WHAT HAPPENS IN PAKISTAN...

If America is serious about fighting the jihadi challenge that the San Bernardino terrorists pose, then it needs to focus its attention, not on Iraq and Syria, but on Saudi Arabia and Pakistan — the two major state sponsors of terror that it has mollycoddled for long

A day after the gruesome San Bernardino attack, US President Barack Obama’s address to the nation was ostensibly designed to reassure the American people that the Government was doing everything to keep them safe. Yet, it left many at unease — and rightly so. Early on in his speech, Mr Obama makes clear that, even though one of the attackers had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State hours before going on the rampage, there was nothing to link the attack in material terms to any foreign terrorist group. This is correct. But having made this assertion, oddly, the President then goes on to explain how his Government is working to defeat the Islamic State, while glossing over the fact that both terrorists, Tashfeen Malik and her husband Syed Rizwan Farooq, had links to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, where they were presumably radicalised!

To be fair, Farooq’s path to radicalisation is still unclear. Born and raised in America, he seemed like a well-adjusted citizen, with a decent middle-class job    who raised no red flags — except that he sought and married a conservative woman like Malik. In fact, it increasingly seems like even though Farooq was, of course, also radicalised, it was Malik who was the mastermind.

Malik was born in Pakistan’s Punjab Province but taken to Saudi Arabia as a child in 1989, and raised in that country. While in Saudi Arabia, Malik’s father notably moved away from the relatively liberal Barelvi school of Sunni Islam that his family practiced in Pakistan and adopted the more puritanical Deobandi school. He also gradually distanced himself and his children from their family in Pakistan. Nevertheless, in 2007, Malik returned to Pakistan to study pharmacy at the Bahauddin Zakariya University in Multan, also in the Punjab Province. After graduation in 2012, she enrolled at the conservative Al Huda International School in the same city where she studied Islam for a year. In 2014, she married Farooq, whom she had met online, and moved to the US.

Malik’s time in Multan, Punjab, in general, and the institutions she attended there in particular, offer some interesting clues about how she may have been radicalised. Once the spiritual heartland of South Asian Sufi Islam, Pakistani Punjab, especially its much poorer southern parts, has seen a steady flow of Saudi money in recent decades — an estimated $100 million — which has been used to destroy the region’s moderate brand of Islam and create in its place a hotbed for Sunni terrorism.

US diplomatic cables sent from Pakistan between 2009 and 2011, and released by Wikileaks, document how maulanas from radical madarssas, bankrolled by the Saudis, approached poor families with multiple children, convinced them that their poverty was the result of the un-Islamic worship of idols at Sufi shrines, and finally persuaded the parents that the only way to return to the path of true Islam was to give up one of their children to the cause — for which, of course, they were paid a fair amount of cash. This is how the radicals recruited children as young as seven or eight years of age, indoctrinated them, and then either sent them off for further jihadi training or employed them as preachers for the next generation of Islamists.

When the situation began to grow out of hand, with extremists imposing no-go zones in some parts etc, local leaders sought to intervene but found their hands were tied by the conservative elements within the bureaucracy that had been planted by the Zia-ul Haq regime in previous years. Additionally, Punjab was also the jihadi nursery where the ISI raised its anti-India outfits such as the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and the Jaish-e-Mohammed. In fact, JeM chief Azhar Masood, who was released by India after the hijacking of IC-814, belonged to southern Punjab while Ajmal Kasab, coming in a generation later, was repeatedly mentioned in US diplomatic cables as a typical example of how the vicious cycle of Saudi-funded jihadi terror turns.

Malik’s own story mirrors this phenomenon as well — the small town of Karor Lal Esan where she was born, in Layyah district of south Punjab, was named after the mystic Hazrat Lal Esan who is believed to have recited a Quranic verse 10 million times while standing on one leg. However, the Multan that a the Saudi-bred Malik returned to in 2007 was already notorious for radical sectarian activity. So much so, that The New York Times reports, university officials in Multan cooperated with law enforcement and intelligence authorities to “monitor for extremist activity on campus”.

