Syrian Peace Deal Is Unravelling

Not only has the West’s chemical weapons agreement with Damascus done nothing to stem the humanitarian disaster in Syria, it has made matters significantly worse by strengthening the Assad regime and perpetuating a deadlock

Less than five months after the US and Russia claimed an unprecedented diplomatic victory in pressuring President Bashar al-Assad to give up his chemical weapons stock, the deal that was touted as a breakthrough in the Syrian crisis is already unravelling. Not only has it done nothing to stem the humanitarian disaster in the country where a 1,30,00 have been butchered by regime and rebel forces alike, it has, in fact, made matters significantly worse by perpetuating a deadlock.

On Tuesday, this is precisely what the Director of National Intelligence, Mr James Clapper, testified at a US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee hearing. He said: “I foresee kind of more of the same, sort of a perpetual state of a stalemate where... neither the regime nor the opposition can prevail”. In a scathing indictment of the chemical weapons deal, Mr Clapper also said that “(Assad) is actually in a strengthened position than when we discussed this last year, by virtue of his agreement to remove the chemical weapons”.

The US State Department has expectedly downplayed Mr Clapper’s testimony and sought to deflect focus by pointing to the external assistance that the Assad regime continues to receive, primarily from Iran. Now, while there is no doubt that Tehran has propped up its ally in Damascus with men, money and more, to argue that that Iranian support has somehow nullified the West’s peace bargain is downright disingenuous. The deal is falling apart because it was never meant to hold together, as had been argued in this column earlier. 

From a purely logistical point of view, it was premised on the ridiculous assumption that President Assad would lead UN weapons inspectors to his chemical weapons stockpiles (which until then he had not even acknowledged existed) and then stand aside while they take over his weapons — while a civil war rages in the backdrop. It is no wonder then that four months after the deal came into force, and with only another four months to go before the June 30 deadline for destruction of all chemical weapons expires, Syria has given up less than five percent of its chemical weapons arsenal.

The programme made a good start last year, when the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons destroyed equipment and ammunitions that could be used to launch another CW attack like the August 2013 incident in Ghouta. But now it “has reached a kind of a stasis”, according to OPCW spokesperson Michael Luhan. These views were also echoed by Mr Clapper in Washington, DC, who noted before Congress that the project was moving at a “slow pace”.

So far only 53 metric tonnes of chemical have left the Syrian port of Latakia to be destroyed abroad. This is just a fraction of the most lethal elements in Mr Assad’s chemical weapons arsenal that include sarin and mustard gases, which were supposed to have been handed over by December 31, 2013. On Wednesday, the regime also missed a second deadline for handing over other industrial chemical components. On behalf of the Syrian regime, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov has assured the international community that the former is planning a move another in shipment this month and will, in fact, complete the entire process by March. But most experts agree that this is unlikely.

On their part, Syrian officials have cited “safety concerns” — rather legitimately, it would seem, in the backdrop of a civil war — for the delay, and put out a laundry list of things they need for transporting the material across the country. Unsurprisingly, this list is heavy on items such as armoured troop carriers and armoured sleeves for containers loaded with chemicals which can also be used to beef up the regime's military might. For now, Washington has refused to fulfil the request — “The regime has every tool they need in order to deliver on their promise of moving the chemical weapons to the port at Latakia,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki — and instead accused the regime of dragging its feet.

This might well be the case. President Assad has a long and successful record of pushing the West’s tolerance limits, then backing off a bit with false promises, to buy time, gather his troops, and push forth again. Against this backdrop, news reports that his regime is actually stockpiling chemical weapons gains significance. The Times of London quoted unnamed Russian and Israeli sources as saying that Syria is working with Iran and North Korea to upgrade its arsenal so that it can be used as an “insurance policy” of sorts to protect President Assad’s rump state, extending across his Alawaite turf in the north-western part of the country, in case Syria is partitioned.

If true, this will not be the first time that a rogue leader has taken the West for a ride. Even Muammar Gaddafi, who voluntarily gave up his chemical weapons to end Libya’s international isolation, had put away a secret stash that was discovered unguarded in the middle of the desert after his death in 2011. Indeed, the deal’s overt dependence on the Assad regime, which has proven itself to be unreliable, has always been one of its biggest pitfalls.

Even before the deal was finalised in September 2013, this author had labelled it as one that was for everybody and yet belonged to nobody. It was a diplomatic victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin who “resurrected Russia’s image from a Cold War relic to a 21st century superpower” and reiterated “Moscow’s influence in West Asia”, a face-saver for US President Barack Obama who “needed to extricate himself from the ‘Red Line’ narrative in which he had foolishly entwined himself” and finally, and perhaps most worryingly, it allowed President Assad to “breathe easy” as the possibility of a Western military intervention in Syria was drastically reduced. The deal, which is narrowly focussed on chemical weapons, turned the spotlight away from the Assad regime’s killings by conventional weapons — most recently, deadly barrel bombs were used by the Syrian Air Force in the rebel stronghold of Aleppo — even as the death toll in Syria continues to rise. 

