Wait for the endgame is long

The situation in Syria is turning from bad to worse. President Bashar al-Assad appears well and truly besieged, but he shows no signs of giving up. Will he triumph in the end or quit after leaving his country in a state of complete disrepair? No one seems to know for sure

On the morning of July 18, when a bomb went off in the same building where embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was meeting with his national security council, for a brief second its deafening noise even silenced the sound of gunfire that crackled in the background. And then reality struck: Three of Mr Assad’s top security chiefs — Minister of Defence Daoud Rajiha, former military intelligence chief and his brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, and another former Defence Minister who had remained a power to reckon with across the country’s vast military establishment, Hassan Turkmani — had been killed. The President’s cousin, notorious as the chief interrogator of the state security agency, Hafez Makhlouf, had been grievously injured. The President himself had escaped unhurt, but only just. The regime had been hit. For the first time since the popular uprising began 17 months ago, the rebels had finally been able to wound the obstinate Assad Government, deeply and definitively.

The endgame was here; it was the beginning of the end, proclaimed many a newspaper editorial and security pundit. A general consensus had quickly formed that the attack — which came four days into a rebel onslaught on the Government-controlled cities of Damascus and Aleppo — had so crippled the Assad regime that it would now quickly unravel and at least some of the bloodshed would finally stop.

In fact, in one of the many “endgame-is-here” type articles that appeared since the blast, a reputed international news magazine theorised that in every revolution there comes a moment when the tide turns against the regime — Libya, it was rise of Tripoli against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, and in Egypt, it was when protesters occupied Tahrir Square and torched the ruling party’s headquarters. In Syria, it goes on to add, that moment when the balance of power shifted away from the Assad regime could have well been on July 18.

Today, it has been exactly a week since the deadly blast ripped through the high security, military compound in Damascus, hitting the brutal Ba’athist regime closer to its heart than ever before and prompting talks of an endgame. And yet, there has been absolutely no sign of either Mr Assad getting away on a jet plane to seek refuge in some exotic foreign location or reports of a slew of high profile defections that would hollow out the regime from within or even instances of rebel surge that could finally topple the Government, as it had been predicted earlier.

If anything, it seems the bomb attack, which was definite proof of the rebels gaining more strength, seems to have convinced the regime to dig its heels in deeper. Overall, apart from the empty rhetoric, there is little proof that the ‘endgame’ has begun for the Assad regime, or for that matter the regime has any reason to back out at this moment. Sure, it has come under a lot of pressure and yes, it will eventually collapse, but the time for that has not yet come — not until a huge Pearl Harbour kind of incident totally shakes things up.

And, therefore, it should not come as any surprise that in this past week Government forces renewed their offensive and even lashed out from the skies at the people. On Tuesday, warplanes bombed Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city and the country’s commercial capital. Once an Assad stronghold, unrest has also spread to this city prompting the Government to launch a coordinated attack that included heavy artillery shelling and rockets launched from military helicopters.

The fact that the Government has now resorted to aerial bombing, along  with reports from Israel’s intelligence chief that the Syrian Army has removed all its soldiers from the Golan Heights border area and possibly redeployed them to Damascus and other cities, shows that the Assad administration is growing desperate. But it should also serve as a reminder that between the rebels and the regime, it is still the latter that is by far the more powerful player. Moreover, don’t forget that Mr Assad is yet to take out his big guns.

Let us also not forget that the Syrian President continues to have at his command one of the largest air forces in West Asia, and as he showed on Tuesday, he is yet to use it to full effect. Similarly, he is also sitting atop a huge stockpile of chemical weapons that includes sarin nerve agent, cyanide and mustard gas, and reports of them being moved out of their storage places, even if unconfirmed, remain a cause for worry. Will Mr Assad use chemical weapons against his own people and risk becoming an international pariah? There is no way one can tell for sure but given that the President has painted himself into a do-or-die situation, no options can be ruled out at this point. Besides, Mr Assad continues to enjoy the support of Russia and to a lesser extent, China. These two insulate him from international pressure and have emerged as his main source of external support.

Finally, one must also factor in the fierce loyalty of Syria’s elite security forces that belong almost entirely to the minority Alawite sect of Islam (an offshoot of the Shia faith), like Mr Assad himself. As this conflict, now officially tagged a civil war, draws out and takes on definite sectarian contours, pitting the country’s Sunni majority against the powerful Shia/Alawite minority, the President can trust upon the latter to defend him till his death and beyond. This, for instance, is in clear contrast to the case of Col Gadddafi, who had to depend largely on foreign mercenaries for his survival. But Mr Assad knows too well that, today more than ever before, the Alawites need him the most.

