Kabul: A Hub Of Militancy By Dr Muhammad Khan: New Age Islam's Selection, 27 July 2017
New Age Islam Edit Bureau
27 July 2017
• Kabul: A Hub of Militancy
By Dr Muhammad Khan
• Al-Aqsa Siege: A Palpable In’t Law Breach
By Syed Qamar A Rizvi
• Why Hussain Haqqani Maligns Pakistan?
By Reema Shaukat
• The Sixth River
By F.S. Aijazuddin
• Trojan Horses Of Democracy
By Syed Khawar Mehdi
• Living By Speculation
By I.A. Rehman
• Pak-US Ties: A Reality Check
By Dr Zafar Nawaz Jaspal
• US-Iran Relations
By Owen Bennett-Jones
• In Whose Borrowed Robes Will Trump Be Dressed?
By Harlan Ullman
Compiled By New Age Islam Edit Bureau
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Kabul: A Hub of Militancy
By Dr Muhammad Khan
July 27th, 2017
TERRORISM is the worst challenge facing the state and society of Pakistan today. As a result of many military operations, security forces of Pakistan have destroyed the terrorist bases in various parts of the country. Launching of ‘Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad’ this year was aimed at, ‘indiscriminately eliminating the “residual/latent threat of terrorism”, consolidating the gains made in other military operations, and further ensuring the security of Pakistan’s borders.’ This operation is going on with a lot of successes and terrorists are finding no place to organize themselves within the boundaries of Pakistan.
Unfortunately, despite clearing the terrorist hit areas within Pakistani geographical jurisdiction, there is no end to events of terrorism; the bomb blasts, suicide attacks and target killing inside Pakistan. This is aspect has created an uncertainty and chaos in the society. The other day, there killed 26 innocent people, mostly policemen in a suicide attack in Lahore. There have been many such like attacks earlier also. A suicide attacker killed an Army officer and two FC soldiers in Hayatabad area of Peshawar just a week ago. The question arises, if Pakistani security forces are so effective in curbing the terrorism and militancy inside Pakistani borders, where does these terrorists come from. A careful analysis of the past events (since 2013) would reveal that, TTP elements and other terrorists who fled Pakistan to take a refuge in Afghanistan have been trained, equipped and then are being sent to Pakistan for undertaking the terrorist activities. These TTP led terrorists are in thousands and have been provided secure places in the Afghan areas, bordering Pakistan. Being Pakistani origin, they are well conversant with the Pakistani territories; thus, find it easy to carry out terrorism anywhere inside Pakistan.
There are other very authentic reports that Indian government is sponsoring militant organizations in Afghanistan, TTP, DAISH and many breakaway splinter groups. Unfortunately, the office of the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is directly involved in this gamut. Indian Agencies are also influencing Afghan security apparatus to take unwarranted stand against Pakistan and President Ghani’s recent tirade against Pakistan was its direct outcome. The Western intelligence agencies that monitor presidential palace in Kabul are aware of planning of terrorist activities against Pakistan at top government level.
The liaisons between senior aides of President Ghani with top leadership of Lashkar-e-Islam (LeI) are under discussions in the diplomatic circles in Kabul. According to diplomatic sources, an intelligence agency of a western country has intercepted phone calls in which a senior official of Afghan government has promised LeI commander full support for its terrorist activities inside Pakistan. This report is further corroborated by the sources in militants, who revealed that Mangal Bagh and Waray Haji are sending a delegation of LeI commanders to Presidential Palace in Kabul for coordination.
As a pre-emptive strategy, Afghan leadership and their Indian and US ally are carrying out aggressive propaganda against Pakistan with regard to alleged presence of Afghan Taliban (Haqqani group) in Pakistan. but, anyway, they are not ready to cooperate for better security arrangements between Pakistan and Afghanistan which is the need of hour. In the same backdrop, during a recent meeting between Pakistani Army Chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa and visiting General Gen John W. Nicholson, commander of US Resolute Support Mission (RSM) in Afghanistan, gen Bajwa clearly told him that, “blame game perpetrated by some quarters in Afghanistan and US to undermine Pakistan’s contributions” should come to an end.
The US General was clearly told that, “It is not a coincidence that this theme is being played at a time when a policy review is being undertaken in the US.” On its Part, “Pakistan will continue to act positively despite provocations.” Pakistan does not need US appreciations to its role against terrorism, however, it would like that its sacrifices should be recognized towards regional and global peace. Earlier, Pakistani Foreign Office has clearly told Kabul to stop supporting the militants, operating from Afghan soil into Pakistan. Afghan Govt must concentrate on its own areas and ensure security of its territory. According to FO, “We have before us a number of references and reports filed on the situation in Afghanistan. These include a UN Report of 2014, report by General Nicholson and most recent report filed by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). All these reports highlight that almost all the factors responsible for turmoil in Afghanistan are internal to Afghanistan.”
