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 The war goes on, and peace looks ever more distant.
Is the value of human life less in Lebanon than that of citizens elsewhere? Are we children of a lesser God? Is an Israeli teardrop worth more than a drop of Lebanese blood?
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora
The alliance begins to fracture in despair, and a thousand terrorists are born.
 Grotesque factual errors aside (3.2billion in China's cities by next year, anyone?), Tristram Hunt in Comment is Free correctly draws the comparison between modern urban China and Dickensian Britain. The only difference is that there's no Dickens calling for reform.
The similarities, writes Hunt, are striking:
Between 1770 and 1840 Britain underwent one of the most dramatic urban migrations in world history. Hundreds of thousands left their villages and farmsteads for the workshops of Birmingham, docks of Liverpool and mills of Manchester. Sheffield and Bradford doubled their populations in a matter of years.
Today that history is repeating itself in China as families from the rural hinterland decamp for the coastal cities. Every year 8.5 million Chinese peasants make their way into the urban centres. By next year China is set to become a majority-urban nation, with more than 3.2 billion living in cities and suburbs.
But is anyone actually doing anything about the horrendous pollution and squalor that accompanies this? Yes, money has been announced for a general cleanup. But there are some essential factors that are notable by their absence:
The initial Victorian response to the state of their cities was equally lackadaisical. Pollution and inequality was the price of progress, and the middle classes solved their problems by simply moving upwind. But in the end a combination of religion, officialdom and civil society forced the cities to change.
In a country where activists apparently break their own necks in order to get attention (if you believe this, get off my blog), how can real progress begin?
There is no evangelism in China; religion is suppressed. Nor, with a hobbled media and non-existent political opposition, is there any civil society. Officialdom can be trusted only to line its own pockets, as it has done for centuries.
And, of course, the writer cannot resist a final warning from history:
Ultimately the urban masses had to be enfranchised. For at the forefront of politicians' minds was another story of rapid urbanisation. Across the Channel, France too was trying to cope with startling rates of immigration and industrialisation. But the consequence of its political fumbling was a Paris in flames in 1830, 1848 and 1871. That is a history the Chinese are all too keen to avoid.
Continue reading "Smoke and the City" »
 Nice graphics, scary economics.
Fears of a slowdown | Economist.com
Unfortunately, the Chinese government has few tools at its disposal to manage the pace of growth. Its attempts to tighten monetary policy have been feeble, hampered by its policy of keeping the yuan artificially cheap. Though the government has tried to “sterilise” its foreign currency operations by issuing more government securities to mop up the resulting excess yuan, its efforts are constrained by the shaky banking system.
China has tried to bolster its weak macroeconomic controls with microeconomic interventions, placing administrative restrictions on investment in specific industries it considers to be growing too fast. China’s economy may now be too big for such policies to do much good but the government is fearful of choking off export-led growth when so many Chinese are desperate for jobs. And the relatively primitive state of China’s financial system makes it hard to fine-tune either micro or macroeconomic policies—particularly since so much investment is driven by political considerations at all levels of government.
 The Economist is predictably gloomy about the collapse of the Doha round in this week's edition. As well it mightbe, being one of the leading voices calling for free trade. And it doesn't mince its words:
This disaster, born of complacency and neglect, signals a defeat of the common good by special-interest politics. If the wreck is terminal—and after a five-year stalemate, that seems likely—everyone will be the poorer, perhaps gravely so.
The authors see this as the sounding of the death knell not just for one round of talks but for the liberalisation project as a whole. And those who suffer will inevitably be the poor of the third world, while the rich countries hug their safety blanket of subsidised agriculture with fearsome determination.
I'm not someone who feels properly initiated in the dark arts of global trade, but The Economist describes it nicely:
Multilateral liberalisation is a sort of jujitsu that uses exporters' determination to get into foreign markets to overwhelm domestic lobbies that would sooner keep home markets closed. The trade diplomat's incantation that to open his market is a “concession” granted in exchange for an opening somewhere else is economic nonsense spouted for domestic political purposes. But it is remarkably fruitful nonsense because, within the World Trade Organisation, any concession to one trade partner is automatically extended to all members. This trick has helped the world enjoy decades of prosperity.
Now that the round has failed, poor countries must resort to the complexities of bilateral deals with rich countries, which basically gives the rich countries an advantage. They deal on a one-on-one basis, and thus the Third World can't rely on safety in numbers as it could under the WTO:
Bilateral deals are complex and tend to be bad for poor countries. In multilateral deals, poor countries can piggyback on powerful countries' negotiating clout; in bilateral deals, they're on their own. And the more bilateral deals are in place, the harder it will be to pull off a multilateral one.
Put in a wider context still, if the pessimists' predications are true then this week signals the beginning of a further decline of the developing world, and a widening of the gap between rich and poor, powerful and weak.
With oil resources running down and prices at higher levels than ever, it's harder and harder for poor countries to make ends meet. It's during the industrialisation phase that they need it the most.
Add to this a dash of Islamic fundamentalism, which tends to thrive on the disenchantment of the middle classes who probably stand to lose most and you can see where we're going.
Not this year, not next year. But the effects will soon begin to take hold.
Continue reading "Globalisation Immobilised" »
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Yaks threaten China's 'miracle' train line
As well as the yaks, Tibet has found a most unlikely ally in the struggle against the Han influx:
The line depends on coolants to stop the ice upon which it rests from melting. But global warming has raised temperatures in the mountain region faster than expected. As well as damaging concrete pillars and bridges, it has added to the problem of sand dunes that encroach upon the track.
 Over a billion people means a lot of problems. But while the Bombay attacks and the Kashmir conflict have a high profile on the international scene, the Maoist insurgency in India does not.
Though Manmohan Singh terms it the country's biggest threat, the way in which the Naxalites are being handled sounds cackhanded indeed:
A huge swathe of Dantewada, where no roads penetrate the forest, remains outside the government’s control. There, the Maoists are well-entrenched. Nearly 60 years after independence, the Indian state has still failed to deliver to these parts even rudimentary development: roads, schools, health-care. A big iron mine in the district employs mainly outsiders and pollutes a river. It is easy to see why a crude, violent ideology, discredited even in its homeland, might take root, and why Mr Singh might be right about the Naxalite threat. Other terrorists attack the Indian state at its strongpoints—its secularism, its inclusiveness and its democracy. Naxalism attacks where it is weakest: in delivering basic government services to those who need them most.
Not to mention the army turfing villagers out of their homes, a policy that resembles America's deeply flawed and even counterproductive 'strategic hamlets' tactic from Vietnam. That didn't work either, and it sounds like India is alienating its rural people even further.
You can read all the column inches you like about India's burgeoning economy, but unless a way is found of spreading the wealth, the same old problems are going to linger on - and one day they could explode.
Continue reading "Hearts and Minds" »
Lots of useful stats and analysis on the Iran-Pakistan-India LNG pipeline, and more besides on India's energy issues.
Asia Times Online :: South Asia news - Price imbroglio stymies Iran pipeline
The United States is no longer the main stumbling block to the planned US$7 billion Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline. All issues, including US pressure to abandon the 2,100-kilometer project, have been relegated to the back burner as India and Pakistan team up to try to persuade Iran to soften the price at which it wants to deliver the gas.
Tehran is demanding $7.20 per million British thermal units, linked to global crude-oil prices. The Iranian position is considerably higher than India's offer of $4.25 per mBtu at its border with Pakistan. Though Pakistan has been voicing plans of going it alone in case India decides to drop out, that may not happen if the price issue is not resolved.
Iran has rejected India's demand for a price equivalent to international long-term gas-supply contracts, saying that New Delhi should forget about buying Iranian gas at a low price. Tehran's stand has been emboldened by a Europe desperately seeking other sources of gas after last year's crisis due to the spat between Russia and Ukraine.
 The accidental (?) deaths of four UN observers after an Israeli bomb went astray may actually have some positive side-effects. Much as I sympathise with the families of the dead, there's two things worth mentioning.
Firstly, it lays to rest the myth that Israel is conducting a campaign of surgical strikes against Hizbollah. Hardly. It proves once and for all that Israel is firing indiscriminately into Lebanon, unmindful of the effects it may have on the civilian population.
While I agree that Israel has the right to conduct a military campaign against Hizbollah, it must be conducted under the rules of war.
More significantly, aside from prompting righteous indignation from Kofi Annan and the UN, it has forced China well and truly into the picture. It's not as severe as the bombing of the PRC embassy in Belgrade, but now that a Chinese is dead then there has to be a response.