In the minds of the Alawite community, particularly those within the security forces and others closely associated with the Government, the fear of revenge and reprisals against them if Assad’s regime falls is a very real one — and perhaps, rightly so.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that Mr Assad’s days are numbered — and even the Alawites know it. And that is possibly why many of them are already moving out of their hometowns, mostly around Damascus and Homs, to the port cities of Tartus, Latakia, Baniyas and Jableh in the Sahel region that traditionally belong to the Alawites. It is here that the Alawites had lived throughout centuries of Mamluk and Ottoman rule, coming out to the mainland only occasionally to work as domestic labourers. After World War I, the French even created a sovereign Alawi state that extended from Latakia to Tartus in 1920. But the experiment failed due to the overwhelming Sunni desire for union with Damascus and by 1937, the coastal areas had been incorporated into present-day Syria. The Alawite community eventually entered the Syrian mainstream as well — and some like Mr Assad’s father even made it to the very top — but their integration was neither even nor ever complete. The religious fault-lines remained and this latest conflict has only served to crack them wide open.

Today, there is a huge possibility that as the battle for Syria continues between the regime and rebel forces, a de facto partition of the state will occur, with the Sunni rebels gaining control over Daraa, Deir al-Zour, the Homs-Idlib corridor and the rural areas around Damascus and Aleppo, while Government forces will shrink to the old Alawite state. But such a state will be as non-viable today as it was in 1920, and hence the Alawites can only be expected to fight until the very end for the whole of Syria.

(This article was published in the Op-ed section of The Pioneer on July 26.)

Quoting contempt, plotting coup

The ongoing power tussle in Pakistan between the judiciary and the executive is a losing battle for both sides. While neither of them is going to emerge unscathed, governance is already taking a beating

Less than a month after Pakistan’s Supreme Court in a dramatic move removed the country’s then Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani after charging him with contempt of court and thereby disqualifying his membership to Parliament on June 19, the stage is now being set for a repeat performance. On July 12, Mr Gilani’s successor, Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, is scheduled to inform the Supreme Court whether or not he will follow its orders to reopen old corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari. In all probability, Mr Ashraf, like Mr Gilani, will choose to defy the apex court’s diktat, reiterating the Government’s argument that the President enjoys immunity from such cases for as long as he is in office.

On its part, the Supreme Court can choose to once again charge the Prime Minister with contempt of court, but it is unlikely those charges will stick. On Monday, Pakistan’s lower House of Parliament, known as the National Assembly, passed a key legislation that provides blanket protection to all Government functionaries holding high offices from contempt of charges with regard to the performance of their executive duties. The Contempt of Court Bill, 2012, is expected to be cleared by the upper house of Parliament or the Senate, and signed into law by the President before July 12.

Technically, that should provide the Prime Minister some cover from an over-zealous judiciary but the situation still remains fluid and largely unpredictable. There has been a marked escalation in the ongoing tussle between the judiciary and the executive in recent months, and this has thrown awry the delicate balance of power that lay at the crux of the relationship between these two key state institutions. Consequently, the Pakistani Parliament may pass a law but there is no guarantee that the Supreme Court will not throw it out of the window on grounds of being unconstitutional, for example. Indeed, only two days before the National Assembly passed the law protecting the executive from contempt of court charges, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry made statements expressing exactly this very sentiment.

Of course, the fact that the country’s highest court has the authority to nullify a law that it deems to be at odds with the Constitution is a basic judicial principle. However, it is the timing of Mr Chaudhry’s comments that make them highly suspect especially when viewed in conjunction with his other equally worrying statements. On Saturday, Mr Chaudhry went as far as to say that the supremacy of Parliament was indeed “out of place in the modern era”, that it was actually the Constitution that should enjoy pre-eminence. This, as an editorial in a leading Pakistani newspaper rightly pointed out, is indeed “explosive” not only because it strips the country’s democratically elected Government of its powers but more so because those powers are now reinstated with the judiciary — ultimately, an elected institution — which portrays itself as the high keeper of the Constitution.

Clearly, the judiciary is courting trouble. But if the judges want to play rough, the political class — no matter how emancipated — has proven that it can also pack a punch or two just as well. Therefore, a day after Mr Chaudhry fired his ‘Constitution is supreme’ salvo, Mr Gilani hit right back at him by stating that it was Parliament that had in effect created the Constitution. When viewed in consonance with the Contempt of Court Bill, it is wholly evident that the Government will not be taking any of this judicial bullying down. It will put up a fight, and a good one at that. Besides, given that its tenure expires in less than six month, the Government has little to lose, anyway.

For the judiciary, however, the game is far from over. Its strategy of attacking the Government head on has achieved mixed results at best, and even that has come at the very high cost of its own reputation. Between 2007, when the Mr Chaudhry became a Pakistani household hero for standing up to then President Pervez Musharraf who had illegally fired him at the time, and now, the Chief Justice’s stock has fallen greatly. Some of course still laud his campaign to cleanse Pakistani politics of widespread corruption, but most others can’t ignore the stench of personal vendetta that engulfs his actions. For instance, the Chief Justice’s June 19 decision to actually disqualify Mr Gilani as Prime Minister — earlier, he had left that decision to the Speaker of the National Assembly — came only after a real estate tycoon with close ties to the President charged Mr Chaudhry’s son of bribery. Some believe that Mr Gilani’s dismissal was indeed an act of revenge by a powerful father on behalf of his wronged son.