It was also during this time in 2007 that the bloody siege of Lal Masjid happened — according to official estimates, the confrontation between the radical clerics of the mosque and the Pakistani military led to 154 deaths (although unofficial figures are much higher). Tensions between the pro-Taliban Lal Masjid clergy, supported in no small measure by women militants of the adjoining Jamia Hafsa madarssa, were brewing since 9/11 when then President Pervez Musharraf announced Pakistani support for the US war against terror. Matters came to a head when Jamia Hafsa militants abducted Chinese nationals among others for running a neighbourhood brothel in 2006. The Musharraf Government had no choice but to crackdown — there was a week-long siege and intense firefights between Pakistani soldiers and the heavily-armed militants. The campus was secured after eight days but the episode sparked a fresh wave of militancy across Pakistan.

The Lal Masjid story is important here because it has been reported that Tashfeen Malik had connections with the mosque’s head priest, Maulana Abul Aziz, and his wife, who now leads Jamia Hafsa. US authorities have brought this to the notice of Pakistani officials through Mr Shahbaz Sharif, the Chief Minister of Punjab and the Prime Minister’s brother. The Sharifs have a long history of protecting Abdul Aziz who has also pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. On paper, he is a wanted man in Pakistan but that hasn’t stopped him from delivering public sermons and leading mass campaigns, as the Dawn newspaper reported last month.

There is no evidence yet to suggest if the Lal Masjid gang from Pakistan, instead of the Islamic State butchers from Syria or Iraq, provided material support to Malik and her husband for the San Bernardino attack but the possibility cannot be ruled out. Also, even if there was no direct support, there can be no two ways around the fact that Malik and Farooq derived their ideological nourishment from the putrid Sunni extremist eco-system that Saudi Arabia has spawned around the world and Pakistan cradled with special care.

If America is serious about fighting the jihadi challenge that the likes of Malik and Farooq pose, then it needs to focus its attention on Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, not Iraq and Syria (which, arguably, are just symptoms, not the cause of jihadi terror). For too long, Washington, DC has mollycoddled these two major state sponsors of terror because first, they served its geo-political interests (although the disastrous Afghan campaign shows even that’s not entirely true) and second, the luxury of distance meant that America, unlike say India or Afghanistan, didn’t quite have to suffer the blowback of Saudi and Pakistani terror policies.

However, as global trends are change — the House of Saud, for example, is feeling the heat from the drop in oil prices — and America is, hopefully, realising that even its strongest homeland security systems cannot keep out the insidious jihadi ideology flowing from Saudi Arabia or that, in the words of a sharp Pakistani commentator, what happens in Pakistan no longer stays in Pakistan, there is an opportunity for a change in tact and policy. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like the Obama Administration at least is ready to take it up.

(This article was published in oped section of The Pioneer on December 10, 2015)

He came, he scorned, he left

Rehman Malik enjoys the reputation of being a loudmouth who speaks without thought and thinks without substance. Yet, because he is Pakistan’s Interior Minister, he has to be considered with some amount of seriousness. It’s time we stopped treating him with kid gloves

It has been some days since  Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik ended his disastrous three-day trip to India, but the bitter aftertaste from his visit continues to linger. A delegation led by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs was expected to travel to Islamabad on December 19 — a tentative date agreed upon by both Indian and Pakistani officials — to finalise the details of a Pakistani Judicial Commission’s second visit to India to cross-examine key witnesses in the 26/11 terror case. But December 19 has come and gone without so much as an acknowledgment from the Pakistani side — even though it was Mr Malik who had insisted, while he was in India, that the commission be allowed to visit at the earliest. In fact, he had even said that the immediacy of the commission’s visit was directly related to how quickly the 26/11 trial could be concluded in Rawalpindi. Yet, once back in his country, Mr Malik seems to have all but forgotten about the promises made.

But then again, as India’s political establishment has recently learnt, the Pakistani Minister may be a man of many words but scarcely is he a man who keeps his word. Ask Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde who very graciously hosted his Pakistani counterpart only to find out that the latter had taken him for a jolly good ride. And so, it would be that a day after Mr Malik left this country, Mr Shinde found himself complaining to Parliament that the documents he received from the Pakistani Minister pertaining to the multiple arrests of 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed were essentially a smokescreen. The documents were presented to New Delhi to buttress Pakistan’s argument that it had all the intentions in the world to punish that extremist but could not do so given the crying lack of evidence. Consequently, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa’ah chief had to be let off by Pakistani authorities even after he had been arrested. But on closer scrutiny, it has now become clear that the three Hafiz Saeed arrests that Mr Malik had been gloating about had absolutely no connection with the 26/11 charges. That the Pakistanis believed that they could pull such a trick on New Delhi and still get away with it does speak volumes. Indeed, it is against this background that Mr Malik’s slew of blood-curdling remarks, made during the course of his visit, that offended Indian sensibilities across the board, must be viewed.