With its rising economy and political and military power, it is about time that China drifted away from its position of abstention and began taking sides. It may be too late for Darfur, but if it goes to a Security Council vote, it looks like China will have an influence.
What effect this will have when China begins to engage in the region remains to be seen, but it's not looking like it will side with Israel. Let's also not forget that the PRC has close links with Iran.
Story below.
Continue reading "China Comes Off the Fence" »
 Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Pakistan launches huge nuclear arms drive
An interesting exchange:
Commodore Uday Bhaskar of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Analysis in Delhi suggested the timing of the report could be intended to influence the US Congress's debate on the Indian deal:
"My initial reaction is that one of the report's authors [David Albright] is a critic of the India-US nuclear deal and therefore this report has to be seen in the light of its passage through Congress. It may be true but there's a reason why the report appears now."
Mr Albright, a former UN weapons inspector who now runs Isis, denied there was any link between the timing of the report and the congressional debate. "It is a strange twist to the debate to see a potential Pakistani threat to India as an attempt to derail the India agreement in Congress," he said, adding that the publication was dictated more by the need to get the report out before the summer holidays began.
There is speculation in Delhi that the new plant may be a fresh sign of China's commitment to a "strategic partnership" with Pakistan. The pair already have extensive military and diplomatic ties.
"China has supported Pakistan since the 80s and it remains the wild card here," Commodore Bhaskar said. "At the time of the Indo-US deal, there were clear indications that Beijing thought if Washington can assist India, China can aid Pakistan."
Mr Albright said Chinese assistance was a possibility.
"You always worry that some of this is coming from China. Can Pakistan really do all this on its own? You wonder," he said. "That would be very serious."
Original Isis report here. Note the conclusion:
South Asia may be heading for a nuclear arms race that could lead to arsenals growing into the hundreds of nuclear weapons, or at a minimum vastly expanded stockpiles of military fissile material. A negotiated agreement that results in a halt to the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons should be a priority for the international community. Not only are such arsenals a waste of precious resources, they increase instability in the region and could needlessly provoke China to respond by increasing the size and lethality of its own nuclear capabilities.
 More doom, gloom and rampant speculation from Asia Times' Chan Akya. However, there is a tenuous point to it:
We have to recognize that no established Islamic power has the ability to strike outside of its immediate border. The armed forces of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran have no capacity to inflict meaningful harm on the West. The sole exception is Pakistan, which is why the global terrorist brotherhood will probably focus more of its attention on this country than any other in the next few months.
Whether or not the Pakistani state can or will "inflict meaningful harm on the West" is not exactly the point, but in terms of vulnerability to collapse or coup, Pakistan is way up there in the list of potential flashpoints.
There isn't a hell of a lot of evidence for the next point either, but it's an interesting theory:
Just as Syria failed to show much control over Hezbollah, Pakistan has lost control of its militants, who now appear to work directly with al-Qaeda command structures. The turning point could well have been the Pakistani army attacks in the Pashtun areas that were undertaken to keep the US happy in its "war on terror".
Disenchanted that the Pakistani army could kill its own creations, Kashmiri militants appear to have bypassed the army, going straight to the Taliban and perhaps even to bin Laden. This explains the attacks on both Srinagar (grenade explosions that killed nine) and Mumbai on the same day, a move that seems to have caught even the Pakistani army by surprise, if its state of readiness in the days preceding the attacks is any indication.
It is certainly true that the Pakistani military is not making friends among Islamic militants, and is caught in a complex web of alliances and counter alliances across the various conflicts on Balochistan, Waziristan and the Northwest Frontier - including with anti-Taliban US Forces. It's a volatile combination that eventually has to break down.
Whether or not Pakistani Islamists are in league with al-Qaeda, as the author suggests, is not really relevant. I'm also not convinced of the argument that the Militants will ventually get their hands on nuclear technology, though there is mounting evidence of increasing production capacity in Pakistan.
Think 'Pakistan' and 'nuclear' and the next word that comes to mind is 'China'. China is key to the build of Pakistan's military, and props the failed state up in other ways in order to gain from its geopolitical position at a key strategic point for oil supply routes.
While there's little danger of China casting aside its ally in Musharraf, the government that would follow him would be another matter. And eventually, Musharraf is going to fall, whether due to pressure from the outside regarding his nuclear ambitions or pressure from the inside from the Islamists and nationalists.
I'm not impressed with Akya's argument that China will side with the West in order to stave the threat of Taiwanese independence in the background: if anything, China might take the opportunity to seize the strategic zones it needs for energy security and then move on Taiwan while the US flounders in Iran and elsewhere.
But, of course, who can tell?
Continue reading "China, India and WW3 (Part 2)" »
Go to town with China, but write home about India
Nice collection of statistics on relative economic indicators. Here's an interesting one:
On the human development front, China’s human development index (HDI) ranking slipped from 82 in 1991, to 85 in 2006. India’s condition was similar as it slipped from 123 in 1991, to 127 in 2005.
Despite all the growth, are things really getting better?
Battleground Balochistan - HindustanTimes.com
The "Balochistan separatist bubble", led by Baloch tribal leader Nawab Akhbar Bugti, has finally burst, an account of military briefing published in newspapers here said on Thursday.
"The organised mayhem is finished off and the separatists plans these sub-nationalist terrorists organisations were making with material support from India have been knocked off," a military official was quoted as saying by The News.
I'd be extremely surprised were this true.
Comment is free: The new world immaturity
This is one of those moments in history when people recognise that they are in some kind of interregnum. They can describe the past - the old bi-polar world shaped by the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. And they can pick out the new things that will shape the future - Chinese industry, al-Qaida, Russian energy markets, Israeli confrontation with Iran, Aids in Africa, and environmental degradation, for example.
 The Spanish Civil War was really just a prelude to World War II. Could a similar pattern of events alreay be unfolding?
Perhaps somewhat fanciful, premature and over-the-top, but at least someone is thinking about it. Asia Times' Chan Akya considers, in a two part series, how China and India might get involved should the tide of conflict in the Middle East expand further.
After a somewhat overenthusiastic reference to Huntingdon's Clash of Civilizations and a long historical passage, the author then hits a nail more-or-less on the head:
There are today not enough Christians or Muslims in China to push the country in the direction of supporting either the West or Islam in any global conflagration. However, a resurgent West poses more of a threat to China's patriarchal culture, which is not very different from the centralized authority-driven culture of Islam. Given that, it is more likely that China would tilt toward supporting Islam, as its weapons-proliferation efforts over the past few years have shown.
Yep. The Uyghurs are hardly a threat to China, while if India were to side with the West then its Muslim population might just explode. And China has been sponsoring Iran (not to mention Iraq, too) for decades. If the price is right, they'll sell to anyone - and they get the oil rights in return.
As to whether I agree with the concluding paragraphs, I'm not sure:
This leads me to conclude that an escalation of the conflict in the Middle East would eventually necessitate the West to demand adequate support from China, failing which the country itself could become a target. The waxworks of Beijing are likely to grant enough concessions to the West to avoid being attacked, and then lie in wait for their revenge.
The Indian situation is more precarious. While much of the country's right-wing intelligentsia would push it to war against Islam, there is enough of a fifth column in place to thwart the country's historic quest for vengeance. India's Muslims number more than any other country's in the world with the exception of Indonesia. Add to these the populations of both Pakistan and Bangladesh, and Indian military might is in essence boxed in.
The West demand support from China? Like it is already trying to do over sanctions for Sudan, North Korea and Iran? Give me a break. The West knows it won't get a smidgin of help from Beijing, and will thus be more likely to expect direct (or indirect) conflict. China will probably see its opportunity to firm up its energy security, not to mention nationalist ambitions such as Taiwan when the West's back is turned.
India, on the other hand, I do expect to be somehow squeezed in the middle, unable to act in its own interests, effectively encircled by China via Sino-friendly states such as Pakistan and Burma, a weak and politically fractured Nepal and the conquered territory of Tibet.
Read on below.
Continue reading "China, India and WW3" »
A neat piece of analysis.
Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs
Given that Hezbollah emplaced its rocketry in Shi'ite civilian neighborhoods, Israel must reduce civilian areas to stop rocket attacks. The fact that casualties number in the hundreds rather than the tens of thousands shows that Israel has been meticulous about creating refugees rather than corpses. Nonetheless, Israel has forced the burden of uncertainty on its enemies, including by implication Syria and eventually Iran.
