Trump’s Mideast Approach and South Asia Consequences By Shahid Javed Burki: New Age Islam's Selection, 20 June 2017
New
Age Islam Edit Bureau
20 June 2017
• Trump’s Mideast Approach and South Asia Consequences
By Shahid Javed Burki
• Solutions Please
By Niaz Murtaza
• First Have Democracy Then Defend It
By Dr Raza Khan
• Zero Tolerance and Double Standards
By Muhammad Hamid Zaman
• Pakistan and the Mattis Surge
By Mosharraf Zaidi
Compiled By New Age Islam Edit Bureau
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Trump’s Mideast Approach and South Asia Consequences
By Shahid Javed Burki
June 20, 2017
The already unsettled Middle East became even more so after the visit to the region by President Donald Trump. What he said in a speech delivered before an audience of 50 Muslim heads of state, most of them non-Arab, has torn apart alliances that had brought some stability to the perennially disturbed area. Events that occurred soon after Trump left were the direct consequence of his visit.
There were two terrorist attacks in Tehran, a city that had largely been spared by those who want to bring chaos to the Muslim world. A quartet of nations — Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Yemen — severed relations with the tiny but oil-and-gas-rich nation of Qatar. This action by the rulers in the Middle East drew other nations, in particular Turkey, to come out openly in support of the small sheikhdom. President Trump took great pride in the fact that it was his discussions in Riyadh with the Saudi monarch that created the rift.
How will this spreading crisis affect South Asia, home to 500 million Muslims out of the world’s total of 1.6 billion? Not only does South Asia possess the largest Muslim community in the world, there is also a large Shia presence in the region. Of the estimated 225 million followers of this sect of Islam, 60 million, or more than a quarter of the total, live in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. Judging by the type of politics Trump’s America is encouraging, there can be no doubt that the sectarian divide in the Muslim world will be exacerbated.
The rise of Shias following the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979 sharpened the sense of identity of this community in Pakistan and India. The reaction to this increase in Shia self-consciousness was violence aimed at identifiable members of the community. The Hazaras, a Persian-speaking community with distinct physical features (who reside mainly in central Afghanistan, Hazara Town in Balochistan and Karachi) are overwhelmingly Shia. Of the estimated seven to eight million people belonging to this sect, two and a half million are in Afghanistan and close to one million reside in Pakistan. They have been targeted by extremists in both countries. Over the last few months, there were a number of Hazara deaths in acts of terrorism in Quetta and Karachi in Pakistan.
Nonetheless, the sharpening sectarian divide is not the only likely consequence of Trump’s approach to the Middle East. In recent years, there has been a palpable increase in the influence of Wahhabism in South Asia. All of the reasons that explain this development can be traced to Saudi Arabia. First, the large-scale migration of young men from South Asia became a conduit for the arrival of Wahhabism into the region.
Since most labour-importing countries in the Middle East allowed only males to come for work for limited periods of times (3 to 5 years) there was a fast turnover among the migrants. Over the last more than four decades, approximately 15 million Pakistanis have moved in and out of the Middle East. About the same number of Muslims from India (in particular from the state of Kerala) similarly migrated. Upon return they brought conservative Islam back to their countries, changing the more liberal traditions of the areas from which they originated.
Second, Saudi Arabia in particular but the well-to-do individuals in other oil-rich countries as well have financially contributed to the establishment of madrasas in South Asia, particularly in Afghanistan and the tribal belt of Pakistan. The first generation of the Taliban was typically graduates from these seminaries.
Third, the flow of official development assistance from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan as well as private direct investment in all parts of South Asia gave the kingdom considerable leverage. Not only Pakistan but India, especially under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has also been active in bringing in Arab capital.
Fourth, Saudi Arabia has strong military ties with Pakistan. Although the Pakistani National Assembly turned down the Saudi request to send troops to the country to bolster its ability to defend itself, there is possibly an understanding between Riyadh and Islamabad to do so in the event that there is a violation of the Kingdom’s sovereignty. Earlier this year, Raheel Sharif was appointed to a new position to head a multinational force the Saudis were assembling from two-score Muslim countries. Dealing with terrorism was the declared objective of this move.
By openly supporting an anti-Islam approach, Trump has further churned up the already turbulent waters of the Middle East. It is unlikely that there will be a state-to-state confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Iran. What is probable is a fight involving proxies with the restive minorities in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia rebelling against the established order. This is already taking place in Yemen.
