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The Myth Of Insufficient Demand – OpEd

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By Frank Shostak*

Following the ideas of Keynes and Friedman, most mainstream economists associate economic growth with increases in the demand for goods and services.

Both Keynes and Friedman felt that The Great Depression of the 1930’s was due to an insufficiency of aggregate demand and thus the way to fix the problem is to boost aggregate demand.

For Keynes, this was achieved by having the federal government borrow more money and spend it when the private sector would not. Friedman advocated that the Federal Reserve pump more money to revive demand.

There is never such a thing as insufficient demand as such, however. An individual’s demand is constrained by his ability to produce goods. The more goods that an individual can produce the more goods he can demand, and thus acquire.

Note that the production of one individual enables him to pay for the production of the other individual. (The more goods an individual produces the more of other goods he can secure for himself. An individual’s demand therefore is constrained by his production of goods).

Note again demand cannot stand by itself and be independent – it is limited by production. Hence, what drives the economy is not demand as such but the production of goods and services.

In this sense, producers and not consumers are the engine of economic growth.

Obviously, if he wants to succeed then a producer must produce goods and services in line with what other producers require.

According to James Mill,

When goods are carried to market what is wanted is somebody to buy. But to buy, one must have the wherewithal to pay. It is obviously therefore the collective means of payment which exist in the whole nation constitute the entire market of the nation. But wherein consist the collective means of payment of the whole nation? Do they not consist in its annual produce, in the annual revenue of the general mass of inhabitants? But if a nation’s power of purchasing is exactly measured by its annual produce, as it undoubtedly is; the more you increase the annual produce, the more by that very act you extend the national market, the power of purchasing and the actual purchases of the nation…. Thus it appears that the demand of a nation is always equal to the produce of a nation. This indeed must be so; for what is the demand of a nation? The demand of a nation is exactly its power of purchasing. But what is its power of purchasing? The extent undoubtedly of its annual produce. The extent of its demand therefore and the extent of its supply are always exactly commensurate.1

If a population of five individuals produces ten potatoes and five tomatoes – this is all that they can demand and consume.

No government and central bank tricks can make it possible to increase their effective demand. The only way to raise the ability to consume more is to raise the ability to produce more.

The dependence of demand on the production of goods cannot be removed by means of monetary pumping and government spending.

On the contrary, loose fiscal and monetary policies will only impoverish real wealth generators and weaken their ability to produce goods and services — it will weaken the effective demand.

Therefore, what is then required to revive the economy is not boosting aggregate demand but sealing off all the loopholes for the creation of money out of “thin air” and curbing government spending.

This will enable true wealth generators to revive the economy by allowing them to move ahead with the business of wealth generation.

We can conclude that by strengthening the economy’s ability to produce goods and services we are in fact strengthening the so-called aggregate demand and promoting real economic growth

About the author:
*Frank Shostak’s consulting firm, Applied Austrian School Economics, provides in-depth assessments of financial markets and global economies. Contact: email.

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute

Notes:
1. James Mill, “On the Overproduction and Underconsumption Fallacies”. Edited by George Reisman, a publication of the Jefferson School of philosophy, Economics and Psychology – 2000.


US And Israel: Re-Evaluating A Toxic Relationship – OpEd

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By Zarefah Baroud*

In 2014, Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old boy was shot six times in the back and head by police officer, Darren Wilson, while fleeing a confrontation in Ferguson, Missouri. The young boy was then left to bleed out in the street. The police officer claimed that he feared for his life. The officer was acquitted.

In 2015, Mohammed al-Kasbeh, an unarmed 17-year-old boy was shot several times in the back and head by Israeli Colonel Yisrael Shomer, while fleeing a checkpoint in Ramallah. The young boy was with a group of other youth who were allegedly throwing stones at an Israeli military vehicle. When the windshield broke, the soldiers exited the vehicle in their gear, fired several shots, then walked up to Mohammed’s body which was bleeding out on the ground, and proceeded to kick the dying boy. The solider claimed that he feared for his life. The soldier was acquitted.

The world is now looking to the United States and the state of Israel as a tightly-bound couple whose mutual commitment is poignantly reflected in the recent gesture made by President Donald Trump and his decision to relocate the American embassy to Jerusalem.

The United States and Israel are not an unlikely couple in their provocative union. Coming from similar beginnings, they have allied themselves in the fight to maintain their national aspirations to uphold racism, classism and colonialism/neocolonialism. Manifest Destiny and Zionism have become one and the same.

The most apparent manifestation of this is the two nations’ shared practices regarding militarized policing and borders, their shared attitudes and policy towards immigration, and the expansion of their carceral states. In 2013, Israeli Deputy Minister of Defense, Eli Ben-Dahan stated that: “[Palestinians] are beasts, they are not human”. Racist ideologies within Israel’s criminal justice system and military are transferred on to third parties like the US. This transfer takes place via the US military, police, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) training in the United States.

Police Training and Brutality

Beginning less than a year after 9/11, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee’s Project Interchange and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs began fully sponsoring exchanges for various departments within the US government. US police, ICE officials, border agents, and FBI personnel would receive “counter terrorism” training in Israel by the Israeli Army, Border Patrol, national police, and the country’s secret service. Israeli military personnel also travel to the United States to collaborate with American police departments and government agencies.

Along with tactical training, shared ideologies of militarism, brutality and racism are exchanged.

This can be seen not only through their policing practices, but the attitude towards national security and immigration. During these trips, US officials visit Israeli checkpoints in the occupied Palestinian territories, prisons and airports. These spaces all have something in common; human rights abuses, torture, executions and other forms of vile brutality.

This exchange doesn’t only include training, but it involves the sharing of weaponry in a mutual effort to secure the US monopoly of power in the Middle East. The United States provides Israel with 3.8 billion dollars a year. The majority of those funds are funneled straight into military expenditures – to purchase tanks, guns, ammunition, and the exact same tear gas that was used against the protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, which is also used against the indigenous people of Palestine.

Walls and ‘Security’

When American ICE officials and border agents train in Israel, they visit Israeli checkpoints in occupied territories as well as the Apartheid Wall that divides historic Palestinian territories and annexes others. On January 28, 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted his approval of Trump’s Mexico-US border wall proposal: “President Trump is right. I built a wall along Israel’s southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea”.

This “solidarity” surpasses ICE and border agent training, for the Israeli company who built the Apartheid wall in Gaza and the West Bank is one of the companies being vetted to construct the proposed wall on the Mexican border. Not only that, but Elbit systems, an Israeli “defense electronics company”, has already been operating on the Mexican border, while further developing their security experiments in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.  

Immigration  

The conversation of “illegal immigration” looks nearly identical in the United States and Israel. Yisrael Katz, a leading figure in the Israeli right-wing Likud party who heads both ministries for transportation, intelligence and atomic energy posted on Facebook: “Europe is having a difficult time dealing with the migrants, and with creating solutions for this difficult issue. While there are differences between us (the migrants traveling to Europe must cross a sea while those heading for Israel have a direct overland connection), you can see the rectitude of our government’s policy to build a fence on the border with Egypt, which blocks the job-seeking migrants before they enter Israel..”.

This language clones that of the United States’ right-wing party, specifically comments made by Trump in his joint address to Congress on February 282017: “To any in Congress who do not believe we should enforce our laws, I would ask you this one question:  What would you say to the American family that loses their jobs, their income, or their loved one because America refused to uphold its laws and defend its borders?”

Solidarity Struggles

Solidarity campaigns for the Palestinian people have surfaced around the globe, and it is no surprise that these cries for justice are strongly voiced by the Black and Latino communities in the United States and Latin America.

Daniela González López, the International coordinator with the People’s Human Rights Observatory and organizer for the International Caravan Against Walls, which organizes grassroots activist groups from Latin America, Palestine and the United States “with the aim of building common strategies against U.S. military intervention” was interviewed by Telesur.

She drew connections between settler colonialism and the occupying forces which for Mexicans and Palestinians alike repress their right to freedom of movement, making the indigenous and historic land inaccessible to the original inhabitants:

“Fundamentally, it is very important for us to unite with indigenous peoples,” explained Daniela González López, “We understand that the policies of colonization, occupation, and apartheid carried out by Israel against [the Palestinian people] are the same ones that have affected and continue to affect the peoples of Latin America”.

The Black Lives Matter movement has also been connected to the Palestinian struggle. As stated in their manifesto:

“Israel is an apartheid state with over 50 laws on the books that sanction discrimination against the Palestinian people. Palestinian homes and land are routinely bulldozed to make way for illegal Israeli settlements. Israeli soldiers also regularly arrest and detain Palestinians as young as 4 years old without due process. Every day, Palestinians are forced to walk through military checkpoints along the US-funded Apartheid Wall.”

The toxic US-Israel relationship has profound consequences that affect all Americans, especially those of who are already socio-economically disadvantaged and marginalized.

Only through solidarity among civil society can these ties be severed, pushing the US government to reconsider its alliance with Apartheid Israel, not only for the sake of oppressed Palestinians, but for oppressed Americans as well.

 * Zarefah Baroud is a Media and Communications student at the University of Washington. She writes commentaries for CounterPunch and other online publications.

Cost And Indulgence: Gloating Over New Year’s Celebrations – OpEd

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The gloating over the forthcoming New Year celebrations has already commenced.  The first big city to feature on the roundups in each news segment as the year is ushered in tends to be Sydney, self-proclaimed global city in the antipodes, ever keen to rub its vulgar confidence into the noses of rival Melbourne.  And, for that matter, every other city since costly fireworks and light displays matter in the image table.

In the time zones where the new year festivities feature with clockwork regularity, Sydney is the first flash, the initiator of the world into another fairly meaningless measurement known as a year, humanity’s effort to combat all swallowing eternity.  Organisers are interviewed confident that the display will be the “greatest ever”.

The problem with such an absolutist catch-all cliché as “greatest ever” is that it surely cannot happen each year.  This improbability hardly bothers those behind putting together the event, whose job prescription eschews originality.  The Sydney NYE committee, organisers and propagandists, find it entirely feasible that each event is surely greater than the other, and spread this gospel through media outlets without irony.  Such optimism, such naked advertising!

This, after all, is an occasion to forget the year that was, to forget woe, crimes against humanity and barrel scraping politicians, appalling decisions and missteps and perhaps most importantly, forget the scruples about the environment and the heating planet.