On a concluding note, it is interesting to note that on Monday the United Nations announced that the deputy to Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations special envoy for Syria, was resigning. While no official reason was given, it is well-known that President Assad had objected to the deputy’s presence at the Geneva II talks as he was a nephew Yasser Arafat. This is possibly because Mr Assad’s father despised the Palestinian leader. Some view this UN move to be a conciliatory gesture towards the Assad regime. If true, it points to the possibility of a some sort of a political settlement which is the only way out of this mess.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on February 6, 2014)

Our Friend Across The Oceans

The India-Japan bilateral is enjoying a new high, and it is the convergence of strategic concerns between the two countries, upon which stands the framework for the new partnership that may potentially re-define the Indo-Pacific security paradigm

With Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe being feted as the Chief Guest at the Republic Day parade this year, New Delhi has underlined its reciprocal interest in Tokyo’s initiative to bolster bilateral ties between the two countries. The Prime Minister’s visit comes just about a month after India had the honour of hosting the Emperor and Empress of Japan — a historic tour and perhaps the most potent gesture from Tokyo towards India’s new-found centrality in Japan’s foreign policy scheme. That in between these two visits, Japan’s Foreign Minister Itsunori Onodera also came calling not only reiterates the fact that the India-Japan bilateral is enjoying a new high but more specifically, underscores the convergence of strategic concerns between the two countries, upon which stands the framework for the new partnership.

Since his return to office in December 2012, Prime Minister Abe’s has sought to re-work Japan’s pacifist post-War Constitution, keeping in mind two factors: First, protect Japanese strategic interests against the backdrop of a changing security paradigm (read: increasing Chinese belligerence in the neighbourhood) and second, re-invigorate the moribund Japanese economy — which also serves as a response to China’s emergence as a global powerhouse — by expanding its highly advanced defence industry. The latter, of course, is just one part of Prime Minister Abe’s larger economic revival plan that includes fiscal stimulus, tightening monetary policy and re-structuring economic structures. Most of these efforts have been paying off. Now, they have all been smartly packaged within the nationalist narrative of putting Japan on the path to realising its destiny as the Land of the Rising Sun.

Japan’s global strategic policy under Prime Minister Abe has been carefully articulated in its National Security Strategy that was released in December 2013, alongside a National Defence Programme Guidelines and the establishment of a national security council (which, interestingly, coincided with the Chinese setting up a similar body). That Tokyo has gone so far as to the put out a security doctrine, not to mention constitute an NSC, is in itself a rare though welcome move.

From India’s perspective, it gets even better — a casual overview of the security doctrine makes clear that Japan views this country as one of the “primary drivers” of its “proactive contribution to peace” policy. Against this backdrop, it is to be expected that bilateral defence cooperation between the two countries that has increased significantly in recent years will now grow exponentially. Joint naval exercises, for instance, have already become a fairly regular affair. Even the coast guards of the two countries held their first joint exercise in the Arabian Sea on January 14. More cooperation in counter-terrorism and anti-piracy operations is on the cards already.

Additionally, there is now a push for more cooperation between the Indian Air Force and the Japanese Air Self Defence Force. This will be a huge step forward and, in fact, was one of the most important issues discussed during the Japanese Defence Minister’s visit earlier this month.

Another issue that figured prominently on the agenda was the ShinMaywa US-2i aircraft. Japan has offered this multi-role amphibian aircraft to India, and India is seriously considering the offer. The US-2i will go a long way in strengthening the country’s naval aviation segment and also help with search and rescue operations, thereby extending our capabilities in providing humanitarian assistance. A joint working group was set up last year to work out the modalities of the deal. In fact, the plan was to sign the deal during Prime Minister Abe’s upcoming visit but unfortunately it has not worked out as such.

But nevertheless, Japan’s offer to sell this aircraft to India must be viewed against the backdrop of Tokyo now shedding it traditional reticence on defence trade. Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution prohibits the sale of any weapons and defence technology. It was initially designed to block any support to Communist countries but eventually evolved into a blanket ban. However, since the 1980s, successive Governments have been chipping it away — most notably in 2011, then Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda allowed the transfer of defence technology, and recently Prime Minister Abe has sought to lift the export ban in its entirety.

For now, Japan can still sell the US-2i to India without the friend-or-foe detection system (which is what makes it a fighter aircraft). Some say that the missing part can be retroactively fitted possibly with Israeli systems that are supposedly superior anyway. Either way, the potential for cooperation in this field is immense especially as India seeks to modernise its armed forces. 

On the political front, Minister Onodera’s visit will be followed by the third 2+2 dialogue that brings together the foreign and defence ministers of both countries, the Fourth Defence Policy Dialogue that will be conducted at the Defence Secretary level, and finally a trip to Japan by the Indian Defence Minister. In general, there is a consensus favouring more high-level deliberations including annual exchanges between military personnel and the political leadership alike.