At least 200,000, and perhaps twice that number of refugees, have descended on Syria, joining half a million displaced Iraqis and perhaps 300,000 Palestinian refugees. Refugee streams clog the few undamaged routes between Syria and Lebanon. Evidently Syria fears destabilization; Information Minister Mohsen Bilal linked his July 23 threat of military action against Israel to the "evacuation" of Lebanon.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
The Economist's choice of title (from a poem by Dylan Thomas) for its analysis of the collapse of the WTO talks is apposite indeed. Think of what you might, for better or for worse the WTO is now the light that failed.
The historic chance to truly liberalize the world economy looks like it has eluded us, and at the end of the day those who will suffer most will be the poor and the deprived. Europe's ludicrous and insane Common Agricultural Policy will continue to screw people in Africa and elsewhere:
This is a tragedy, especially for the developing world. Last year, the World Bank estimated that global gains from trade liberalisation would equal roughly $287 billion, of which $86 billion would accrue to developing nations, lifting at least 66m people out of poverty. Activist groups including Greenpeace and Oxfam were quick to condemn both Washington and Brussels for intransigence over agricultural subsidies, saying that rich-world self interest is leaving the poor to suffer.
For the benefit of a few French farmers, cheap subsidised grain will continue to flood the world market putting local producers out of business and ultimately creating the conditions for famine. As Amartya Sen correctly says, it's not just drought that triggers starvation - it's economics.
It's not often that I spring to Bush's defence, and this is not one of those times, but The Economist has a point:
The collapse will probably be blamed on America, which has been pushing for bold action on agricultural tariffs, and resisting a modest compromise deal that includes caps on its own agricultural subsidies. This is ironic, because America has been one of the grave men pushing hard to revive Doha after the round’s first collapse at Cancún in 2003. Despite high-profile deviations, such as slapping tariffs on imported steel, Mr Bush has largely been a committed free trader.
The truth is that while there have been grave men and wise men, the good men have had no real voice. And I too think that the blame lies squarely with our very own beloved EU.
What has not been said, so far, is who else will gain from this. I think there's going to be one big beneficiary... it's coming... China. Without demands to relax trade tariffs on manufactured imports etc. China may well continue to resist becoming the 'world's largest market', as so many expect it to be.
On the other hand, if the West begin slapping tariffs and quotas on imports from China, the whole edifice of the PRC could swiftly begin to crumble. I don't think it'll come to that, but it could be one of a cocktail of factors that lead us further down that dark road, burning and raving at the close of day.
Continue reading "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night..." »
This guy just got back to China after a visit to Delhi. I think he got the shock of his life.
BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | India struggles to catch China
Every time you turn on the television or pick up a magazine, it is no longer the rise of China, it is now the rise of China and India.
The desire to make comparisons is understandable. Both have more than a billion people. Both are growing at 10% a year.
There are, I suspect, many who are hoping that India, with its freedom and democracy, will win this new race to become the next economic super power. I am not so sure.
I'm on the same wavelength as you, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes. The people who talk this up need to get out there and see, smell and experience it for themselves. Only then can we really progress.
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Update: see also these posts at Peking Duck and Talk Talk China. I do think that in order to slag India off you need to have actually been there too. Some of the comments on TTC are extremely unbalanced.
 More analysis, this time from Auntie Beeb, attempting to answer the questions we all want answered. What happens next? What does all this mean for the Middle East and for the world as a whole?
It's not as if there hasn't been a crisis in the Levant before. However, moving on from the second intifadah, this is the first time that Israel's army has started spilling over its borders since 9/11. It's the first local conflict of the 'War on Terror', and with Islam militating across Eurasia the repercussions may be very different to 1982.
Like myself, the author believes that things are basically going to get worse:
Israel's actions may indeed be counter-productive, by boosting support for these groups beyond the immediate circle of their core Islamist constituencies.
Israel's underlying dilemma remains unchanged.
If it does not wish to re-occupy either Gaza or southern Lebanon, then there needs to be in place a Lebanese government and a Palestinian Authority strong enough to prevent rocket or other cross-border attacks.
Air strikes coupled with limited military incursions in both territories have made this less, rather than more, likely.
And he is right to identify the fact that events are occuring within a far wider context. The world is globalised. The 'War on Terror' is globalised too. Not just TV but now the Internet make these events seem very very close to home, even to those very very far away. In a sense there is no such thing as a 'regional conflict' any more:
As Arab rulers are only too well aware, the current conflict has inflamed anti-Israeli and anti-American feeling to a new pitch.
In this sense its impact extends well beyond the Middle East.
The issue of Israel and the Palestinians still has the power to mobilise Muslims as far away as Indonesia - or for that matter Muslims living in the West.
Moreover the conflict comes against a backdrop of other events which have aggravated tensions between Islam and the West.
The vicious circle within which we find ourselves is only going to get broader. Can Israel and the US really step pull back from the brink? Do they even want to?
Continue reading "A War Within a War" »
 BBC News | In pictures | Beirut destruction | A city in ruins
This is going to make the Lebanese turf out Hezbollah? Or is it just going to make them - and every Muslim who sees these images - turn against Israel and their Western sponsors instead?
No brainer.
 The Observer has a theory. There's a new phenomenon in the Middle East, the 'Shia Resurgence' and what we're seeing in the Levant is a little taste of it.
The article is balanced enough to give voice to those who both advocate the idea and those who dismiss it. However, some facts do seem inescapable.
Since the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the Shia there have enjoyed more power than they have had for a long time, though there are deep splits between the factions. Furthermore, there's little doubt that Iran has a hand in things there just as much as it influences Hezbollah.
However, local politics and ethnicity show that there's not necessarily a regional shift towards Tehran. After all, the Shias are still in the minority among the Sunnis, and are viewed as somewhat radical even by them.
But down on the ground, the theory does seem to hold water:
All analysts agree Iran has gained a huge amount of influence - 'soft' power - by saying openly what the majority, Arabs and Persians, Shia and Sunni, in the Middle Eastern 'street' say privately. 'The [Iranian] discourse is pan-Islamist and plays the chord of anti-imperialism, Arab nationalism and anti-Zionism,' said Olivier Roy, the director of the National Scientific Research Centre in Paris.
What Tehran says is also exactly what rulers like King Abdullah, Mubarak or the House of al-Saud cannot say for fear of angering Western allies. And though such regimes can buy off local discontent for a period with increased expenditure on social services and finely calibrated political concessions, the anger in the bazaars and the mosques cannot be contained for ever. It needs an outlet. Tehran, Hizbollah and others have understood this. In the great game of Middle Eastern politics, Western analysts are not the only ones joining the dots.
There's also a very interesting theory over on China Confidential. Basically, with China having a very strong relationship with Iran, it's effectively a win-win situation for them both.
The Iranians, according to the Chinese, see a no-lose opportunity. On the one hand, Iranian ally Syria could surprise Israel and recover the Golan Heights, which the Jewish State captured during the Six-Day War of June 1967. On the other hand, should Syria suffer a humiliating defeat at the hands of Israel's superior military forces, the secular Baathist regime in Damascus would almost certainly be toppled by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. Either way, Iranian influence in the region would increase, even though the non-Arab Iranians are Shiites and the Syrian Islamists are Sunnis.
Continue reading "A Shia Resurgence?" »
 With Israeli reserves being called up, expect to see a ground offensive launched in the next couple of days. This war is escalating rapidly, and as all students of military history know, it's now easier to keep on going than to change direction and pull back. Just like the great powers mobilised at the opening of World War I, Israel is gaining momentum, and it can't just apply the brakes.
The Economist, nevertheless, calls for exactly that. And so it should, even though it's unlikely. It also argues that this conflict may in fact be a gross miscalculation by both Hizbollah - who didn't expect such a robust response - and by Ehud Olmert, keen to show the electorate and the international community that he's no softie. He's a man conspicuously living in the shadow of Ariel Sharon and other hard-man warrior politicians, and he's got a point to prove.
But the whole premise of the crisis rests on a Hobson's choice. Neither side actually can back down anyway:
If Hizbullah is beaten, it risks losing its position as the strongest power in the fractious Lebanese state, with damaging consequences in the region for its Iranian sponsor and Syrian ally. If Israel falters, many of its people think, the iron wall of military power that has enabled it to win grudging acceptance in the Middle East will have been seriously breached.