Everything touching on these celebrations resembles self-promotion at its most cringe worthy, so much so it deserves the tag of grotesque.  Even newspapers join the ride, casting aside editorial judgment in favour of back slapping confidence.  “After a year that many were happy to leave behind,” went the Sydney Morning Herald at the start of 2017, “an estimated 1.5 million people packed the foreshore on Saturday for a double bill of fireworks climaxing with the world famous midnight pyrotechnics extravaganza.”  These lines are already being copied to be re-run on the first day of 2018.

That account was more overawed than shocked at the sheer profligacy on display.  The Roman Emperors equated displays of extravagance with the worthiness of power.  The modern city bureaucrat equates firework displays with the desperate need to have a mention in every significant news outlet in the world.  There were seven tonnes of fireworks used at the Sydney Harbour bridge show the last time, including 12,000 shells, 25,000 shooting comets and some 100,000 or so individual pyrotechnic effects.  Millions had been expended ($7 million in one count).

These are not costs all are oblivious to.   Even some of the blinded can attain a glimmer of sight.  In 2015, a glummer assessment from the Australian Financial Review noted that the Sydney Harbour fireworks display would “cost ratepayers more than $900,000 – or $45,000 per minute – this year, up 40 per cent on the cost five years ago.”

The hefty $45,000 figure was arrived at after considering the initial “kids’ fireworks” component at 9 pm (children of all ages need convincing) lasting eight minutes, with the midnight extravaganza for the older ones going for a longer 12 exorbitant minutes.

Behind every bread and circus act is a political figure wanting to sooth and pacify, if for not for any other reason that old fashion tried bribery.  Even before the concept of the ballot was invented, the approval of one’s rulers has been sought at intervals, if for nothing else than keeping citizens (or subjects) orderly and satisfied.

While Australians are known for occasional attacks of puritanical wowserism (the country’s head scratching drinking laws, its classifications scheme for film and television count as notable examples) no one wants to be accused of being an anti-fireworks warrior on the city council.

The AFR documented the response of a City of Sydney spokesperson, who claimed that the fireworks on the New Year’s Eve was “money well spent”.  Going back to August, not a single councillor was willing to demur to expanding the budget for fireworks.  There would be an influx of spectators; money would be spent, or thrown about, revenue generated for the city’s coffers.  Other enterprises would also benefit: extortionate room costs from ideal vantage points, inflated prices for share-rides.

Not all are convinced by this bounty. In 2015, Lisa Nicholls petitioned the Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, to “donate Australia’s New Year’s Eve fireworks money to our struggling farmers”.   Far from the metropolitan centre of celebratory Sydney were those “who put food on your table and clothes on your back”.  They risked “losing everything” after another year of crippling drought.

“How can we sit back on New Year’s Eve,” urged the petition, “and watch millions of dollars literally go up in smoke for a few minutes of our viewing pleasure when this money could do so much towards helping these farmers, the backbone of our country, to fight another day?”  At its close, the measure had received 33,704 supporters.  Ah, those unsatisfied spoilsports and irascible party poopers.

Such shows of indulgence must come with warnings of care.  This has been a year of the spectacular mowing down incident, the murderous vehicle assault, the endangered tourist.  Urban terrorism is alive and well, as are the placebo reassurances of the police.  It’s all to do with bollards, come the officials.  But this is a show for which no cost will be spared.  The punters will be out.  The pyrotechnics shall go on.  Most of all, the City councillors will be happy.

Mauritius Eyes Russian Investment, Tourism – Interview

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The Republic of Mauritius is an island nation in the Indian ocean, about 2,000 kilometres (1,200 km) off the southeast coast of the African continent. It possesses a wide range of natural and man-made attractions, enjoys a tropical climate with clear warm sea waters, attractive beaches, tropical fauna and flora complemented by a multi-ethnic and cultural population that is friendly and welcoming.

These tourism assets are its main strength, especially since they are backed up by well-designed and run hotels, and reliable and operational services and infrastructures. Mauritius is one of the world’s top luxury tourism destinations. Mauritius received the World Leading Island Destination award for the third time and World’s Best Beach at the World Travel Awards in January 2012.

Ambassador of the Republic of Mauritius to the Russian Federation, Indira Savitree Thacoor-Sidaya
Ambassador of the Republic of Mauritius to the Russian Federation, Indira Savitree Thacoor-Sidaya

Mauritius is ranked high in terms of economic competitiveness, a friendly investment climate, good governance and a free economy. It has strong and friendly relations with various African and foreign countries. For instance, Mauritius and Russia have good diplomatic relations.

Kester Kenn Klomegah interviewed the Ambassador of the Republic of Mauritius to the Russian Federation, Indira Savitree Thacoor-Sidaya. She discusses some of the issues on the Russia-Mauritius agenda, expresses satisfaction with the current level of bilateral relations and outlines further steps necessary to be taken to deepen Russia-Mauritius cooperation especially in trade, economic and tourism areas.

Interview excerpts:

Q: What are your Government’s priorities and expectations in the Russian Federation? And most probably in other ex-Soviet republics, do you have the same business agenda?

Thacoor-Sidaya: Our Government’s objectives are to improve investments and trade from Russia and other ex-Soviet republics interested in doing business in Mauritius. We also have a policy of openness and make it easy for eligible foreign investors and talents to work and live in Mauritius.

Foreign Direct Investment: As a small open economy, Mauritius needs foreign direct investments (FDI). Since 2009, Mauritius has been attracting more than $300 million FDI every year. The main sources have remained the traditional markets of UK, France, India and South Africa. Mauritius would wish to attract investors from the Russian Federation to invest in Mauritius and, through Mauritius, into Africa.

From an agricultural base dominated by sugarcane, Mauritius has had a sustained economic growth, diversifying into tourism, textiles and manufacturing, financial services, ICT and seafood processing among others.

The ocean economy is seen as the next driver of our growth, transforming our small island state into a 1.9 km2 Ocean State (www.oceaneconomy.mu). Seven priority areas are identified:

  • Seabed exploration for hydrocarbon and minerals
  • Fishing, seafood processing and aquaculture
  • Deep ocean water applications
  • Marine services (including marine finance, marine ICT, marine biotechnology and ship registration)
  • Seaport-related activities
  • Marine renewable energies
  • Ocean knowledge cluster

Mauritius also has a prominent role as the gateway to invest in Africa. Mauritius has the best governance in Africa (1st in Mo Ibrahim’s Index of Governance since its creation), the easiest investment climate (1st in Africa and among Top 20 globally in World Bank’s Doing Business Index), economic freedom (1st in Africa and 8th globally in the Economic Freedom Index of Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal, and the Fraser Institute). With strong hard and soft infrastructure and a reputable international financial centre, Mauritius offers an ideal platform to invest in Africa.

Trade: Through membership to free trade areas such as the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and Southern African Development Community (SADC), Mauritius benefits from preferential trade access. In addition, Mauritius is a signatory to AGOA which provides duty free and quota free access for specific products into the US market. We are also in the process of signing an Economic Partnership Agreement with the EU which will provide Mauritian goods with single transformation a duty-free access to the EU.

In addition, Mauritius has a well-developed Freeport where export-oriented Freeport companies benefit from a zero-tax regime for manufactured goods exported to Africa. Taken together, these represent a preferential market access to several hundreds of millions.

Work and Live in Mauritius: Since 2005, Mauritius has carried out an in-depth reform agenda to open the economy and streamline administrative procedures. International businesses can set up in Mauritius within three working days and three categories of foreigners namely investors, self-employed and professionals are allowed to work and live in Mauritius under an occupation permit delivered by the Board of Investment.

Q: Discuss Russia’s economic footprints in Mauritius? Is your Government satisfied with Russia’s investment interest there as compared to other foreign players such as China and India?

Thacoor-Sidaya: Mauritius, which has had record years of attracting FDI from the EU, India and South Africa since 2006, has not witnessed significant flows from Russia. In comparison, Indian and Chinese entrepreneurs have been increasing their investments in Mauritius.

The Mauritius international financial centre, which has successfully attracted funds from India and China, loses to other jurisdictions such as Cyprus, BVI and Bermuda when it comes to Russian global funds. Yet, according to FDI Intelligence, Russians are investing in Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Seychelles and South Africa. Mauritius could be used as the platform for these investments.

Trade between Russia and Mauritius is also not very significant compared to neighboring India or China. Imports from Russia are principally manufactured goods and chemical products. There is no export from Mauritius to Russia per se. While tourism from Russia is improving, there is still a large untapped potential with less than 2% of tourists visiting Mauritius coming from the Russian Federation.

Q: How does Mauritius also plan to engage Russia? How do you view possible trade exchanges between Russia and Mauritius now that some economic opportunities have opened for African countries to trade (export products) here?

Thacoor-Sidaya: Mauritius will need to conduct trade and investment promotion activities in Russia. Already, the Board of Investment (BOI), the national investment promotion agency is planning a mission next October. The Mauritius Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) has also been present regularly and has held meetings with its counterparts. A MoU was signed some years back between the MCCI and The Russian Chamber Of Commerce. It needs to be rekindled, reactivated….and so forth.
Finally, Enterprise Mauritius, responsible for the promotion of Mauritian exports, has Russian business community on its agenda. A MoU has already been prepared between our countries in the fishing sector.

Q: How is Mauritius tourism business developing in Russia? Are the tourism numbers increasing compared to the previous years and what strategies would you like to adopt to further popularize your country’s recreational destinations?

Thacoor-Sidaya: Russian tourists have increased over the last three years with high occupancy rates in high-end luxury hotel such as St Regis and Four Seasons. But, I believe we still have to increase our efforts with a more aggressive marketing strategy to succeed in our goals because, it is sad to say that many Russians do not know much about this beautiful little island called Mavrici, in Russian language. More importantly, Russian visitors to Mauritius do not require visa prior to entering Mauritius.

To further promote Mauritius as a tourism destination in Russia, I led a delegation of 16 well known Russian Tour Operators, including the Vice President of RUTI (Russian Union Of Travel Industry), Mr Barzykin,Yuriy Aleksandrovich to my country. This tour was sponsored by the MTPA (Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority) and the Emirates Russia.

