision of Mughal-era India and the conviction that someday that glorious epoch will return to the subcontinent.

Despite 50 years of standing by as money and equipment meant to fight first communism and later the Taliban were diverted toward India-centric purposes, the United States -- under a proposal originally made by Joe Biden, now U.S. vice president, and Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind. -- is likely to provide a huge budget boost to Pakistan. It seems that U.S. and EU policymakers are still under the delusion that the Pakistani army will -- or indeed can -- take on the jihadists.
Given this, it seems inevitable that the coming years will see the return of the Taliban to effective control of much of Afghanistan.

Punjabi Power and Zardari (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat


MANIPAL, India, March 18 (UPI) -- Regular readers of this column will not have been surprised at recent developments in Pakistan, in which army chief Ashfaq Kayani enforced the surrender of the Pakistan Peoples Party-led government to the demands of the Pakistan Muslim League-N chief, Nawaz Sharif.

The core purpose of Kayani's institution is to ensure the continued supremacy of Wahhabi Punjabis over all other groups in Pakistan, a mission that it has fulfilled thus far.

Uppity non-Punjabis, such as assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, were shown their place for daring to talk of a genuinely federal structure for the country. Now it is the turn of her husband, President Asif Ali Zardari, to be at the business end of Kayani's swagger stick.

The "honest" former -- and soon to be reinstated -- chief justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Chaudhry, has been a member in good standing of the Punjabi supremacist brigade since his years as a lawyer. He detests Zardari and has only kind words about his champion and fellow Punjabi, Nawaz Sharif. This despite the fact that the Sharif family has acquired an asset base of close to $2 billion, entirely because of its proximity to the military and other levers of patronage in Pakistan.

Kayani: Arsonist Disguised as Firefighter (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat 

Manipal, India — Pakistan's chief of army staff, General Parvez Ashfaq Kayani, is a master at the strategy of starting a fire and then volunteering to put it out in exchange for concessions. Yet he was taken aback when President Asif Ali Zardari declined to enter the noose of imprisonment being prepared for him by the expected return to office of dismissed Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.

Zardari has refused to reinstate Chaudhry, ousted by his predecessor Gen. Pervez Musharraf, despite urgings from Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani – who was functioning in tandem with Kayani in wanting a more pliant head of state than Zardari.

Since then, Kayani has been working at undermining his nominal superior, ensuring a steady diet of negative media reports about Zardari, and ensuring backroom backing for those champions of Punjabi supremacy in Pakistan, the Sharif brothers. The conspirators meet outside Pakistan, usually in locations in the Middle East, to fine-tune their plans to ensure the removal of Zardari and the return to center stage of Kayani ally Nawaz Sharif.

Of concern to democracies about this Pakistani soap opera is the backing that Kayani has given to the Taliban and its parasite, al-Qaida. It is no accident that NATO has failed to prevent this group of louts from retaking one-third of Afghanistan and moving into the rest.

U.S. backing for Kayani has ensured that the Pakistan military's double-faced policy of secretly helping the Taliban while publicly backing NATO continues. Now that the Clinton team is back in office, courtesy of President Barack Obama, the United States is returning to the 1994-96 policy of backing the Taliban.

Kayani goes after Zardari (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat 

MANIPAL, India, March 10 (UPI) -- Say this for Pakistan's army -- its aftershave works. It seems to reduce to blobs of helpless jelly the critical faculties of U.S. "experts" on Pakistan within the CIA, the State Department and the Department of Defense.

Since the jihadization of the military by Pakistan's former president Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in the 1970s, the officer corps has continued as a force multiplier for the numerous terror groups headquartered in urban and rural communities across the country.

Except for Jehangir Karamat, the former chief of army staff who accepted his 1998 dismissal by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, no chief of army staff since Zia-ul-Haq (1976-1988) has paid heed to the elected civilian government of Pakistan in matters considered by the military to be within its purview.

These include the portfolios of defense, interior, foreign affairs and now the prime minister's office, as well as subjects such as assistance to terror organizations and the nuclear deterrent. Such an arrangement has had the tacit acquiescence of every North Atlantic Treaty Organization country -- including those that specialize in delivering sermons on democracy and human rights.

Despite the armed forces' control over areas considered key to the functioning of government in any major country, both India and the United Kingdom are enthusiastic in insisting that Pakistan remain within "value-based" forums like the Commonwealth. They also back every loan application Pakistan makes to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, despite the kleptomania of its higher echelons. Admittedly, this trait of Pakistan is shared with many countries in the world, including India.