The Pakistani Minister fired his opening salvo pretty much the moment he landed on Indian soil, when he dismissed India’s forensic evidence that clearly points to the role of members of the Pakistani establishment, particularly the ISI, in the 26/11 attacks. Then, he had the gall to claim that Kargil hero Captain Saurabh Kalia died due to bad weather in the Himalayas. But even before one could swallow this affront, Mr Malik callously dropped the B-bomb, comparing the demolition of the Babri Masjid to the 26/11 carnage. Eventually, of course, he tried to muddy the waters by claiming that he had said nothing of the sort and it was the big bad media that tried to twist his statement. But still, coming from the representative of a country where minorities are routinely targeted, abducted, raped and killed; where their places of worship are destroyed with gay abandon without the state lifting so much as a finger to stop the atrocities, the Babri Masjid snub was a bit rich — not to mention that, shameful as it may have been, the episode was and remains an internal matter for India in which Pakistan has no business to poke its nose.

But the Minister had saved the best for the last. And so it was on the ultimate day of his visit that Mr Malik claimed that Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal, the alleged handler of the 26/11 terrorists who was earlier this year deported from Saudi Arabia, was in fact an agent of an elite Indian intelligence agency. Yet again, the statement was so absurd that it would have been almost farcical had it not been so downright appalling.

One way of responding to this situation is to simply dismiss Mr Malik’s statements as the nonsensical ranting of a loudmouth. He is, after all, a habitual offender and has been mocked often even in his own country for putting his foot in his mouth. For instance, when the Sri Lankan team came under attack in Pakistan, Mr Malik promptly placed the blame on Colombo’s doorstep. Similarly, last year he even thanked the Taliban for not killing Shias during Muharram celebrations — which ironically is not that much different from his Indian counterpart addressing Hafiz Saeed with the honorific ‘Mr’ and ‘Shri’ or for that matter the Congress’s spokesman Digvijaya Singh referring to the world’s most wanted terrorist as ‘Osamaji’.

However, the point here is not just that India too has its own fair share of motormouths and court jesters but that Mr Malik’s statements, no matter how stupid, should not be discarded as such. For, let us not forget that even if they were supposedly off-the-cuff remarks, the utterances were entirely in keeping with the official Pakistani strategy of stonewalling all efforts to bring the perpetrators of 26/11 to justice. It is in this context then that India’s own insipid response to Mr Malik’s volley of untruths and false statements must be questioned.

First, why was he even allowed to make these statements? Second, why was there no strong official rebuttal to his remarks from the Indian establishment? Third, why did the mainstream media not do a better job of holding Mr Malik accountable for his statements?

For instance, when Mr Malik kept repeating ad nauseam that Ajmal Kasab’s statements were not enough to nail Hafiz Saeed, there was no counter-mention of the reams of evidence that had emerged from the trials of terrorist head hunters David Headley and Tahawwur Rana in the US which also pointed to the role of Hafiz Saeed and that of ISI officials in the 26/11 terror attack.

A pliant media (with some exceptions) and India’s meek officialdom, too busy bending over backwards to appease a visiting dignitary, could not be bothered to ask if the Pakistani Government had any plans to act on the sworn affidavits of Headley and Rana in the Chicago Court, even if it trashed Ajmal Kasab’s testimony in India.

Similarly, when Mr Malik claimed that India had not taken up with Pakistan the Captain Saurabh Kalia case until now, his false narrative went unchallenged. In fact, India has on at least three occasions mentioned the case at bilateral meetings. Moreover, when the matter was first discussed during the Kargil conflict, the Pakistani Government had at that time refused to take any responsibility, claiming instead that it was the ‘mujahideens’ and not the Pakistani Army that had taken Kargil Heights.

But now that Islamabad has changed its stance and both former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and former President Pervez Musharraf agree that the Army was indeed involved, the question is: Will Mr Malik now ask members of the Northern Light Infantry, which were deployed in Kargil, for the facts — and stop distorting the truth?

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on December 20, 2012.)