Pakistan understands an increase in the Indo-US strategic collaboration. U.S has always desired a greater Indian role in Afghanistan. While India and US are collaboration with each other in Afghanistan, they are hectically involved in undermining Pakistani role and its intrinsic commitment with the people of Afghanistan. Alongside Kabul regime, both are building narratives against Pakistan. US must realise that this well-orchestrated propaganda campaign against Pakistan would not only be perilous for Pakistan but would also become detrimental to US interests in Afghanistan and larger region. Furthermore, demonising Pakistan for US policy failures and inability of Kabul regime is also unfair and unjustifiable, thus must be stopped. Rather making Afghanistan as an Indo-US chessboard against Pakistan, US should recognise the Pakistani sacrifices and ask Afghan Government to shun its policy of not cooperating with Pakistan on critical border management and security issues. Besides, Afghan security officials should realize that they are also further destabilizing Afghanistan by strengthening militants against Pakistan.
Source: pakobserver.net/kabul-hub-militancy/
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Al-Aqsa Siege: A Palpable In’t Law Breach
By Syed Qamar A Rizvi
July 27th, 2017
TO create tension and extend occupation remains an unjustified Netanyahu’s policy in East Jerusalem. Yet nothing can ever alter Palestinians’ truth as regard to their unflinching affiliation with Al Quds, nor can the draconian Israeli tactics deter the legal veracity of Palestinians’ claim over the Al-Aqsa mosque. President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party had called for a Day of Rage on July 21 after metal detectors and turnstiles were installed at the entrance of al-Aqsa following Friday’s deadly shoot-out that left two Israeli security officers and three Israeli Palestinians dead.
In recent years, there has been a popular Palestinian uprising against the occupying regime’s intensive armed incursions at the mosque by settlers guarded by Israeli police. Sheikh Azzam Khatib Tamimi, head of the Waqf, the Islamic authority in charge of al-Aqsa, said earlier that the authority had instructed “imams in all the mosques in the city of Jerusalem not to hold prayers in their mosques and to come to al-Aqsa”. Former grand mufti of Jerusalem Ekremeh Sabri told NBC News by phone that the protesters were refusing to enter into Al Aqsa mosque through the electronic gates.
Worshippers outside the Old City were scattered soon after Friday prayers on July 14 as Zionist forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowds in Salah al-Din Street. Four Palestinians were reported injured and three killed. Israeli forces also entered Al-Makassad hospital in Jerusalem Al-Quds, and asked employees to leave. Witnesses said they believed Zionist officers were looking for those wounded in the clashes. Earlier the hospital released a statement asking for blood donations due to the number of injured. Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet, said the barriers should be removed, while Jerusalem police insisted they stay. Talks to remove metal detectors from the gated entrances drastically failed overnight as Palestinian Authority negotiators refused to accept Israel’s offer of subjecting only “suspicious people” to metal detection checks. The Zionist regime had poured thousands of extra forces into the city. Troops were seen taking up positions above crowds of worshipers, armed with baton rounds and assault rifles. Officials including the Palestinian Authority’s chief negotiator, Hatem Abdel-Kader, were arrested shortly after the talks failed.
The Al-Aqsa mosque compound has been a Jewish target in recent days since the Jewish organizations calling for the compound to be open to Jews for the week after Tisha B’Av and others seeking to celebrate unconfirmed reports that Israel is negotiating the reopening of the compound to non-Muslim worship. “The closure of al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the occupation in itself and the prevention of the call for prayers are all unfair and unjust and constitute a violation to the United Nations resolutions and the international agreements,” Omar Kiswani, director of the al-Aqsa Mosque, told reporters outside the site.
Ironically, Palestinians have seen the measures at Al-Aqsa as the latest pretense methodology of Israeli authorities— using Israeli-Palestinian violence and tensions as a means of furthering control over important sites in the occupied Palestinian territory . Israeli forces have set up a checkpoint at the entrance to the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabal al-Mukabbir village, in order to prevent residents from heading towards the Old City.
International law is a core of the UN Charter. The third paragraph of preamble of the UN Charter states as a key goal of the organization “to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained’’. Principally, Jerusalem’s Islamic and Christian sanctities/sanctuaries are under Jordanian guardianship, as Jordan was the ruling authority before the Israeli occupation. In the Jordan-Israel peace agreement signed in 1994, the government in Amman kept its guardianship over such sites. This was affirmed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who signed an agreement with King Abdullah II in March , 2015, giving him the right to guard and defend Jerusalem and the holy sites in Palestine.
In an unjustified move in November, 2016, the Israeli Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved a draft law to ban the use of speakers for calls to prayer in mosques in Jerusalem and Arab towns within the Green Line. The committee’s statement attached to the decree cited as reasoning that the call to prayer is a form of noise pollution. In March, 2017 , the Knesset approved the first reading of anti Azan bill. The draft legislation aims to stop mosques from using loudspeakers to amplify the Muslim call to prayer in Israel and Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem from 11pm to 7am. Israel’s Education Minister Naftali Bennett, leader of the pro-settler Jewish Home party, warned of an Israeli “capitulation” that “will damage Israel’s power of deterrence and will endanger the lives of the visitors, the worshipers and the police officers.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged his Israeli counterpart Reuven Rivlin to swiftly remove the detectors “within the framework of freedom of religion and worship”. Factually, an Israeli move to establish Tel Aviv’s writ in East Jerusalem cannot be unacceptable to the Palestinians since it is beyond the Jewish property line. This truth is endorsed by all conventional norms of international law. Factually, the metal detectors serve no security purpose, rather the erection is aimed at making a political ploy to pressurise the Palestinians into relinquishing control of the Al-Aqsa mosque. The Israeli siege of Al-Aqsa is against the fundamental rights of the Palestinians guaranteed and protected to them by the UN resolution 217 passed on December 8, 1948.