Stealthy Kayani goes after Zardari

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — Say this for Pakistan’s army, their after-shave works reducing the critical faculties of U.S. "experts" on Pakistan within the CIA, the State Department and the Department of Defense to blobs of helpless jelly.

Since the jihadization of the military by Pakistan’s former President General Zia-ul-Haq in the 1970s, officer corps within the force has continued as a force multiplier for the numerous terror groups headquartered in urban and rural communities across the country.

Except for Jehangir Karamat, Pakistan’s former chief of Army Staff, who accepted his 1998 dismissal at the hands of then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, no chief of Army Staff since Zia-ul-Haq (1976-1988) has accepted any role for the elected civilian government of Pakistan in matters considered by the military to be within its purview. These include the portfolios of defense, foreign affairs and now the prime minister’s office, as well as subjects such as assistance to terror organizations, and the nuclear deterrent. Such an arrangement has had the tacit acquiescence of every NATO country including those who specialize in delivering sermons on democracy and human rights.

Despite the control of the armed forces over most areas considered key to the functioning of a government in any major country, both India as well as the United Kingdom are enthusiastic in insisting that Pakistan remain within "value-based" fora like the Commonwealth, and back every loan application of that country in the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund despite the kleptomania of its higher echelons, which admittedly is a trait shared by Pakistan with several countries in the world including India.

Except the United States, no country in the world has lavished more treasure on Pakistan including the two runners-up in its “Santa Claus” sweepstakes - Saudi Arabia and China.

The Danger of Pakistan's "Hidden Taliban"

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — Attendees at the numerous parties held in Lahore, Islamabad or Karachi would find it difficult to accept that Pakistan is heading toward Talibanization. Alcohol and the attentions of the opposite sex are there in profusion, while the passports of those present would testify to their global footprint.

Unfortunately, the gilded individuals whose aftershave has so charmed legions of otherwise hardnosed U.S. officials – be they spies, military or civilian – have almost no influence over the base of that country's social pyramid.

At the base, two generations of indoctrination have created a perception that what is needed to bring progress, absent all their lives, is the practice of the "pure" version of their faith. Of course this is only possible once the "impure" have been driven from office through terror and intimidation.

This idea was fostered by General Pervez Musharraf in an agreement with the so-called “Pakistan Taliban” – a formulation that ignores the unity of command and operation between those functioning on either side of the Pakistan-Afghan border drawn by British colonial overlords in 1893 and dividing the Pashtun people.

Strange Shiite Bedfellows (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat

MANIPAL, India, Feb. 13 (UPI) -- The Shiite branch of Islam is regarded as heresy by followers of Wahhabism, an Islamic school of thought founded in the 18th century by Abdul Wahhab. Extreme adherents of this faith routinely visit violence on Shiites, and every one of its preachers condemns the Shiites as un-Islamic.

However, the 1979 ascendance of Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to absolute power in Iran meant the capture of one of the geopolitical pivots of the Shiite world -- the other being Iraq -- by a thinker whose teachings closely resembled the philosophy of Abdul Wahhab, at least in tone.

Wahhab's ideas originally had been designed to counter the influence of Turkish Sufi doctrine over the Arab Bedouin. The Wahhabis enjoyed the support of the British Empire and its successor in international reach, the United States, initially because this alienation from Turkish influence suited their interests.

This backing began to be withdrawn only after Sept. 11, 2001. Nearly nine years after that event, the prying away of Wahhabis from the state structures of key Muslim-majority states has been at best partial, and usually no more than cosmetic. Wahhabism continues to dominate the world of Muslim religious schools and sites by the marginalization of clerics and scholars who subscribe to a moderate -- if not Sufi -- worldview.

Nowhere has this process secured deeper roots than in Pakistan.

Khomeinist Iran Turns to Pakistan (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat 

Manipal, India — The Shiite branch of Islam is regarded as heresy by followers of the founder of Wahabbism, Abdel Wahab (1703-1792). Extreme adherents of this faith routinely visit violence on the Shiites, and every one of its preachers condemns the Shiites as un-Islamic.

However, the 1979 ascendance of Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to absolute power in Iran meant the capture of one of the geopolitical pivots of the Shiite world – the other being Iraq – by a thinker whose teachings closely resembled the philosophy of Abdel Wahab.

These ideas had originally been designed to counter the control exercised by Turkish Sufi doctrine over the Arab Bedouin. The Wahabbis enjoyed the support of the British Empire and its successor in international reach, the United States, initially because this alienation from Turkish influence suited their interests.

This backing began to be withdrawn only after 9/11. Nearly nine years after that event, the prising away of Wahabbis from the state structures of key Muslim-majority states has been at best partial, and usually no more than cosmetic. Wahabbism continues to dominate the world of Muslim religious schools and sites by ensuring the elimination of clerics and scholars who subscribe to a moderate – if not Sufi – worldview.