Welcome to the House of Saud

By deporting to India three terror suspects in the past four months, Saudi Arabia has taken the initial steps towards cooperation in counter-terrorism activities with this country, even though these may have come at the cost of upsetting long time ally Pakistan

It’s official now. When it comes to nabbing terror suspects, long-time Pakistani ally Saudi Arabia is India’s new best friend. Analysts have been talking about this ever since Riyadh handed over to New Delhi the biggest catch in the 26/11 terror case — Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal — back in June. But, at that time many had rightly wondered if the deportation was a one-time gesture ostensibly taken under mounting pressure from the US. However, with the recent deportation of Fasih Mahmood, who is suspected to be a high-level operative of the banned Indian Mujahideen terror group, there is now ample evidence to dismiss at least some of those initial apprehensions.

In these past four months, Saudi Arabia has in fact deported three terror suspects to India, including Mahmood. An accused in the April 2010 bomb blasts in Bangalore’s M Chinnaswamy Stadium, he was also allegedly involved in the Jama Masjid terror attack in September 2010 in Delhi. The 28-year-old mechanical engineer from Bihar was deported, and arrested by Delhi Police on October 22. This was less than two weeks after A Rayees was picked up by Kerala Police from Mumbai airport after he too was sent packing by the Saudis. A suspected operative of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, Rayees is wanted in the 2009 explosives haul case. And that is not all: On Tuesday, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs said it was hoping to extradite four more terror suspects from Saudi Arabia.

Clearly, there is a new-found fervour in Riyadh to fight terror jointly with New Delhi in particular and deepen bilateral ties with India in general, even if it comes at the cost of upsetting Islamabad  just a little bit. In fact, there seems to be an overall agreement in the power corridors of not just New Delhi and Riyadh but also around those of Islamabad that increasing militancy in Pakistan is making even it staunchest allies uneasy. Serious questions are being raised about the Pakistani establishment’s ability to control these groups that it has for so long nurtured and nourished, but that now run amok in that country. Saudi Arabia genuinely fears — and rightly so — that more sooner than later things will get out of hand in Pakistan.

Take, for example, the manner in which Riyadh’s response to the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba has evolved in recent years. As South Asia scholar Stephen Tankel points out, Saudi Arabia was a “reluctant contributor to the international effort against Al Qaeda” after 9/11 but this changed after “the Kingdom suffered directly from Al Qaeda attacks beginning in 2003. However, it remained relatively tolerant of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (which at the time had distanced itself from Al Qaeda). This owed to Saudi Arabia’s relationship with Pakistan, but also resulted from Lashkar’s position vis-à-vis the Kingdom.” Mr Tankel goes on to explain that not only do some Lashkar leaders have long-standing ties with the kingdom; many of them consider it to be the “best Islamic state, even if not an ideal one”. Equally importantly, “Lashkar leaders’ strong commitment to spreading Ahl-e-Hadith (or Salafi) Islam via non-violent activism and their decision to eschew revolutionary terrorism in favour of pan-Islamist jihad made the group more palatable” to the Saudi state, believes Mr Tankel.

However, that view of the Lashkar as a relatively ‘peaceful’ Islamist organisation was literally blown to smithereens after the Mumbai carnage of 2008 that it planned and executed. In effect, it was the 26/11 attacks that sealed the LeT’s reputation as a global terror organisation and Riyadh, under pressure from New Delhi and Washington, DC, has since been compelled to view the group as a threat to its own internal security as well. Against this backdrop, Pakistan’s inability to rein in Lashkar militants and others of their ilk has not gone down well in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, it is now clearly scoping out new friends in this region even as Pakistan tries to come to terms with the fact that it may no longer have a monopoly over the ‘Saudi relationship’.

The first signs of change in this regard were seen back in 2006 when Saudi king Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz al-Saud visited India as part of a four-country tour that, interestingly, also included a stop-over in China. Still, it was the first time since 1955 that a Saudi king was visiting this country and the ‘Delhi Declaration’ that was signed at the end of his trip would eventually prove to be a game-changer in bilateral relations.  More specifically, it was the Memorandum of Understanding on Combating Terrorism, also produced in the course of that visit, which would lay the foundation stone for cooperation in the areas of transnational crime and of course terrorism.

To be sure, all the right noises were made during King Saud’s visit. But it would be a while before they found reflection in concrete action. Nonethe-less, by the time Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Saudi Arabia in 2010, bilateral ties had deepened significantly. The time was right to put in place an extradition treaty, apart from signing the Riyadh Declaration of course, that would be key in facilitating on the ground, counter-terrorism operations.