Either way, the larger picture is gloomy and hopeless. There is no end in sight even though this tug-of-war has been dragging on for several years now. At the core of the dispute still lies the National Reconciliation Ordinance, an amnesty law instituted in 2007 by then President Musharraf as part of a power-sharing deal with the PPP’s exiled leader Benazir Bhutto. According to the agreement, Mr Musharraf through the NRO would close the graft cases against Bhutto and her husband, Mr Zardari (as well as many other politicians) who had been accused of money laundering through Swiss bank accounts, in return for the PPP’s support for his re-election bid at the end of that year. Towards that extent, the then Chief Justice of Pakistan had even written to Swiss authorities to close the Bhutto-Zardari files and the latter had complied. But things didn’t go as planned. By 2009, Bhutto was dead, Mr Musharraf had resigned and left the country, and Mr Chaudhry was Chief Justice. He found himself an empty playing field and promptly, hit his first goal: He struck down the NRO.

Since then, he has been insisting that the Government write to Swiss authorities to disregard the earlier letter and by default reopen the graft cases. But as a Supreme Court lawyer has recently pointed out, Mr Chaudhry does not need the Prime Minister or any other Government official to write that letter. He can write it himself, and it would be just as valid. The problem for Mr Chaudhry actually lies in the fact that the Swiss, no matter what, will not reopen the graft cases against Mr Zardari while he is still President because of the immunity he enjoys under Pakistani law.

In effect then, this is a losing battle for both parties. While the judiciary has already lost much of its credibility with little to show in return, the Government also has suffered many battle scars with its own position within the establishment now significantly weakened. It is time for both to cut their losses and leave the battlefield.

(This article was published in the Op-ed section of The Pioneer on July 12.)

Not the care that India needs

Obamacare is one of the most progressive, pro-people legislations in recent time. The manner in which the White House pushed it shows the power of political will, which is a lesson for New Delhi. But India must look inward to find its own healthcare solution

The US Supreme Court’s endorsement of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act last Thursday is undoubtedly a defining moment in the Obama Administration’s efforts to provide healthcare coverage to all Americans. Popularly known as Obamacare, the legislation was the US President’s most important electoral promise back in 2008. It was signed into law in 2010 and aims to insure millions of Americans who live dangerous lives without any medical coverage.

In short, Obamacare makes it compulsory for almost all Americans to buy health insurance. If one can’t afford health insurance, the state shall provide for it. But anyone without insurance will have to pay a penalty. Termed ‘Individual Mandate’, this second clause was hotly contested and there were legitimate concerns if it would stand judicial scrutiny. The Supreme Court put those fears to rest last week when it ruled that the penalty was indeed a form of tax, and that the Government had the right to impose.

That apart, another salient feature of Obamacare is the manner in which it aims to rein in private health insurance providers. For instance, private insurers routinely refuse patients with prior health conditions. By making insurance mandatory for all, Obamacare has in effect blocked that loophole. Similarly, by extending the coverage available to the elderly under Medicare — which along with Medicaid forms the two main state-sponsored insurance schemes — it has also plugged the notorious ‘doughnut hole’ that compelled senior citizens to pay for their expensive medication.

But none of this comes for free. In fact, Obamacare lays the ground for enormous Government spending. Not only will the exchequer have to pay for the insurance of those who can’t afford it, it will also have to foot the bill for an extended Medicare and Medicaid coverage. Washington, DC hopes to pressure the States to eventually chip in but even that will not be before 2020, if at all.

Nevertheless, there is no denying that Obamacare is perhaps the most progressive, pro-people legislation that has been formulated in recent times. Yes, it will cost the federal Government an obscene amount of money and yes, it will drastically change things within the healthcare industry. But more importantly, Obamacare sends out the message that it is wholly unbecoming of a civilised country to not make basic healthcare available to all its citizens.

Expectedly, this is a message that has found resonance in India where political apathy, crumbling infrastructure and rising costs have deprived thousands of the healthcare they rightly deserve. One can only hope that the raucous over Obamacare will also generate debate on India’s healthcare systems and eventually push the topic of public health into the national mainstream.

Some have pointed to the Planning Commission’s stated goal of achieving Universal Health Care in the country by end of the 12th Plan period in 2017 as a positive step in that direction. Indeed, towards that end, an expert panel has even recommended a ‘National Health Plan’ which will, by law, make every citizen entitled to a basic healthcare package.

Unfortunately, this is where the comparisons with Obamacare become problematic. Not only is such a project far more ambitious than Obamacare, given its proposed scale and density but it is also a pointless exercise that will serve as a topic for academic discussion at best and an excuse for colossal money laundering at worst. An Obamacare-like plan will have little positive impact in India because it is not designed to address India’s problems. Instead, Obamacare is a tailor-made response to the American problem of sky-rocketing medical expenses wherein healthcare is so ridiculously expensive that insurance is an absolute necessity.