A MoU in the tourism sector is also being prepared, with emphasis on cultural tourism, by the Ministry of Culture, also responsible for tourism, following two important meetings between myself and the Deputy Minister, Ms. Alla Manilova, (to be signed very soon with my country.) I have also had discussions with the General Director of Transaero, Mrs Olga Pleshkova, a couple of times in view of having more frequent direct flights to Mauritius. For the time being, Transaero is operating only during peak seasons (December to May).

In the meantime, I wish to thank the wonderful team from Aviareps, the organization that officially represents MTPA, in Russia (Mr Robert Obolgogiani, Ms Ekaterina Lenkova and Ms Victoria Mukranova) for their sustainable efforts towards promoting Mauritius as a tourism destination for the Russians. I also wish to thank the President of RUTI, Mr Shpilko Sergey Pavlovich and Mr Yuriy Schegolkov for their engagement to promote my country in the Russian Federation.

Yemen War And Russia’s Dual Game – OpEd

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Demonstrations against Ali Abdullah Saleh started in January 2011 with the Yemeni people asking him to resign. Under pressure from foreign interventions, Saleh eventually transferred the administration to Mansur Hadi on November 23, 2011 to became the fourth Arab leader forced from power in the so-called Arab Spring.

However, the subsequent events went against the desires of Hadi and the Houthis captured the capital city of Sanaa on September 21, 2014. As a result, the balance of power changed strongly in favor of the Iranian front and at the end on March 23, 2015, Saudi Arabia started attacking the Yemeni Houthis to ejection them from Sanaa.

What is important is that Russia was neutral in the Yemen crisis. The first sign of Russia’s neutral position appeared when the UNSC issued Resolution 2216 on the Yemeni crisis, which was passed by  “by 14 affirmative votes to none against, with one abstention (Russian Federation)”.

Vitaly Churkin said that the resolution was “not fully in line with the requirements which were put forth into the international community conditioned by the crisis in this country”. Instead, Russia avoided interfering in the conflict and preferred to observe events in Yemen from the outside — events that led Saudi Arabia to start its catastrophic intervention in Yemen. After that the Security Council issued Resolutions 2266 and 2342, and  still Russia remained neutral in the UNSC.

Why has Russia held a neutral position in the Yemen crisis? Many analysts consider that Russia has miscalculated its Yemen position. In November 2015 the rebels in Southern Yemen sent a letter to the Russian consulate asking them to support their attempt to secede from northern Yemen. However, Russia’s inaction showed that it did not support their desire to secede from Yemen.

In February 2015, a delegation of Houthis visited Moscow in effort to gain recognition. “During the meeting, the Houthi delegation promised an array of lucrative contracts in exchange for Moscow’s recognition of the Ansarullah’s authority”. Nevertheless, Russia did not announce its support for the Houthis because Moscow knew that in doing so this could give birth to a crisis in its relations with Saudi Arabia.

Two weeks after the Houthi visit the Russian Ambassador to Yemen met with President Mansur Hadi in Aden and expressed Russia’s support for his government’s legitimacy.

Russian policy on Yemen is based on dual impartiality. When Saudi Arabia started to bomb Yemeni Houthis, Russia condemned the Saudi airstrikes, but Moscow did not move its embassy from Sanaa. At the same time there were other increased regional crisis such as the Syrian conflict and ISIS war on Iraq — and Russia was not sure about their position. Vladimir Putin chose Syria for the arena for his country’s intervention because he knew that Russia did not have wide possibilities of success in Yemen, and this explains why Russia was neutral with regard to the Yemen crisis.

Not only did Russia not cut relations with the Hadi government, but indeed Hadi appointed a new ambassador to Moscow in July 2017 (a position that had been vacant for more than six years). This Russian multidimensional strategic aspect must be viewed in upon the backdrop of it wanting to keep Saudi Arabia satisfied. It is clear that Moscow is following patience as a regional policy.

Russia’s policy of neutrality actually supports Saudi Arabia in its attacks on Yemen. Russia has some limitations with regard to its policy toward Yemen. The first one is oil prices. In 2014 the average OPEC crude oil price was 96 US dollars, but in 2015 oil prices fell sharply to 49 dollars as Saudi Arabia started its oil war against Russia and Iran. In response, Russia supplied more oil to compensate for losses, which also lowered prices. Russia’s fragile economy was badly damaged and in this case Russia lost its oil war with Saudi Arabia.

The other reason is Iranian influence in the Middle East. Russia wants to create a balance between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The prolonged war on Syria damaged Russian sources and Russia is looking for diversification of its allies. Russia trusts Iran in a range of complex conflicts in the Middle East and yet, Russia needs to control Iran by a rival such as Saudi Arabia.

Moreover, Russia knows that Saudi Arabia could fuel Russian extremist groups.

According to Huffington Post, in a conversation between Vladimir Putin and Prince Bandar Bin Sultan about Syria in 2013, Bandar threatened Russia by saying, “The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us” and Putin replied “We know that you have supported the Chechen terrorist groups for a decade”.

It should be noted that Russia has not forgotten Saudi Arabia’s role in the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the Saudi role in the 9/11 attacks on the US, and Putin knows that Saudi Arabia has the ability to support extremist groups.

The recent proximity between Russia and Saudi Arabia proves that Russia, although dissatisfied with some actions in Saudi policies, still needs to improve relations with them. After a hard period of relations, in the October 2017 the King of Saudi Arabia visited Moscow. During that visit Russia agreed to sell armament worth three billion US dollars. This showed that while Russia could not be active in the Yemen crisis, at the same time it could not ignore the profits of close relations with Saudi Arabia.

The important issue is that Russia can play a mediating role between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia to ending the unnecessary and inconclusive war on Yemen. In case Russia can play this role, its influence will increase in the Middle East as Russia similarly was able to manage control in the Syrian crisis. It seems that if Saudi Arabia does not enable the  defeat of the Houthis, Russia could have the power to manage both Saudi Arabia and the Houthis and the future will show us how Russian creates a balance between complex actors of the war while the US is absent in  Yemen’s increasing conflict.

*Sayyad Sadri Alibabalu is a Ph.D. candidate in Middle East studies at Sakarya University in Turkey. His studies focus on foreign policy of Iran, Turkey and great powers, terrorism and security issues in the MENA. Twitter: @SayyadSadri

Welcome To Kabul – OpEd

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By Ken Hannaford-Ricardi*

It is a dream come true being back among friends in Kabul! Streams of dented Toyotas (They are all Toyotas!) with windscreens cracked like bolts of lightning still jockey for position on roads where traffic lights and common sense hold little sway. Carts of vegetables drawn by donkeys or dragged by men without dreams continue clotting the already stuttering traffic, forcing it almost to a standstill. Stucco houses remain stapled to mountainsides, one tripping over the other as they race to the top. And smog, as thick and foul-smelling as only winter in Kabul can conjure up. It felt wonderful being home!

As a team-building exercise, three of us chose this afternoon to clean the chimney of one of our wood stoves. Four lengths of sooty pipe and two elbow joints later, the stove was ready to refire and all three of us needed a good bath. We laughed (mostly young ones) and swore (mostly me) in almost equal proportions.

As we got ready for bed last night, we heard a sustained series of what most of us thought was gunfire. The wail of a siren followed shortly thereafter and caused us to wonder if we should head to the basement for a bit. We waited it out on the second floor. We were brave, or not.

This morning brought rumors of three explosions nearby. We scrambled for information, but little was forthcoming. Later, we were forwarded an email from a friend working near us. The attack, it appeared, had centered on a Shia mosque. “It is more than sad,” our friend said. “Latest update showed 45 people killed and 85 wounded. Going to the scene, there is nothing more than blood, flesh, meat, dust, and fear. We again see Afghans die for nothing and families lose their loved ones because of ongoing US-backed war.” My young co-workers are physically okay.

Tonight, after dinner, I had the chance to talk with a young Afghan friend about his family. Married for just a brief period, his wife conceived. They were happy. Their families rejoiced. One night during their son’s fourth month, he woke up sick enough to be taken to the doctor’s. After an examination, the doctor gave the boy a number of injections, and the family was sent home. Later that same evening, the child’s condition worsened, and the parents took him to a hospital, where he died. My friend and his wife still do not know what claimed their son’s life.

Welcome to Kabul.

Ken Hannaford-Ricardi is in Kabul representing Voices for Creative Nonviolence. While there, he is a guest of the Afghan Peace Volunteers.

Call For Iran To Investigate Killings Of Protesters

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Iranian authorities should refrain from using excessive force, investigate the deaths during the current protests across the country, and remove arbitrary restrictions on internet access, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.

So far, the official news channels of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) have confirmed the deaths of at least 21 people including two security officers during the protests and clashes with security forces over the past five days. The protests began on December 29, 2017, in the city of Mashhad and have spread to more than a dozen cities in Iran.

“The rising death toll bodes ill for Iranians who are daring to take their grievances to the streets,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Rather than issue barely veiled threats against protesters, the authorities should investigate these deaths, ensure the rights of all detainees, and guarantee that people can protest freely and peacefully.”

On January 2, the IRIB news channel confirmed the death of nine people including two security forces in protests and clashes that took place the day before in Isfahan province. Earlier, the IRIB confirmed the death of 10 individuals on December 31. Authorities had also confirmed the death of two people in Dorood, Lorestan province on December 30.

Police have confirmed the arrests of more than 550 people in the Tehran, Razavi Khorasan, and Markazi provinces.

Intelligence authorities have also arrested a number of activists during the past few days.

Social media footage and state media reports indicate that in certain cities, clashes between protesters and police forces occurred and public properties being damaged. A number of videos circulating widely on Persian-language social media channels also purport to show authorities using potentially lethal force against protesters, but Human Rights Watch has been unable to verify this footage.

On January 1, Mashahalh Nemati, governor of Dorood, a city in Lorestan province, confirmed the deaths of four residents during clashes there on December 29 and 30. He also described an incident on December 30 in which he claimed a 12-year-old boy and his father were killed when a fire engine taken over by rioters hit their car. He said the rioters later abandoned the fire engine.

On the same day, Hedayatollah Khademi, a member of parliament from the city of Izeh in Khuzistan province, told ILNA news agency, the Iranian Labor News Agency, that two people had died in “unrest” in the city on December 31, but that he could not confirm their causes of death. Khademi also denied allegation on social media that people had occupied government buildings.

Social media accounts said that the police shot and killed Masoud Kiani Ghale Sardi, a protester in the city of Izeh. Human Rights Watch has not been able to confirm those accounts.

