Dirty games of USA and Indo-Pak relations

Two templates in regional politics are seriously debilitating the United States's campaign to bring Pakistan down on its knees in the Afghan endgame. One is that Delhi has distanced itself from the US campaign and pursues an independent policy toward Islamabad.

The second factor frustrating US policies to isolate Pakistan is the South Asian nation's bonhomie with Iran. Pakistan would have been pretty much isolated had there been an acute rivalry with Iran over the Afghan endgame. The current level of cordiality in the relationship enables Islamabad to focus on the rift with the US and even draw encouragement from Tehran.

It's baloney
A recent statement by the Indian External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on the US-Pakistan rift underscored that India doesn't see eye-to-eye with the US approach. (See US puts the squeeze on Pakistan, Asia Times, October 22). It was carefully timed to signal to Washington (and Islamabad) that Delhi strongly disfavored any form of US military action against Pakistan.

There is a string of evidence to suggest that the Pakistani leadership appreciates the Indian stance. The general headquarters in Rawalpindi acted swiftly on Sunday to return to India within hours a helicopter with three senior military officers on board which strayed into Pakistani territory in bad weather in the highly sensitive Siachen sector. The official spokesman in Delhi went on record to convey India's appreciation of the Pakistani gesture. Such conciliatory gestures are rare (for both sides) in the chronicle of Pakistan-India relationship.

Again, last week, India voted for Pakistan's candidacy for the Asia-Pacific slot among the non-permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council and the Pakistani ambassador promptly responded that he would work with his Indian counterpart in New York. Ironically, the UN has been a theater for India and Pakistan's frequent clashes over the Kashmir problem.

Looking ahead, the prime ministers of India and Pakistan are likely to meet on the sidelines of the South Asian Association For Regional Cooperation summit in Male on November 10-11. Washington would have been quick to insist that it acted as "facilitator" in fostering the improving climate in India-Pakistan relations. But the US is instead watching with a degree of discomfort that its complicated South Asian symphony is throwing up jarring notes. Calibrating India-Pakistan tensions traditionally constituted a key element of the US's regional diplomacy.

Washington has "retaliated" to Krishna's statement by issuing a travel advisory cautioning American nationals from visiting India because of heightened terrorist threats. Delhi, in turn, ticked off Washington saying it considered the US move "disproportionate" - a cute way of saying that the advisory is a load of baloney.

Jundallah in retreat
What is happening in Pakistan-Iran relations is even more galling for the US. There has been a spate of high-level visits between Islamabad and Tehran and the two capitals have reached mutual understandings on a range of security interests. Last week, Tehran acknowledged that there had not been a single attack by the terrorist group Jundallah from the Pakistani side of the border in the Balochistan region during the past 10 months.

Concerted effort
In sum, the overall regional scenario is becoming rather unfavorable to the US. The easing of tensions in Pakistan's relations with India and Iran undermine US strategy to get embedded in the region.

The Afghan endgame is moving into a crucial phase; much will depend on regional politics. The worst-case scenario for the US is that subsuming the contradictions in the intra-regional relationships between and among Pakistan, Iran, India and China, these countries might have a convergent opinion on the issue of American military bases.

M K Bhadrakumar in Asia Times Online. Here
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

Erdogan leads Turkey - and the Middle East

Situating oneself in a fairly recent decade, if one were to suggest that someday Turkey, a staunchly secularist country, could have an Islamist head of government, it would have seemed a joke. And to suggest that an Islamist leader could as well prove to be the longest-serving leader in that country, second only to Kemal Attaturk, its founder and father figure, would have seemed a macabre joke.

"No way, the Pashas will never allow it to happen." That would be the repartee. The Pashas, or civil or military authorities, are confined to barracks. The results of the parliamentary elections held in Turkey on Sunday need to be put in historical perspective.

Without doubt, the resounding victory by the ruling party AKP (Justice and Development Party) led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with a mandate of 50% of popular support is a landmark event. Victory was expected, but not on a scale exceeding the 47% mandate of the 2007 elections.

The heart of the matter is that Turkey is reaching unprecedented heights of economic prosperity and is a land at peace after several decades of strife, bloodshed and chronic political instability. The contrast couldn't be sharper with its neighborhood, which is passing through great upheaval and uncertainties.