Source: pakobserver.net/al-aqsa-siege-palpable-int-law-breach/
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Why Hussain Haqqani Maligns Pakistan ?
By Reema Shaukat
July 27th, 2017
PAKISTAN and Afghanistan both have paid huge price in war against terrorism. Whenever there is something shaky in Afghanistan, Pakistan is blamed often without evidence for precarious environment. Porous border between both countries is a big issue as it helps infiltrators to access each other’s soil easily but effective border management and cooperation on both sides will help improve security situation in both countries.
Apart from several other security lapses there are people who retain sympathies with US and provide it with wrong suggestions in order to conquer this war against terrorism. Hussain Haqqani in last few months has appeared to be more loyalist to US and less stalwart to Pakistan. Hussain Haqqani became one of Pakistan’s youngest ambassadors, serving in Sri Lanka from 1992 until 1993. He served as Pakistan’s Envoy to the United States from 2008 to 2011 during Asif Ali Zardari era. Haqqani’s tenure as ambassador to US remained quite controversial as he was called “Washington’s ambassador to Pakistan” rather than Pakistan’s envoy to the US.
Hussain Haqqani who is serving currently as Director for South and Central Asia at the Hudson Institute in Washington DC and his wife Farah Naz Ispahani both are found trying their best to gain popularity as true patriotic Pakistani through their books and public talks which certainly is doubtful because of their anti-Pakistan statements. Sooner than later, he opted to align his loyalties to “pay back” Pakistan for the sins that allowed him to become the top most diplomat. He along with his spouse authored books like “Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military”, “Magnificent Delusions: Pakistan, the United States and an Epic History of Misunderstandings” and “Purifying the Land of the Pure; Pakistan’s Religious Minorities”.
Be it a platform of a US based forum ie South Asians Against Terrorism & For Human Rights (SAATH) or Times Literature Festival Delhi (TLDF) 2016; be it an anti-Pakistan talk conducted at Stimson Centre or Carnegie Endowment; be it a book launch or memorial of Akbar Bugti’s death anniversary, Haqqani and his wife spare no occasion or an international platform to spit venom against Pakistan, its ideology and institutions, particularly the security structure. Generally key content of their speeches and talks always include promoting inter provincial hatred, spreading despair and chaos as well as maligning the image of national institutions, culture, religion and name of Pakistan.
As a sympathiser to US, he advises Trump how he can manage American fuss in Afghanistan. In his another article published lately, he called on President Donald Trump to take a tough stand against Pakistan if Washington wants to secure Afghanistan’s trust. In an opinion piece titled ‘To Win Afghanistan, Get Tough on Pakistan’ for The New York Times, Haqqani says, “Although the Taliban are said to control or contest 40 per cent of Afghanistan’s territory, Taliban leaders operate from the safety of Pakistan”. He further added that President Trump must now consider alternatives as Washington’s incentives to Pakistan since the September 11, terror attacks have failed to dissuade the latter from stopping its support to the Taliban and other terror elements. He also opined that for Islamabad, the alliance with the United States has been more about securing weapons, economic aid and diplomatic support in its confrontation with India. According to his opinion Pakistan wants to keep alive imaginary fears possibly to maintain military ascendancy in a country that has been ruled more by generals.
According to reports Hussain Haqqani is soon going to launch another book with support of Harper Collins (India) as publisher titled “Reimagining Pakistan: Transforming a Dysfunctional Nuclear State”. Indian publishers think that launch of this book on Pakistan’s seventieth independence anniversary will be a gift from Indians and arrogantly stating they mentioned that one can imagine that former Pakistan’s ambassador to the US, a compulsive detractor of Pakistan, who does not see anything worthwhile in Pakistan, would continue with his invectives against Pakistan and its institutions, especially military. With such anti-Pakistan statements it becomes responsibility of Pakistani media to expose such scapegoats on every forum so that one cannot mislead general public.
Source: pakobserver.net/hussain-haqqani-maligns-pakistan/
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The Sixth River
By F.S. Aijazuddin
July 27, 2017
PUNJABIS have a feline thirst for blood. When the Lion of the Punjab — Maharaja Ranjit Singh — predicted that, after him, his kingdom would be overrun by the red of British occupation, he had not anticipated how deep that colour would seep into the soil of his beloved Punjab. It tinctures even today, 175 years after his death, the politics of this region.
The release of a film titled The Black Prince is a reminder of how much or how little the politics of Punjab has changed. This low-budget film (about $5 million worth) recounts the life of Ranjit Singh’s ‘accepted’ son Maharaja Duleep Singh, from his turbulent accession to Ranjit Singh’s golden throne in 1843 to his death as an indebted pauper in a seedy hotel in Paris in 1893.