Saeed Shahrokhi, the political deputy to the governor of Hamedan province, told IRIB that three protesters were killedin the city of Tuyserkan.

On December 29, Hassan Heidari, deputy prosecutor of the city of Mashhad, announced that 52 people had been arrested for “damaging public property.” Shargh newspaper, close to reformists in Iran, reported that authorities had arrested 200 people in Tehran and 100 people in the city of Arak in Marakzai province on December 30. On January 2, Ali Asghar Naserbakht, the political deputy to the Tehran’s governor’s office, confirmed the arrest of 200 people in Tehran on December 30, adding that 150 were arrested on December 31 and 100 more on January 1

On December 30, Hrana news agency, run by human rights activists, reported that authorities from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards intelligence had arrested Faeze Abdipour, Kasra Nouri, Mohammad Sharifi Moghadam, ZafarAli Moghimi, and Mohammadreza Darvish, and transferred them to Evin prison. All are local activists of the Gonabadi Dervish community, a Sufi religious order that has suffered government discrimination.

On January 1, the Guild Association for university students reported that four members of its board who had participated in a meeting with the head of the University of Tehran to negotiate the release of students arrested during a December 31 protest had been briefly detained.

On December 30, Communications Minister Azarei Jahromi told Telegram and Twitter to shut down news channels that he alleged were distributing materials inciting violence. A few hours later, Pavel Durov, the CEO of Telegram, announced that Telegram had suspended the Amadnews channel for allegedly instructing subscribers to use Molotov cocktails against police. However, a few hours later, IRIB news agency announced that authorities would temporarily block the popular social media application Instagram and Iran’s most popular messaging application Telegram.

In 2009, Iranian authorities violently repressed protesters who took to the street to protest the outcome of the presidential election, resulting in dozens of deaths in the streets and in detention centers. The Iranian authorities also arrested hundreds of activists and sentenced them to long prison sentences after unfair trails.

Iranian authorities have a responsibility not only to ensure public safety, but also to ensure people’s right to peaceful assembly and to free access to information, Human Rights Watch said.

“Blocking the popular cellphone applications Telegram and Instagram is yet another over-the-top response to people raising grievances against systematic corruption and repression,” Whitson said. “Iranian authorities should change their addiction to repression and allow people to speak and demonstrate.”

Returning Islamic State Fighters: Lesson From JI’s Hijrah – Analysis

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As IS’ enclaves and boltholes shrink in Iraq and Syria, foreign fighters are fleeing back to their countries of origin or other states. Examining the practice of ‘hijrah’ (emigration) by Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) in the past could help authorities understand what lies ahead in the fight against the terrorists.

By Muhammad Saiful Alam Shah*

When Singapore authorities commenced post-9/11 security operations against terrorist organisations, several Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) members fled Singapore and went into hiding in neighbouring countries to evade arrest. In JI circles, the action of fleeing to another country is known as hijrah. A further examination of the concept of hijrah as practised by JI pioneer generation would be instructive.

Abdullah Sungkar and Abu Bakar Bashir were JI pioneers who continued the struggle of the Darul Islam (DI) movement to establish an Islamic state in Indonesia. They opposed the idea of a secular state and refused to accept Suharto’s “Pancasila only” policy because it was deemed “the work of human and meaningless compared to the Quran”.

The Pioneers: Genesis of JI’s Hijrah

Sungkar and Bashir were both arrested and charged over their connections with DI and an armed group known as Komando Jihad. On 19 November 1978, both were sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment but the term was reduced to four years and they were released in 1982. Not long after their release, Bashir was accused of encouraging a series of bomb attacks that targeted Suharto’s New Order regime between 1984 and 1985.

In 1985 Indonesia’s Supreme Court acceded to the prosecutor’s appeal and reimposed the original nine-year sentence on Sungkar and Bashir. This forced the duo to perform hijrah to Malaysia to evade arrest and imprisonment. While in hiding, specifically in 1993, Sungkar formed JI and actively spread JI’s teachings in Malaysia and Singapore from 1989 to 1999.

The duo’s actions reflected JI’s understanding of hijrah as stated in the General Guidelines for the Struggle of Al Jamaah Al Islamiyah, better known by its acronym as PUPJI. The guidelines stress that hijrah is needed to build capacity and capability so as to prepare (I’dad) for the establishment of JI’s ‘Islamic state’.

As such, hijrah, based on JI’s practice, is not limited to physical emigration to an Islamic land. Sungkar and Bashir introduced two variations to the idea of hijrah. Firstly, hijrah was a tactic to avoid detection and arrest by the state. Secondly, hijrah was a “short-term retreat” to re-organise and re-strategise. These two variations can also be observed in the behaviour of later generations of JI.

Other JI Migrants

Several Singapore JI members dodged arrest by settling in neighbouring countries following the launch of the security operation against JI in 2001-2002. One of them is JI pioneer member Abdul Rahim bin Abdul Rahman who received terrorist training by Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. He was arrested in Malaysia in 2012, deported to Singapore, and issued with an Order of Detention (OD).

Another JI pioneer is Mas Selamat Kastari who fled Singapore in December 2001 and took refuge overseas. While in hiding, he plotted to hijack an aircraft and crash it into Changi Airport. Like Mas Selamat, Husaini bin Ismail was also a senior Singaporean JI member involved in several JI operations both before and after fleeing Singapore.

Before the crackdown leading to his arrest, he directed several JI members in reconnaissance work for the purpose of a terrorist attack. Husaini fled Singapore in December 2001 and was involved in the Changi Airport attack plot while on the run.

Security Implications

In May 2016 the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee stated that there were nearly 30,000 foreign fighters in the so-called caliphate. Many have since perished, but those who survived have three options. First, to remain in hiding in the desert areas in the Levant.

Second, to return to their respective countries of origin to continue the struggle there and mount attacks on behalf of IS. This is evident in the Marawi Siege in the Philippines. IS has also threatened to carry out attacks during the FIFA World Cup in Russia next year.

Finally – where hijrah is concerned – is to go into hiding in another country, consolidate resources, re-group and re-strategise. The potential end destinations for these individuals are plentiful. IS has established the official wilayat (provinces) in countries such as Yemen, the Sinai Peninsula, the North Caucasus and East Asia.

With the intensification of security operations against IS and IS-linked groups today, some returning IS fighters might well be doing what JI had done in the past: to remain underground and below the security radar until such time they are able to carry out terrorist operations to further their agenda. Identifying and neutralising these battle-hardened and well-trained fighters will therefore have to be a priority in the continuing fight against terrorism.

*Muhammad Saiful Alam Shah is an Associate Research Fellow with the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), a unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is also a religious counsellor with the Religious Rehabilitation Group (RRG).


SpaceX To Launch Top Secret Zuma Satellite For US Govt

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SpaceX is getting ready to launch a top secret government satellite this week, but details of the mission are shrouded in mystery, as no particular government agency has yet been named as being in control of the Zuma project.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch the Zuma satellite between 8pm and 10pm EDT Friday, January 5 from Pad 39A at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Florida. It is still unclear what the government-owned satellite will do after it is blasted into space, but its destination will be somewhere in low-Earth orbit, according to a US Air Force execution forecast.

The Falcon 9 belongs to a family of two-stage-to-orbit medium lift launch vehicles created by SpaceX.

Zuma’s liftoff was originally scheduled for mid-November, but SpaceX pushed the launch date back so the company could study data from a previous payload-fairing test that they carried out for a different partner. The payload fairing is the nose cone which protects a spacecraft at the time of liftoff, according to Space.com.

Friday will also include a landing attempt by a previously launched Falcon 9, which heads back to Earth at Landing Zone 1, a SpaceX facility located at Cape Canaveral Air Force station. This station is next door to KSC, according to Space.com.

Before the previously scheduled launch in November, aerospace and defense company Northrop Grumman confirmed that it obtained Zuma’s launch on the SpaceX Falcon 9, but the company did not give details as to which government agency was leading the project.

What makes this launch different from past SpaceX-related national security launches is that basic details about previous missions were announced. One flight, which took place in September, launched the robotic X-37B space plane for the Air Force. In another instance, a flight in May 2017 launched a satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office, which creates and operates the US’s fleet of spy satellites.

In the past, SpaceX has landed Falcon 9 boosters, a first-stage reusable rocket booster for the Falcon 9 orbital launch, a total of 20 times. It has also reflown used first-stage rockets five times. These activities are part of SpaceX’s push to create fully reusable rockets and spacecraft, which CEO Elon Musk has determined will cut the cost of spaceflights.

Zuma’s lift off from KSC’s Pad 39A will not be the first launch from that particular pad. This launch site also once hosted NASA’s Apollo moon and space shuttle mission launches.

A Changing Climate, Changing Wine

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If you want to buy good wine, Elizabeth Wolkovich says stop looking at labels and listen to your taste buds.

An Assistant Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Wolkovich is among the co-authors of a new study, which suggests that, though vineyards might be able to counteract some of the effects of climate change by planting lesser-known grape varieties, scientists and vintners need to better understand the wide diversity of grapes and their adaptions to different climates. The study is described in a January 2 paper in Nature Climate Change.

“It’s going to be very hard, given the amount of warming we’ve already committed to…for many regions to continue growing the exact varieties they’ve grown in the past,” Wolkovich said. “But what we’re interested in talking about is how much more diversity of grape varieties do we have, and could we potentially be using that diversity to adapt to climate change.

“The Old World has a huge diversity of winegrapes – there are over planted 1,000 varieties – and some of them are better adapted to hotter climates and have higher drought tolerance than the 12 varieties now making up over 80% of the wine market in many countries,” she continued. “We should be studying and exploring these varieties to prepare for climate change.”

Unfortunately, Wolkovich said, convincing wine producers to try different grape varieties is difficult at best, and the reason often comes down to the current concept of terroir.

Terroir is the notion that a wine’s flavor is a reflection of where, which and how the grapes were grown. Thus, as currently understood, only certain traditional or existing varieties are part of each terroir, leaving little room for change.

“There’s a real issue in the premier wine-growing regions that historical terroir is what makes great wine, and if you acknowledge in any way that you have climate change, you acknowledge that your terroir is changing,” Wolkovich said. “So in many of those regions there is not much of an appetite to talk about changing varieties.”