That being said, neither are involved in a conflict that it's possible to 'win' an any conventional sense:
However much punishment Mr Olmert inflicts on Hizbullah, he cannot force it to submit in a way that its leaders and followers will perceive as a humiliation. Israel's first invasion of Lebanon turned into its Vietnam. It is plainly unwilling to occupy the place again. But airpower alone will never destroy every last rocket and prevent Hizbullah's fighters from continuing to send them off. No other outside force looks capable of doing the job on Israel's behalf. At present, the only way to disarm Hizbullah is therefore in the context of an agreement Hizbullah itself can be made to accept.
It's amazing that even after decades of terrorism, Israel still assumes that conventional military power can flush out the Islamists. It can't. Even in the unlikely event that Hizbollah was 'wiped out', a new group would simply rise in its place. And hopes that it can be 'beaten' are also misguided:
Hizbullah cannot be uprooted. It is not going formally to surrender. Its past struggle against Israel has won it the fierce loyalty of many Lebanese Shias, and its present one will add to their number even if it comes off worse. Israel's security will not be enhanced by destroying the rest of Lebanon. By weakening the Lebanese state, and its fragile but well-intentioned government, Israel just weakens the already feeble constraints Lebanon tries to impose on Hizbullah's actions.
The only answer The Economist has is for America to promptly broker a settlement. But it doesn't even look like Condi's packed her handbag yet, and Bush is quite happy to let 'this shit' go on for an undetermined period.
Meanwhile, the chances of the rest of the region being sucked in when the invasion begins grow stronger. We don't hear very much from Iran and Syria in the Western media, but you can be sure they'll have something to say when the time is right.
Full article below.
Continue reading "The Accidental War" »
BBC NEWS | Africa | Somali Islamist orders 'holy war'
"I am calling on the Somali people to wage a holy war against Ethiopians in Somalia," said Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys of the Union of Islamic Courts.
Ethiopia denies that its forces are in the government's base of Baidoa, but a BBC reporter has seen them patrolling.
It never rains but it pours war in buckets. Given that the area in question is right off the Red Sea shipping lane it's not exactly another pointless though bloody African conflict.
BBC NEWS | South Asia | Jirga seeks to broker peace deal
Observers say the creation of the jirga essentially recognises the power of the militants and is an implicit admission that the government's military strategy has failed.
They say it is a significant step by the government, which has gone to considerable effort to ensure that various stake holders are on board.
So is Musharraf for the Islamists or against them? What does this mean for the war on terror?
Comment is free: A web of deceit
Yet another article that attampts to tackle the issue of Google, Microsoft and Yahoo in China, in reverse order of level of evil complicity.
Check out also my comment.
 Oxford Professor and all-round commentator Timothy Garton-Ash takes a timely look at the state of the world in mid-2006.
His analysis is bleak. Of course, no writer on current affairs has the benefit of hindsight and it'll be a long time before we know how history will view this little episode. But Garton-Ash takes the essentially neo-realist view that a multipolar order is a recipe for disaster.
The neo-liberalist argument that the US will create stability through institutions and 'enlightened self-interest' no longer washes, and the hegemon is clearly on the decline as other powers rise. The kernel of the argument is quite succinct:
This new multipolarity is the result of at least three trends. The first, and most familiar, is the rise or revival of other states - China, India, Brazil, Russia as comeback kid - whose power resources compete with those of the established powers of the west. The second is the growing power of non-state actors. These are of widely differing kinds. They range from movements like Hamas, Hizbullah and al-Qaida, to non-governmental organisations like Greenpeace, from big energy corporations and drug companies to regions and religions.
A third trend involves changes in the very currency of power. Developments in technologies with violent potential mean that very small groups of people can challenge powerful established states, whether by piloting an aeroplane into the World Trade Centre in New York, targeting a missile at Haifa, taking on the US military in Iraq, bombing the London underground, or squirting sarin gas into the Tokyo subway.
Not to mention the US's loss of EH Carr's third kind of power, 'power over opinion' (the others being military and economic power). Since the war America has been much better at provoking than winning hearts and minds. It just can't let go of those balls, and unfortunately Israel tends to follow suit.
Most of all, Garton-Ash displays his disillusionment with the tenets of liberalism (which encompasses a convenient jibe at the commander-in-chief of misplaced liberal values, the French President):
When Jacques Chirac spoke fondly of multipolarity, back in 2003, he conflated two claims: the world is multipolar, and that's a good thing. Claim 1 is being proved right. Claim 2 has yet to be confirmed. For a start, it matters a lot whether this is multipolar order or multipolar disorder. Order is a high value in international relations. It stops a lot of people being killed. At the moment, we have multipolar disorder, and it's not clear what the shape of a new multipolar order might be. Historically, the emergence of new powers, elbowing for position, has increased the chances of violence. So has contested authority within the frontiers of states.
I disagree with the author's fears that nuclear conflict is impending; no state (apart from North Korea, perhaps) would be willing to act in such self-disinterest, and I can't see any terrorist organisations gaining the capability or the will to use the bomb.
But the essence of his fears is spot-on:
We liberal internationalists dream of a world of democratic, peace-loving, human-rights-respecting states... Some of the growing powers fit that vision... to a large extent, India and Brazil. China and Russia definitely do not, nor do many of the non-state actors that are currently making the running in world politics. Henry Kissinger has suggested that the geopolitics of Asia in the 21st century could resemble those of Europe in the 19th century, with great powers jockeying for position, using war as the continuation of politics by other means. But it could be worse. It could be that kind of great-power rivalry on a world scale, plus terrorists. And corporations. And transnational religious communities. And international NGOs. No moral equivalence is suggested between these very different kinds of actor, but what they all have in common is that they don't fit neatly into a world order of states.
By other means, indeed.
Continue reading "New World Disorder 2.0" »
 Pakistan. Not so much a country as a whole bunch of problems all waiting to happen. And as events proceed in the rest of Eurasia, the moment when they all crash headlong into each other draws ever nearer.
Veteran journalist Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan's answer to John Pilger, takes a view on the mounting crises in Pakistan here on the BBC website (see also below).
In a way, he seems to feel almost a little sorry for a President who is mysteriously ambivalent - both a dove and a despot at the same time:
...there is little doubt that Gen Musharraf and the military are facing unprecedented global criticism for their apparent reluctance to wrap up extremist groups who still operate with impunity and brazen openness in Pakistan.
However, at the same time, al-Qaeda and their Pakistani and Afghan allies have long expressed a desire to see the end of India-Pakistan rapprochement and an end to Gen Musharraf, whom Ayman al Zawahri, the number two al-Qaeda leader, credits as being the organisation's worst enemy in the region.
Talk about a rock and a hard place. The situation Musharraf faces is impossibly complex and paradoxical. Take Balochistan, for instance:
In Balochistan the army has depended on the Pashtun-based Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam (JUI) for political support.
The JUI has supported the Taleban since its inception in 1994. Gen Musharraf is hoping to cause a split in the alliance of Islamic parties by weaning away the JUI and enlisting it for his second bid for the presidency. Going against the Taleban now would mean alienating the JUI.
And that is where the contradiction between the international community and the Pakistan military and Gen Musharraf emerges.
Rashid goes on to decribe the devil's pact that the General (who, despite being a tinpot dictator, is also essentially sane and secular) has struck with the Islamists in order to preserve his legitimacy and national cohesion. Ironically in Waziristan the army fights the Taliban, while in Balochistan it's in league with them.
How long the US and India can tolerate these contradictions must be balanced against how long Musharraf can hold his country together - and on a personal level, simply stay alive. If something gives way it'll make the break up of Yugoslavia look pretty.
Continue reading "Many Eggs, One Basket" »
 About time too. But is this big spend on tackling China's environmental problems too little too late?
The environmental degradation in China is phenomenal. I'll never forget the taste of chemicals on my tongue after I gave up smoking; the grey smogs that enveloped Shanghai for 25 days every month; or the constant stream of factories and industrial wasteland along the Shanghai to Beijing railway.
Will the place truly be ready before the 2008 Olympics? Still, $175bn is no small sum, as long as it isn't siphoned off into a billion pockets.
Continue reading "A Major Spring Clean" »
 In this case British Home Secretary Dr John Reid's terrorist, is another man's freedom fighter.
The problem is: how does one differentiate between a true terrorist group and an armed resistance movement attempting to secure self determination under the provisions of the UN Charter? It's a delicate balance indeed. Perhaps it would be more useful to examine the objectives of the groups in question as well as their actions and doctrine.
It's also interesting to note the underlying political motivations of Dr Reid's naming of the Baluchistan Liberation Army and Teyrebaz Azadiye Kurdistan as organisations to be banned. Good relations with Pakistan and Turkey are no doubt also on the British government's mind.