Almost all of this is in keeping with Prime Minister Abe’s past record of seeking strong ties with India, not just on a bilateral basis but also as part of multilateral arrangements. Back in 2007, when Mr Abe was serving his first term as Prime Minister, he had delivered a landmark speech to the Indian Parliament wherein he etched out a grand civilisational partnership between the two nations. At that time, he also laid the foundation of a ‘security quadrilateral’ between Japan, India, the US and Australia. In fact, this was followed by Operation Malabar in the same year that saw a bilateral naval exercise between India and the US extended to include Australia, Japan and also Singapore. China was understandably livid and issued strong demarches to everybody and that was the end of that. 

But when he returned to India in 2011, he made a conscious effort to firm up his 2007 strategy by calling for the “two great democracies to meet at sea — for a better and safer Asia”. His pointed references to China made it clear that he would not cower before the might of Beijing, as some others have in recent years.

In fact, one of the reasons why Japan is seeking new partners is because it is reportedly displeased with its traditional ally, the US’s refusal to take a harder line against China. The fact remains that for all the talk about a rebalance to Asia, Washington, DC, has more or less accepted China’s recent imposition of an Air Defence Identification Zone which covers the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands administered by Japan and claimed by Beijing. In India, however, the situation strikes a far more sympathetic note.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on January 23, 2014)

Standing Up for Sheikh Hasina

Amid fears that the West may not recognise the new Awami League regime in Dhaka, which came to power unopposed after the Opposition boycotted the January 5 election, India has done well to offer a strong counter-narrative in favour of Bangladesh

Bangladesh’s 10th Jatiya Sangsad election has produced a diplomatic challenge for India which, if handled effectively, can be converted into an opportunity for New Delhi to re-establish its credentials as a regional leader. Boycotted by the Opposition, the vote was held this past Sunday in the shadow of violence, leading to a low turnout. Bangladesh’s deadliest national election ever, it expectedly produced an overwhelming, though hollow, victory for the incumbent Awami League regime which was voted into office for the next five years even before the first ballot had been cast.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is expected to form the next Government before the current Parliament expires on January 24, but there are fears that the new regime may not be recognised by the West. The US and EU had indicated as much when they refused to send their election observers and have since taken a strong stance against Prime Minister Hasina for failing to get the Opposition on board. Australia, Canada, the UK, the UN and the Commonwealth of Nations have all expressed varying degrees of disapproval as well. In contrast, India has acknowledged it as a “constitutional requirement”, and has been working with its international partners to ensure that Dhaka is not unfairly censured. This is a step in the right direction.

Over the years, Prime Minister Hasina has proven to be one of India’s most reliable friends in the region — she has cracked down on anti-India terror camps in her country and handed over rebels leaders in the North-East — but New Delhi has done little to hold up its side of the relationship. For instance, it has not been able to deliver on either the land border agreement or the Teesta water arrangement, making Ms Hasina vulnerable to much criticism at home. South Block’s efforts now to stand up for a friend it has somewhat disregarded in recent years, therefore, are important corrective measures. 

In December 2013, for instance, Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh, during her visit to the US, offered a strong counter-narrative to Washington, DC’s sharp criticism of the situation in Bangladesh. Previously, National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon had also discussed the matter with his counterpart in the UK and according to reports in the Bangladeshi media, the meeting went better than expected. This may explain the British foreign office’s more ‘accommodating’ position on the issue — it has not yet recognised the new regime per se, having only taken note of the election result, but at least has accepted that the vote was held in accordance with Bangladesh’s Constitution.

Additionally, New Delhi is also lobbying with the Commonwealth grouping to shield Dhaka from unwarranted criticism. Here, India’s has an upper-hand thanks to its membership to the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group. Overall, it is in the international arena that New Delhi will have to do most of the work because within Bangladesh, the political scenario is so charged and polarised, there is not much space for it to manoeuvre.

Prime Minister Hasina has been urged by New Delhi to resolve the problem through dialogue, and on her part, she has even offered to hold a fresh election if the Opposition discards its campaign of violence. But for now, it doesn’t seem like the latter is in the mood for reconciliation unless its key demand for a non-party caretaker Government is met.

This is unlikely given that the system was abolished in 2011 — with the approval of the courts — and, therefore, Prime Minister Hasina has no compelling reason to give up her ground. Besides, she had offered to meet the Opposition half-way with an all-party caretaker Government before the January 5 election but was rebuffed by an obstinate Khaleda Zia, who, as chief of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, heads the 18-party Opposition alliance.