Gifted with nothing more than a contested lineage inherited from his father Ranjit Singh and from his mother Rani Jindan a pair of beautiful eyes (an admirer described them as “magnificent orbs”), Duleep Singh, still a child, witnessed the murderous convulsions that followed Ranjit Singh’s death. Understandably, he converted from Sikhism which he associated with barbarism to the more genteel alternative — Christianity.
Transported to England, he became a bejewelled, colourful ornament at the court of Queen Victoria. He acquired a huge unaffordable estate in Norfolk where he could indulge himself in a sport in which he excelled. He was regarded as one of the top five shots in the United Kingdom.
He returned to India in 1861 and being reunited with his mother, by then almost half-blind, he brought her back with him to London. Within two years, the redoubtable rani managed to dismantle the Christian persona his tutor Dr John Login and Queen Victoria had assiduously fabricated. From being three-quarters British/one-quarter Sikh, he became a full-blooded Punjabi determined to reclaim his sovereignty.
Revivalists of Punjabi nationalism face an uphill task.
His ambitions, however, exceeded his resources. Dismayed by the ennui of the tsar of Russia who he had hoped would assist him organise an uprising against the British, Duleep Singh retreated penniless to Paris where he died, un-mourned, a footnote in Punjab’s history.
To modern Sikhs, hungry for heroes, Duleep Singh’s reversion to his paternal faith is a case study in belated nationalism, ripe for resurrection. Ignoring the advice of the writer Khushwant Singh not to make a heroic figure out of Duleep Singh (he could see the fault lines in the marble they proposed to use), reconstructions of his life such as the film The Black Prince serve Punjabis as a moveable Wailing Wall, a reminder of their lost heritage, of glories squandered, of nationhood forfeited.
The producers of the film, like Duleep Singh himself, face an uphill task in reawakening Punjabi nationalism. One reason may be the attitude of Punjabis on either side of the border. The only Sikh visible in Lahore’s Cineplex cinema, where the film was recently screened, had bought a ticket to see a 3D action thriller showing in an adjacent hall, because he had no idea what The Black Prince or who Maharaja Duleep Singh were.
History has shown that blood flows like the sixth river of Punjab. Its banks are murder and mayhem. Pakistan’s first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was assassinated in Rawalpindi in 1951. Pakistan’s first post 1971 Prime Minister Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto was hanged in Rawalpindi jail in 1979. His daughter Benazir Bhutto — herself twice prime minister — lost her life in Rawalpindi in 2007. A sitting governor of Punjab, Salmaan Taseer, was gunned down in Islamabad in 2011. And in 2015, the Punjab home minister Shuja Khanzada was murdered. One has lost count of those hundreds of others — civilians
and officials — who have been martyred in suicide attacks or bomb blasts because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Future historians will detect a level of sophistication Punjabis have perfected in recent years. Today’s political assassinations use weapons that leave no smell of cordite or trace of gunpowder. They are cloaked in a lawyer’s brief. Liquidations are conducted in broad daylight, amplified by the media.
There can be no rational-minded Pakistani who predicts a productive outcome of the gladiatorial contest between the PTI and Jamaat-i-Islami and their victim Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Should Nawaz Sharif be disqualified for being unable to justify his wealth, so will Imran Khan. Both could be faulted by the Supreme Court for suffering from accounting amnesia.
Whatever may be the decision of the Supreme Court in either case, one thing is clear. The country is flying on autopilot. Its cockpit is overcrowded with would-be pilots determined to snatch the joystick from the designated captain.
Napoleon, a contemporary of Ranjit Singh, once explained: “Anarchy is the stepping stone to absolute power.” Our high-flying suicidal litigants might heed that canny Frenchman’s warning.
Source: dawn.com/news/1347857/the-sixth-river
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Trojan Horses of Democracy
By Syed Khawar Mehdi
July 27, 2017
WHEN Marcellus says “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”, he is only being an honourable, responsible and concerned citizen. Not to many in Pakistan; there is a hue and cry from strange quarters that democracy is at stake and, heaven forbid, that Pakistan’s very survival is linked with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s fate as the trial approaches its rightful culmination.
The alarm being raised by some very seasoned men is part bunkum — it is out of severe insecurity and more determinedly a pre-emptive offensive in preserving the status quo of a Trojan horse called democracy in Pakistan. When people like Maulana Fazl of many fames, the veteran leftist Afrasiyab Khattak and intellectuals like Harris Khalique decide to get in the same bed then most certainly the gods of Mount Etna are having a very unusual huddle that cannot be ignored any further.
The leftist politician sensationalised it as the last round between the two sides —reminiscent of the game of thrones. Not to miss the excitement, our all-season maulana starts prophesying doomsday scenarios. Naturally, the erudite man of pen had to come to the rescue of the nubile and feeble damsel of democracy and ink an op-ed in The New York Times. Why such a brouhaha over a lawsuit concerning corruption, embezzlement and money laundering against our prime minister? If clean, he walks free; if not then better serve the sentence.
What is wrong in throwing out a so-called democratic system which is based on deception?