In 1999, Blair and Clinton effectively supported the Kosovo Liberation Army, which could be seen by some as a terrorist group: same goes for the EU's continued relations with Fatah. So there's an element of hypocrisy too.
It's interesting to see the Government of Balochistan website's response. After swiftly condemning terrorism - fascinatingly, the organisation is based in Jerusalem and purports to have friendly relations with Israel - the author goes on to draw some comparisons and make some suggestions:
BLA are freedom fighters who are involved in a "Guerilla Military Action" against the Iranian and Pakistani forces. They are fighting the "Baloch War of Independence" by attacking military forces, blowing up supply lines, destroying infrastructure, and damaging anything and everything that will incapacitate the Iranian and Pakistani government and its armed forces, and taking every measure to avoid civilian casualties. BLA is a resistance force, just like the Forces Fran�aises de l'Int�rieur (French Resistance Army) during World War II.
BLA is taking every measure to avoid any collateral damage. If your government may send a fact-finding mission to Iran and Pakistan to find out the activities of BLA, we are sure that they will declare them a non-terrorist organization. But, by banning BLA without investigating the ground realities is a decision made in haste.
Like the KLA, the BLA and its supporters seek to harness the power of the Internet in promoting their cause. Even the names are similar. It's a fine line.
Original Guardian report below.
Continue reading "One Man's Terrorist..." »
 Diplomacy at work again. Probably it'll provoke Hizbollah to continue doing their shit.
So, in the spirit of the academic study of international relations, if this is the language of political discourse then there are some things I too would like to add:
Hamas - you can stop doing this shit to boot. And Israel, for that matter. Get your shit together and just be friends.
North Korea and Iran, stop doing this nuclear weapons shit. It's really bad for regional stability, OK?
Sunnis and Shias in Iraq, just turn this shit in and live in peace for God's sake.
That goes for you too, Taliban. Get your shit out of here.
Meanwhile, America, lose that shit-for-soul Guantanamo Bay shit.
India and Pakistan - enough Kashmir shit already. Don't want to see any more of this blowing up trains shit. You Pakistani boys from Yorkshire had better give over this shit and all.
Burma - stop this shit and release Aung Saan Suu Kyi
You Islamic terrorist groups in Indonesia and the Phillipines can cease shitting with us as well.
Get over yourselves and stop this Taiwan shit, China. And forget about that Japanese shit too. It's just shit.
Orangemen, stop doing this shit in Northern Ireland. It just pisses everyone off and makes matters worse. Hurry up and die, Rev Paisley.
Russia, Chechnya, you know what's coming. I shit you not. And Uzbekistan, you'd better sort your shit out too over that massacre at Andijan.
Somalia, Sudan. Just stop this shit.
You and all, Columbia.
In fact, all of you, just stop this shit. Now.
Original Bush-Blair conversation below.
Continue reading "Stop Doing This Shit" »
 A very short story, lacking in detail, but which can be read between the lines. If the Pakistani military - ie. the government - is admitting to using the air force in the Balochistan conflict, there's only a few things it could mean:
1. Fighting is escalating and the military is finding it harder and harder to handle through conventional means
2. A major crackdown is on, aimed at stamping out the insurgency once and for all
The trouble with using air power in a guerrilla war, as the Israelis are finding out in Lebanon, and the Americans should have realised in Vietnam, let alone Iraq, is that it doesn't really work. Airstrikes, even with 'surgical precision weapons', generally tend to kill and injure civilians and non-combatants as well as fighters creating a severe loss of hearts and minds.
The bomb has yet to be invented that differentiates between legitimate targets and innocent victims - even the Geneva conventions are unclear on this. The only thing the Pakistani military will achieve will be to anger the Baloch further and invite international condemnation.
In other news, the Government of Balochistan website claims that senior figure Senator Sanaullah Baloch was recently attacked in London, though the lack of mainstream media confirmation casts this into some mystery.
See also Peace Like a River's extensive take on things.
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Update: Received an e-mail from another source via the Govt of Balochistan website, reading the following:
Today 16 July 2006 in Third World Solidarity seminar Pakistani embassy sent its Punjabi ISI Terrorist to attack senator Sanaullah Baloch while he finished his speech in seminar, he been attacked by a gas which was in a glass bottle which explode on his body as this gas can destroy his face and specially his eyes but thank god as well Baloch activist who save his life by this gas which throw on him by these Punjabi ISI Terrorist in seminar. They even throw eggs, tomatoes on Sanaullah Baloch and Dr. Isaq Baloch as well other Baloch politician. One of prominent Baloch political activist Waja Walid Garboni been attacked by Punjabi terrorist while he was protecting Baloch leaders by these terrorists and Waja Walid been seriously injured in this sham less attack and he been given primary medical add on spot and later he been moved in hospital where after 5 hours treatment he is recovering well and now at his home.
Though this sounds more like an impromptu attack by diaspora Pakistani nationalists, it at least goes to show the strength of feeling on the issue.
Continue reading "Fighter Jets Used in Balochistan" »
 A complex and highly-involved essay on an alternative model to the OPEC system features in Asia Times Online. Far too detailed to get into the nuts and bolts of it - reprinted below - but just imagine for a moment what the planet would look like if we were able to rid ourselves of the political weight of the OPEC cartel.
For a start, the energy security issue could be removed from the Middle East conflict, radical Islam and terrorism. I'm not saying that Russia is a safe and stable country, far from it, but the balance of economic power would shift significantly once the Kremlin became the overlord of our energy supplies rather than the failing states and dictatorships that are lackeys to the US military-industrial complex.
With the Levant disintegrating as I write, war in Iran looming, Iraq a centre of instability and Somalia looking like a new challenge to oil security - commanding as it does the sea lanes to the south of Saudi Arabia - it's an impossible dream that's worth at least considering.
It is quite tough to understand exactly how this would all work:
The OPEC model has been limited to crude oil; the Russian model aims at covering supply of both crude oil and natural gas. The OPEC model has been limited to regulating supply and price, according to the swing-producer mechanism. Until now, this role has been played by Saudi Arabia, with its global lead in crude-oil reserves, and in its flexible capacity to lift, pump to port, and ship.
The Russian model aims to supplant the Saudis, emphasizing Russia's global lead in gas reserves and in barrel of oil equivalent (boe). Already, Russia exceeds Saudi Arabia as the largest producer in boe terms (13.3 million boe per day, compared with 10 million boe/d for Saudi Arabia); the largest exporter in boe terms (18.7% of global hydrocarbon exports); and the largest reserve base (16.3% of world hydrocarbon reserves boe).
From the Russian perspective, the Saudi role and OPEC model have benefited the United States, which can pressure Saudi Arabia into opening the spigot to deal with supply emergencies; the US also pressures other oil producers, such as Libya, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, and Indonesia, by military methods, diplomacy, and economic sanctions. In the Russian alternative, the US will be far less influential, and have fewer levers, commercial or military, to effect pressure on the energy suppliers. Russian arms and defense-industry partnerships are on offer to relatively weak, intervention-prone energy producers in Africa and Latin America to offset US pressure.
In short, it's a direct affront to US hegemony, and so it ain't gonna happen - at least at this summit. It is also a threat to the lynchpins of globalization - transnational private companies - since the Russian model is based on mega-firms like Gazprom, Rosneft and Transneft, all of which are at least partly state-controlled.
But there may be benefits:
The security of Russian energy supply is thus to be contrasted with the unreliability of US behavior. In the short term, this Russian strategy also enables Russian companies to secure the capital and technology they need for high-cost, high-risk projects in difficult terrain. Reciprocally, the strategy offers access to stable supply and pricing of oil and gas to consumer countries, including diversion of energy transportation away from military pressure at chokepoints - for example, the Strait of Hormuz, through which most oil tankers sail en route to Asia and South Africa. In America's wars with Iraq, and its threatened attack on Iran, oil consumers are dependent on the US Navy to keep the Hormuz waterway open. They are obliged to pay for this protection through the premium US oil companies charge for delivery risk.
And guess who leapt onto the bandwagon straight away:
India was the first to buy into the new Russian model, purchasing a minority shareholding in the first of the Sakhalin Island offshore oilfields to come onstream. This does not supply crude oil directly from Russia - a short-term Indian priority that the government in New Delhi is also pursuing. China followed India with different tactics, first by funding the proposed East Siberian Oil Pipeline, which will assure direct oil deliveries to Daqing; and most recently, by buying into Rosneft's public share flotation.