Some analysts have suggested that India engage the Opposition in Dhaka — a fine thought, if only New Delhi had more leverage with Ms Zia. Unfortunately, the two-time former Prime Minister has kept herself at a distance. Over the past two years, in an attempt to appear even-handed in its dealings with Bangladesh, South Block has made several high-profile attempts to establish a better working relationship with Ms Zia even at the cost of upsetting Ms Hasina. These included a meeting with Vice President Hamid Ansari in Dhaka in 2011, an exclusive lunch with the Prime Minister in New Delhi in 2012 and  the offer for a tête-à-tête with President Pranab Mukherjee in Dhaka in 2013 (that she turned down) — but to no avail.

In fact, not only has Ms Zia refused to reciprocate Delhi’s goodwill gestures, she has heightened her anti-India sloganeering. This is not just a continuation of her traditional political strategies but also reflective of the increased political influence of her extremist ally, the Jamaat-e-Islami, which maintains a vitriolic opposition to India, not to mention collaborates with jihadi terror networks in the region. Once a fringe party, whose role was limited to providing the mainstream BNP with political muscle, the Jamaat has now emerged as the dominant partner in the relationship.

It seems like Ms Zia herself is still working out the changing dynamics of the partnership. For instance, after Jamaati leader Abdul Qader Mollah was executed for committing war crimes, the Islamists demanded that she take a strong stance on the matter. However, given the wave of popular support in favour of Mollah’s death sentence — this is what sparked the Shahbag protests in the first place — Ms Zia skirted the issue. In retaliation, the Jamaati cadre offered only a lukewarm response to her call to the country to march upon Dhaka in protest against the Hasina Government. Consequently, the much-touted December 29 mega protest march failed to take off.

Ultimately, Ms Zia will have to reconsider her alliance with the Jamaatis but in the foreseeable future, the political logjam in Dhaka will probably get worse before it gets better. Social unrest, in the form of hartals, blockades and nation-wide shutdowns will also continue, as the Opposition can be expected to turn up the heat. It is under these circumstances of political instability and uncertainty in Dhaka, fuelled by violence and anarchy on the streets across Bangladesh, that Prime Minister Hasina will take oath for her third consecutive term in office — and she will require the wholehearted support of her friends and allies.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on January 9, 2014)

An Unnecessary Public Fracas

New Delhi has been credited with taking a strong stance on the Devyani Khobragade case. But there are discomfiting questions about why the Ministry of External Affairs allowed the matter to blow out of proportion in the first place

Even though the dust is yet to settle on the recent India-US diplomatic face-off, it is perhaps safe to assume that the storm has passed. Ms Devyani Khobragade, the Indian diplomat accused of visa fraud, has been moved from her position at the consulate in New York to India’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations — with the tacit approval of the US State Department — where she now enjoys full immunity from criminal prosecution. Washington, DC, has also exempt her from personal appearances in court and if everything goes according to plan, she will not have to deal with any more pesky law enforcement officials while in New York. Eventually, the Ministry of External Affairs will bring her home ostensibly with her “dignity restored”, as Mr Salman Khurshid promised Parliament last week.

As and when that happens, be prepared for yet another round of vacuous nationalism that can be matched in fervour only by the pointless patriotism that was once the staple at India-Pakistan cricket matches. Worse still, be prepared for a smug Ministry of External Affairs as it pats itself on the back for a job well done.

Indeed, South Block has mostly been praised by the media and the public at large for taking a strong stand on the Khobragade case which, as many commentators have rightly argued, stands on flimsy legal ground and violates diplomatic conventions. The diplomat’s arrest and incarceration, the primary bone of contention between India and the US, was a disastrous move on the part of the Americans, and even Washington has now sought to distance itself from the act by trying to pin the blame on the one Diplomatic Security Services agent who was responsible for apprehending Ms Khobragade. As for the charges against Ms Khobragade, any good lawyer worth his day in court will rip them to shreds — especially if he follows the same line of argument that the US itself has used on earlier occasions to invoke the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations so as to protect its own people in foreign shores.

Finally, as Mr Ashok Malik and Mr Abhijit Iyer-Mitra have explained in this newspaper over the past few days, the US State Department and India’s Ministry of External Affairs had an unwritten understanding regarding the employment of domestic staff. This was based on pragmatic considerations and diplomatic courtesies that went both ways. When the US cracked down on Ms Khobragade, India rightly viewed it as the latter reneging on its side of the deal.

Unacceptable as this breach in diplomatic code has been, New Delhi should have seen it coming. Twice before, our diplomats in New York have been pulled up by US authorities on this exact issue, and even though neither case was allowed to escalate, New Delhi should have been on guard. But clearly, South Block didn’t move fast enough to change the status quo, thereby putting our diplomats in a precarious position. This was the first mistake.