The following two years saw increasing cooperation between India and Saudia Arabia that culminated in the deportation of Zabiuddin Ansari earlier this year. Though an Indian citizen, Ansari was in the West Asian Kingdom on a Pakistani passport when he was first arrested by Saudi authorities. As expected, Islamabad tried hard to leverage that fact in its favour and make a case for Ansari’s deportation to Pakistan instead of India. At an earlier time, this would have been the case for sure. But New Delhi was able to provide strong evidence that included DNA samples to show that Ansari was indeed an Indian citizen; this coupled with some hard-nosed American diplomacy ensured that Riyadh eventually put Ansari on a flight to Delhi.

However, it is imperative to mention here that while viewing counter-terrorism cooperation between India and Saudi Arabia through the Pakistani prism surely provides interesting perspectives, it must also be placed against the backdrop of overall improvement in bilateral ties between the two countries for a more holistic picture. For instance, between 2006 and 2012, India’s oil imports from Saudi Arabia increased by leaps and bounds. Much of this of course has to do with the US-led Western pressure to stop importing from Iran — India’s traditional oil supplier — but nevertheless, it has emerged as yet another connecting point between the countries. That apart, there has also been a jump in bilateral trade; and there is talk of greater defence cooperation especially following Union Minister for Defence AK Antony’s visit earlier visit to Saudi Arabia earlier this year.

On a concluding note though, it must be mentioned that just because the Saudis are working with India does not by any means indicate that they are willing to severe ties with Pakistan. The two Sunni Muslims countries have way too much invested in each other to break away, at least as of now.

For instance, Saudi Arabia will always need nuclear-armed Pakistan on its side to contain the influence of Shia Iran in its own neighbourhood especially if the latter acquires nuclear capabilities, and similarly, cash-strapped Pakistan will always depend on oil-rich Saudi Arabia for funds, finances and more. India clearly has no place in all of this. So, instead, it is chalking out its own relationship dynamics with the Saudis.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on November 1, 2012.)

Democracy too has side-effects

Neither does an elected system automatically ensure truly ‘free’ polls nor is a supposedly democratic rule the answer to the many socio-political ills of the day, such as terrorism. Under certain conditions, such a system of governance can be harmful

When pro-democracy movements swept across Arabia last year, the world was caught largely unaware. In response, the international media — itself still trying to grasp the enormity of the situation — spun this narrative: After centuries of oppression, the people of Arabia had finally awakened; a peaceful revolution was underway; and democracy was around the corner. Across the world, everywhere the unrest in Arabia was romanticised as a popular uprising and lovingly tagged the ‘Arab Spring’.

Well, everywhere except  in the tiny Jewish state of Israel where the events were viewed and continue to be viewed with fear and anxiety. For a country surrounded by regimes whose official state policies call for its complete annihilation, additional instability in the neighbourhood is the last thing Israel needed. Hence, it comes as no surprise that in Israeli official discourse the popular protests are commonly referred to as the ‘Arab unrest’ or the ‘Arab upheaval’. A handful of those with a fondness for seasonal metaphors like to call it the ‘Islamist winter’ in response to the rise of Islamist regimes in the region that have replaced the secular and largely stable dictatorships of the past.

Egypt is a case in point. Here the autocratic, but still secular, regime of former President Hosni Mubarak has since been replaced by that of Mohamed Morsi. A mid-level functionary of the Muslim Brotherhood that was banned under the previous Government but now holds a majority in Parliament, Mr Morsi has nevertheless been appointed to that high office only after he won the first free and fair, multi-party election held in Egypt.

For Israel, this is problematic on many levels. First, the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood in itself is viewed as an existential threat — and perhaps, rightly so. Not only is the Brotherhood the same organisation that has nurtured top terrorists including present Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri, it is also directly related to the terrorist group, Hamas, that governs the Gaza Strip and whose charter calls for the obliteration of Israel. It does not take a stretch of imagination to see why Israel fears that under the Muslim Brotherhood, its crucial peace treaty with Egypt will come under threat.

Additionally, there are also concerns regarding the increasingly lawless Sinai Peninsula. There are several reports that groups such as the Al Qaeda, are trying to ‘take over’ the region and create a terror haven of sorts. The crux of their strategy is to provoke Israel into launching retaliatory fire and eventually force the dismantling of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty. It’s a no win situation for both Israel and Egypt.