Nowhere has this process secured deeper roots than in Pakistan. Apart from some locations in the Middle East and North Africa, Pakistan has become the most significant jihadi factory, turning out thousands each year. Education in the religious schools, or madrassas, is based on vilification of those not subservient to a Wahabbi mindset. Even regular school education in Pakistan has aped models in the "moderate" Middle East by including heavy doses of religion in what ought to be secular curricula.

Miliband Bats for Pakistan's Military (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — Someone forgot to tell Britain's foreign secretary and would-be prime minister, David Miliband, that the Union Jack no longer flies over New Delhi’s Viceregal Palace, now renamed "Rashtrapati Bhavan," or "Head of the Nation House." During his visit to India last month, his hosts found Miliband’s conduct and views so offensive that a relatively junior official from the External Affairs Ministry was trotted out to insist that India did not need "unsolicited" advice.

The official was referring to Miliband's motif during the visit – that New Delhi ought to make concessions on Kashmir so the Pakistan army would assist NATO with more sincerity and efficacy than it has since the 2001 NATO-Taliban war started in Afghanistan.

Clearly, Miliband is unaware of the dynamics of decision making in a democracy. He appears to view India in the same league as China, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, in each of which a single institution – the Communist Party, the army and the monarchy, respectively – calls the shots.

Were Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to follow Miliband’s peremptory advice – enabling the Pakistan army to gain through diplomacy concessions that they have thus far been unable to wrest by jihad – not only would domestic politics in India be inflamed to Bangladeshi proportions, but the Wahabbis that control the Pakistan army would be able to recover some of the ground they have lost with regard to public opinion and moderate civil society.

Two Responses to Terror (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat 

MANIPAL, India, Jan. 15 (UPI) -- Although both are democracies, Israel and India are polar opposites in their response to "asymmetrical" warfare -- also known as terrorism. While India until now has consistently adopted a soft -- some would say soggy -- policy toward the Pakistani army's tactics of using jihadis to weaken India socially, militarily and economically, Israel has almost invariably responded with force to similar tactics by Hamas, Hezbollah and other jihadist organizations that seek to attack the Jewish state.

In both Lebanon and Gaza, Hezbollah and Hamas, respectively, have not concealed the fact that they regard themselves as being at war with Israel. Those who voted for either certainly must have understood that the coming to office of these two military formations would mean war with Israel, a conflict in which both sides would be expected to deploy the forces available to them. The citizens of Lebanon are now discovering the likely consequences if they elect Hezbollah to power, the way Gazans did with Hamas in the last election.

While Shiite Hezbollah depends almost entirely on Iran for its resources and on Syria for infrastructural support, Sunni Hamas gets funding from well-wishers across the world, including a number in Europe and North America who route their contributions through safe channels. Although accurate estimates are difficult, an average of four informed guesstimates puts the Iranian contribution at 35 percent of the total funds made available to Hamas.

The Road to Terror Runs Through Pakistan (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — The 1989 defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan was a tactical victory, but a strategic defeat for the Western alliance. The induced success of the jihadis gave them a boost of vainglory, leading to the expansion of their jihad to the West.

Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and their al-Qaida organization are the unintended consequences of the 1979-87 strategy by former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and former director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency William Casey of funding, training and equipping jihadists to fight a conventional force.

Those lessons are now coming in handy for terrorists operating in the Afghan countryside, where NATO is floundering in a manner similar to the 1983-84 travails of the Soviet battalions.

If it can be said that the economic and other costs of the Afghan war helped push the Soviet Union to collapse, it can also be argued by those determined to undermine the West that the immense financial costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – along with the concomitant speculative rise in commodity prices sparked by the conflicts – are responsible for the apparent meltdown in Western economies witnessed in the latter half of 2008.

Iraq and Afghanistan are theaters separated by conditions on the ground. In Iraq, the policy of occupation has led to an essentially nationalist rebellion against the United States and the United Kingdom – giving the religious Shiite parties an opportunity to secure the political space left empty by the secular nationalists’ recourse to insurgency.

Building war hysteria to cover up failure on home front (Organiser)

By M D Nalapat


Kayani wanted an Indian mobilisation. He should not get it. War is not the option, at least for the present. And it is surprising that Senator John McCain sought to generate the sort of hysteria that the Pakistan army was seeking by claiming that the Manmohan Singh government was very close to such a course. 