Immediate success for this model is unlikely. But with energy security such a fundamental issue these days - more important at a globalized economic level than simple political ideology or cultural identity - then we are perhaps seeing the seeds being sown for a new non-aligned movement.
It's no coincidence that these three guys had a meeting today. No coincidence at all.
Continue reading "A Different Model for a Different World" »
 Very dangerous games are being played out in the Levant: The Observer (quoted in full below) attempts to make sense of them:
The argument here is simple. The past few months have seen several developments that have displeased those who stand to benefit from continued strife. There has been an improvement in relations between moderate Palestinian leaders and Olmert, who is committed to a disengagement of Israeli forces and settlers from the West Bank and hints that even elements of Hamas might be shifting towards a more pragmatic position. In addition, the Syrians, forced to leave Lebanon last year, have become marginalised and Hizbollah has begun to lose credibility. In addition, Tehran is under huge international pressure because of its nuclear programme. Nothing would benefit hardliners in Gaza, Lebanon, Damascus and Tehran more than a nasty and bloody war...
However, experts point out that there is little history of contact between Hizbollah and the Sunni Muslim Hamas. And though a senior Hamas militant in Damascus is suspected of running the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier in Gaza, that does not mean, says one Western intelligence source, that the Hizbollah strike last week was part of a co-ordinated strategy. And the relationship between Iran and Hizbollah may be more nuanced than often thought. 'The Iranians are in trouble over the nuclear programme, and the Syrians are under pressure, too, and chaos and diversions benefit both,' said Nadim Shehadi, of London's Chatham House think tank. 'But Hizbollah is more linked to Tehran than Damascus.'
An axis may exist, but in a rougher, more informal form than the tight-knit institutional connections seen by the Israelis and their allies. 'If you ignore state borders, you can see a broad anti-American and anti-Israeli front, with Iran leading it. They are playing a clever game. The Iranians are playing chess: their opponents are playing poker.'
History has a habit of repeating itself in the Middle East, and it's pretty obvious that Israel's tactic is going to backfire, though the biggest tragedies probably won't be for the Israelis. The notion that attacking Lebanon is going to turn the Lebanese against Hizbollah is simply absurd, yet the ruthlessness of war seems to be ingrained in the Israeli political mindset:
A tight cordon coupled with air strikes would allow the destruction of Hizbollah's military capacity. In addition, the physical damage wreaked by the bombing would force the government of Lebanon (and the international community) to act against the Islamic militia, hopefully implementing a recent UN Security Council resolution calling for Hizbollah's disarmament and the positioning of Lebanese troops on the southern border. Civilian suffering leading to anger against Hizbollah would, the politicians and military men knew, force the Lebanese, or the international community, or both, to act rapidly. The plan was accepted unanimously. 'If our security and economy is being hit,' said one minister, 'so shall Lebanon's.'
Did the bombing of Belgrade turn the people of Serbia against Milosevic? No, it merely strengthened him, until a year later he was finally overthrown by a populace that had simply had enough. Removing Hizbollah from Lebanon is not going to be nearly as simple, and now things will simply snowball in its favour.
Today, the bloodshed continues, with Hizbollah retaliating in the only way it knows how. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinijad, no lover of Israel to put it mildly, threatens "unimaginable losses" should Syria be dragged in, and in St Petersburg the G8 leaders are divided. Things are looking worse and worse by the day.
...it may be that a fuse has been lit. 'The nightmare scenario is war in Gaza, widespread war against the Israelis in Lebanon and between factions, Syria and Iran being dragged into the conflict and a steady escalation from there to who knows where, widespread conflict, oil prices through the ceiling, bombs going off all over the place' said the diplomat. 'You don't usually see the nightmare scenario evolve in the Middle East but, if it does, we are all in deep, deep trouble.'
Continue reading "Chess, Poker or Plain Old War?" »
 An opportunity may already have been lost. With Bush and Putin 'failing to agree' on Russia's entry to the WTO, inevitably there will be comebacks. After all, the G8 summit is being hosted in St Petersburg, and the onus is on Russia to assert its rising status.
And the issue is that old chesnut, energy security. With the WTO membership carpet pulled from beneath its feet, Russia today refused to sign the energy charter which would guarantee the reliable supply of energy to Europe. As the Ukraine discovered, Russia knows that it has a powerful economic and political weapon in its grasp, and there's no reason for it to let go.
Anyone who still thinks - or says - that oil is not a major issue on the global political agenda will, however, be corrected by this year's G8, notable for its straight talking:
"Energy is essential to improving the quality of life and opportunities in developed and developing nations," the leaders' statement said.
"Ensuring sufficient, reliable and environmentally responsible supplies of energy at prices reflecting market fundamentals is a challenge for our countries and for mankind as a whole," it added.
The statement comes after months of rising oil prices - including a new spike following the Israeli action in Lebanon.
That's the sharp end of it - you can't have energy security without political security, and last week it just got a whole lot worse. Thus the G8 summit is inextricably intertwined with events in the Middle East, from Israel and Lebanon to Iraq and Iran. It's not just an additional point of discussion, as is being reported - it's the main item on the menu.
Continue reading "Tit for Tat" »
 Go away for a week and the world seems to change in your absence. No exception this time, as all-out war looms in the Levant and terrorists strike again, this time in Bombay.
Both incidents are symptoms of intractable conflicts over Israel and Kashmir. Fortunately, while Israel has let loose - one suspects that the capture of two soldiers was the excuse is was looking for to strike against Hezbollah - India's reaction has been restrained, despite the clear indications that the bombers hailed from Pakistan.
In both cases, the actions serve only to provoke retaliation. But Israel can't help itself, while India clearly can. If only the former could learn from the latter, the terrorists would soon be out of business. Instead, another generation is being created.
Whether there will be a repeat of 1978 and 1982 remains to be seen, but all efforts must now be made to stop Syria getting sucked into the conflict. Prospects for the region as a whole don't look good.
 It was those words, delivered in the broadest of Yorkshire accents, that hit home most of all. They came from a young man just like me: almost exactly the same age; raised in Britain, the son of an immigrant from the subcontinent; well-educated and articulate. Yet Muhammed Sidique Khan was prepared to die and to kill for the most abstract of hatreds:
I and thousands like me are forsaking everything for what we believe. Our driving motivation doesnt come from tangible commodities that this world has to offer. Our religion is Islam - obedience to the one true God, Allah, and following the footsteps of the final prophet and messenger Muhammad. This is how our ethical stances are dictated.
Your democratically elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world. And your support of them makes you directly responsible, just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters.
Until we feel security, you will be our targets. And until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people we will not stop this fight.
We are at war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation.
He could so easily have been myself; a twisted reflection from a world we still barely understand. The parallel universe of Jihad, Shar'ia, martyrdom and the AK-47, all served up for our consumption on prime time al-Jazeera.
A year on from the 7/7 bombings and thankfully there has been no repeat. It's no consolation for the families of the dead, but the attack could have been so much worse. Fortunately the second wave failed in a blur of incompetence. But as Khan's fellow bomber Shehzad Tanweer reminded us in a new video aired yesterday, it certainly isn't over:
What you have witnessed now is only the beginning of a series of attacks that will continue and increase in strength until you withdraw your soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq, and until you stop your financial and military support for America and Israel.
So where are these men - who justify the murder of random people by drawing tenous connections with participation in the democratic process and complicity with government foreign policy - going to come from? There's two answers. The first, and most obvious, is that they will come from within. But the second, and the most worrying, is that they will have been trained and indoctrinated where else but Pakistan.
Pakistan is becoming the new front in the War on Terror, taking the place that Afghanistan held before 9/11. There's plenty more Pakistani diaspora around, from Britain to Bahrain, and it's more easily accessible than Afghanistan was.
Yet by no means is Pakistan under control, and it's doubtful whether the ruling regime has a clue as to what is going on in 80% of the country.
The BBC takes an in-depth look at this and related issues and asks whether or not the bombers were linked to what is nebulously termed 'al-Qaeda'. The conclusion is that indeed someone in Pakistan was directing the bombers, and this has implications for the War on Terror in general:
...in recent months Western intelligence agencies have begun shifting away from the notion that al-Qaeda has largely become an ideology rather than a structured operation, to once again believing that there remains some capability for direct operational planning within al-Qaeda's leadership.
This denies the fact that whether or not al-Qaeda physically exists, it is both an organisation and an idea. It's this idea that inspired the bombers, not the organisation; and their action was a continuation and a reflection of this idea that no doubt will give it further power.