Of course, there is some hope that the international community will work to prevent such a disaster and that Egypt’s own security imperatives will hopefully persuade the new regime to maintain the status quo. But there are no guarantees yet. While some believe that these new Arab regimes might eventually adopt the Turkish model of pragmatism towards Israel, others insist that the former might initially appear to be reconciliatory in nature but will eventually return to their hardline positions as they continue to consolidate power. Overall, there is no denying that security and counter-terrorism experts still have ample reason to be deeply concerned not just about Israel’s security situation but also about peace in West Asia in general.

To be sure, only time will tell how exactly things will unravel in Egypt but for now the situation provides for an interesting study in democracy, what it means to be one and whether or not it should be considered to be the magic potion for all the world’s political maladies. The first question that must be asked in this regard is does the conduct of free and fair elections alone constitute democracy? Or, should the conduct of such elections be viewed as a political means to achieve social goals such as inclusive, pluralistic society built on the universal values of justice, freedom and equality?

Take Mr Morsi’s appointment to the office of the Egyptian President as an example. That the election that brought him to power was free and fair is commonly acknowledged around the world. But is it as much a given that Egypt under his rule will be an open, just and free society for all its citizens including women and minorities? Or for that matter it will respect its peace obligations with neighbours including Israel? Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding no.

If anything, the situation in Egypt today looks eerily similar to that in the Gaza Strip in 2006. At that time, Hamas was elected to power after similarly free and fair elections following Israel’s pull out from the area in 2005. From the Israeli perspective, this provides for an understandably discomfiting situation not only because it must deal with a terrorist organisation on its borders but also because as a country that prides itself on being the only democracy in the region, it cannot look away from the fact that not just Hamas but now also the regime in Cairo indeed represent the popular will of their people.

For the international community, particularly in the West, such a situation presents what can only be described as the dilemma of defending democracy. It forces the world to also deal with the uncomfortable reality that elections alone don’t constitute democracy — there were elections during Mr Mubarak’s reign as well.  More importantly, it raises the issue of the abuse of democratic freedoms. It must serve as an impetus to the key question: What does the world do about regimes that grab power through democratic means only to eventually dismantle the democratic machinery of the state? 

There are no easy answers here but a good place to at least start the discussion in this regard is with the dispensation of the myths surrounding democracy. For instance, it is imperative to acknowledge that neither does democracy constitute ‘free elections’ nor is a supposedly democratic rule the answer to the many socio-political ills of the day, such as terrorism. In fact, if anything, it is crucial to realise that democracy under certain conditions can actually be bad.

(This article was published in the Op-ed section of The Pioneer on September 10, 2012.)

Don’t spare terror-sponsoring states

Israel’s Minister for Energy and Water Resources Uzi Landau says democracies should jointly fight terror

As the Arab Spring turns cold and bitter, threatening to break the fragile peace that has somehow held together the vast and disparate region of West Asia, Israel has watched its position turn precarious in this past year. With its peace treaty with Egypt under threat, the crucial Sinai pipeline repeatedly bombed and sworn enemy Iran on the verge of acquiring a nuclear bomb, these are uncertain times for the Jewish nation.

But, for a country that has fought at least six major wars for its survival and is surrounded by adversaries, Israel remains more than prepared and vigilant to handle any future crisis. In an exclusive interview to The Pioneer, Israel’s Minister for Energy and Water Resources Uzi Landau explains how his country is preparing to face the challenges that lie ahead.

With elections bringing the Muslim Brotherhood to power, in post-Mubarak Egypt, the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, which Mr Landau rightly describes as the “cornerstone for stability and future peace in West Asia”, now hangs in balance. Only late last week, at least two senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose political wing now heads the Egyptian Parliament, threatened to “review” the treaty with Israel if the US cuts aid to Egypt. On his part, Mr Landau insists that Israel “will do whatever is possible to continue with the peace agreement and use it as a base to develop other peace agreements in the area,” but expresses deep concerns at the manner which events are unfolding across Arabia.

Mr Landau remarks, “However, and I hate to say ‘however’, when I look around West Asia, I see this huge span of territory from the Atlantic in the west to the Persian Gulf and beyond in the east convulsing in an earthquake which is bringing down regimes that until now had been stable, such as the ones in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and even Yemen.” He points to the “terrible undercurrents” in Syria and elsewhere and notes that “under the guise of democracy and free elections, the Muslim Brotherhood and the radical Islamist elements are making their way to the helm of affairs.”