The Trump regime is likely to fuel the rise of sectarianism in the Middle East and parts of South Asia. Bangladesh and Pakistan are busy developing participatory and inclusive political institutions. Such institutions must provide space to religious and ethnic minorities. That is the only way sectarian divergences will not translate into violence and killing. In the past, Pakistan was a more tolerant society in which differences among different sects of Islam did not result in violence. Political development emphasising inclusion will help to return the country to tolerance, and this is the policy the United States should be supporting. Unfortunately, this approach is not high on the list of Trump’s priorities.
Source: tribune.com.pk/story/1439640/trumps-mideast-approach-south-asia-consequences/
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Solutions Please
By Niaz Murtaza
June 20th, 2017
READERS often complain that writers focus on problems and not solutions. This may be true to some extent but it is also true that some readers look for easy solutions to complex social problems, eg, how Pakistan can achieve good governance and rapid progress. Unfortunately, such issues are not amenable to the blueprint, closed-ended solutions that many desire.
In closed-ended solutions, cause and effect relationships between the problem and solution are clear. The time duration between the solution being applied and the problem being solved is short. The chance of the solution ending the problem is high. The solution lies in the hands of a small number of clearly identifiable entities known for their skills in solving the problem.
So, the problem of a broken water pump is clearly amenable to a closed-ended solution. Usually, people know a good electrician in their locality who can resolve the issue in a couple of hours through well-tried techniques. Similarly, if traffic congestion at an intersection is a problem, then in well-governed states at least, the relevant government department can widen the intersection within a few months. So, closed-ended solutions usually work well for technical issues.
They may even work for simple social problems. But as one enters the domain of complex problems, eg how Pakistan can achieve good governance, they become less relevant than open-ended solutions. Unlike closed-ended solutions, the relationship between cause and effect in open-ended solutions is not clear-cut. The probability of the solution eradicating the problem is not high. The time duration is long and the solution involves many unknown entities.
Closed-ended solutions may not work for complex social problems.
So, in my analysis the problem of bad governance in Pakistan stems from its patronage-driven, low-end economy. In such an economy, the vast percentage of producers, urban or rural, do not need ‘good governance’ but governance which serves their immediate, narrow economic interests. Thus, low-end economics produces low-end politics. For this problem of bad governance, I can only propose an open-ended ‘solution’ which includes two strands.
Firstly, the economy has to upgrade despite poor governance so that stronger demand for good governance comes from the core of our economy. This upgrading in a stagnant economy must necessarily involve a large component of eternal opportunities, either remittance- or investment-related. The government obviously has a key role in creating and utilising such opportunities. But since we are starting from a situation of bad governance, the government may be as much part of the problem as the solution. Even otherwise, the role of private-sector players will be crucial. The second strand consists of people participating in and supporting civil society efforts for good governance. With both strands, the results will take years and decades to emerge.
Both strands represent open-ended solutions. The probability of success is unclear. The time horizons are long and both involve a large number of unknown entities, which are individually weak and collectively not very well organised. But such open-ended solutions leave some readers dissatisfied and feeling cheated given their penchant for closed-ended solutions. Surely, there must be other solutions with greater certitude and shorter time horizons, they think. Thus, they invariably turn to charlatans peddling fake closed-ended solutions for bad governance.
They say the introduction of three to five years of technocratic or military government which undertakes ruthless accountability of corrupt politicians and then holds credible elections can quickly make Pakistan an Asian Tiger. This solution has the appearance of a closed-ended solution. The time horizons are short. The solutions will lie in the hands of a small group of technocrats or military people and the probability of success is presented as very high.
But in reality, the claims about short time durations, competence and high probability of success are spurious. No country like Pakistan has progressed rapidly through such an approach, though the craving for closed-ended solutions blinds many people to this reality.
This craving emerges from the education and indoctrination system which teaches simplification of complexity, insufficient belief in rationality, technicalisation of political issues and subservience to authority. This system helps elites control the masses. It thrives on outdated modes of teaching physical sciences and religion with little focus on the social sciences which can introduce young minds to notions of uncertainty, complexity and diversity.
For this problem, I can suggest a robust solution: more emphasis on quality teaching of humanities and social sciences at all levels. But doing so would undermine the key interests of power elites. So there is little chance of this happening soon.