That an attack on Mumbai was being planned within the highest echelons of the Pakistan military was no secret to the US, Saudi Arabian and Chinese secret services. The Saudi state has traditionally valued the interests of the Pakistan army above those of the 156 million Muslims of India, while the PLA has since 1958 been in favour of any action by any source that it sees as weakening India.

Indeed, even these days, it is mainly affluent Saudis who fund the opulent lifestyles of jehadi terrorists such as those belonging to the LeT. Even in the case of Mumbai, the Chinese and the Saudi secret services kept this information of an impending attack on India to themselves. As for the US, it acted in a half-hearted manner, passing on not the full situation report but a confusing and non-actionable collage of bits and pieces of intelligence on what its sources within Pakistan had learnt about the impending attack.

As in the past, the prime consideration of the CIA was not the saving of Indian lives, but the protection of their friends in Pakistan from exposure as terrorist supporters. However, this time around, the CIA made a mistake that cost several American lives. It assumed that the attacks would once again be carried out in locations frequented only by Indian vegetable sellers, unemployed youth and junior staff in nearby offices. The ISI-friendly intelligence agency of the US did not forecast that the Pakistan army's targets would this time be the business elite of India, the very societal group that has driven forward the India-US alliance forged during the latter phase of the Bush presidency. That in the process of killing large numbers of the Indian elite, the Pakistani terrorists would also identify, isolate and kill nationals of the US, the UK and Israel, for the first time in India (outside Kashmir).

Why did the Pakistan army make its terrorist ancillaries go this far? Clearly, the generals were determined to punish Washington for continously prodding the Pakistan army to take action against its ally, the Taliban. Angered by the constant US pressure to act in less than the present deliberately ineffective way in FATA, senior generals within the Pakistan services led by (the US-approved) Ashfaq Parvez Kayani decided to take revenge on the US and its closest European ally, the UK, by choosing locations where nationals of both countries congregated, the Taj and Trident hotels on Mumbai's waterfront. The training of the "terror commandos", their equipping and the entire logistics of the operation was handled by the Pakistan army, acting through officers "on leave".

The expectation within the Pakistan military was that such a show of vulnerability of their own nations would divert the attention of the US away from its focus on the western border of Pakistan to fight the Taliban towards the traditional Pakistan army project of creating a Talibanised state in Kashmir with US-EU help. In other words, towards a repeat of Kosovo. The Mumbai attacks would be used by the Pakistan establishment to illustrate "the cost of not solving the Kashmir issue" to the advantage of the Pakistan army, and would thus assist policymakers in the US receptive to the Pakistan army in making President-elect Barack Obama keep his promise of pressuring India to change the status quo in Kashmir.

A statement that must rank as one of the most unwise ever made by this otherwise brilliant and charismatic leader, in the context of stability in South Asia. Indeed, a plausible case can be made out that Obama's Kashmir-centric musings on India-Pakistan relations may have served as a strand in the matrix of reasons for launching such a direct attack on the West and friends of the West in India.

Unfortunately for the future trajectory of the battle against terrorism in the region, President-elect Obama (with inputs from Pakistan Army backer Shirin Taher-Kheli and pro-army academics such as Stephen Cohen and Teresita Shaffer) injected himself into the Kashmir cauldron to the satisfaction of the backers of jehad. Neither he nor his principal foreign policy advisor Susan Rice seems to have studied the purport of the numerous and consistent statements and literature of those active in what is clearly a pan-Indian jehad. The jehadi groups operating within Kashmir and now within the whole of India are transparent and consistent in conveying their message: that Kashmir is but the appetizer. The main course will be the rest of India, the population of which will have the option of either converting to Wahabbism or surviving as serfs, as they did during the reign of kings as enlightened and secular as Aurangzeb Alamgir.

As part of their objective of diverting international attention away from their own refusal to take on and help defeat the Taliban, the Pakistan army expected that the Mumbai strike would ensure that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh go the emotional way of Atal Behari Vajpayee in 2002 by responding to the November 26-28 Mumbai attack by another sham mobilisation of troops on India's western frontier. Not only did the 2002 military mobilisation by India have zero impact on the Pakistan army's determination to bleed India to extinction by multiple terrorist cuts, it created an excuse for Robert Blackwill (the US envoy to Delhi at the time) to demonise the country before the international business community as an unsafe investment destination. Although he, as did most other diplomats, were aware that Shri Vajpayee was bluffing and that war was never an option, Blackwill engineered a pell-mell evacutation of tens of thousands of US nationals from India, a step that was duplicated even by the otherwise cool Israelis. By this single act of advertising India as a likely theatre of nuclear conflict, Blackwill did yet another favour to his friends in Beijing, through substantially weakening India's case as a stable alternative investment destination to the PRC. Yet another war scare this time around would have put the finishing touches to the destruction of India's economic capability since 2005 that has been carried out by Sonia Maino's men in the Finance Ministry, SEBI and the RBI.