This is a matter of great concern especially since “the more civil parts of society that came to the streets in order to have a free and more democratic country find themselves pushed to the back.” Mr Landau’s comparison of the anti-Government protests in West Asia with the Iranian revolution of 1978 that brought the radical regime of Ayatollah Khomeini to power is interesting.

Those still in doubt must take note of the fact that the Sinai pipeline which runs through Egypt and delivers gas to Israel as well as Jordan was bombed for the 12th time in this past year — on February 5. Since the protests in West Asia began, gas supplies to Israel had come to a halt. They were renewed only in January. “We are doing whatever we possibly can to renew the flow,” Mr Landau says, emphasising that the natural gas agreement with Egypt is perhaps the most important economic agreement between the two countries. But at the same time, he adds, Israel is also looking to “offset this lack of natural gas by other sources of energy.” Unfortunately, his options — coal and heavy oil — are limited, more expensive and bad for the environment.

Luckily for Israel, new offshore gas fields have been found and Mr Landau believes that there is enough to meet the country’s needs for the next 50 to 60 years, if not more. Additionally, Israel is also developing and diversifying its own sources of energy. “In a worst case scenario, if something happens to hamper natural gas supply for certain period of time, we have others ways to sustain ourselves,” says Mr Landau. Then, as an after thought, he adds, “Please note, I am coming from, as it is described in the Bible, the land of milk and honey. But, it doesn’t say anything about natural gas, or energy.”

Yet, in this context, energy security is perhaps everybody’s greatest concern. Especially with the ongoing global standoff with Iran, West Asia’s energy equations with the rest of the world will possibly have to be re-formulated. This, however, Mr Landau does not see as a problem. He reasons that “Iran’s many enemies including Saudi Arabia might actually be more than eager to offset the losses incurred by those previously buying Iranian oil with their own oil. It simply needs time to adjust to a system.”

The oil sanctions against Iran that have been recently imposed by the US and the European Union have had a crippling effect on that country’s economy although is still unclear if they will actually prevent Tehran from pursuing its controversial enrichment programme. Mr Landau agrees, “I am not sure if the sanctions will work,” he says, but adds, “They should be stepped to make clear to the Iranian Government that no one is prepared to see a nuclear Iran.”

If Mr Landau strikes a pragmatic posture here, he is equally clear in his mind that his country will not hesitate to take affirmative action if such a need arises. He insists that Iran is a “major exporter of terrorism” and that it is linked to various terror organisations such as Hizbullah, Hamas and Al Qaeda.

After all, if Iran goes nuclear, it will only set in motion another nuclear arms race, with Saudi Arabia immediately looking to acquire nuclear weapons. Given the latter’s vast financial resources and close ties with Pakistan, the development will have worrying consequences for India. Moreover, as Mr Landau asks, “What kind of world is this going to be? Remember, you are not speaking of responsible regimes. You are speaking of those who couldn’t care any less.”

So how does the world deal with such rogue regimes that terrorise the world? To that, Mr Landau counters, “Why does terror exist? Because it works; because terrorists see that they can go ahead and have some benefits.”

He adds, “Only if terrorists and terror-sponsoring states are met head on, and shown that terror will never pay, will this mindless violence stop. I think this really should be the policy of every free country.”

It is but natural for the conversation, while on terror, should veer towards the recent attacks on Israeli embassy cars in New Delhi and Tbilisi — and towards the alleged role of Iran in the attacks. When asked how Israel responds to such attacks, Mr Landau points out that his country has been under attack ever since it came into existence. There have been wars, terror attacks, bombings and more at regular intervals. “But we continue our day to day routine, giving up nothing.” This, he says, is as much a challenge as successfully combating terrorists in the battlefield and elsewhere is.

With India facing much of the same challenges as Israel, Mr Landau hopes that this country too will be able to fight terror without compromising on its core principles of equality, liberty, freedom and democracy. “We both live in difficult neighbourhoods and yet we maintain our democracies. Our Parliaments are still functioning,” he remarks. This in itself should form the basis of a strong relationship between India and Israel.

(This article was published in the Op-ed section of The Pioneer on February 23, 2012.)