The second and far more damaging mistake has been the manner in which the Ministry of External Affairs allowed the matter to blow up in the public domain. Especially since much of this case is in the gray zone — a nudge-nudge-wink-wink agreement gone wrong is not exactly a compelling defence — it ideally should have been resolved away from the public eye. By allowing it to escalate into a full scale diplomatic crisis, New Delhi compounded Washington’s callousness and brought the crucial India-US bilateral under enormous strain. That this happened at a time when relations between the two countries had already hit a plateau of sorts — with the much-touted nuclear deal failing to take-off, the economic partnership seeming less attractive etc — has only made matters worse. Especially at the bureaucratic level, such an episode reinforces old notions of the two countries being in the different camps etc, and threatens the hard-won gains made in the bilateral over the past decade or so.

Also, New Delhi’s defence narrative of respect and dignity publicly pushed both parties onto the high moral ground. While on the one hand this exposed American double standards (the privileges they demand for their diplomats but do not care to accord to others is just one example), it also opened India to unnecessary criticism (no matter how flawed, prejudiced and ill-informed) about ‘slave labour’ and ‘class culture’. Sure, Indian society has its problems but so does every other society and nobody needs to be lectured on how to wash their dirty laundry.

So, why did the Ministry of External Affairs allow this case to blow up? Well, technically, it was Ms Khobragade’s father, a former IAS officer, who orchestrated the tamasha in India but it is highly unlikely that he did it all without the Ministry of External Affairs’s blessings. Yes, there were other factors too, such as a resentful foreign service cadre which played its part, but still the episode could not have so escalated without the express consent of the Ministry of External Affairs — which, of course, has now craftily presented this foreign policy fiasco as a foreign policy success!

Given the UPA’s poor track record in diplomacy and the Congress’s history of playing cynical politics, this begs the question: Under the garb of protecting national prestige, did the Ministry of External Affairs actually sacrifice our national interests so that the Congress-led regime could gain some easy brownie points in the run-up to the 2014 general election? Did the Congress seek to make up with cheap demagoguery what it has failed to offer in terms of good governance? Increasingly, this seems to be the case given how the Ministry of External Affairs is suddenly being hero-worshipped for baring its fangs and standing up to US bullying.

On a concluding note, however, it must be clarified that it is no one’s case that the Ministry of External Affairs should not have retaliated. To the contrary, it absolutely should have (more so, since the Richard family evacuation segment of this story is an insult to the India’s judicial system) — but not under the public glare. For instance, just like the common man knew nothing when American consular officials were given full diplomatic privileges over and above what was specified in the rule books, they didn’t have to be told when those measures were withdrawn. This would not have in any way blunted the Ministry of External Affairs’s diplomatic offensive but it would have saved the already strained India-US relationship from unnecessary pressure. But now, the whole thing just looks like a cheap pre-poll gimmick.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on December 26, 2013)

For Want Of Better Options

Drones remain the most effective weapon in the US’s counter-terror arsenal. Critics of the remote-controlled missile will do well to reconsider their contention the attacks lead to high civilian casualties and violate Pakistan’s sovereignty

On November 21, a US drone strike in the Hangu district of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province killed six people including a senior leader of the Haqqani network and at least one more militant from the Al Qaeda-affiliated group. The strike came exactly 20 days after a similar drone attack took down another high-profile terror target, Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, in Miranshah, North Waziristan. In the intervening days, the Haqqani network’s main financier Nasiruddin Haqqani was shot dead by unidentified assailants in Islamabad. His brother, Sirajuddin, currently heads the network and was reportedly the target of the November 21 attack in Hangu, since he was seen at the seminary where the drones struck thrice last week. Also, the senior Haqqani leader who was killed in the strike, Maulvi Ahmed Jan, was Sirajuddin Haqqani’s trusted right-hand man.

Apart from the obvious observation that the attacks have put both the Haqqani network, and to a lesser extent the Pakistani Taliban (the two are affiliated but work independently) “on notice”, as a US official said recently, their relative success in eliminating high-profile targets has underlined the fact that America’s remote-controlled predator drones remain one of the most potent weapons in its counter-terrorism arsenal — their reputation as ‘joysticks’ used to play ‘video-game wars’ notwithstanding.

As expected, the Hangu strike has been usurped by the Government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as yet another opportunity to play to the gallery and whip up oodles of anti-American sentiment. Ruling party chief Imran Khan, always the showman, has kicked up a huge fuss about the strikes and blocked Nato supply routes into Afghanistan that run through the Province. Given Pakistan’s previous experience with this pressure tactic — remember, the routes were also shut after a US-Nato attack on the Salala outpost killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November 2011 but re-opened later without Islamabad being able to squeeze so much as an apology from Washington, DC — it is clear that Mr Khan’s passionate outbursts on the matter are, well, just that. He had responded in exactly the same manner when Mehsud was killed, no matter that the Pakistani Taliban has not only been responsible for the death of an estimated 43,000 Pakistanis but also does not recognise the democratically-elected, Government structure of which Mr Khan himself is a part!