In India, however, medical services are relatively cheap and affordable. Government hospitals and healthcare centres across the country provide medical services at highly subsidised rates and often even free of cost to marginalised communities. The problem here is not so much the cost of the treatment but the quality of it. Abysmal infrastructure at many Government-run hospitals and healthcare centres means that even the best of doctors cannot effectively tend to all their patients.

If the Government is indeed considering pumping money into India’s healthcare system, it is in this aspect of improving infrastructure that the money should be invested. Or else, a hair-brained health plan that is really a cross between the wasteful populism of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the wall flower-like idealism of the Right to Education Act will come to naught.

Ultimately, if the Government is really serious about achieving its UHC goal by 2017, it must leverage the country’s inherent potential to build a workable model that provides quality yet affordable healthcare to all.

Take for instance, the Aravind Eye Hospital network that is headquartered in Madurai and provides high level ophthalmic care to poor patients across south India. Here, cataract cases form the bulk of the patient body — only 30 per cent of which comprises paying patients who shell out anything between Rs 12,000 and Rs 15,000 for one surgery. But the revenue this section generates is enough to fund the treatment of the remaining 70 per cent of patients.

This financially self-sustaining model is based on the unique Indian innovation of the Small Incision Cataract Surgery. Instead of using modern phacoemulsification machines that are expensive, have high disposable costs and are not well-suited to cut out advanced and mature cataracts that are typical of developing world populations, doctors at Aravind perform a manual, sutureless, small incision extracapsular procedure with indigenously produced equipment on poor patients. The procedure is quick, cheap and safe and the results comparable to surgeries done on paying patients using the phacoemulsification machine.

There are several such examples wherein Indian doctors have come up with low cost but high efficiency technology that has revolutionised the way medicine is practised in this country —keeping it away from the debt trap of the West’s bloated healthcare system.

And if Aravind in south India has used technology as a game changer, across the country in the small towns and mofussils of Bengal, Disha Eye Hospital (another regional chain) has capitalised on India’s burgeoning population to build a financially sustainable model that provides world-class health facilities. Its hospital in Barrackpore alone caters to approximately 1,200 to 1,500 patients daily. Out-patient fee is a nominal Rs 60 but the tremendous bulk of the patient body renders this a profit-making institution that is able to provide quality medical services. Hospital chief Debasish Bhattacharya has his fingers on the pulse of his patient body when he says, “Whenever we think of eye care, we either picture a state-of-the-art hospital or a charitable organisation for the poor. The common man with his handful of money and heart full of pride fit nowhere.”

If only the Government would care to listen.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on July 5)

Calvinball plays out in Egypt

The euphoria over the appointment of Egypt’s first democratically elected President has been dampened by the Army’s efforts to emasculate that high office, prompting speculation of a soft coup. But there’s no clear winner. Just an open playing field and a game without any rules

The world had seen it before. The million-strong crowd, the triumphant flag waving, the sloganeering, the firecrackers and the life-size posters, and the relentless victory dance. The images that were broadcast from Egypt this past Sunday, when the name of that country’s first democratically elected President was announced, were both expectedly and yet ironically similar to the ones that had flickered on our screens 14 months ago when a popular pro-democracy movement led to the ouster of Egypt’s long-serving autocrat. The process of democratic transition that had started then with the resignation of former President Hosni Mubarak, in effect came full circle on Sunday with the appointment of his successor — Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi. Expectedly then, the day’s celebrations matched in fervour and tenor the victory pitch of February 2011. But given the fact that Mr Morsi’s high office has already been emasculated by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces — the handful of Army Generals who currently run the country —Sunday’s euphoric revelry over a process that had surely started with a bang but has now been reduced to a whimper seemed rather silly.

SCAF’s sudden diktat came last week just as the counting of votes polled on June 16 and 17 had got underway. Issued in the form of an amendment to the original Constitutional Declaration, it severely limits the powers of the President, denying him not just oversight over the military but also negating his control over the key Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs. Moreover, through the amendment, SCAF has also conveniently accorded to itself sweeping powers over the Constitution drafting process that is yet to begin. And that is not all. Only days before the presidential election began, SCAF nullified a previous election law that disqualified a majority of Egypt’s elected legislators and effectively dismantled Parliament — this time through the Supreme Constitutional Court.

The popular mood was further dampened by the fact that Egypt found itself faced with two unpalatable choices for the post of President. With most of the leading candidates having been thrown out of the race on flimsy grounds in the first round itself, it was the Muslim Brotherhood’s second-choice candidate, Mr Morsi, and the military’s pro-regime candidate, Ahmed Shafiq, who found themselves catapulted to the forefront.