The group itself is becoming increasingly complex, and is intertwined with the many factions fighting for Islam or independence within Pakistan itself:
"There is very much an integration between the Pakistani jihadi community and al-Qaeda's leadership and I think this is the galaxy that spawned the 7 July bombings," explains Alexis Debat, a counter-terrorism expert.
"But it's very hard for investigators to find out where the Pakistani jihadi community stops and al-Qaeda starts. And it's much more difficult for the Pakistani government to go after the Pakistani jihadis."
The only thing that is certain is that of the hundreds of thousands of visitors to Pakistan each year, more than one of them will bring something back with them - a plan, a tactic, a mission. The only questions are when will they release it upon us, and will we catch them first?
Khan's entire speech and BBC story below.
Continue reading "We Are At War and I Am a Soldier" »
 The Economist may be dry, but it has a way of hitting you now and again with a paragraph or two stuffed with pithy aphorisms. Take the opener to this week's Pakistan survey:
Think about Pakistan, and you might get terrified. Few countries have so much potential to cause trouble, regionally and worldwide. One-third of its 165m people live in poverty, and only half of them are literate. The country's politics yo-yo between weak civilian governments and unrepresentative military onesthe sort currently on offer under Pervez Musharraf, the president and army chief, albeit with some democratic wallpapering. The state is weak. Islamabad and the better bits of Karachi and Lahore are orderly and, for the moment, booming. Most of the rest is a mess. In the western province of Baluchistan, which takes up almost half of Pakistan's land mass, an insurgency is simmering. In the never-tamed tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, the army is waging war against Islamic fanatics.
Nor is that all. Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and until recently was selling their secrets to North Korea, Iran, Libya and maybe others. During its most recent big stand-off with India, in 2002, Pakistan gave warning that, if attacked, it might nuke its neighbour. Mostly, however, in Kashmir, Afghanistan and its own unruly cities, Pakistan has used, and perhaps still uses, Islamist militants to fight its warsincluding the confused lot it is fighting, at America's request, in the tribal areas. Several thousand armed extremists are swilling around the country. Thousands more youths are being prepared for holy war at radical Islamic schools. Osama bin Laden is widely believed to be in Pakistan.
If that doesn't have you running for the bomb shelter, then switch to the BBC where you'll find news about gun battles involving the Baloch and a rising British fatality toll over the border in Afghanistan prompting swift reconsiderations.
Does the West really know what it's doing here? More than one empire has bitten off more than it can chew in this lawless, volatile region - are we merely the latest?
Furthermore, so much of the situation is down to just one man:
Pakistan does not need a saviour to become stable and well. It needs a sustainable political system, representing the majority of its people. General Musharraf has had some successes. But by sabotaging Pakistan's fragile democracy, he may well have made the country even more dangerous.
Full story below.
Continue reading "The Sum of All Fears" »
 An interesting and inevitable comparison from the BBC.
The author's point is best made in the opening lines:
The moment you arrive in China, the country shouts progress...
...India, too, is on a dash for growth and riches, but it doesn't always look that way.
The essay correctly identifies the fact that China's progress is not despite its autocratic leadership but because of it; it also notes that India's advantage lies in the ability to innovate and adapt.
It's very much a 'human interest' story for the tabloid generation, and the two entrepreneurs picked out are my no means typical - or atypical. However, I'm not entirely sure that the conclusion that China is heading for 'political upset' adequately addresses the reality of the situation:
So where are Billy and Tarun heading?
Both their cities are rising at a dizzying rate. But I am clear that India lags far behind for now, at least. Democracy, the need for public consent, just isn't delivering change so quickly.
But then in China, with no need for consent, the risks of major political upset seem much greater.
The only certainty is that both countries will go on racing each other and overtake most of the outside world.
In other news, the Nathula Pass opens... more trade for China and access to infrastructural skills for India? Or the next stage in the gradual encroachment upon Tibet?
Continue reading "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" »
While teaching in China, I swiftly became aware that however bright some of the students were, the Chinese education system was not doing them - or China - many favours. This view is backed by a report in Asia Times Online, which (read between the lines) draws parallels with the situation in India.
There's a lot of number crunching in the article but it boils down to this:
Only a few of China's vast number of university graduates are capable of working for a multinational company, and the fast-growing domestic economy absorbs most of those who could. Indeed, China is facing a looming shortage of home-grown talent, with serious implications not only for multinationals now in China, but also for the growing number of Chinese companies with global ambitions....
Lack of quality talent and rising pay have not, as yet, slowed China's economic growth; basing production in mainland China remains cost-effective for most foreign firms. But the growing shortage of executive talent may make the growth assumptions written into many business plans overly optimistic.
Reprinted below.
Continue reading "China's Impending Talent Shortage" »
 A delightfully acerbic and tongue in cheek analysis of the North Korea missile launch by the BBC's Matt Frei.
In a nutshell, Frei reckons that the launch is little more than a PR stunt from a Kim Jong-Il disappointed at the recent lack of media attention:
...you can imagine the Dear Leader's dismay as he flicks from one channel to the next and finds the world stage obsessed with football, Rooney's red card, Brangelina or the nascent nuclear programme of Iran.
But not him. Not a squeak. Nada.
I can just picture him hurling his kimchi at the plasma screen, shouting: "Why all the fuss about Tehran? Why are they getting all the attention when they have barely started enriching the uranium and the rhetoric. We're beyond enriching. We are fully enriched! We have already manufactured six nuclear warheads and we can't even make it onto late night TV? Hello! Whatever happened to the axis of evil?"
But Brangelina might well hold the key to the situation. Frei's theory is that movie buff Kim takes his cues from spectacular blockbusters like Independence Day - films that harness the paranoia at the heart of US culture.
But more worryingly, there's also a geopolitical element of empathy with - you've guessed it - China:
There he was. Japan's foppish prime minister crooning away incomprehensibly in the Holy of Holies, permitted to don the King's shades, allowed to discuss global affairs with Priscilla Presley.
W had arranged a personal tour of Graceland with bells and whistles and the Chinese president wasn't even allowed to call his recent meal at the White House a state visit.
Oh, the shame of it! So President Hu Jintao may have called up Kim Jong-il and said: "Go girl! The skies are yours, just aim those missiles away from us."
Kim Jong-il relies on China for everything from food to power to rental videos. He is unlikely to have launched several missiles without its consent.
But Frei's got a brilliant solution to the affair:
So here's my idea. Invite him over for face-to-face talks about the stuff that matters and sweeten the diplomacy with a guided tour of Universal Studios, lunch with Stephen Spielberg and a life-long subscription to Netflix and Blockbusters.
The missile crisis will be over and North Korea will be become a fabulous location for Mission Impossible 4.
Fantastic stuff - it's what you pay the licence fee for. Check it out below, and see also this Asia Times brief on the missile suite.
Continue reading "A Hissy Fit from the Hermit State" »
 Perhaps the most interesting part in this article on Comment is Free is the first remark by 'AntiCensorship':
Jonathan Fenby. When you read that name there is no need to read further. You seem to have a patholigical dislike for China. I guess they dont know there place. Please Mr Fenby can we have an article about Israel or the United States for a change. I know hoe much you admire those countries.
To me it's essential to understand this kind of attitude, which I assume come from an educated Chinese person in Beijing, given the 'location tag'.
The thing with censorship is that when it is successful, as it generally is at the moment in China, it not only suppresses the truth but creates a sense of apathy about the truth.
The second point, which Mr Fenby puts above, is that in China this kind of suppression really is the norm. It really does go back a long time, and thus the apathy is magnified. Trying to compare China to other places is not the issue: the issue in the article above, I believe, is China.
Finally, what AntiCensorship shows us is the backswing into nationalism. When any criticism of China means that you are 'anti-Chinese' then the observer is put on the back foot, in the same fashion that anyone who criticizes Israel is labelled an anti-Semitic neo-Nazi.
The point of a free press and the other elements of civil society that go with it are that they serve as checks and balances on officialdom. And this is something that has yet to infiltrate China in a significant manner.
It's not as if the press in the UK, for example, doesn't criticize the government, the opposition, the civil service, the NHS, football managers, ASBOs, dodgy chocolate and anything else it can get its teeth into - not to mention the US and a whole gamut of other nations, cultures and societies.
To build a better world, first one has to identify the flaws: only then can we make the incisions that finally free us of them.
In other news, China's biggest BBS site has been closed down to cleanse it of political content. We're not making this up.