But Mr Khan is not alone in his opposition to US drone strikes. There are many within Pakistan and outside who share his views, and criticise drone strikes based on a whole host of issues — legal, moral, political and strategic. It is difficult to do justice to the whole debate here but essentially, the anti-drone club puts forth two major arguments: First, drones strikes cause enormous civilian casualties without promising enough returns; second, they are a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. Both arguments are problematic.

In the first case, the number of civilian casualties caused by drone strikes is unclear and varies widely between a few hundred to several thousands. This is because of the covert nature of the drone strikes programme which makes it extremely difficult to put together verifiable data on the matter. The US Government does not officially release information on drone strikes while the Pakistani Government sometimes denies it, sometimes acknowledges it.

That leaves us with reports from external agencies such as the UN, think-tanks and advocacy groups, and the media — almost all of them are usually just as vague and unreliable, as foreigners have no direct access to the tribal areas of Pakistan where these attacks take place. Special permission is required from the Government, and even after such access is granted, journalists can only travel with official escorts. In fact, even Pakistani citizens cannot travel to these areas without permission and unless they have proven families ties to the region. This leads to a veritable information black hole, and ultimately a debate that is based on half-baked facts and mostly just fiction.

Occasionally, though, this black hole has been penetrated with reporters being able to conduct first-hand interviews of villagers in these remote areas. But even then they have found it near impossible to ascertain the exact number of civilians, when any, who are killed in a drone strike. There are two reasons for this. One, after such a strike occurs, the militants seal the area, remove the bodies and secretly bury them. Then, they slap the label of ‘martyr’ on all the deceased. Two, the locals live in an environment of constant and violent intimidation. Therefore, their testimonies, on the rare occasion that they are available, are often tainted.

Mr Guillaume Lavallee of the Agence France-Presse reported earlier this month that any local who dares to speak in support of drone strikes is abducted, tortured and murdered by the militants — their last moments caught on tape and distributed in the area. The news report quotes Gul Wali Wazir (not his real name) from South Waziristan tribal area who says: “They (the militants) will cut his throat or shoot him, they will film his false confession, kill him and leave the body on the road with a DVD and a note saying that anybody who supports America and drones will face the same fate. I have seen a dozen such dead bodies.”

That despite these circumstances, Mr Lavallee’s interviews have led him to conclude that “a sizeable number of people in the country’s tribal areas support them (drone strikes)” must be noted. The report quotes Safdar Hayat Khan Dawar, former head of the Tribal Union of Journalists, from the militant-infested North Waziristan who says that the missiles were the preferred solution to the problem of militancy, as opposed to Pakistani Army’s operations. “The military option, people hate it because the army don’t kill militants but civilians”, says Mr Dawar. His opinions are echoed by Nizam Dawar, director of the Tribal Development Network, who asks: “Those people who became internally displaced persons due to the military operation, those people who are victimised by the Taliban and the militants, all the families whose family members are beheaded because they were accused of spying for America — why would they oppose drone attacks?” A recent Pakistani Government report has also noted that only a small percentage of those killed are civilians.

If the civilian casualty argument stands on thin ice, the one on Pakistani sovereignty holds no water at all. We now have enough evidence to say with certainty that Pakistan’s military and political establishment bartered away the country’s sovereignty years ago when it gave the US explicit permission to carry out these attacks. Former President Pervez Musharraf had said at that time that the drone strikes would be no big deal “as things fall out of the sky in Pakistan all the time”. In fact, his Government even took credit for some of the early drone strikes,  pretending that they had been carried out by the Pakistani Air Force.

Over the years, as relations between Washington and Islamabad have become relatively tenuous, the degree to which Pakistani support now extends to the US drone programme may have dipped. But it has not diminished entirely. The drones do not just sneak into Pakistani airspace, point and shoot, and then flee. They study their targets for hours, sometimes days, before they attack; in the November 21 case, locals said that they knew about the hovering drones for days. This cannot be done without insider support. The Pakistani establishment may feign ignorance and even froth at the mouth over the drone strikes for domestic consumption, but that does not change the facts.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on November 28, 2013)

Taking Advantage of Taliban Flux

In the run-up to 2014, rival groups are re-aligning themselves, against the backdrop of clashing intelligence agencies and competing political interests. Can the US and Afghanistan seize on this to scuttle the groups from within?

When Latifullah Mehsud, a senior Pakistani Taliban leader, was taken by US forces in Afghanistan in October, a few eye-brows were raised in the strategic community, but overall it got little attention. Then, less than a month later, on November 1, his boss and group chief, Hakimullah Mehsud, was killed in a US drone strike in the tribal areas of North Waziristan, leading to much political drama in Pakistan. Now, another top leader belonging to the powerful Haqqani network which is allied to the Taliban and also operates out of North Waziristan, has been shot dead in  Islamabad.

It is difficult to establish if these incidents are related but there is little doubt that they point to an internal upheaval within the greater Taliban. In the run-up to the American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014, rival groups are lobbying for more power and influence, against the backdrop of clashing intelligence agencies and competing political interests. 