Source: dawn.com/news/1340545/solutions-please
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First Have Democracy Then Defend It
By Dr Raza Khan
June 20, 2017
Today, whatever democracy we have had in Pakistan is once again under a dark shadow. Some argue that the present political crisis has emerged due to the Panama case and is a key stage in the democratic institutionalisation of the state. Nevertheless, democratic forces and institutions are sensing a threat to the democratic political system from undemocratic forces, both in the garb of politicians and the powers-that-be. An important divergent argument is that there could only be a threat to democracy if it is prevailing and as Pakistan does not have democracy in the true sense of the term, there is no threat.
Democratic institutions and the civil society have collectively failed to understand that democracy is not merely the name of a government, which comes into existence through elections. They have failed to lay the foundation of a true democratic culture by inculcating and internalising in the minds of the people the values, norms and features of that culture. Only by ingraining these can we expect them to be translated into actions and allow a culture of democracy to thrive.
For a well-grounded democratic culture, people must have objective and subjective realisation and comprehension of the values of democracy and their individual and collective benefits. Without this realisation there can be no guarantee of people resisting anti-democratic forces, including the so-called political parties.
The foremost value of a democratic order is freedom. Freedom as a value of democracy has often been defined in terms of certain rights: of beliefs, speech, movement, action, assembly, association and access to information. Democratic institutions are not only the vanguards of freedom, rather their very evolution and orientation is due to it. Pakistani society is traditionally a conservative social setup in which individual freedom has never been a much-cherished ideal. The structure and functions of families, groups and clans as well as of educational and economic institutions have been so which typically negate individual and general freedom. As democratic institutions operate within the same conservative and reactionary social and cultural context, they fail to provide and safeguard individual freedom.
Justice is another core value of a democratic culture and system. Justice and equality are intertwined and they have a kind of a symbiotic relationship. The concept of justice cannot be realised without knowing one’s rights. In Pakistan with large scale illiteracy and low standards of education, there has always been a problem of people being cognisant of their rights, let alone struggling for their attainment. Due to large-scale poverty, the access to justice has always been a daunting task for the people because of the exorbitant costs of litigation. Moreover, numerous laws and several legal codes rendered the legal system so complex that individuals could not have a clear idea about their rights.
Equality is another cardinal value of democracy. Pakistani society has always been a typical example of social inequality with glaring differences between the haves and the have-nots. In its political structure, elites have always had a final say with no role for the general masses to play. Economic opportunities have also largely been a reserve for them. This has resulted in the evolution of a highly unequal society with seemingly insurmountable problems.
A democratic system cannot work without order and social stability. In fact, democracy is the outcome of societal order and in turn contributes to the stability of the society and the systems, be it political, economic or legal. Pakistani society is composed of diverse ethnic groups with their own cultures, social set-ups and subcultures, where the need of social order is greater than countries with homogenous populations.
There is a need for soul-searching by our democratic institutions if the democratic order has to prevail.
Source: tribune.com.pk/story/1439750/first-democracy-defend/
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Zero Tolerance and Double Standards
By Muhammad Hamid Zaman
June 20, 2017
A few weeks ago when a lawmaker of the ruling party threatened the judges and their families, there was unanimous outrage. The disciplinary machinery of the ruling party came into action, and there was broad agreement that a line had been crossed. A respectable nation cannot allow its lawmakers to threaten judges or their families. The outrage was justified, as we expect better from our legislators.
Another line was crossed, last week, when a serving minister and a very senior leader of the ruling party showed the world what he thinks of his women colleagues in parliament. His inner vile misogynistic core was there for everyone to see. Like an annual ritual, he once used disgusting and inappropriate language to disparage his female colleagues. Somehow he and his cronies thought that was funny. Unfortunately, this time no disciplinary committee took up action, no condemnation from the top leaders came through and nothing happened. No one from the ruling party distanced himself or herself from the minister, and it was business as usual for everyone. The fact that he did a similar thing on the floor of parliament last year, and issued a weak, insincere apology makes his behaviour even more problematic. It is easy to take cheap shots at women in our society, I wonder if the minister would ever consider doing the same for a member of the armed forces or the clergy?