But even if that appetite existed, Wolkovich said, researchers don’t yet have enough data to say whether other varieties would be able to adapt to climate change.

“Part of what this paper sets up is the question of how much more do we need to know if we want to understand whether there is enough diversity in this crop to adapt wine regions to climate change in place,” said Ignacio Morales-Castilla, a co-author of the study and Fellow at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University who investigates which winegrape varieties will adequately mature where under climate change. “Right now we know we have this diversity, but we have little information on how to use it. One of our other suggestions is for growers to start setting aside parts of vineyards to grow some other varieties to see which ones are working.”

But even if researchers came to the table armed with information about grape diversity, Wolkovich said the industry – both in the traditional winegrowing centers of Europe and around the world – still faces hurdles when it comes to making changes.

In Europe, she said, growers have the advantage of tremendous diversity. They have more than 1,000 grape varieties to choose from, research repositories such as INRA’s Domaine de Vassal that study this diversity, and expertise in how to grow different varieties. Yet strict labeling laws have created restrictions on their ability to take advantage of this diversity.

For example, just three varieties of grapes can be labeled as Champagne or four for Burgundy. Similar restrictions have been enacted in many European regions- all of which force growers to focus on a small handful of grape varieties.

“The more you are locked into what you have to grow, the less room you have to adapt to climate change,” Wolkovich said. “So there’s this big pool of knowledge, and massive diversity, growers have maintained an amazing amount of genetic and climactic response diversity…but if they changed those laws in any way in relation to climate change, that’s acknowledging that the terroir of the region is changing, and many growers don’t want to do that.”

New World winegrowers, meanwhile, must grapple with the opposite problem – while there are few, if any, restrictions on which grape varieties may be grown in a given region, growers have little experience with the diverse – and potentially more climate change adaptable – varieties of grapes found in Europe.

Just 12 varieties account for more than 80 percent of the grapes grown in Australian vineyards, Wolkovich said, more than 75% percent of all the grapes grown in China are Cabernet Sauvignon – and the chief reason why has to do with consumers.

“They have all the freedom in the world to import new varieties and think about how to make great wines from a grape variety you’ve never heard of, but they’re not doing it because the consumer hasn’t heard of it,” Wolkovich said. “In Europe, people do blend wines…but in the New World, we’ve gotten really focused on specific varieties: ‘I want a bottle of Pinot Noir,’ or ‘I want a bottle of Cabernet.’

“We’ve been taught to recognize the varieties we think we like,” she said. “People buy Pinot even though it can taste totally different depending on where it’s grown. It might taste absolutely awful from certain regions, but if you think you like Pinot, you’re only buying that.”

As Wolkovich sees it, wine producers now face a choice: proactively experiment with new varieties, or risk suffering the negative consequences of climate change.

“With continued climate change, certain varieties in certain regions will start to fail – that’s my expectation,” she said. “The solution we’re offering is how do you start thinking of varietal diversity. Maybe the grapes grown widely today were the ones that are easiest to grow and tasted the best in historical climates, but I think we’re missing a lot of great grapes better suited for the future.”

Randomness A Key In Spread Of Disease, Other ‘Evil’

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An unfortunate church dinner more than 100 years ago did more than just spread typhoid fever to scores of Californians. It led theorists on a quest to understand why many diseases – including typhoid, measles, polio, malaria, even cancer – take so much longer to develop in some affected people than in others.

It’s been known for more than 60 years that the incubation periods of numerous diseases follow a certain pattern: relatively quick appearance of symptoms in most cases, but longer – sometimes much longer – periods for others. It’s known as Sartwell’s law, named for Philip E. Sartwell, the epidemiologist who identified it in the 1950s, but why it holds true has never been explained.

“For some reason, [biologists don’t] see it as a mystery,” said Steve Strogatz, the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Applied Mathematics. “They just see it as a fact. But we see it as, ‘Why? Why does this keep coming up?'”

Through mathematical modeling and application of two classic problems in probability theory – the “coupon collector” and the “random walk” – Strogatz and doctoral student Bertrand Ottino-Löffler propose an explanation.

Working with a simple mathematical model in which chance plays a key role, they calculated how long it would take a bacterial infection or cancer cell to take over a network of healthy cells. The distribution of incubation times in most cases, they contend, is close to “lognormal” – meaning that the logarithms of the incubation periods, rather than the incubation periods themselves, are normally distributed.

This emerges from the random dynamics of the incubation process itself, as a pathogen or mutant competes with the cells of its host.

Their paper, “Evolutionary Dynamics of Incubation Periods,” was published Dec. 21 in eLife. Contributing biomedical background was Jacob Scott, physician-scientist in the Department of Translational Hematology and Oncology Research at the Cleveland Clinic.

Reading Scott’s blog, Cancer Connector, motivated Strogatz and Ottino-Löffler to study disease incubation dynamics.

“I saw a post about using evolution on networks to analyze cancer, which seemed interesting because cancer is very much an evolutionary disease,” Strogatz said. “People including Jake have been looking at cancer from this evolutionary perspective.”

The discovery that incubation periods tend to follow right-skewed distributions – with symptoms quickly developing for most people, with much longer periods for a few, so that the bell curve has a long “tail” to the right – originally came from 20th-century epidemiological investigations of incidents in which many people were exposed to a pathogen. For example, at the 1914 church dinner in Hanford, California, 93 individuals became infected with typhoid fever after eating contaminated spaghetti.

Using the known time of exposure and onset of symptoms for the 93 cases, California medical examiner Wilbur Sawyer found that the incubation periods ranged from three to 29 days, with a mode (most common time frame) of only six days. Most people were sickened within a week of exposure, but for some, it took four weeks to get sick.

As it turns out, nearly all diseases – and as Strogatz and Ottino-Löffler contend, most situations where “good” is overtaken by “evil” – follow this pattern of quick proliferation for the majority, with a few “victims” lasting longer before finally succumbing. The different levels of health and of exposure to the pathogen can certainly play a role, Strogatz said, but are not the determining factors.

Strogatz’s proposal follows the “coupon collector” theory: Imagine someone collecting baseball cards or stamps in a series. If a random item arrives every day, and your luck is bad, you may have to wait a long time to collect those last few.

Strogatz admits that while it’s tricky to generalize too broadly, this theory holds up following countless simulations and analytical calculations performed by Ottino-Löffler. And this could be helpful in explaining not only disease proliferation, but also other examples of “contagion” – including computer viruses and bank failures, the researchers say.

“In a very stripped down, simplified picture of reality, you’d expect to see this right-skewed mechanism in many situations,” Strogatz said. “And it seems that you do – it’s sort of a basic vocabulary of invasion. It’s a powerful underlying current that’s always there.”

Who Are The Protesters In Iran? – Analysis

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By Frud Bezhan

(RFE/RL) — Days after deadly antigovernment rallies erupted in Iran, it is still difficult to pinpoint just who the protesters are and what, exactly, they want.

The demonstrations lack a central voice, are taking place across vast and varied territories, and are attracting a broad range of Iranians, making it difficult to pinpoint any gender, age group, or economic class.

That is in stark contrast to the 2009 mass protests that erupted after the contentious reelection of Mahmud Ahmadinejad. Those rallies were rooted in popular anger against what was seen as a fraudulent election, were driven by leaders of the opposition Green Movement, and backed largely by Tehran’s educated middle class.

While comparisons have been drawn to the 2009 unrest when trying to gauge the current protests’ place in recent history, five days of protests show they do not fit neatly into the same mold.

“These protests cannot be portrayed, as the regime tried to do with 2009, as a ‘north Tehran phenomenon’ of troublesome, better-off, better-educated activists,” says Scott Lucas, an Iran specialist at Birmingham University in Britain and editor of the EA World View website.

“The spread of the protests across the country in almost every Iranian city shows a widespread questioning of what the regime is doing over the economy, foreign policy and military interventions, and political and social issues,” Lucas adds.

Beyond Demographics

Tehran has tried to pin the current protests largely on youths. Deputy Interior Minister Hossein Zolfaghari has said that 90 percent of the protesters detained nationwide were under 25 years old.

But while witness testimony and footage from the protests do show that many participants are young, it would be simplistic and misleading to suggest that they are the only ones protesting.

Considering that people under the age of 25 would have been born after the 1979 revolution that founded the Islamic republic, it would be easy for Tehran to write off the current protests to the youthful exuberance of youths who are too young to know any better.

But a 25-year-old protester would have been coming of age when the clerical establishment reacted in brutal fashion to the largely peaceful protests of 2009. Many presumably went on to vote in the 2013 election that chose Ahmadinejad’s successor, Hassan Rohani.

Cast as a relative moderate, Rohani won on pledges to improve ties with the West, secure more freedoms for Iranians, and revive the recession-hit economy. Rohani won again in 2017, in part due to his success in working out a deal with Western powers over Iran’s contentious nuclear program and the promise of more openness to come as Iran shed the label of international pariah.

But despite securing the lifting of crippling international sanctions as part of the deal, frustrations over Rohani’s failure to deliver economic benefits grew.

Certainly, Iran’s high unemployment and dire economic situation hits the country’s younger generation hard. More than 50 percent of the population is under 30, and while youth unemployment is officially around 20 percent, it is believed to be closer to 40 percent.

But they are far from being the only disenfranchised segment of society.

“Those people who are taking part in the protests are from all social classes, regions, and demographics in society,” says Raman Ghavami, an Iranian analyst who has been tracking the protest. “The poor, the middle class, the rich are taking part. Woman are playing a role.”

Referencing footage of security forces refusing to make arrests and standing in solidarity with demonstrators in Lorestan Province, Ghamvami notes that “even some security forces are rejecting orders.”

No Overriding Issue

There is no single issue that is driving the protests.

The protests first erupted in the city of Mashhad on December 28, where demonstrators rallied against a surge in prices of basic food supplies, such as eggs and poultry.

But as the protests spread, protesters directed their anger at Iran’s political leadership, chanting “Death to Rohani” and “Death to [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei.” Some protesters have even called for the return of the monarchy that was ousted in the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Some have also chanted slogans against Iran’s foreign policies, including its support for the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, seen by some as an expensive and wasteful undertaking abroad considering Iran’s needs at home.

Analysts believe the protests in Mashhad may have been driven by internal rifts in the clerical system that gave impetus to spontaneous protests erupting across the country. Mashhad, the country’s second-largest city, is home to Rohani’s former election rival, hard-line conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi.