For instance, when Latifullah Mehsud was taken in October by US forces in Afghanistan’s eastern Logar Province, he was returning from a meeting with Afghan intelligence officers on a prisoner swap deal. His capture angered Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who viewed it as an impediment to the ongoing peace talks with the Taliban. Similarly, the Pakistani Government threw a fit when Hakimullah Mehsud was killed. The strike came just one day before a state delegation was scheduled to meet Taliban leaders to initiate a dialogue, and Islamabad blamed the US for disrupting the talks. In fact, given its shrill response, one would not be faulted for assuming that it was just one step away from inking a peace deal with the insurgents. In reality though, the talks had not even begun and there was no guarantee that the deliberations would lead to any kind of truce.

On the contrary, there is reason to believe that the Taliban never cared for the talks but were just playing for time. They wanted to stave off a Pakistani military operation in Waziristan at this time, and they have been successful. The fighting season for this year is over and the next window will open only in the Spring of 2014. At that time, American troops will be withdrawing from Afghanistan while the country prepares for presidential polls. In other words, there will be instability in the region and the group can take advantage of that to seek shelter across the border in case the Pakistani military moves into Northern Waziristan.

Against this backdrop, Mullah Fazlullah elevation to the top job within the Pakistani Taliban is interesting. A hardliner even by Taliban standards — he ordered the hit on Malala Yousafzai — he established his leadership credentials during the Pakistani military’s operations in the Swat valley in 2007 and 2009. Afterwards, he fled to Afghanistan and now operates from Kunar Province. His recent exploits include the bomb attack that killed the Pakistani Army’s commander in the Swat valley, Major General Sanaullah Niazi.

Although Kabul has denied his presence in the country, Pakistani analysts have alleged that Mullah Fazlullah is supported by the Afghan intelligence. Either way, the consensus is that Mullah Fazlullah brings strategic depth to the Pakistani Taliban. This explains why the group picked him, cutting crossing tribal and regional faultlines. The mullah is a lowlander Pakhtun while traditionally the leadership of the Pakistani Taliban has rested with the Mehsud tribe from the highlands. Also, with Mullah Fazlullah at the helm, the Pakistani Taliban may move to his native place in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province — in which case, it will be the first time that the group sets up base in the settled areas of Pakistan. Conveniently, here Mr Imran Khan’s PTI is in power, and it has no qualms in supping with terrorist groups.

In fact, in these past weeks, the surreptitious relationship of the Pakistani establishment with the terror groups has once again been highlighted.

If Mehsud was killed just a few kilometres away from the Pakistani military’s fortress in Miranshah, the young Haqqani was shot in Islamabad, bringing back memories of Osama bin Laden’s safe haven in Abbottabad. Nasiruddin Haqqani, son of  Haqqani network founder Jallaluddin and brother of current chief Sirajuddin, was the group’s chief financier. He maintained a permanent residence in Islamabad, often travelled to the Gulf to secure funding and represented the Haqqanis at the disastrous Doha talks. It is not clear who is responsible for his death — rumour has it that it was the result of a fallout with his cousin who was talking to the Afghan intelligence — but it is a blow to the Pakistan-based group which is losing control over its stronghold in Afghanistan where the Zadran tribe of Khost may have broken ties with the group. 

The situation is in a flux. The question here is: Will state agencies (Afghans, Pakistanis and Americans) take advantage of the shifting dynamics to scuttle the groups from within. Before you answer that, factor this in: In 2012, after Malala was shot, the Americans refused to hunt down Mullah Fazlullah in Afghanistan, as they viewed him as an ‘other-side-of-the-border’ problem.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on November 14, 2013)

Sliver of Hope in the Middle East

Israel’s security cooperation with Egypt has strengthened in the past two years, and a mutual dissatisfaction with US policy has brought it on the same page as Saudi Arabia. Will the Jewish nation’s ties with its neighbours finally blossom in the Arab Spring?

In his address to the Winter Session of the Knesset earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made an important comment that has gone largely unnoticed. He said: “For the first time since the establishment of the State of Israel, a growing understanding is taking root in the Arab world, and it is not always said softly. This understanding, that Israel is not the enemy of Arabs and that we have a united front on many issues, might advance new possibilities in our region.” The statements were made in reference to the tremendous upheaval that the region has witnessed since 2011 and placed against the background narrative of radical Islam gaining ground in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. Prime Minister Netanyahu now believes that this narrative is flawed; that radical Islam’s assumption of power is “neither inevitable or nor irreversible”, as the common man doesn’t support the extremists.

While only time will tell if Mr Netanyahu’s assessments (which many believe to be a tad bit too optimistic) are correct, and more importantly if Israel will be able to leverage these shifts in regional power equations to push for a less-hostile neighbourhood, there is, however, some reason to hope for the better. We see this primarily in Israel’s relations with Egypt and to a lesser extent with Saudi Arabia.