Why is it that for once when we feel and see that things are on track and heading in the right direction, it raises such a storm from the custodians of liberty and morality that leaves you astounded and hurt, as one expects they will not be erecting hurdles in Pakistan’s path to corrections and recovery. The insatiable quest for power and its concentration has caused us to drift from governance and made political mafias stakeholders who command the fate of Pakistan’s 200 million in a perpetual state of uncertainty. Ironically enough, the fear of losing electoral hold on the masses and disenfranchisement from power has brought the ensemble of a maulana, a leftist and an intellectual in alignment with a corrupt politician, darkly rooting for his survival.
The seditious charges of conspiring against democracy have been supplemented with the more complex allegations of a ravenous desire for the presidential form of government as if it’s a decree against democracy.
Suffice to say, Mr Jinnah never had much regard for the Westminster type of parliamentary democracy and one should consult history before passing verdict on the form of government that best serves Pakistan. Seven decades of elected autocrats, plutocrats and criminals in the garb of democracy, combined with the damage done by repeated military interventions, have not helped much in the indigenous evolution of a political system suited to our needs and aspirations as a nation. Indeed, much solace and guidance comes from our history with respect to the parliamentary form of democracy.
The founding father Mr Jinnah was clear about his dislike for the very British Westminster style of democracy and openly declared he was “irrevocably opposed to a majority rule under the guise of democracy and a parliamentary form of government”.
It’s a fact that the Pakistani version of parliamentary system with extreme centralisation of power is even worse than the deceptively attractive British system which was rightly denunciated by Jinnah and his blunt refusal to work within it (Muslim League resolution, 1939). What is wrong in throwing out a so-called democratic system which is based on deception and where every one of its constitutional principles is different on the inside to its outer appearance? It was by no account a system controlled by the legislature as purported, and in Pakistan we replaced the hegemony of the king with that of the cabinet and the government’s control of the legislature. Our lack of familiarity with other systems led us to the simplistic solution of settling with Westminster parliamentary democracy, which has only consolidated the stranglehold of mafias, crooks and their cronies over Pakistan and its resources.
It’s an immutable fact that the Westminster type of parliamentary system, other than establishing political and feudal monopolies that have by and large retained the power equation in their own favour, has miserably failed to deliver to the people and the country. No wonder things have boiled down to ‘who rules Pakistan’ or rather the more pertinent ‘how to rule Pakistan’. A presidential form of government will disrupt many an established political mafia and open the closed sanctum of Pakistani politics to the people and bring fresh new faces from all strata of society as a reflection of our pluralist culture.
This won’t be well received by established political mafias, hierarchies and clans. What the people really care about is good governance, law and order and an economy that gives them opportunities and utilises their talent and merit in a transparent system, and with dignity.
The naysayers are painting a doomsday scenario, for they stand to lose their electoral monopolies and gerrymandering ways of 70 years. It’s the trail of corruption, misdeeds and abuse of power that is on trial and not democracy as we are so painstakingly being made to believe. For if Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif goes, the next case in line is not far and won’t take long — thus the deep insecurities that are propelling the pens, voices and rallies to save this stinking yet diverse armada of purulent virtues and malignant values.
We have to rescue democracy from the clutches of political mafias that have kept it in a warped, disrupted form to serve nefarious agendas and personal interests. It’s time to give well-entrenched political mafias a parting kick out of the corridors of democracy, lock, stock and barrel. Let us bid farewell to the Trojan horses of democracy.
Source: dawn.com/news/1347841/trojan-horses-of-democracy
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Living by Speculation
By I.A. Rehman
July 27, 2017
SPECULATION is the name of the game that is being played by TV channels day in and day out for the entertainment of the masses, whose gullibility is as boundless as their thirst for the sensational is insatiable. When the joint investigation team (JIT) filed its report with the Supreme Court and the latter scheduled the hearing a week later, many welcomed the possibility of a break from the slanging contests among representatives of various parties outside the court. Such expectations proved too good to be true. The gladiators from the warring parties stayed on behind the mikes to play the speculation game with increased vigour.
They competed with one another in informing the people what the JIT might or might not have said. Both the PML-N and PTI wanted the people to believe that the JIT had vindicated their respective stands. The guessing game was taken further with a debate on whether the Supreme Court could disqualify the prime minister on the basis of the JIT’s findings. A hotly debated point was the likely result if one of the judges on the three-member implementation bench decided to disqualify the prime minister and his ruling was added to the verdict given by two judges on the five-member bench that had heard the Panama Papers case. It was a meaningless debate.
The guessing game became livelier when the court started hearings on the JIT report.
The speculation game became livelier when the court started hearings on the JIT report. The daily encounters outside the court became noisier and statements and predictions more and more emphatic. The chorus of the PML-N band was that the JIT had not really found the prime minister guilty of any wrongdoing while the PTI chorus was to the effect that it was not only the prime minister who was guilty but his entire brood had been found mired in corruption, The Jamaat-i-Islami chief and Sheikh Rashid had been regular participants of the outdoor kutchery and they were soon joined by the PPP stalwarts especially when the prime minister began to be asked to resign.