Article quoted below.
Continue reading "Autocratic Transmission" »
 Yes, it's coming up on the radar again, however faintly. This time, an analysis in Comment is Free neatly summarises the main issues:
1. The Balochistan situation is a distraction from the 'War on Terror' against the Taliban, sucking up men and resources that might be better spent fighting the men in black. Yet if only the Baloch were given more autonomy, they might be valuable allies against the Taliban.
2. The gas fields in Sui are not irrelevant to the conflict, and the geopolitical elements are all in place:
The Chinese and the Iranians have realised the potential there. The possible Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline was opposed by the Bush administration, but is making slow progress. Resource-hungry China has gained a foothold in the province, by sending engineers and security officials to construct a port at Gwadar for a possible oil/gas pipeline connecting Gwadar with Xinjiang. The Chinese are accused of using Gwadar as a listening post for monitoring US military activities in the Persian Gulf. In return, the Chinese are giving $350 million for an upgrade to the Karakoram Highway and providing assistance to Pakistan's nuclear industry. In 1998, Pakistan escalated the regional arms race by detonating 6 nuclear weapons near Chagai, also in the province of Baluchistan.
3. The Balochs are Muslims, but theirs is a more secular society than those that surround them. However, there are allegations of various human rights abuses being perpetrated against them on both sides of the Iran-Pakistan border:
Human Rights Watch has raised concerns of political incarceration and torture of Baluchi political activists such as Rasheed Azam. The military dictatorship in Islamabad are not alone, there are also human rights violations committed by the Shi'a theocracy in Iran.
4. There are other points of view, as we see in one of the comments:
Alex Bingham's ignorance of the issue is astounding. The Balouch are not the most secular people in Pakistan. The Punjabis are. The Balouch tend to be the most uneducated and poor and this isn't because the federal government ignores their plight but because they're exploited by their own feudal system and overlords. Bughti, Marri and Mengal are all over-fed and fat villains who start a quarrel with the federal government in Islamabad whenever their own interests are threatened. And no prizes for guessing who's providing the "expensive pieces of military hardware".
This is not to say that points 1-3 above are untrue - but when conflict occurs, there's always some reason why. It is therefore important to look at the opposing viewpoint and try to figure out where it comes from.
Full piece quoted below.
Continue reading "Why Balochistan Matters" »
 Perhaps the most interesting feature of this little news item is that the border dispute is still ongoing.
The Times of India reports on a recent meeting between Chinese and Indian ministers. But with trade now the number one priority of each country, why is politics still such a niggly issue, especially over what are really rather narrow and insignificant slivers of land?
See also this BBC story, first of a series.
Continue reading "Sino Indian Border" »
 Of course it is impossible to predict what course the future will take with regard to potential conflict with China. What follows is thus quite speculative. But there are a few factors pertaining to the period around 2012, the next Year of the Dragon, that stand out:
Economic superpower status. Over the next five or six years, China's economic ascendancy will be complete. Publications such as Newsweek are already writing on what they call 'China's Century'. What happens in the Chinese economy sends shockwaves around the world. Not to mention the US budget deficit, much of which is already down to China. With this kind of authority, China is going to be far less shy to act, perhaps radically, in its own interests.
Games over. The Chinese are greatly looking forward to the 2008 Olympic Games and the 2010 Shanghai Expo and are unlikely to do anything to scupper them before they are over. But by 2012 they will have neither of these to lose.
Impending implosion? Over the next decade China's resources will be stretched to a crippling limit while, despite the one-child policy, the population will have continued to rise. Rampant environmental pollution is not going to help put food in the mouths of 1.4 billion hungry citizens. Peasant protests and nationalism are both on the increase and by this time the CCP may no longer be able to keep them under control.
Resources on the wane. And oil: never forget oil. By 2012, unless it has taken serious measures to secure resources for itself, it's going to break down like an old banger - and the incredible economic growth that legitimates the Party's grip on power will break down down with it. Many theorists predict this year as a critical point - see for example the Olduvai Gorge theory, itself based on Hubbert's Peak.
Election year. The year 2012 will see elections in not only the US but possibly also in Taiwan. Elections are also due in Hong Kong; whether or not the authorities will allow them is another matter. It may even be time for the current leadership of the CCP to stand down after eight years in power. The year is thus extremely volatile politically with world leaders distracted and potential flashpoints waiting to happen within 'One China' itself.
 Military superpower status. Finally, if speculations are correct, by 2012 China's military build-up will be complete. It will have its motive, it will have its carrier group, it will have its opportunity. If the PRC moves to retake the ROC, will the US act to defend it or not? If things continue as they have done since 9/11, by 2012 the US military itself will be embroiled in conflicts across the Middle East, from Syria, via Iraq and Iran, as far as Afghanistan. Weakened and overstretched it won't be in a position to fight upon a second front. In a Presidential election year as 2012 will be, the prospect of even more American body bags will not be a vote-winner. And if Taiwan falls undefended, what would happen next?
I hope that it does not come to this. The only outcome that is in all our interests is peace. But as if all the above are not enough, there are enough mystical predictions out there to indicate that something is up: we just don't yet know what.
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Update - since this hypothesis was first written in Autumn 2005, I've found a couple more articles which seem to justify it. Of course they must be taken with a large pinch of salt, but this Epoch Times report confirms similar thinking on the 2012 date - see also the analysis by the Association for Asian Research.
Read on below for more detailed explanations.
Continue reading "Flashpoint 2012" »
 Worth noting for future reference, an article delineating some of the geopolitical implications of the Gwadar naval port.
Though events may well overtake me, at the moment it is looking like the most likely future flashpoint between China and the US - Taiwan excepted - is going to be here. All of the pieces are in place. China is building up Gwadar in order to protect its Gulf oil supplies, and perhaps export energy via potential pipelines through Pakistan (see map). The US also has a major presence in Pakistan due to the War on Terror, and is actively engaging the Taliban along the border.
Meanwhile, Baloch nationalists are conducting a campaign for independence - which inevitably will bring them into conflict with both powers. India appears to be supporting this, and finally Pakistan and Iran seem to be caught in the middle between their alliances and enmities with the US, China and India.
A more complex and volatile situation could not be asked for. According to the Government of Balochistan website:
The realization of economic and strategic objectives of the Gwadar port by Pakistan is largely dependent upon the reduction of separatist violence in Balochistan by the Baloch freedom fighters. Pakistani response to secessionism is aggressive military action in Balochistan. Pakistani fighter jets, gunship helicopters, heavy artillery, and over 60,000 troops have launched a military operation inside Balochistan to target the ethnic Baloch population, mainly the non-combatant, innocent men, women and children. To date the Pakistani forces have conducted extrajudicial arrests of more than 4,000 Baloch activists, killed over 700 Baloch nationals in direct military action, and planted landmines in Baloch areas to close all escape routes resulting in the deaths of over 10,000 Baloch civilians due of starvation and lack of medical assistance.
Jerusalem, Israel based Government of Balochistan in Exile is in contact with officials of countries that have a vested interest in containing Chinese ambitions in the region. Negotiations are being conducted to explore ways and means to close the Chinese naval outpost in Gwadar. Both the Indian and U.S. policy makers are keen to resolve the grievances of the Baloch people through peaceful means. But, neither Iran, Pakistan nor China agree to retract from their plans and settle the issue of sovereignty of Balochistan with the Baloch leadership. Hence, the Baloch nationalists were compelled to fight for their self-determination, and they have already waged the Baloch War of Independence on both the Iranian and Pakistani government forces.
Full article reproduced below.
Continue reading "Three Great Powers and One Nascent Nation" »
 It's 1 July - halfway through the year and time for a revamp.
As this blog has evolved, it's become increasingly clear that the sources I use - The Guardian, BBC News Online and The Economist - despite their excellent journalism traditions are very 'British'. And that's not what this website is about.
I've therefore decided to add a new source - Asia Times Online - which, while it doesn't have the pedigree of the others, is certainly a portal for some serious voices from and about Asia. Take, for example, this story on 'Petro Hysteria' (reproduced below).
Hopefully this new source will add balance to the site as it progresses.
I've also redesigned the banner to better reflect the themes of the blog - the War on Terror, the quest for oil and especially the role of China and India in all this.
Finally, I've adjusted the sidebars a little, but that's by the by.
Let me know what you think!
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Update: As of 18 July 2006, the interface was upgraded to Movable Type 3.31, complete with tagging. Check out the tag cloud to see more...
Continue reading "Site Revamp" »
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