For many Egyptians, this last round polling was not about voting for a leader but against another. On the one hand was Mr Morsi — an unremarkable Muslim Brotherhood functionary barely known outside of his party offices with little political experience. On the other hand was Mr Shafiq — the military-backed, former Air Force commander who had briefly served as Mubarak’s last Prime Minister in the heady days of the ‘revolution’ in 2011. The deeply polarising nature of the presidential run-off was evident in the final votes tally. While Mr Morsi garnered 52 per cent of the votes, Mr Shafiq was snapping at his heels at 48 per cent. It was a close fight that was followed by a nail-biting week of anxiety as SCAF delayed the announcement of the results, leading to speculation of electoral fraud.

After all, the military had been understandably nervous of the Muslim Brotherhood capturing a lion’s share of the Egyptian political space. Little else explains its rash decisions to abolish the democratically elected Parliament where the Islamists held an overwhelming majority of the seats, and soon after clip the wings of the President at a time when there was a very real possibility that a member of the Brotherhood would occupy the high office.

There were also legitimate concerns that the SCAF might fudge the results and install Mr Shafiq as President. But manipulating an election is not that easy — especially not when the numbers have already been leaked and there are too many independent observers. Also, a Shafiq presidency would have earned the military tremendous public wrath that could have led to violence and instability.

For now, it seems like the SCAF chose to play safe and go with Mr Morsi as the President. However, that does not in any way diminish the chances of a showdown between the two parties. Already, a confrontation is brewing with Mr Morsi insisting that he be sworn in by a Parliament that, according to the SCAF, does not even exist. But then again, the Speaker of the House has made clear that he does not consider Parliament to be dissolved and, therefore, will be holding sessions as usual!

The situation remains fluid. The present is still unravelling and it is next to impossible to predict the future. Talks of an ‘Islamist winter’ and a soft coup by the military abound. Many have wondered if Egypt will go back to being a military dictatorship pretending to be a democracy. Others remain more concerned about the kind of governance Mr Morsi will provide. Will he protect Egypt’s Coptic Christians or will he impose shari’ah law that will discriminate against women and religious minorities? Will the Brotherhood form radical alliances with other Islamist groups across the region? Will there be the possibility of war with Israel?

But these are questions for the future. For now, there are more pressing concerns, such as how the new President-elect will even function without a Parliament and a Constitution, or how he will share political space with the military? There is no doubt that both the military and the Muslim Brotherhood need each other for their survival. And while they will do well to learn to live with each other, the judiciary, as the third key player in this situation will also have to act more responsibly. In recent months, it has shown an unending capacity for the imaginative and the ludicrous that has significantly eroded its credibility and rendered it a wild card of sorts.

At this time, anything is possible. There is no definite authoritative figure, no laws, no goals, and no principles — just an open playing field. As a commentator recently observed, the situation in Egypt is akin to a game of Calvinball — the game that has no rules. Introduced by Bill Watterson in his widely popular comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, in this game players make up the rules as they play along. Through the course of the game, players change, goals change, scoring techniques change. To win, the players have to respond quickly, imaginatively and effectively to the ever changing circumstances.

The game sometimes resembles other sports such as football but often turns out to be something entirely different — much like Egypt seems to be in the process of a democratic transition but no one really knows how the ‘revolution’ will actually play out. In the comic strip, a game of Calvinball provides much humour as ball players become spies and spies become double agents with hidden goal posts. The situation in Egypt too would have been rather funny given how power has shifted from Mubarak to the military to Morsi and now may be back to the military. Only, if it had not been so confusing.

(This article was published in the Op-ed section of The Pioneer on June 28, 2012.)

Building an equal partnership

US must take India’s concerns into account if it wants the latter to be a security anchor against China

That there is a nice ring to lofty statements about the shared ideals and values between the world’s largest democracy and the world’s most powerful democracy is without a doubt, much like all the talk about deepening ties between these two countries allows for some solid diplomatic bonhomie. But rhetoric, no matter how pleasant and passionate, does not necessarily convert into good policy. It is against this backdrop that the Third India-US Strategic Dialogue that Union Minister for External Affairs SM Krishna co-chaired with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington, DC on June 13 must be viewed.

The high-level, capstone dialogue between the two countries was instituted in 2010 to promote greater cooperation between the two countries and broaden the scope of bilateral relations. In other words, it is here that the basic framework of India-US relations is defined and demarcated, and then re-defined. The current round of talks, however, has come at a particularly interesting time in the history of the India-US relations.

After a lukewarm start in the late 1990s, ties between India and the US were only strengthened in this past decade. Throughout the mid-2000s, the Bush Administration freely courted New Delhi — their alliance culminating in the groundbreaking India-US civil nuclear energy agreement — but by the time the Obama Administration came to power in 2008, the honeymoon was decidedly over. Washington’s continued pandering to Islamabad, for one, was beginning to take a toll on its relations with New Delhi.