The demand for his resignation gave two twists to the speculation game. One new line of speculation was whether resignation could save him from prosecution for the offences he is alleged to have committed or whether a cell in Adiala jail was being prepared. But this point of contention was soon superseded by the other twist — the competition to identify the prime minister’s successor. Would the PML-N find a successor to Nawaz Sharif or would an interim prime minister be installed for the period required to get an outsider elected to the National Assembly?
A few sighs were heard over the deletion from the Constitution of the facility of appointing a prime minister from outside the National Assembly and asking him to get elected to the Assembly within six months or so. Some others regretted having abrogated Article 58 (2b) regardless of the fact that Mamnoon Hussain is not cast in the mould of Ziaul Haq or Ghulam Ishaq or even Farooq Leghari.
Quite often the speculators seemed to be having a brush with the law of contempt of court. Although the Supreme Court did refer disparagingly to the arguments being traded outside, overall it chose to ignore the matter. Even otherwise, senseless chatter is not always contempt and there is no law to punish it.
While the party still in power vociferously maintained that the prime minister was not going to step down, because he was extremely busy inaugurating new development projects or undertaking foreign tours, the opposition gunners kept firing salvos in celebration of his exit from office and went on identifying his successors. Names of likely successors were bandied around with or without their consent. The game is still on. It is unlikely to end even if there is no change or a new prime minister has been sworn in because then there will be new points to speculate.
The speculators got some fresh grist for their mills when Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan announced he would hold a news conference. Prompt was the conclusion that he was going to spill the beans, that he was going to end his 35-year old association with Nawaz Sharif that he had decided to quit the cabinet, even the party. Some PM baiters confidently announced a split in the PML-N. They were disappointed when the interior minister put off the news conference by a day because he was indisposed,
The speculators were not going to give up; their response was quite quick; ‘Sickness or something else?’ One copy writer penned down a strip: “Besides a backache what else is causing anguish to Chaudhry Nisar?” Mercifully, he stopped there. It is possible he did not have access to a dictionary of common diseases otherwise he might have found appropriate cures for the interior minister’s problems that nobody has diagnosed.
Why has the speculation game become popular? People have so long been denied access to the facts pertaining to matters concerning them that they have evolved a firm tradition of treating conjecture as fact. This tradition has greatly been strengthened by the curtailment of space for freedom of expression, by denial of the right to know and by the enforced cessation of discussion on numerous subjects that could be debated freely a few decades ago. There is no intra-religion discourse. Anybody can get away with blue murder by invoking his personal interpretation of religion. Whatever is supposed to be done in the name of national security cannot be challenged. Any criticism of the way the National Action Plan or the CPEC project is being implemented is considered heresy.
Our increased fondness for speculation may help us to compile a treatise on ‘the speculative Pakistani’ to stand beside Dr Amartya Sen’s book The Argumentative Indian, but it will further erode whatever capacity we have to face the grim challenges confronting the country.
Source: dawn.com/news/1347838/living-by-speculation
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Pak-US Ties: A Reality Check
By Dr Zafar Nawaz Jaspal
July 27th, 2017
THE transformation in the global politics, cementing Indo-US strategic partnership and deteriorating situation in Afghanistan are shaping Americans perception about Pakistan’s role in their strategic calculations. Whereas; many Pakistanis have failed to overcome the nostalgia of the Cold War. Instead of comprehending what is happening in the regional and global strategic environment, they are censuring Islamabad for irritating Trump Administration.
In reality, Pakistan neither desires nor is capable to act fourth time a frontline-state of the United States in the region. Simultaneously, it is not prepared to give up on its seven decades stance of sovereign equality in South Asia. The Americans endeavour to establish India’s regional hegemony to guard their strategic interests in Asia severely undermines Pakistan’s national security. That’s why; Islamabad seems uncomfortable due to Afghanistan-India strategic partnership, which was engineered by Obama Administration. These actualities, certainly, mirrored in the forthcoming or much awaited Trump Administration strategy for South Asia.
Presently, Trump Administration is contemplating about its strategy for South Asia. The general impression is that it may not club Pakistan with Afghanistan. It may develop a new policy for the entire region. The discontinuity of Obama administration Af-Pak strategy sounds better. Nevertheless, it would not treat India and Pakistan equally. Islamabad, therefore, does not expect much from the Trump Administration and chalk out a pragmatic policy to sustain its better bilateral relationship with United States.
Trump Administration cannot completely relinquish its military engagement with Pakistan due to United States serious interest in Afghanistan in particular and Central and West Asia in general. Despite Pakistan’s cementing strategic partnership with China and increasing understanding with Russian Federation and firmness to check India’s regional primacy, Washington will continue exercising its carrot-and-stick approach towards Islamabad.
Washington and Islamabad have been reiterating that ‘cooperation is imperative’ for restoring peace in Afghanistan and devastating transnational terrorist syndicate. On July 24, 2017, General John Nicholson, commander Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan visited Islamabad and met Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Bajwa. He restated the vitality of Islamabad in Pentagon’s Afghanistan mission. Precisely, both sides settled to continue engagement and coordination for peace and stability in the region.