“Some hard-liners welcomed the initial protests, but what they may have hoped would serve their factional interests in the short term appears to have unleashed more fundamental grievances that go much deeper,” says Naysan Rafati, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.

In short, what may have started as an effort to heap criticism on Rohani and his nuclear deal may have awakened broad yet latent discontent.

Protests are not so unprecedented in Iran — demonstrations have been staged by taxi drivers, autoworkers, teachers, and environmentalists in the past several years. But the demonstrations were usually contained to specific gripes, and received some element of official consent.

No Central Leadership

In contrast to the 2009 mass rallies that were driven by the opposition Green Movement, whose leaders still remain under house arrest, there is no apparent leadership or movement behind the current protests.

“[The protests] appear to be entirely spontaneous and as far as I can tell, leaderless,” Alireza Nader, a senior policy analyst at Rand Corporation, wrote on Twitter.

This lack of a central message, analysts say, will make it more difficult for authorities to break up the protests.

“The apparent lack leadership to the protests is both a blessing and a curse to the authorities: on the one hand, the government may see the absence of clear organization as reason to hope that they will subside – or be put down – sooner rather than later,” Rafati says.

“On the other hand, the scale and scope of the unrest as well as the varied demands raised by the protesters make it more difficult to make tangible concessions that would address their grievances.”

*Frud Bezhan covers Afghanistan and the broader South Asia and Middle East region.

Iran’s Crisis Is Greater Than The Price Of Bread – OpEd

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By Abdulrahman Al-Rashed*

After overthrowing the Shah, Ayatollah Khomeini succeeded in one thing: He eliminated the strongest, richest and the most successful state in the Middle East. The regime he built on the ruins of the modern empire was a backward clerical state with old leftist economic policies. Iran had represented to the West a successful model — which was way ahead of other countries.

Then Khomeini disappointed his supporters and all those who expected the best of him. Young people were looking for a comprehensive democratic system after the Shah.

Ethnic minorities thought that the removal of the Shah would end Persian nationalism and build a collective Iran for all. The communists thought that he would be their ally against the US who was the ally of the Shah. The Americans thought that the arrival of religious scholars was better than the arrival of the communist Tudeh Party, and that it would block the way of the Soviet tanks which had occupied neighboring Afghanistan, and that they could work together later on. And the Arab masses believed the commitments of Khomeini to liberate Jerusalem from the Israelis, and the Gulf Arabs hoped that the removal of the Shah would end the dispute over the islands, over Bahrain, and over Iraq.

They were all wrong.

After Khomeini came to power, Iranian youth paid the highest price. Universities were placed under the administration of the clergy, and women were persecuted. The first victims of the new regime were the leftists who suffered the prejudice of the clergy although they had helped it in Azadi (Freedom) Square.

Moreover, the regime suppressed ethnic minorities. The Americans realized that the religious right in the region was not the same as the political right in the West. The religious right was more hostile to the West than the Tudeh Party. Tehran limited its dispute with Israel to Arab areas of influence. And Gulf Arabs discovered that Khomeini considered them his main enemy and permanent target by relying on the old sectarian differences.

 

Those who think that the economic crisis is the reason behind the Iranian uprising and the people’s push against the regime of the Supreme Leader are missing other more dangerous and deep-rooted causes. The demonstrations of 2009 were larger, and they were led by people from within the regime who enjoyed certain privileges. The roots of the current crisis are what I mentioned above.

The regime excluded all local forces and distanced itself from the others. And when it failed, it was easy for all people to rally behind one demand: Overthrowing the regime. Bread is not the only problem with the government of Hassan Rouhani, and the price of fuel is not their main argument against the regime of the Supreme Leader. Rather, they are against everything represented by the regime.

The majority of Iranians are not religious; they have national pride and reject that pride’s marginalization by the clergy. Iran was more civilized and open during the rule of the Shah, and it was more advanced in science and industry. All that evaporated after a group of dervishes came to power, believing that their only duty was to harness the state to serve the ayatollah and spread his teachings and fight for them all over the world.

This naive selfish way of thinking was not convincing to the majority of Iranian youth who produce the best movies, recite the best poems, and hold parties in basements away from the eyes of Basij informers. For many months, Iranian girls appeared one day a week and published their photos without hijab (head cover) in defiance of the clergy. There is genuine hatred by the Iranian people for the regime. Some of the banners held during the demonstrations had slogans deploring the support for religious movements in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. This is far more dangerous than the demand for cheaper bread.

There are many enemies of clerical rule abroad as well, including some of those who show their feelings, like Russia which has disputes with the Iranian regime regarding the division of the Caspian Sea and other subjects. This is what may pressure Tehran to change into real politics, treat its people according to their wishes, and stop foreign adventures. If it does not make these changes, the antagonistic majority inside and outside Iran will succeed in toppling it.

• Abdulrahman Al-Rashed is a veteran columnist. He is the former general manager of Al Arabiya news channel, and former editor in chief of Asharq Al-Awsat.

Nigeria: 700 Escape Boko Haram Captivity

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No fewer than 700 captives in Boko Haram strongholds in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state have escaped as government troops said it targeted militants’ infrastructure.

In a statement, Col. Timothy Antigha, an army spokesman, said that it conducted operations in Chikun Gudu area of the restive state and successfully destroyed Boko Haram’s infrastructure and logistics such as communication centers, bomb-making equipment and vehicles.

“The ensuing collapse of their command structure and means of survival have therefore triggered the abandonment of the islands and escape of the abductees to Monguno,” Antigha said.

“So far, over 700 former Boko Haram abductees, comprising adult males, females and children, have been received by troops of 242 Battalion in Monguno. Profiling of the displaced persons is on-going to ensure that no terrorist takes advantage of the situation to sneak into the town,” he added.

At least two pregnant women among the captives have delivered babies, according to Antigha.

He said troops are now focused on hunting Boko Haram commanders.

Boko Haram, meanwhile, has continued to launch skeletal attacks in remote areas of northeastern Borno and Yobe.

Local newspapers reported an attack on a troops’ position on Monday night that killed at least five soldiers. The report claimed that 30 other soldiers are still missing.

The army’s spokesmen have not spoken on the purported incident.

On Tuesday, Boko Haram factional chief Abubakar Shekau appeared in 31-minute-long footage claiming the group remains intact and healthy.

The footage was Shekau’s first in many months, apparently suggesting increasing pressure on the group.

Original article

Malaysia On Alert After New Islamic State Video

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By N. Nantha and Hareez Lee

Authorities in Malaysia are on alert because of a new propaganda video from Islamic State that appears to show the execution of prisoners and footage of a Malaysian urging IS followers to mount attacks in their home countries.

The eight-minute video features two militants, identified by authorities in Malaysia and Singapore as citizens of their respective countries, speaking to the camera as they call on IS supporters to carry out acts of terror.

The video surfaced as Malaysia and Saudi Arabia were preparing to co-host a two-day counter-terrorism conference bringing together security ministers from 20 countries in Putrajaya, the Malaysian administrative capital, on Friday and Saturday.

“Malaysian authorities have increased their intel and resources to monitor the activities of individuals that are suspected of aiding and supporting the IS group in Malaysia,” a senior Malaysian police official said Tuesday in response to questions about the propaganda video.

“From our initial findings, the video is freshly produced as the Malaysian never appeared in any video before,” the source told BenarNews on condition of anonymity, adding that the video was shot recently.

A slick production posted online by Khayr Wilayah, a pro-IS media group, the video features an interview with an IS suicide bomber in his car before his mission, footage of IS-linked terrorist attacks in Paris and Nice, France, as well as scenes from war zones in the Middle East. Narrated in Arabic, the video contains scenes from a previous New Year’s celebration in Sydney, Australia, and shots of downtown Los Angeles and New York City.

Malaysian police identified one of the speakers in the video as Muhammad Aqif Heusen Rahizat, the brother of Muhammad Afiq Heusen Rahizat, a militant who was in killed in a bombardment along the Iraq-Syria border in October 2014. His death occurred after Aqif traveled to the region in December 2013 to join his sibling there, the senior police official said.

Aqif, 25, whose nom-de-guerre is Abu Sufyan Malayzi, comes from Kluang, a small town in the southern state of Johor, the source said. Until 2015, Aqif actively recruited fighters through Facebook.

Among the people he allegedly recruited was his supposed bride, Ummi Kalsom Bahak, who was arrested Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 in October 2014 and charged with a terrorism-related offense, the source said.

“He went below radar since then right up until the latest video released by IS in December,” the official told BenarNews.

‘Slay the enemies of Allah’

Aqif appears two minutes into the video.

“If you have many obstacles to perform hijrah to the land of Khilafah and … al-Sham and other Wilayah, then Allah has opened up for all of you the land of Jihad of your own countries,” he says in an English monologue, referring to Iraq and Syria, where the strongholds of IS’s self-declared caliphate, Raqqa and Mosul, fell to anti-IS coalition forces in 2017.

Later in the video, a man described by officials in Singapore as Singaporean national Megat Shahdan Abdul Samad, appears in combat fatigues toting a handgun, which he later uses in participating with two other men in what seems to be the execution of three prisoners.

“Slay the enemies of Allah wherever you are,” he says to the camera, according to the video seen by BenarNews.

“Now the fighting has just begun. We will never stop cutting off the heads of every kufar and muqtaddin until we cleanse the land of Islam from East Asia to the West of Africa,” he adds.

The eight-minute video was the second featuring Megat Shahdan Abdul Samad, following a shorter one disseminated in September, the Straits Times of Singapore reported over the weekend.

Malaysian authorities believe Muhammad Aqif Heusen Rahizat is hiding out with other Malaysian IS members at Abu Kamal, a Syrian town close to the border with Iraq following IS’s defeat in Raqqa, the police official said.

Thirty-four Malaysian have been reported killed while fighting for IS in Iraq and Syria. Another 53 – 24 men, 12 women and 17 children – are believed to still be in Syria, but may have fled from cities where battles took place, according to Malaysian police. Officials had said the Malaysians might have sought refuge in camps along Syria’s borders with Jordan and Turkey.

Since 2013, Malaysian authorities have arrested 369 people for suspected links to IS and other militant groups, according to government statistics compiled by BenarNews.