Since then, however, the situation has changed significantly with the US now making it amply clear that it wishes for India to take on a greater role as an ‘ally’.  For instance, during his recent visit to India last week, US Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta talked at length about India’s importance in the reconstruction of post-war Afghanistan. More importantly, he also described India as the “linchpin” of the US’s new foreign strategy which envisions a “pivot to Asia”. Introduced earlier this year, the strategy is essentially America’s response to a changing world order — notably to China’s alarming growth as an economic and military powerhouse that has come at a time when its own influence is waning. Today, as Washington attempts to re-calibrate its relations with Beijing, it has decided to hedge its bet with New Delhi.

Now, the ball is in India’s court. If New Delhi indeed wishes to be part of this new gameplan, the chatter coming out of Washington’s power corridoors is that the former must do more to show greater commitment — it must prove that it is indeed willing to be US’s partner. India’s response in this situation is a definite policy challenge, and how exactly Mr Krishna and his delegation rise to the occasion is to be seen. Still, the team will do well to lay down some ground rules that delineate what exactly it is that New Delhi wants from the US.

Here are the top five non-negotiables that must feature on Mr Krishna’s agenda.

First: Don’t ask us to fight your war with China.

Although Washington will never say it in as many words, what it essentially wants from India is a positive affirmation that in case of a US-China military stand-off (or an outright war, which is of course quite unlikely), New Delhi will stand by its side. That is the crux of the whole “linchpin” narrative. But India has its own issues with China that range from long-festering border disputes to disagreements over sovereign rights in the South China Sea. These again have to be balanced with the fact that today China is India’s biggest trading partner — bigger than the US even. Plus, China is in India’s immediate neighbourhood and, simply put, New Delhi cannot afford to have a confrontational relationship with Beijing for it will be at the cost of our national interest. Washington must understand and acknowledge that.

Second: Stop bullying us over Iran

New Delhi is already doing as much as it possibly can in this situation — it has cut down on its Iranian oil imports as desired by Washington so as to squeeze Tehran over its controversial nuclear programme — but India has its limits too. We don’t like the idea of a bomb in the hands of the Ayatollah anymore than the Americans do, but the fact of the matter is that India needs Iran to meet its rapidly growing energy demands. As an emerging market economy, it is simply not possible for India to completely give up on cheap Iranian oil. Further, Tehran also provides New Delhi key access to the rest of Central Asia and finally, there is no denying that the two share a cultural relationship that goes back centuries. If Washington expects New Delhi to publicly censure Tehran, especially at a time when there is little proof that the former’s own policy of sanctions is working, it really is asking for too much.

Third: Please turn off the Pakistani aid tap, for a change.

If anything , the events of this past year — from the Raymond Davis episode and the unilateral raid that killed Osama bin Laden to the attack on Western targets in Afghanistan by Pakistani militants and the shutting of Nato supply routes — have made it crystal clear that billions of dollars in American aid have bought Washington absolutely no leverage, either in Islamabad or in Rawalpindi. Since the money is literally going down the drain to ultimately fund terror activities that hurt both US and Indian interests, New Delhi must insist that Washington turn off the aid tap. And that should serve as the first step in a long process of holding Pakistan accountable for its many crimes.

Fourth: Clean up the mess in Afghanistan before you leave from there.

There is also no denying that the locals are far from ready to protect their country from the Taliban. And it is not just the security forces but even Afghanistan’s political class is unprepared to resist a Taliban takeover that is sure to happen once Nato troops leave that country in 2014. Hence, it is imperative that India impress upon the US that a rushed exit from Afghanistan will only undo hard-earned gains in the region. If New Delhi fails to do, it will be the one left holding the can afterwards.

Fifth: Give us space and time.

Just like in a successful marriage both partners need adequate personal space and enough time to grow and eventually find their place in the relationship, the same rules apply here too. India has shown that it is committed to building a strong alliance with the US but it must be allowed to do so on its own terms. New Delhi must be an equal partner in its ties with Washington — and not a subordinate member of a group led by the US, Cold War-style.

Ultimately, the US must acknowledge that only an independent and empowered India can make for an effective partner.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on June 14.)

Egypt's last Pharaoh turns prisoner

Now, that country must decide if it wants an Islamist or a military man as President

Bedridden, he had been wheeled into the Cairo courtroom cage on a hospital gurney replete with white sheets and white pillow covers. His eyes may have been hidden behind dark glasses but his arms remained crossed defiantly against his chest. On that fateful Saturday evening, as the judge sentenced him to a life in prison, Hosni Mubarak’s stern, almost stoic, face betrayed no emotion.

No, it was not until the former Egyptian strongman realised that he had been flown to the high-security Torah Prison in Cairo that he finally broke down. Like a belligerent child on its first day of school, the 83-year-old Mubarak refused to be taken off the helicopter. Instead, he demanded that he be taken to the military-run International Health Centre where he had been detained in a luxury suite for the most part of his nine-month-long trial. Even as his sons and aides intervened, the situation took a turn for the worse as a “surprise health crisis” (as it has been commonly described in the media) ensued.