United States is openly expressing its annoyance with Pakistan. Recently, Pentagon refused to reimburse $50 million out of the ‘Coalition Support Fund’. Ironically, in the latest counterterrorism report both the State Department and Defense Department demonized Pakistan role in Afghanistan. Secretary Jim Mattis’ claimed that Pakistan had not taken “sufficient action” against the Haqqani network and alleged Pakistan had not finished Taliban sanctuaries located on its territory. In addition, the report also accused Pakistani law enforcement agencies for facilitating Haqani network operations in Afghanistan.
The continuous exercising of carrot-and-stick strategy may not serve the objectives of United States in the region. The lacuna in this strategy is Americans colossal misperception about Pakistanis. The American decision makers ought to be cognizant about Washington’s limitations in bullying Islamabad in the prevalent regional and global strategic environment. Washington’s inclination towards New Delhi to contain China and thereby having diminutive accommodative approach towards Pakistan necessitate Islamabad to pursue alternative options in its external affairs. The shift in both Washington and Islamabad foreign outlook, definitely, wane formal influence over latter foreign and strategic policy.
Although United States announced its forces withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014, yet it is keeping 13300 US-NATO troops in Afghanistan to pursue numerous unstated goals. Perhaps, the primary objective is to prevent the collapse of the US-installed Kabul regime and combat the terrorist syndicate having sanctuaries in Afghanistan. The Americans needs Pakistan’s sincere support in Afghanistan.
To conclude, the mistrust between Islamabad and Washington is in the advantage of anti-Pakistan lobby at the Capitol Hill. It may successfully influence the American Congressmen and Trump Administration in chalking out and executing harmful South Asian strategy. It would not only undermine Pakistan’s national security but also obstruct Washington pursuits of objectives in the region. Thus, the tension between Islamabad and Washington simply obstruct counter-terrorism strategies of both states in the region.
Source: pakobserver.net/pak-us-ties-reality-check/
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US-Iran Relations
By Owen Bennett-Jones
July 27, 2017
THE alliance that defeated the militant Islamic State group in Mosul was unusual. Fighting alongside the Iraqi army were not only US forces but also Iran-backed militias. A few weeks ago, with IS on the point of defeat, I spoke to a US officer in Baghdad and suggested he might want to praise Tehran for having stood shoulder to shoulder with Washington in such an important military effort. He declined the offer.
America’s loathing of the Iranian clerical regime knows few bounds. In March 2003, the US desperately needed to understand the strength of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Having invaded the country and initially swept through it, the occupying US forces soon came to fear that an insurgency was getting under way. They needed to know the extent to which Al Qaeda was the source of that opposition. After all, 9/11 was still fresh in the memory and Al Qaeda was US enemy number one.
State Department official Ryan Crocker, accompanied by president Bush’s special envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, approached Tehran. The US diplomats were aware that, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, some senior Al Qaeda operatives and some of Osama bin Laden’s relatives had found a safe haven in Iran.
Iran made a unique offer. The US turned it down.
Tehran’s motives for taking in these Sunni jihadists and giving them sanctuary remain unclear but it seems likely that one factor in the decision to accept them was the idea that Tehran would have a diplomatic card to be played at some date in the future. And with the US showing an interest, Tehran figured the time to play that card had come.
Iran made an extraordinary offer: if the US would hand over the leaders of an obscure Iraq-based cult called the People’s Mujahideen of Iran or Mujahideen-i-Khalq (MEK), that opposed the Iranian government, Tehran would give the US most of Al Qaeda’s military council and bin Laden’s family. Astonishingly, the Bush White House turned down that opportunity.
The story of the MEK itself illustrates the depth of the US hostility to Iran. At the time of the Iranian revolution, the MEK tried to combine Islamic revolutionary fervour with a leftish and feminist agenda that attracted support on the university campuses. Although the group denies it, there is overwhelming evidence that it had killed Americans before the revolution and was fully involved in the 1979 siege of the US embassy. Despite that history, Washington has subsequently come to embrace the MEK as a potential source of opposition to the clerical regime.
In 2012, Hillary Clinton gave into a very well-financed lobbying campaign and officially delisted the MEK as a terrorist organisation. As a result, the organisation now has an office in Washington. At a recent party conference in Paris, the MEK attracted American luminaries such as Rudy Guliani and former senator Joe Lieberman.
I once asked a serving member of the US Senate, who did not support the MEK and who was known for his deep knowledge of the Middle East, to explain why so many his colleagues backed the organisation. “Beats me,” he said. “Sometimes colleagues ask my advice, saying they have been approached by the MEK and want to know whether they should support them.”
“And what do you say?” I asked.
“I say that since the MEK killed Americans there is always a risk of a voter asking why their senator is backing a group that killed their relative. You have to be careful of that kind of thing.”
“And does that put them off?”
“Sometimes.”
For all the mutual vitriol between Iran and the US, a case can be made that Iran’s Shia Islamists could be more natural allies of the US than the Sunni states that sponsor violent jihadists. On the few occasions that their views are revealed, many young Iranians show that despite having absorbed a lifetime of propaganda about the Great Satan they remain attracted by Western values. Many Sunni youths in the Middle East have far greater distrust of the West than their Shia equivalents. It is no accident that the 9/11 attackers came not from Iran, but from Sunni states.