Our selective outrage and inconsistent morality is just as troubling as the behaviour of the minister. Just as we all are ready to say that those who threaten others have no place in our legislative bodies, we should also be ready to say that misogynists must go! It is not about partisan politics or disagreement with a policy, it is about human decency and respect. By staying quiet, those around him, including those who wear the mantle of equality and development, depicted their own weak moral fibre and hypocritical core.
I feel for the women who have to work in the ministries of water and power, and defence, and how it must affect them. We want our workplaces to be inclusive, welcoming and respectful, not led by men who revel in cheap jokes at the expense of women.
Responding to this incident, some called the weak outrage on social media a Western or a liberal value, or simply said that this is normal in Pakistan and happens all the time. Others, I am sure will ask, what was the big deal about it. I wonder since when did the East or the West started having a monopoly on human decency and respect? In the past, in many parts of the world, including in our own, young girls have been killed or buried alive, a practice that has been considered normal at that time and place. Just because something is normal does not make it right.
We have a long way to go before we can stand on the world stage and be proud of the status of women in our society. Maternal health, women’s rights or access to education for girls put us at the bottom of the global pack. The statistics are not just bad, they are abysmal. But it doesn’t take a development expert to realise that for as long as deep misogyny and disrespect of women remain a central component of our leaders’ actions, our status will fail to change. For as long as those who find taking cheap shots at their female colleagues acceptable (or even funny) remain amongst the policymakers, our ability to create a safe and equitable world for all our citizens will remain a distant and an impossible dream. Human dignity and decency is neither a partisan issue, nor should it be a polarising one. Our economic development will count for little if it is detached from our basic human decency.
Source: tribune.com.pk/story/1439639/zero-tolerance-double-standards/
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Pakistan and the Mattis Surge
By Mosharraf Zaidi
June 20, 2017
Last week, whilst Pakistanis watched their prime minister try to explain his wealth to an investigative commission, the US made a major decision with dramatic policy implications for Pakistan. President Donald Trump announced that he was formally giving his authority to decide on American troop levels in Afghanistan to James Mattis, the Pentagon supremo who spent years helping manage the US war effort in Afghanistan, prior to his retirement.
Pakistan is still trying to recover from a history of American decisions with respect to Afghanistan. How far back we go depends on how old we are, and how much we respect experience. To contextualise Trump’s handing over of troop levels to Mattis, perhaps the best place to start is President Obama’s half-baked, weak-willed, lukewarm American “surge” announced at West Point on December 1, 2009. Many Pakistani democrats saw in that speech by Obama echoes and shadows of numerous elected Pakistani leaders – bruised, battered and defeated by the machinations of their generals, trying to put on a brave face while being humiliated and outmanoeuvred.
Obama’s 2009 surge of 30,000 troops doomed America’s Afghanistan mission by virtue of the absence of conviction behind it. His generals, particularly Stanley McChrystal, and many others that had come to occupy DC think-tanks across the political spectrum, had lobbied for far more. McChrystal himself had pushed for as many as 85,000, and some in the counter-insurgency community believed that without an extra quarter million troops inserted into Afghanistan, the US would not have a reasonable chance of wiping out the Taliban. Obama’s political people were mostly sceptical, with many of his bluest supporters strongly leaning toward a smaller training mission for US forces, and a quicker exit.
The 2009 surge was doomed not only because of the bickering and in-fighting curated by an indecisive and inexperienced president who seemed more keen to be fair to his dozens of advisers than he was to get his decisions right. The process leading up to the surge ended up costing McChrystal his job. But perhaps the most lethal element of the 2009 surge in Afghanistan was that it announced the withdrawal date for those troops: July 2011. Neither Obama nor the best advisers in the world could have known what 2011 would actually bring. To top it all off, the process leading up to the 2009 surge firmly enmeshed the topic of Pakistan as the whipping boy for America in Afghanistan. What would take place in 2011 – the year the surge was supposed to have been drawn back – had everything to do with Pakistan.
After the coalescing of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan in 2007, the Lal Masjid fiasco that same year, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto before the year end, and the eruption of suicide attacks across the country throughout 2008 and 2009, Pakistan first tried to tackle the TTP problem in Swat in the summer of 2009. The massive displacement of citizens that summer was followed by the devastating 2010 floods, a tragedy that directly affected over 20 million Pakistanis. Then came 2011. January brought with it the Raymond Davis incident, resulting in the easing out of the foreign minister at that time, Shah Mehmood Qureshi.