International meeting

Meanwhile, Malaysia is gearing up to co-host the two-day conference being billed as an international security dialogue on how nations can pool their experience of “wisdom and moderation in countering terrorism.”

The conference is being co-organized by Malaysia’s Ministry of Home Affairs and Saudi Arabia-based think-tank Rabitah Al-Alam Al-Islami or the Muslim World League.

As many as 1,000 people from Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and 18 other countries, including Indonesia, Singapore, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Australia, France and Britain, are expected to attend. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are scheduled to give speeches on Saturday in Putrajaya.

The conference will be divided into four sessions covering themes including international collaboration in combating terrorism; Islam as the means of moderation and security; the role of religion in inculcating values and moderation; and countering terrorism with wisdom and humanity.

The meeting will take place amid closer bilateral ties being forged between Kuala Lumpur and Riyadh.

During his visit to Malaysia in March 2017, Saudi King Salman announced Malaysia would be the future home of a Saudi-backed center, the King Salman Center for International Peace, which would work to counter the terrorist narrative. Malaysia’s government has a two-year timeline for building the center, which will be housed at a 40-acre site in Putrajaya.

Malaysia already has an online counter-extremist messaging center overseen by the Royal Malaysia Police. It also has the Southeast Asia Regional Center for Counter-Terrorism, operated under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with assistance from the U.S. State Department.


China’s Leaders Face Economic Test In 2018 – Analysis

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By Michael Lelyveld

As China begins a new year, the big question for its economy is whether government leaders will stick to their promises to control financial risks and rely on “high-quality” growth.

The twin policy pledges, frequently repeated by President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, imply that the government will curb credit emissions and be satisfied with slower but more sustainable economic growth.

Policymakers and regulators faced the identical issues at the start of 2017, but their performance before the critical 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in October was decidedly mixed.

Under pressure to deliver on the CPC’s promise to double gross domestic product in a decade by 2020, the government looked the other way while state-owned banks let loose a wave of new loans.

In September, net new lending of 1.27 trillion yuan (U.S. $193 billion) topped forecasts, rising 16.5 percent from a month earlier and sparking expectations that loans would hit a new high in 2017.

New loans fell back in October but then surged again in November to 1.12 trillion yuan (U.S. $169.3 billion), setting a record for the 11-month period, according to Reuters reports.

Most of the credit was for home and property financing, boosting speculation in the high-growth investment sector that the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) had promised to control.

Despite the government’s focus on new-age factors, including technology, innovation, consumption and services, to drive the economy, the lending gave an old-fashioned push to construction-related industries to underpin growth.

The official Xinhua news agency acknowledged the backsliding in a year-end economic report.

“China has maintained prudent monetary policy since 2011. However, in practice the policy has been loosening slightly due to downward pressure on economic growth,” Xinhua said.

IMF warnings

The loans have defied repeated warnings in the past year from the International Monetary Fund about the “dangerous” pace of credit increases, as well as a downgrade of China’s sovereign debt in September from Standard & Poor’s ratings agency.

In the latest frictions last month, an IMF review of China’s financial stability criticized its rising credit levels and complexity of the country’s system. The fund cited banking practices such as lending to prop up growth and employment, and compensating investors for losses from risky financial products.

IMF officials said that “credit growth will not slow sustainably unless tolerance for job losses and slower economic growth rises, particularly at (the) local level, and new sources of revenue are found for local governments.”

The PBOC responded that the assessments “have fully acknowledged China’s achievements” in promoting financial stability, but cited “a few descriptions and views in the reports that we don’t agree with.”

The government continued to rely on lending to boost GDP growth to 6.9 percent through the first three quarters of last year, topping both Premier Li’s target of “about 6.5 percent” for last year and the 6.7-percent expansion in 2016.

Aside from clashes with the IMF and rating agencies, the loan binge also contradicted China’s own official policy goals for 2018, which stress risk reduction, credit cutoffs for “zombie” enterprises, support for the “real economy,” and slower but steadier growth.

“Achieving high-quality development is imperative for China to maintain sustainable and healthy development of the economy and society,” President Xi said on Dec. 6, according to Xinhua.

Policymakers echoed the same themes at the annual Central Economic Work Conference in Beijing last month.

A statement issued at the end of the three-day conference appeared to downplay the need for deleveraging, suggesting tolerance for increases in debt.

“Prudent monetary policy should be kept neutral, the floodgates of monetary supply should be controlled, and current and social financing should see reasonable growth,” the statement said.

“China will maintain a hardline stance on irregular and illegal activities in the financial industry to forestall risks,” it said.

But the conference statement quickly drew attention for what it did not say.

“Compared with the statement from last year, analysts have noticed the absence of ‘deleveraging’ in the wording,” Xinhua said in a year-end commentary on Dec. 21.

The news agency cited a research note from China International Capital Corp., arguing that although deleveraging was not mentioned, “financial risk control is still a priority.”

The lukewarm assurance is unlikely to be seen as an adequate response to calls for more urgent action to restrain credit growth.

“Since October, Chinese economic policymakers have expressed little interest in tackling the country’s mountain of debt, which has accumulated rapidly over the past decade,” The New York Times said.

Challenge for 2018

China’s challenge this year is not whether it will set sound goals, but whether it will ignore them again and fall back on credit-fueled stimulus policies if economic growth slips too fast or too far.

One consideration working in favor of sustainable risk and growth policies is that China no longer needs such high rates to fulfill the CPC promise of doubling GDP by 2020.

The steady and relatively high growth maintained through November has created “room for policymakers to step up efforts on risk control, poverty relief and pollution next year,” Xinhua argued in a report on Dec. 14.

In a Xinhua report on Dec. 23, an official of the government’s central leading group on financial and economic affairs, said the goal of doubling GDP could be met with annual growth of 6.3 percent through 2020.

“Judging from current economic performance, there will not be any huge barrier in meeting the goal,” said Yang Weimin, deputy director of China’s Office of the Central Leading Group on Financial and Economic Affairs, which is in charge of leading and supervising the economic work of both the CPC Central Committee and the State Council.

Scott Kennedy, deputy director of China studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said in September that China’s leaders appeared comfortable with even lower growth in the range of 5.8 percent to 6.2 percent for 2018-2020 as they pursue their priority for managing risks.

“My sense is that the government is likely to encourage a slightly looser monetary policy for the next couple of months to ensure China gets safely through the Spring Festival without hiccups, but reducing financial risks will still be the top priority for the coming year,” Scott said by email last month, referring to the Chinese New Year which falls on Feb. 16 this year.

Official growth rates in a lower range would be uncharted territory for China’s leaders, however, tempting them to spur growth with traditional stimulus measures.

Gary Hufbauer, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said China’s government is likely to do whatever it takes to keep GDP growth rates from falling below 6 percent in the coming year, even if it means pumping up credit.

“I think the judgment of the Chinese authorities is that the financial risk is less than the political risk,” Hufbauer said in an interview.

“They may be wrong but they certainly act as if a drop in the growth rate to a more normal level … would be a political disaster,” he said.

In that respect, the forces at work in 2018 are much the same as those seen last year, despite Xi’s consolidation of power since the party congress.

While Xi’s authority is unquestioned, it is unclear whether he will use it to throttle credit down, cut off loss-making enterprises, and face the consequences for jobs.

The course of 2018 is likely to be determined by political calculations rather than promises of economic reforms as China faces its “three tough battles” of managing major risks, alleviating poverty, and controlling pollution.

Opioid Use May Lead To Suicide In Elderly

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A new study published in the current issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics suggests that suicidal ideations and suicide attempts are linked to opioid use and pain sensitivity in the elderly.

The recent dramatic increase in opioid prescribing and their inappropriate use has led to an epidemic of opioid addictions, often generalizing to other substance use disorders and overdose deaths. In the US, the suicide death rate with opioid overdose increased from 2.2% in 1999 to 4.4% in 2010.

Authors investigated differences in terms of analgesic consumption and physical pain between (1) subjects with suicidal ideation during follow-up or with a lifetime history of suicide attempt, (2) affective controls, i.e., subjects with a lifetime history of major depression Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) or high depressive symptoms (Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression, CES-D >16) during the study but without suicidal ideations/attempts and (3) healthy controls, i.e., having neither suicidal ideations/attempts nor major depression, and having low depressive symptoms and no psychotropic medication use during the study.

The proportion of subjects taking analgesics was 37.6% in subjects with suicidal ideations/attempts, 30.2% in affective controls, and 21.6% in healthy controls. A higher rate of analgesic consumption in subjects with suicidal ideation/attempt versus healthy controls was reported.

For nonopioid drugs, proportions were 21.8% in subjects with suicidal ideation/attempt, 18.5% in affective controls, and 15.5% in healthy controls; for opioid drugs, they were 15.7% in subjects with suicidal ideation/attempt, 11.7% in affective controls, and 6.1% in healthy controls. Also comparing nonopioid and opioid drug consumption, a difference between subjects with suicidal ideation/attempt and healthy controls was found. When compared opioid users to analgesic nonusers, subjects with suicidal ideation/attempt were more prone to use opioids than healthy controls (suicidal ideations/attempts: odds ratio (OR) = 2.78).

These findings point out to the increased consumption of opioids in subjects with suicidal ideation/attempt compared to healthy controls which might suggest an increased sensitivity to psychological and/or physical pain in suicide.

Why Pakistan Army Chief’s Call For Talks Makes No Sense – Analysis

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Within Pakistan, it is the army which controls foreign policy towards India, Afghanistan and the US. The polity has no role. Every time the polity has attempted to take a step forward, the deep state employs terrorists to strike within India, pushing talks away.

By Harsha Kakar

The Pakistan army chief, General Javed Bajwa, recently briefed his senate on matters concerning national security and his recent visits, including the military alliance created by Saudi Arabia. The briefing was conducted in-camera. After the briefing, the Pak Inter Services Public Relations issued a statement containing some details. After the briefing by his staff, General Bajwa answered queries raised by some members of the senate.

It was during this interaction that he stated that the army would support the government when it went ahead seeking to improve relations with both India and Afghanistan. Such a statement, especially as it concerns India, may be the first by a Pakistan army chief (as they have mostly maintained silence on calls for talks by the government), and needs to be accepted with a pinch of salt. However, actions on supporting talks are more important than mere words.