For many years, it was argued that the US hostility to Iran could be traced back to the US embassy siege of 1979. The humiliation suffered by the US at that time was keenly felt and left a deep mark. Yet the US has got over far greater humiliations — for example, at the hands of the North Vietnamese. Today, US presidents are quite comfortable visiting Hanoi despite what happened there. The difference, perhaps, relates to Israel. Ever since the destruction of Iraq, Prime Minister Netanyahu has made no secret of his view that Iran now poses the most significant threat to the state of Israel. By continuing to oppose Iran, the US is supporting its closest ally.
Source: dawn.com/news/1347858/us-iran-relations
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In Whose Borrowed Robes Will Trump Be Dressed?
By Harlan Ullman
27-Jul-17
Conventional wisdom holds that President Donald J. Trump is a non-politician who brought a disruptive and largely business-based approach to elected office. As a result, Mr Trump has largely surrounded himself with cabinet officers and senior staff who have succeeded in business. And the president bragged how easy governing would be and how great he would make America because of his business triumphs and experience.
But consider a non-conventional alternative assessment. President Trump may be better understood as a prince, king or emperor. He sees himself if not vested with a divine right to rule certainly in that realm. As a monarch, he believes his word is the absolute truth and must be taken as such even when he changes what that truth is on a frequent basis.
He surrounds himself not so much with a cabinet as with a court. His courtiers must not merely flatter the prince, king or emperor. They must show abject loyalty. The display last month of the cabinet meeting where all but one or two offered absurd amounts of praise describing the ‘honour’ of serving on his team was worse than bad taste. It was an offensive display of excessive obsequiousness.
Clearly, the mantel of royalty extends to the Trump family. Daughter Ivanka is more than primus inter pares among advisors. She was “acting” president assuming his chair at the G-20 meeting when Mr Trump excused himself. No president would have ever have dreamed of emulating that stunt.
Son-in-law Jared Kushner is the sorcerer’s apprentice being able to work magic across his vast portfolio from bringing peace to the Middle East to revitalising the nation’s infrastructure. And it may be no Freudian slip that the youngest Trump son is named Baron.
One of the crown princes, Junior Trump, appears more clown prince not knowing or ignoring the law in accepting a meeting with whom he was informed were representatives of the Russian government armed with damaging information on presidential rival Hillary Clinton. The other son Eric has remained below the radar so far. But when the family travels, it does so as a court and at huge government expense for security and the large entourage of courtiers.
While the president does not have residences quite as regal or numerous as, say Britain’s Queen Elizabeth-II, he is pretty well off. His palaces are in Palm Beach’s Mar a Lago; New York’s Trump Tower; and Trump golf courses in Bedminster, New Jersey where the Ladies US Open was just played and in northern Virginia and are monuments to opulence. In fact, the official presidential Maryland retreat, Camp David, is a bit too rustic for the regal president’s liking.
Moreover, he runs his government as if he were reigning and not ruling. His demands and ukases are reminiscent of another king, Canute who ordered the seas to recede. The president was going to build a wall. Mexico was to pay for it. Health care would be the best, cheapest and most accessible to all. The president called the nuclear Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran “the worst” agreement ever made. Yet his administration has reported to Congress again that Iran is in compliance. And what passes for his rule is done through royal decrees and not laws of the land.
The founding fathers considered making George Washington king. Washington immediately dismissed the notion out of hand. In fact, the idea of royalty and noble rank was explicitly rejected despite its established roots in Britain. Had this president that option, it is interesting what his reaction would have been.
Over time it is not inconceivable, no matter how unlikely, that Mr Trump might indeed choose to forfeit his crown for the life he once loved and was able to command as if he were a real monarch
Finally, in his three trips abroad, the president acted more in the role of emperor dispensing his favours. Saudi Arabia was granted a certain status by the visit and offered tribute in the form of purchasing many tens of billion of dollars of US arms. NATO was snubbed the first time round by the president’s premeditated decision not to mention Article 5, the centrepiece of the alliance. Later, the president would restate the Article 5 commitment in Warsaw perhaps because the alliance had “succumbed” to his order to spend more on defence in which “billions are rolling in.”
The royal analogy may seem a bridge too far. The Oval Office has a certain cache. Air Force One with its huge supporting cadre when the president flies is impressive and even regal. But presidential tweets in a sense are akin to royal diktats and proclamations that are issued on a daily basis.
Obviously, the president is not a prince or an emperor. There is however one king who might prove relevant: Britain’s Edward-VIII. Edward abdicated in 1936 choosing to give up the crown for the woman he loved. Mr Trump will not give up his crown on that basis. However, as his administration continues to stumble, make ill-considered and perhaps harmful decisions and learns that governing is not easy, the president’s attitude about the job may change. Over time it is not inconceivable, no matter how unlikely, that Mr Trump might indeed choose to forfeit his crown for the life he once loved and was able to command as if he were a real monarch.
Source: dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/27-Jul-17/in-whose-borrowed-robes-will-trump-be-dressed
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URL: https://www.newageislam.com/pakistan-press/kabul-hub-militancy-dr-muhammad/d/111977