Turkey's economy grew at a rate of 9% last year, second only to China's among the Group of 20. The economy is already the world's 17th largest and growing income is beginning to percolate and give people hope of a better tomorrow.

Today, Turkey borrows more cheaply than Spain; a far cry from the not-too-distant past when it used to hold a begging bowl before the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Yet, it also showcases the IMF's success. Turkey has been one of IMF's biggest borrowers - US$25 billion in the past decade - but is well-poised to pay back its debts by 2013. The contrast with Greece, a pristine European Union (EU) member country, is at once obvious.

Unsurprisingly, a Turkish name that spontaneously sailed into view as a terrific candidate for the vacant post of managing director of IMF was of Kemal Davis, who nursed the sick Turkish economy at a critical phase when it was in intensive care. Arguably, it would have been a bitter pill to swallow for EU member countries if a brilliant Turkish wizard were to be employed to restore their economies to recovery.

Explaining Erdogan's mandate

Ironically, as a Bloomberg report wrote, "Rebuffed in its efforts to join the EU, Turkey now borrows at 10-year yields lower than at least eight members of the 27-nation bloc." The Turkish electorate is grateful to Erdogan's government for successful economic management. However, Erdogan's renewed mandate to lead the country for a third successive four-year term demands a much broader explanation.

Personal charisma was certainly a factor, as there is no one today in Turkish politics who can even come up to his shoulders in sheer stature as a statesman. It is a saga that becomes the stuff of an absorbing political biography - a long journey from the backstreets of a Black Sea town to Ankara via Istanbul, from a prison cell to the office of the prime minister, from rabble-rousing Islamism to consensual politics, from a Turkish politician to a towering regional figure who might very well end up in the years ahead moulding the New Middle East in a far more enduring and humane way than the Ottomans from Suleiman the Magnificent could manage through centuries.

The Turkey which Erdogan inherited in 2003 was a practicing democracy in appearance but still had common characteristics with the authoritarian regimes of the Middle East.

The military as the self-appointed Praetorian Guards of the Turkish state; the strong authoritarian undercurrent of the "deep state"; coercion as the instrument to smother dissent; a form of secularism that was as militant and suffocating as any religious extremism; the deep-rooted religiosity of the common people who were observant Muslims but steeped in worldly concerns; and, the inability or refusal to comprehend and to come to terms with political Islam - these were as much features of the Turkish crisis.

Erdogan proved himself to be a "liberator" and a "conqueror". He gently eased Turkey to face the reality that practicing or holding religious beliefs is not antithetical to the state or modernity. The thought churning through the Turkish mind when Erdogan took over the leadership was whether the practice of women wearing headscarves was compatible with the tenets of a secularist state.

M K Bhadrakumar in Asia Times. Here

Obama's nefarious designs in Syria

The parliamentary election result in Turkey ensuring another term for the ruling "Islamist" party AKP (Justice and Development Party) significantly strengthens the US position on Syria. Ankara has hardened its stance on Assad and has begun openly criticizing him. A more obtrusive Turkish role in destabilizing Assad and forcing a regime change in Damascus can now be expected in the coming weeks. Ironically, Turkey also controls the Bosphorous Straits.

By improving ties with Turkey in the past decade, Moscow had been hoping that Ankara would gradually move toward an independent foreign policy. The Kremlin's expectation was that the two countries could get together and form a condominium over the Black Sea. But as events unfold, it is becoming clear that Ankara is reverting to its earlier priorities as a NATO country and US's pre-eminent partner in the region. Ankara cannot be faulted: it made a shrewd assessment and drew a balance sheet concluding that its interests are best served by identifying with the Western move to effect a regime change in Syria.

Additionally, Ankara finds it profitable that it identifies with the Saudi approach to the upheaval in the Middle East. The wealth Arabs in the oil-rich countries of the Persian Gulf are willing to send their "green money" to Turkey. Ankara also shares Saudi misgivings about Iran's rise as regional power.

In sum, the US is slowly but steadily getting the upper hand over its agenda of a regime change in Syria. Whether Moscow will buckle under this immense pressure and accept a rollback of its influence in Syria is the big question. Moscow has threatened to cooperate with Beijing and adopt a common stance over Syria. But Moscow's ability to counter the American juggernaut over Syria is weakening by the day.