Fortunately for the country, Manmohan Singh's pacifist nature (which renders him unable to respond with force even if faced with a nuclear attack) for once proved to the correct medicine, as his spokespersons made it repeatedly known that war was not on the table. A mobilisation of troops towards the Pakistan border would have played into the hands of the Pakistan army, which is eager for an excuse to move away from the Afghan to the India border, aware that its policy of talking tough against the Taliban while secretly helping them prevail in the field has become visible even to the most moonstruck admirers in the US and the EU—and these are many—of "Jehad" Kayani and his merry men. Given the propensity of these self-proclaimed "pious Muslims" towards the hedonistic lifestyle, had the US made the UN impose sanctions on the pro-jehad generals in the Pakistan army, most would have abandoned the path of terror rather than forsake the comforts of London and New York. Sadly, rather than be reviled and shunned, "Jehad" Kayani and his team are feted by their very victims.

Kayani wanted an Indian mobilisation. He should not get it. War is not the option, at least for the present. And it is surprising that Senator John McCain sought to generate the sort of hysteria that the Pakistan army was seeking by claiming that the Manmohan Singh government was very close to such a course, when no such impression was conveyed to him. On the contrary, India needs to give upto 36 months (or 24, depending on the frequency and scale of future attacks) to Washington in that ally's efforts to steer the Pakistan military away from its policy of helping jehadis attack India. Should the US fail to achieve such a result during this timeframe, India should launch a war against the Pakistan army. This can be initially confined to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in the first instance, and against military targets only, including of course terrorist infrastructure. Should Pakistan respond by retaliating against India beyond military targets in Kashmir, our counter-attack should be expanded to cover the whole country, again initially with only military targets being selected. Should the Pakistan military at any stage respond with an attack on civilian areas, an all-out offensive should be launched, designed to ensure the shutting down of rail, road, sea and air traffic in Pakistan, to demonstrate the costs of nurturing terrorists. In the unlikely event that a nuclear device will be deployed against an Indian target, the top 10 cities in Pakistan should be automatically and repeatedly bombed with nuclear weapons. Massive nuclear retaliation is the only sane response to such an escalation of aggression by the generals in Pakistan. While India needs to hold its military fire now, the entire country must begin preparations immediately for war with Pakistan within 36 months, should US effiorts fail.

Should Washington fail to defang the jehadi beast that it still believes to be its ally rather than the single biggest present threat to international security, there would be no other option other than war for India, if the country is to avoid the deadly bleed caused by jehadist violence that has been the country's fate since the 1980s, and which has accelerated since Sonia Maino took over its fortunes (in some senses, literally) in 2004. The public in India needs to be prepared for the prospect of a war that could see the end of Pakistan, possibly at the cost of significant destruction in India. However painful this may be, it is nevertheless preferable to suffering jehadi terror indefinitely, and this time, the war needs to end only with the dismantling of the terror camps (in the scenario where the Pakistan army responds rationally to the limited Indian offensive and conducts only a limited response) or the destruction of Pakistan as a viable country (in the event that a nuclear device get used by Pakistan). This has to be the final India-Pakistan war. 


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The Pakistani Army's Phony War on Terror (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India - Pakistan's U.S.-approved chief of army staff, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, wanted a less unpredictable personality than Asif Ali Zardari as president of the country. But the crafty equestrian from Sindh insisted on the job, aware that the absence of high office would almost certainly mean either a death sentence or a fresh stint in jail, as Zardari faced several corruption charges.

Since then, "the chief" has seethed as Zardari admitted publicly that the jihadis fighting India in Kashmir were terrorists, and further, that he himself saw no threat from India, thus destroying the army's rationale for consuming more than one-third of the budget. By the time Pakistan's new president said that, like India, Pakistan was committed to a "no first use" policy on nuclear weapons, Kayani had made up his mind that Zardari had to go, and was searching for an opportunity to get him out.

The chief's undiplomatic descriptions of his nominal superior to his intimates have been many and acid, but his personal relationship with U.S. policy gurus has thus far ensured that Washington saw nothing untoward in the clear divergence of views and interests between the chief and the president – or in the chief's private musings about replacing the president. This was Pakistan, after all.

Mumbai 11/27 – the date that marks the midpoint of the three-day terrorist siege in the city – may have shaken the complacency of U.S. and EU policymakers about Kayani's suitability to lead an army touted as the linchpin of the allies in the war on terror.