It was not until after two hours that Mubarak finally relented. He was then taken to his cell located in the hospital wing of Torah Prison where he is currently lodged. In the days since then, the former President, who had ruled the country with an iron fist for three decade, has been given the prison’s regulation blue uniform (one that he initially refused to wear but now sports grudgingly) as well as assigned a prison number. He has also been allowed to be tended by doctors of his choice, and his sons, who are detained in the same prison on charges of insider trading, have been moved closer to his cell for company. Still, the former President, who liked to see himself as an Egyptian Pharaoh, has had a tough time accepting his new life as a prisoner. He has complained of maltreatment while prison officials report that his health has been deteriorating, that he suffers from depression and often refuses to take his medicines. On Tuesday, after he collapsed several times due to breathing trouble, he in fact had to be put on the ventilator.

But even as Mubarak struggles to adjust to a new routine that includes three meals a day and medical assistance but few other luxuries, outside the gates of Torah Prison a struggle of a very different kind has been unfolding.

The people of Egypt are deeply disappointed by the Mubarak verdict and have once again returned to the streets to reclaim their hard-fought revolution. On Tuesday, hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in Cairo’s iconic Tahrir Square to demand a death sentence for the convicted. The overwhelming feeling is that the Mubarak trial has been a sham. This, of course, is not far from the truth.

That Mubarak was indeed responsible for many crimes of corruption and human rights violations committed over a period of three decades is beyond doubt. Yet, the charges that were brought against him were vague and lacked legal substance. Furthermore, they were poorly supported by the prosecution that failed to provide strong evidence of Mubarak’s alleged crimes. The verdict that was delivered on Saturday, unsurprisingly then, reflects the chaotic and haphazard manner in which the Mubarak trial was conducted.

It sentences Mubarak and his former Interior Minister to prison for killing protesters during the pro-democracy movement of 2011 that ousted the long-serving President from office but lets off the hook the six police officials who were directly responsible for carrying out the orders. Additionally, it also clears Mubarak and his sons of many of the corruption charges that were levelled against them. And don’t be surprised if the verdict on the killing of protesters is also turned on appeal. Egyptian lawmakers feel this is a definite possibility, at least from the legal point of view, because ultimately the case that has been put together against Mubarak is, by common consent, weak and can easily be ripped apart.

To anybody with an independent eye, it should be clear that the Mubarak trial was essentially a smokescreen put up by the military — which helped ease Mubarak out of office and currently runs the country through the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces — to soothe the frayed nerves of an increasingly polarised Egyptian public. The mob at Tahrir has long been baying for Mubarak’s blood; by offering him to the public as a grand sacrifice of sorts, the military which lost much public support since last year (when it was viewed as a hero for siding with the protesters) has not only tried to win over the people but also hopes that it would deflect attention from its own crimes. However, it seems to have achieved only limited results which have dangerous consequences.

Not only has the trial verdict unleashed popular anger on the streets, it has served as an easy political tool that is being manipulated by Egypt’s fractured political class to further vested interests at this crucial time of democratic transition. Earlier this year, Egypt held its first genuinely free and fair elections in decades to find itself a new President. Twelve candidates fought it out, including Islamists and secularists, Leftists and communists, and lawyers and activists. The two leaders who got the most votes — Mohammed Morsi and Ahmed Shafiq — are scheduled to face each other again in a run-off election on June 16 and 17. The winner will then be declared Egypt’s new President.

The problem is that Egypt does not want either candidate as its President. While Mr Morsi is an unremarkable leader put up by the Muslim Brotherhood after its initial firebrand choice was disqualified, Mr Shafiq is a former Air Chief who briefly served as Mubarak’s Prime Minister in the days before the then President stepped down from office. Both claim to want to guide Egypt on a new path, but neither claim has cut ice with the public.

On his part, Mr Morsi has tried to portray himself as a man of the revolution but has failed to convince the people. It is widely accepted that the Muslim Brotherhood kept away from the protests last year but has since gate-crashed the Tahrir party. Mr Shafiq, on the other hand, has tried to distance himself from the old regime to which he belongs, highlighting instead his secular leadership credentials. But the people still see him as a Mubarak-era official and that does not augur well for his presidential campaign. Generally speaking, there is no saying who will win the upcoming election — no, not while Egypt is still caught in an identity crisis of its own.

Meanwhile, the military continues to keep a watch from the wings — waiting for the right moment (that will include just the right amount of chaos and anarchy) to take charge, for good. Already, the Council has set an absurd 48-hour deadline for political parties to finalise the formation of a 100-member panel to write a new Constitution. Or else, it has threatened to draw up its own blueprint signalling the beginning of an all new era in Egyptian politics. A great amount of uncertainty, then, awaits Egypt.

(This article was published in the Op-ed section of The Pioneer on June 7, 2012.)

Arming rebels won’t resolve Syrian crisis

President Bashar al-Assad is responsible for the violence, but his rivals are no saints

Another Friday, another massacre, another round of international condemnation, and another hundred dead.