In the case of Egypt, Israel’s peace with the world’s largest Arab nation has held strong despite the tumultuous changes that have taken place in that country since 2011. In fact, when the autocratic but relatively secular regime of President Hosni Mubarak was ousted, there were concerns that the Egypt-Israel peace treaty that has been the anchor for regional stability for four decades now, would fall apart. These concerns gained strength especially after the Muslim Brotherhood, which barely recognises Israel’s right to exist, was voted to power last year and Mr Mohammed Morsi became President. And his removal from office earlier this year did little to assuage those fears.

Yet, despite all of this, the treaty has not fallen apart — as many had feared. Instead, it has paved the way for unprecedented military and strategic cooperation between Israel and Egypt in the past two years. As Ehud Yaari at the Washington Institute notes, “Israeli and Egyptian officers hold almost daily meetings and have established an efficient system of communications. This cooperation stems from a mutual interest in curbing the terrorist factions that have emerged in Sinai over the past decade, threatening both the Israeli border and the Egyptian control over the peninsula.”

A good example of this kind of cooperation, and the mutual trust that it quietly engenders, lies in the fact that earlier this year when Egypt wanted to temporarily deploy its troops in areas of eastern Sinai where they are generally not allowed, Israel agreed. This was an especially big deal because the sanctioned deployment was in excess of what the peace treaty provides for.

Zack Gold, who studies Israeli-Egyptian security cooperation in the Sinai Peninsula, has also observed that “Jihadi action over the past two years has purposefully attempted to embarrass the Egyptian military, expose Israeli-Egyptian cooperation, and draw Israel into a cross-border response.” In an attempt to inject bad blood between Egyptian and Israeli troops, terrorists in fact raided Israeli targets wearing Egyptian uniforms.

Yet, in spite of these many challenges, the treaty has proved to be resilient much like it had during previous times of turbulence — such as the two Palestinian Intifadas, the two Lebanon wars and rounds of fighting Israel-Hamas fighting in the Gaza strip. While the treaty may have failed to forge greater socio-economic cooperation between the two countries of the kind that had been envisaged at the end of the Yom Kippur war, the last war waged by an Arab nation against Israel, its strategic benefits cannot be overstated. Not only has it fostered a ‘cold peace’ between the two nations, protecting lives and territory, it has also now seemingly encouraged Israeli-Egypt cooperation on the global platform.

For instance, after the Egyptian military ousted President Morsi from office, Israel lobbied hard with Washington, DC, to not label it a coup — even though that was exactly what it was. Terming it as such would have immediately ended the flow of all American aid to Egypt and upset the generals in Cairo. Of course, the Obama Administration has since then still partially suspended its hefty aid package to Egypt, its biggest Arab ally, at a time of widespread instability in the Maghreb and Mashreq, and no doubt the decision has come under intense scrutiny from several quarters.

Some experts, such as Princeton scholar Sharanbir Grewal, believe that it was the Obama Administration’s “smartest possible option”. Writing for a Washington Post blog, he notes that by halting cash assistance and delivery of large-scale military systems such as F-16 fighter jets, Apache helicopters, M1A1 tanks, and Harpoon missiles, while leaving support for counter-terrorism programmes and economic assistance untouched, Washington, DC, has demonstrated “resourcefulness in maximizing what little leverage it has over Egypt.” He argues that the US has hit the generals where it hurts them the most (the boys in Cairo love their big, shiny, toys) while causing almost no damage to American national interests.

But most policy-makers and security analysts do not share his optimism. While some have criticised the Obama Administration for cutting too much aid that will only lead to further erosion of Washington’s leverage in Cairo, others believe that it has cut too little and, therefore, exposed itself as a toothless tiger desperate for Egyptian support to maintain its influence in the Arab world. And then are others who believe that the partial cut sends out yet another muddled message of the kind that has come to characterise the Obama Administration’s Arab Spring policy. Ultimately, though the strongest criticism of America’s decision to cut aid to Egypt has come from what many would consider to be an unlikely quarter: The State of Israel.

Irrespective of the merits of the debate on US aid to Egypt, the point to be noted here is that it was yet another instance of diverging Israeli and American interests in the region. Washington’s decision to cut aid to Egypt came around the same time it chose to respond positively to Iranian President Hasan Rouhani’s peace overtures. This has sent alarm bells ringing in Jerusalem, where Prime Minister Netanyahu has warned against his counterpart in Tehran being a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and also in Riyadh where the royals have made clear that the US is violating the terms of their protection racket by warming up to Tehran. Clearly, mutual dissatisfaction over US foreign policy has brought Israel and Saudi Arabia closer than ever before. It is, of course, still unclear if Israel in the near future will be able to have peaceful ties with its Arab neighbours but a sliver of hope seems to be emerging.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on October 31, 2013)