Mumbai 11/27: the Pakistan Army's Alibi (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — Since the terror attacks on Mumbai five days ago, key Western intelligence agencies have been shown documented proof that the operation was carried out by squads trained by regular elements of the Pakistan army.

While the field training took place at a farm run by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, near Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, fluency in the handling of ordnance was taught at another ISI safe house on the outskirts of Karachi.

Pakistan has done little to create deniability about these connections or earlier links discovered by U.S. intelligence agencies between the ISI and the July 7 bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul.

The Pakistan army has made little secret of the fact that the top priority of its intelligence operations is to reverse India’s path toward social stability and economic growth. Still, why were so many tell-tale clues left behind in these attacks that enraged the Indian public and made the world aware that India is the softest terrorist target among the major democracies?

Analysts piecing together the documentation are divided over whether army chief Ashfaq Kiyani was himself in the loop on the Mumbai attacks. It is certain that at least two corps commanders were, however, both of whom provided materiel and arranged training for the 70-odd terrorists tasked with the Mumbai operations.

Their hope was that India would respond to the attacks the way it did to a failed bid to kill members of Parliament in 2001 – by mobilizing troops on the Pakistan border and creating an expectation that a full-scale, conventional India-Pakistan war was imminent. At that time Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee's unwise decision to "bluff" the Pakistanis into cooperating with India by the threat of war boomeranged on New Delhi. Foreign missions evacuated their nationals in a panic and business confidence plunged.

Pakistan's Mumbai Alibi (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat 

MANIPAL, India, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- Since the terror attacks on Mumbai five days ago, Indian security sources have promoted evidence that the attackers were trained by elements of the Pakistani military.

While the field training took place at a camp run by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency near Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, fluency in the handling of ordnance was taught at another ISI safe house on the outskirts of Karachi.

Pakistan has done little to create deniability about these connections or earlier links discovered by U.S. intelligence agencies between the ISI and the July 7 bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Many analysts see the top priority of Pakistani intelligence as reversing India's path toward social stability and economic growth. Still, why were so many telltale clues left behind in these attacks that enraged the Indian public and made the world aware that India is among the softest terrorist targets of the major democracies?

The hope of those who planned last week's attack was that India would respond to the attacks the way it did to the attack on its Parliament in 2001 -- by mobilizing troops on the Pakistan border and creating an expectation that a full-scale, conventional India-Pakistan war was imminent. At that time Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee's unwise decision to "bluff" the Pakistanis into cooperating with India by the threat of war boomeranged on New Delhi. Foreign missions evacuated their nationals in a panic and business confidence plunged.

Thank God (if) it's Obama (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — In 2004, this columnist annoyed some of his U.S. friends by rooting for George W. Bush for the U.S. presidency over his rival, John Kerry. The reason was simple: It was the first presidential poll since 9/11, and a Bush defeat would have given oxygen to the fanatics now hiding in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas. They would have ascribed a Bush defeat to no factor other than themselves, as would thousands of others of like mindset.

George W. Bush has his faults – including a blindness toward the deeds of his financial backers – but his pulverization of both the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Saddamites in Iraq ensured that al-Qaida must cross a very high bar to ensure its geographical preservation before taking on the U.S. homeland again. Unfortunately, the gains in Afghanistan are being reversed by a disastrous follow-up strategy.

Kerry would almost certainly have been tested early in his term with a determined probe, if not an actual attack – though the odds that this war veteran would respond less forcefully than Bush may have been close to zero.

By this logic, it may seem preferable for John McCain to become the next U.S. president, for even Barack Obama’s running mate, Joe Biden, believes that Obama would be tested early in his term, the way Kerry would probably have been.

Sarkozy and Brown: We cheated, So Trust Us (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat


Manipal, India — It must be wonderful to believe that the rest of the world shares one's own self-perceptions of omniscience. Weeks after Western financial institutions and instruments cleaned out thousands of clients in the Middle East, China and Russia, French President Nicholas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, at last weekend’s Asia-Europe Meeting in Beijing, offered Asia a simple prescription: Trust us and follow our lead unquestioningly, so that the non-Western part of the world can earn the tag of being "responsible (to the West) stakeholders."

It is unlikely that Asian governments will follow this advice and pour billions of dollars of their capital into two institutions controlled by North America and Europe – the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. After the recent banking meltdown in the United States and the European Union, it is not only small children in the rest of the world who can see that the emperor has no clothes.

What has astonished many in Asia is the way in which Western governments are acting as accomplices to what looks like the perfect crime: the stealing of trillions of dollars in value from pockets across the world. This was done not simply by getting the unwary to invest in assets known to be dubious, but by gerrymandering increases in the prices of commodities, notably petroleum, which has gouged economies such as China and India.