In May 2011, US Navy Seals attacked a compound in Abbottabad, killing Osama bin Laden. Pakistan then spent the entire summer in the virtual doghouse of the mainstream US media, followed by two events in September 2011 that soured the mood permanently. Former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani was assassinated on September 20, and two days later, US chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen testified to a senate committee that he believed that the Haqqani Network, a designated terrorist group, was “a veritable arm of the Inter Services Intelligence”.
On November 26, 2011 US and Nato forces attacked a Pakistani post on the Pak-Afghan border. Twenty-five Pakistani soldiers were martyred in that attack. Having already virtually suspended relations with Afghanistan because of the-then president Karzai’s accusations that Pakistan was behind Rabbani’s assassination, the Salala attack essentially put the Pakistan-US relations on ice. Nato’s ground lines of communication were suspended, and US use of Pakistani air force ground assets was terminated. It took over seven months to repair the relationship (disclosure: I worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during this period). On July 4, 2012, Hillary Clinton called the-then foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar to tender a US apology to Pakistan for the Salala attack.
It has been five years since that reset in the relationship, and much has changed in Pakistan and the immediate neighbourhood. But three things remain the same. If Pakistan does not begin to pay more and better attention to the Afghanistan problem – a problem that is simultaneously its India, its America, its Russia, and possibly Turkey, Iran and China problem too – it risks reliving a nightmare that the country can ill-afford.
First, even though Karzai is long gone, the bitterness and distrust between Afghans and Pakistanis has remained. In fact, it has grown substantially over the last two years. Afghans have plenty to introspect about on this front, but Pakistan is a nuclear power with a population over six times the size of Afghanistan. If Afghan-Pakistan relations are broken, it is Pakistan that has the agency, the heft and the incentive to fix it. Instead, Pakistan has sought to punish Afghan business and, worse, Afghan refugees every time the volatile Ashraf Ghani decides to troll Pakistan. This pattern of allowing Afghans to dictate Pakistani moods and policies has produced a forty-year policy quicksand in Afghanistan.
Second, even though Pakistan-US relations are not the disaster they were in 2011, they are far from fully functional. Many important Americans on both sides of the political divide in the US consider Pakistan’s behaviour as that of an enemy. They blamed Pakistan for the need for a 2009 surge to begin with, they blame Pakistan for the continued conversation that Mattis will lead throughout June this year, and they will blame Pakistan for its inevitable failure before the year is over, if not sooner. The ‘do more’ and ‘blame Pakistan’ argument has always been and remains weak, with many holes. But it is also not entirely without merit, and never has been.
Third, India continues to be unrepentant about its role in Afghanistan. On the surface, this is understandable: Big Momma India helping out orphaned Afghanistan. In reality, India’s interest in Afghanistan is principally strategic and malign. Pakistanis are most likely correct to be paranoid about India in Afghanistan. But Pakistan’s responses to this threat have been self-effacing, at best: alienating Afghan refugees, and Afghan public opinion, demonising all Afghans as supportive of the TTP and allowing deliberate provocations by the Ghani-Modi combine to successfully trigger over the top reactions.
In this scenario, where so much of the core strategic problems are the same today as they were in 2009, no matter what decision James Mattis and the Pentagon make, or advise President Trump to take, they will find themselves in the same overarching sleeper hold that Obama, McChrystal, and later Petraeus dove into at West Point.
The added complexities today are manifold. Unlike in 2009, the Mullah Omar-less Taliban are fractured and relatively divided. Daesh has established more than a solid foothold beyond the Nangarhar province. Putin’s Russia is sniffing around for an opportunity to show up the Americans in an old US-Russia battlefield. Shia Iran is actively engaged with the Sunni Taliban. Qatar – home to the negotiations office of the Taliban – is in limbo. India is slowly but surely turning into a Hindu Rashtra with over one thousand years of existential anger fuelling it. And most of all, Pakistan is still wrought by the tensions between generals who don’t know their limits and politicians who won’t tell them.
Given the prime minister’s preoccupations and track record, and the military’s insatiable appetite for poor strategic decisions, it is unlikely that Pakistan is prepared for what is coming. This lack of preparedness is inexcusable.
Source: thenews.com.pk/print/211628-Pakistan-and-the-Mattis-surge
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URL: https://www.newageislam.com/pakistan-press/trumps-mideast-approach-south-asia/d/111599