That essentially is the sum of much of what happened in Syria this past weekend, and indeed over many such weekends in the last 15 months. On Friday, more than a 100 people were killed as the central Syrian town of Houla and its surrounding villages in Homs Province came under fire. An attack on a regime checkpoint was followed by relentless shelling and firing until armed militants rode into the town early evening and summarily executed residents, most of whom were Sunni Muslims and defectors from the Syrian Army. The dead included a disturbingly high number of children and women.

In the aftermath of Friday’s horrific killing, several Western nations expelled Syrian diplomats from their capitals even as Mr Kofi Annan, the UN-appointed peace envoy, travelled back and forth from Damascus to assess the situation in Houla and may be, just may be, convince President Bashar al-Assad to give up his violent ways. Ultimately, Mr Annan ended his efforts in the case with the unremarkable observation that, after a year of conflict, Syria was at “tipping point”, and then appealed to Mr Assad for “bold steps, now — not tomorrow, but now”. This is hardly the kind of rhetoric that can be expected to bring about a change of heart in Mr Assad. Then, what can bring about that change of heart?

Peaceful negotiation with the stakeholders is perhaps the easiest answer available, but these recent months have shown that at the end of the talk is, well, just that — talk. One diplomatic initiative after the other has failed in Syria, including Mr Annan’s peace plan. The UN may continue to add more peaceniks to the Syrian Team but the fact remains that it will take more than one miracle to change anything at all.

If the manner in which Mr Assad first accepted Mr Annan’s six-point ceasefire plan and then systematically trampled upon its every term and condition is anything to go by, it is time we stop pretending that diplomacy is the way out. Sure, it was an effort worth making — diplomacy has succeeded in the past, most recently in 2008 when Mr Annan himself resolved through peaceful negotiations a violent electoral dispute between warring parties in Kenya — but the time for talking while Mr Assad continues killing is now perhaps over.

Or, is it? When is it ever the right time to invoke the Responsibility to Protect? How do you decide that now, and not three weeks or six months later, is the time to militarily intervene in the affairs of another nation even at the cost of endangering the other’s sovereignty? How do you ensure that your actions today will not be used to justify the illegitimate plans of tomorrow? Finally, then, when do you know that the time has come wherein the risk of inaction will be greater than the risk of action? The July 1995 massacre at Srebrenica was the catalyst that finally compelled Nato to take action and launch a bombing campaign. Will the horror of Houla provoke a similar international effort in Syria? It seems unlikely. So, will be powers-to-be wait till it is too late to make a difference like they did in Sudan or Rwanda?

There are no easy yes-or-no answers here, not with the failure of a similar mission in Libya still looming large. Nato’s carpet bombing campaign of Libya in the summer of 2011, in a supposed bid to assist that country’s rebel groups against Col Muammar Gaddafi, may have helped end the Libyan leader’s tyrannical regime but it has not brought either peace or democracy to the North African nation which now teeters on the brink of anarchy.

As of now, it seems like there are no best — no, not even good — options on the table. Diplomacy has failed and military intervention with a UN mandate is not possible. But then, so is allowing the carnage to continue, and arming the rebels should never have been on the table in the first place. The world must decide which option, of the few that exists, will lead to the least possible damage. Worryingly though, it seems like a covert decision has been made in favour of one of the most damaging options ever — arming the rebels.

Last week, the Associated Press reported that US officials have confirmed that they are seriously looking into the possibility of “vetting” members of the Free Syrian Army, the umbrella group of Syrian rebel fighters that include some military defectors, to decide if they may be “suitable recipients of munitions to fight the Assad Government”. The US already provides non-lethal aid, such as communication devices and medicines, to the Syrian rebels — a move that already makes Washington, DC vulnerable to the same charges of forcing a regime change that it faced during the Libyan campaign. Now, it seems like it is only a step away from actively arming the rebels.

This is hugely problematic but only made worse by reports that some other countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and a few Gulf nations may have already begun the process of arming the rebels.

Indeed, there has been a slew of credible reports that private businessmen in Turkey are smuggling weapons into Syria. Weapons are also being stockpiled in Damascus, in Idlib near the Turkish border and in Zabadani on the Lebanese border, the Washington Post reported. Syrian rebels have been quoted in the international media as saying that the shortage in weapons is no longer as acute as before, possibly because of the millions of dollars in funding from Arabia. They also claim to have contacted weapons dealers in Bulgaria, Greece, Georgia and Azerbaijan, although it remains unclear if they have received any positive responses.

If anything, these reports give credence to the Assad Government’s claims that foreign hands are behind the uprising and that there is a concerted effort by the West to bring about a regime change. It also lays the ground for a wide-ranging ethical debate on the issue. However, what is of far greater concern at the moment is the eventual fall out of the arming of the Syrian rebels.

Kalashshinov and AK-47s in the homes of average Syrians, children playing with automatic pistols, bullet marks on every wall of every building… the world has seen it before. Do we really need another Afghanistan in Syria?

(This article was published in the Op-ed section of The Pioneer on May 31, 2012.)