This columnist would like to repeat his advice to the oil economies to install gold statues of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney in prominent locations, for it is the policy pushed by that distinguished international statesman that caused oil prices to rise far above what market fundamentals dictated.

Will NATO surrender to the Taliban? (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — There are indeed parallels between the insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban. Both have brown complexions and prefer to avoid a shave. Both get excitable when challenged, and regard the United States and its military allies as the enemy. However, that is where the similarities stop.

The Iraqi insurgents are overwhelmingly nationalist, usually moderate in their religious views, and have taken to arms to end what they view as a humiliating occupation of their country. In contrast, the Taliban are Wahabbi extremists, who enforce a lifestyle that has nothing in common with the evolving needs of the past 1,000 years. While the Iraqi insurgents are more than 90 percent Sunni Muslims, the Taliban are nearly all Pashtuns, although they have abandoned the moderate ethos and customs of this admirable race in favor of an ultra-Wahabbist lifestyle that places a premium on personal cruelty.

Once General David Petraeus, as U.S. commanding general in Iraq, no longer tried to occupy territory and began a process of handing responsibility to local forces, the anger at the occupation began to dissipate, and so did the ferocity of the attacks on the United States and its allies.

As yet, despite the radicalization caused by the past five years, the insurgents in Iraq are not inclined to impose a Taliban-like state in Iraq. Should U.S. troops withdraw completely within an 18-month timeframe, Sunni Iraq can yet be prevented from going the way of Afghanistan and becoming extremist. Just as the Vietnamese ceased to be a threat to the United States once they got control of their country, so will the Iraqi insurgents, once U.S. and allied troops leave Iraqi territory.

Will United States back Kiyani or Zardari? (UPIASIA)

 M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — It is small wonder that Pakistan's army chief, Parvez Ashfaq Kiyani, prefers to dial the number of the ever-obedient (to him) prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, rather than that of the newly elected president, Asif Ali Zardari, who has apparently undergone an epiphany since assuming what is formally the highest office in his country.

Zardari has changed from cue boy of the Inter Services Intelligence – and thus by extension the Pakistan army – to a leader with very different views on the correct path that his country ought to follow. Instead of the endless repetitions of the many "sacred" wars that the military has been touting as justification for taking away one-third of the country's budget – directly and through agencies connected with it – Zardari has given public expression to the view of most of Pakistan's non-Wahabbi majority, that it is time to put aside jihad and concentrate on economic growth.

The reason for such a transformation may lie in the clumsy and continuous efforts of the army brass to prevent the heir to the late Benazir Bhutto’s mantle from assuming any office in "civilian-controlled" Pakistan. Numerous hints, designed to prod Zardari into selecting yet another army pawn as the head of state, failed. So the generals looked toward the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush to scupper the move, having given their numerous backers in Washington details about Zardari – details unsuitable for audiences below the age of consent.

None of this seemed to have affected his marriage, however. Interestingly, Benazir Bhutto chose as her consort a man very similar in temperament to her idol, her father Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto. Like his future son-in-law, Papa Bhutto was a playboy with a mercurial disposition as well as an exuberant and sometimes extra-rational belief in his own capabilities. Bhutto too spoke in populist language, even while being unstinted in his taste for the good life. And he too saw the army as the single obstacle to his power.

Pakistan's moment of truth (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — Founded as it was by a bacon-friendly, whiskey-drinking Muhammad Ali Jinnah, by the end of the 1950s – once almost all non-Muslims had been driven out of Pakistan – the country remained only loosely tethered to the lifestyle encouraged by the ulema, the body of Koranic scholars that has appeared as the indispensable intermediary between believers and God in the Islamic world.

Led by officers trained under the British, the Pakistan army in particular remained secular, although it had used religion in 1947-48 to try and pry loose Kashmir from India, the country to which its maharaja had acceded.

All this changed with Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s fateful appointment of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq as chief of army staff, superseding seven officers, all of whom were better qualified for the job. Bhutto chose Zia on the basis of the fawning missives he used to receive from the general, and the deferential – indeed cringing -- manner in which Zia introduced Bhutto to his men during a prime ministerial visit in 1975.

Such suppleness of spine convinced Bhutto that in Zia he would have a servile henchman. Instead, a year later, the general displaced Bhutto in a coup and executed him shortly thereafter.