The course of events over Syria will certainly impact profoundly on the US-Russia reset. The Obama administration seems to have done its homework and concluded that it is worth taking that risk for the sake of ensuring Israel's security. The warship that sailed into the Black Sea carries a blunt message to Russia to accept that it is a mere pale shadow of the former Soviet Union.

M K Bhadra kumar in Asia Times online. Here

Emergence of a resurgent Egypt

What is becoming apparent is that Egypt is reclaiming the regional influence it abjectly surrendered when it became a poodle of the US and a collaborator of Israel following the 1979 peace treaty. The spokesperson of the Egyptian foreign ministry told the New York Times, ''We are opening a new page. Egypt is resuming its role that was once abdicated.''

The profundity of the shift in the Egyptian policies is that the military is spearheading the process with the full realization that this is also the collective wish of Egyptian society, its elites and professionals as well as the working class, and the secular-minded as well as the observant Muslim masses. Even the strategic community, as practitioners of realpolitik, feel enthralled that an independent path bestows flexibility to Egypt's policies and earns respect for the country as a regional power when Cairo speaks or acts.

Ali Akbar Salehi

The New York Times noted, ''Egypt's shifts are likely to alter the balance of power in the region, allowing Iran new access to a previously implacable foe and creating distance between itself and Israel.'' No sooner than the news appeared about the Fatah-Hamas accord, Tehran scrambled to welcome it. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said the agreement is the ''first great achievement of the great Egyptian nation on the international scene''.

The Egypt-Iran rapprochement has indeed gained traction. Starting with the granting of permission (disregarding US and Israeli protests) for the unprecedented passage of two Iranian warships through the Suez Canal in February, Cairo moved purposively and by the beginning of April, Egyptian Foreign Minister was already reaching out for closer diplomatic ties with Iran.

Israel's worst fears about the meaning of the Egyptian revolution seem to be coming true.

The latest Egyptian announcement in the wake of the Fatah-Hamas accord, that it will reopen the Rafah crossing with Gaza permanently, has set alarm bells ringing in Israel. (An Egyptian security team is preparing to visit Gaza). An unnamed senior Israeli official told Wall Street Journal on Friday that recent developments in Egypt could affect Israel's ''security at a strategic level''. The chief of staff of the Egyptian armed forces General Sami Anan promptly warned Israel against interfering with Cairo's plan to open the Rafah border crossing with Gaza, saying it was not a matter of concern for Israel.

The Egyptian military leadership's decision on Rafah reflects a collective wish of the domestic public opinion which empathizes with the sufferings and hardships of the people of Gaza. (A recent poll by US-based Pew Research Center found that 54% of Egyptians want Egypt's peace treaty with Israel to be annulled.) In the circumstances, what will worry Israel (and the US) most is whether the surprise Fatah-Hamas agreement brokered by Egypt is linked in some way to the Palestinian plan to push at the General Assembly session in New York in September for UN recognition for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

Such an apprehension is not unwarranted. The Wall Street Journal commented last week, ''In the more than two months since … Mubarak abdicated … Egypt has reached out to Iran, questioned the price on a contract to export natural gas that is crucial to Israel's energy needs, and won major diplomatic victories with Hamas.''

At the very least, as Helena Cobban, a long-time expert on the region and author, blogged, ''What is true as a general rule in the region is that the kind of sordid backroom deals that regimes like Mubarak's, that of successive Jordanian monarchs, or others have struck with Israel in the past - that is, arrangements to quash Palestinian movements that go far beyond the formal requirements of the peace treaties - have become considerably harder for these Arab parties to uphold, given the long overdue and very welcome emergence of strong movements calling for transparency and accountability from Arab governments.''

Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Jabir al-Sabah

That is to say, any digressions in the nature of stoking the fires of Sunni-Shi'ite sectarian passions may work only momentarily in the developing regional milieu. This became amply clear when Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Abdulaziz Sharaf chose the occasion of a meeting last week with the Kuwaiti Amir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jabir al-Sabah to shrug off the paranoia about Iran whipped up by Saudi Arabia and firmly asserted Cairo's resolve to expand ties with Iran. He said, ''Egypt is trying to begin a new chapter in ties with Iran, which is one of the world's important countries.''

M K Bhadrakumar in Asia Times. Here