Zia, at that time the only Wahabbi general in the Pakistan army, swiftly introduced changes in the institution to bring it in sync with the extreme philosophy of Ibn Wahhab, whose toxic creed had been backed by first the United Kingdom and subsequently the United States as a counter first to Turks, then Arab nationalists and finally, the Soviets. Zia aligned his country firmly with other Wahabbi states, and began to fill the officer ranks of the army with recruits from the numerous Islamic seminaries, or madrassas, that had begun to proliferate in Pakistan during the 1960s.

Racism Trumps Reason at Vienna (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — Contrary to the expectations of Congress Party boss Sonia Gandhi and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, last week's special meeting in Vienna of the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group ended in deadlock. The meeting had been requested by the United States to approve George W. Bush's quest for a "clean waiver" for the resumption of nuclear trade with India – commerce that had been frozen since India's 1974 nuclear test.

Tellingly, all but one of the countries opposing India were either European, or of largely European stock. The one exception was Japan, a country that prides itself on its people being the "Westerners of the East."

Expectedly, Austria led the Euro-attack against the proposed exemption, reiterating the bloc’s 34-year demand that India be forced to accept full-scope safeguards on all its nuclear facilities, as well as sign on to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. New Zealand, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Finland, Switzerland and Ireland joined hands with Japan in backing the Austrian stand, even though each had been individually made aware by Indian negotiators that any such conditions would result in India walking away from the deal.

Unfortunately for backers of the deal, reports reaching New Delhi suggest that the Bush point person for the talks, Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation John Rood, proved to be less than enthusiastic about securing a clean waiver for India. In this, Rood is following in the path of his predecessor Robert Joseph, who had also been unenthusiastic about the deal. Both are members of the U.S. nonproliferation mainstream that for decades has focused on India – a state that has never proliferated its technology beyond its own borders – while doing little about U.S. policies that have winked at proliferation by Pakistan, China and North Korea.

Will Zardari Follow Musharraf? (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — After Pervez Musharraf himself, the individual who will be most nervous at the resignation of Pakistan’s president is the Pakistan People’s Party co-chairman, Asif Ali Zardari. For it was Musharraf – admittedly with repeated prodding from Condoleezza Rice – who offered Benazir Bhutto's widower amnesty from the numerous corruption cases against him in exchange for his party’s support to his presidency.

Zardari, for reasons unknown, declined to take over as prime minister of Pakistan, putting forward a presumed yes-man, Yousaf Raza Gillani, in March.

The new prime minister, a Shiite and a Saraiki-Punjabi, lost less than a week in establishing direct links with the real power center in Pakistan, the army. He made the unusual gesture of personally calling on the chiefs of both the Inter-Services Intelligence and the army. Today it is to Gillani, rather than to Zardari, that military chief Ashfaq Kiyani turns on the infrequent occasions when he wishes to consult the civilian authority. As for the ISI, that instrument of jihad continues to function under army headquarters.

Although he owes his job to Zardari, it is unlikely that Prime Minister Gillani will do more than offer a token resistance to the reinstatement of those judges sacked by Musharraf last year, including the Zardari-phobic former chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhury.

Russia Starts "Lukewarm War" with the West (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — The Soviet Union became a superpower during the rule of Josef Stalin, who terrorized those territories that he did not immediately annex. After the 1939-45 war, the USSR controlled Eastern Europe and challenged the primacy of the United States and its European partners across the world.

But since Stalin’s death in 1953, Moscow has almost always given way when confronted with a resolute Western response. Nikita Khruschev blinked hard in Cuba in 1962, with the United States agreeing only to avoid another invasion of Cuba -- a course that anyway had been shown to be folly a short while earlier -- in exchange for a humiliating withdrawal of Soviet missiles from the island.

Throughout the Cold War, although Moscow enjoyed considerable conventional military superiority in Europe, its forces never once strayed beyond the boundaries set in 1945. Had it done so, the history of Europe may have been different in that such tensions would almost certainly have affected the economic environment negatively.

As it turned out, it was the USSR that imploded economically, drained both by a dysfunctional central-command system as well as by military spending that would have been justified only if the armaments so expensively procured were put to use to secure geopolitical gains.

The Afghan war most exposed the strategic cowardice of the Soviet leadership. At any stage in the decade-long conflict, an attack on Pakistan would have resulted in the immediate drying up of the flow of supplies from across the border to the mujahideen. It is unlikely that the United States and other NATO partners would have risked a flare-up of Warsaw Pact-NATO tensions in Europe by seeking to protect Pakistan from a Soviet assault. Peshawar and other centers of Afghan resistance would have been pulverized by Soviet bombing, and international jihad -- which today has morphed into a severe threat to international security -- would have lost its Afghan-Pakistani sanctuary.