Within Pakistan, it is the army which controls foreign policy towards India, Afghanistan and the US. The polity has no role. Every time the polity has attempted to take a step forward, the deep state employs terrorists to strike within India, pushing talks away. It is also abundantly clear that the Pakistan High Commissioner in Delhi reports to the army, rather than the foreign minister, and hence would always remain a stumbling block, rather than being a facilitator.

A day after the army chief spoke for reconciliation with India, he praised Hafiz Saeed, who India blames for most terror strikes, while the US has placed a bounty on him. It is only the army which is pushing for the formation of a political party, Milli Muslim League, led by him, which the government continues to object. Instead of reducing tensions along the border, it launched an operation which claimed the lives of four Indian soldiers. Thus, it is clearly a case of doublespeak, and hence India has rightfully ignored his comments.

Pakistan presently is facing international pressure. Mike Pence, the US Vice President, stated in Afghanistan a few days ago, that Pakistan is on notice to curb terror groups. The US National Security Strategy also highlights Pakistan’s role in supporting the Taliban and Haqqani network. It also seeks to apply pressure on Pakistan to improve its relations with India, placing the onus on it to take the first step.

Pakistan’s attempts at accusing India for supporting the Baluchistan freedom movement and anti-Pak terror groups from Afghan soil and in conjunction with Afghan intelligence agencies has no buyers, either at the UN or on any other forum where it has chosen to raise the subject. Even its demands for UN intervention in Kashmir or for implementing the defunct UN resolution on the same has been ignored. Its calls to enhance the role and mandate of the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan’s (UNMOGIP) has also been brushed aside. Kashmir no longer exists on the UN agenda and has not even been discussed for decades.

On the other hand, India’s actions of naming Pakistan based terror groups backed by the deep state has received support in multiple international documents, including the BRICS summit. It has also been commented upon by many international leaders. At the UN, India, Afghanistan and Bangladesh openly blamed Pakistan for supporting terror groups. Trump and his aides have repeatedly accused Pakistan of employing terror groups as an instrument of state policy. The US and the UN have named Pakistan based terror groups and its leaders as global terrorists. It is only China which has saved Hafiz Saeed from being nominated as an international terrorist at the UN, by employing its veto.

Thus no one believes Pakistan or its army chief, when they make such comments. While mentioning support for talks on one hand and backing terror groups operating on Indian soil on the other, the very concept of talks has no value. Similarly, supporting Hafiz Saeed, whom India considers a mastermind of terror strikes in India in forming a political party, sends a wrong signal. Talks can never be held until terror groups operate from Pakistan soil and ceasefire violations continue unabated. For any meaningful talks there must be a conducive environment, which does not exist.

Lack of a conducive environment implies lack of trust. Lack of trust means that talks can always be derailed when the Pakistan army so desires. Hence, India feels that talks would have no value, unless Pakistan is pressured to stop support to terror groups and dismantle terror camps on its soil. Therefore, India continues to develop capabilities to counter Pakistan, which compels it to spend critical funds and enhance defence spending, which it can ill afford. Pakistan hence feels threatened and cries hoarse on India leading an arms race and increasing tensions in the sub-continent. It feels that only by developing nuclear weapons and supporting terror groups, to tie down the Indian army in Kashmir, can it reduce Indian threat.

In the present environment, India is slowly impacting on Pakistan, what the US did to the erstwhile Soviet Union. As the US and NATO military strength continued to grow, it compelled the USSR to enhance defence expenditure, impacting its economy. Pakistan’s defence budget has been increasing by the year, compelling the government to cut down on other developmental plans, banking only on Chinese investments. It therefore would remain beholden to China.

India, on the other hand, would continue its present march of enhancing capabilities, aggressively countering cross border violations and eliminating terrorists operating in Kashmir. As a growing military and economic power, sought the world over, Pakistan would only remain a small pinprick on its side as it embraces development and growth. It is in no hurry to resume dialogue, unless Pakistan creates trust and indicates a willingness to dismantle terror groups.

Talks would benefit Pakistan more, as it could consider reducing defence expenditure and concentrate on developing its economy, which presently remains in shambles. Pakistan should learn from China, which has also realised that the way ahead with India is dialogue. Continuing its offensive path will only harm Pakistan more than India. India has nothing to lose, hence awaits Pakistan’s affirmative indicators of a desire for talks. For the present, it has rightly chosen to ignore General Bajwa.

Who Defeated The Islamic State In Syria? – OpEd

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Before answering that question. What is the ISIS? Can the public overcome its chronic amnesia and think back to the sudden appearance of ISIS dressed in brand new black uniforms, gleaming white Nike’s and driving Toyota trunks? They seemed to appear out of nowhere in 2014. ISIS looked as if it were a mirage when it appeared, or more likely a CIA staged scene from Hollywood.

No sooner had ISIS appeared than it went on a head chopping binge that repulsed and frightened the US public. Washington officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry rang the alarm that this hoard of Islamic crazies wanted to invade the US and “kill us all”. A well-compliant mainstream media swallowed Washington’s script and regurgitated it to frighten a US public. The public gave its silent consent for more war really aimed at Bashar al-Assad.

The next question is who created ISIS? ISIS “can trace its roots back to the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian. In 2004, a year after the US-led invasion of Iraq, Zarqawi pledged allegiance to Osama Bin Laden and formed al-Qaeda in Iraq” [ BBC News December 2, 2016 ]. Al-Qaeda in Iraq did not exist until after the US invasion by the Bush-Cheney administration.

The US invasion of Iraq was based on pure unadulterated lies that Saddam Hussein supported al-Qaeda, was involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US and had weapons of mass destruction. Al-Qaeda in Iraq was predictable blowback, resistance against a US illegal invasion. Bush who admitted that he creates his own reality, had hallucinations of a grateful Iraqi people, who had just been bombed back to the Stone Age with Shock and Awe, throwing kisses and flowers at the US expeditionary force as liberators.

Then came the failed Surge in 2007 [ The Nation], when the US allied with Sunnis to defeat the remnants of the Iraqi Ba’ath Party, which was an Arab Nationalist Party neither Sunni nor Shia. The cynical sponsoring and siding with radical Islam goes back to the British “Great Game” of the early 1900’s. It was the British double-dealing with both Sunnis and Shias to supplant the Ottoman Empire, and turn Sunni against Shia to divide and conquer Southwest Asia. It is the story of Lawrence of Arabia, Winston Churchill and World War One.

One could then pick up the story after World War Two when the US was opposing Arab anti-colonial nationalism and communism during the Cold War. It was the “Grand Chessboard” strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski who convinced Jimmy Carter in 1980’s to back the Islamic radical mujahideen mercenaries and destroy Afghanistan in order to lure the Soviet Union into a Vietnam-type trap. Brzezinski was so proud of his success that he would later rhetorically ask to his shame, which is more important “Some stirred-up Moslems” or winning the Cold War.

If Brzezinski was so clever he would have learned from the British early 1900’s Southwest Asia super spy Gertrude Bell. As she would later say, the British Empire encouraging and sponsoring of radical Islam backfired into a big failure. But the US does not know history, even its own history of repeated blunders of encouraging and sponsoring radical Islam against Arab anti-colonial nationalism.

So instead the US enlisted the most radical right-wing fascist regime in the history of the world, the Absolute Monarchy of Saudi Arabia to bankroll Sunnis against Arab nationalism. They gladly funded US regime change projects against secular Arab states. The US flush with cash from the Saudis went about encouraging, training and paying mercenaries from all over Southwest Asia to overthrow Bashar al-Assad. Assad did not share the US role as the world leader of capitalist globalization. Instead Assad was using Syria’s wealth for the benefit of the Syrian people, just as Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi. “Assad must go”, chanted Obama, Clinton, Kerry and Saudi Wahhabis. To the US it did not matter how many Syrians, Libyan or Iraqis died. As Madeleine Albright had said, “500,000 dead Iraqi children are worth it“.

It was the US and its allies the Absolute Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States that created ISIS. Mercenaries from all over the Muslim world were recruited and even supported with their own air force, the United States Airforce. The mainstream media gave the US the cover story the US was backing “well-vetted moderate [‘Jeffersonian democrats’ really] Islamists”. The mainstream media are criminal coconspirators for spreading war propaganda, the Guardian being one of the worst offenders, with a few rare exceptions, such as Trevor Timm’s reporting.

Now with the ringing in of the 2018 New Year, we can expect the US to be patting itself on the back for defeating ISIS in 2017 . The real story is that it was Assad, Russia, Hezbollah and Iran that defeated ISIS (so far). For those without amnesia they may remember back to when Russia released videos of endless convoys of black-market ISIS oil tankers heading into Turkey. ISIS was partially funding itself with stolen oil and enriching black marketeers of Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Somehow, the US with all of its technology and thousands of bombing missions in Syria never saw all those tankers. Nor could they find ISIS fighters, so instead they bombed the Syrian army. The US only saw what it wanted to see and what it wanted to bomb. It was not ISIS. Here are the videos of Russian jets taking out ISIS oil tankers:

Some of the mainstream media grudgingly acknowledges that Russia had a hand in rolling back ISIS. Even then the mainstream media downplays the Russian contribution to a support roll, rather than the primary force. Instead the US mainstream media gives the credit to ” the US and 67 other nations from around the world”. It was, they say the US that “trained, supported and provided air support” to local Syrian rebel good-guys, the mythical democratic moderates, that the US was supporting that defeated ISIS. City after city, and village after village were destroyed by ISIS, US bombing and an invisible US moderate rebel force as it created hundreds of thousands of Syrian casualties and refugees.

According to the mainstream media, the Russians stepped in late “to provide air support for the Syrian government”backing the regime of President Bashar al-Assad against rebels threatening his rule, but also targeting some ISIS territory”.

Unmentioned is that Russia was legally “invited” by the legitimate government of Syria, while the US and its coalition are committing a war crime of aggression against a fellow member country of the United Nations.

Now we are going to be hearing that one year of Trump did what 8 years of Obama could not do. We are going to be hearing more of how in just one year “ISIS went from attracting thousands of foreign fighters to its anti-Western cause and plotting devastating terror attacks all over the world, to surrendering en masse”. It was the “US-led bombing campaign and US-backed and trained forces” that defeated ISIS, supposedly.

Yes, after six plus years of the most powerful military force in the history of the world, with the most technologically advanced weapons ever invented, and an annual military budget of $1 Trillion the US finally defeated a rag-tag mercenary paramilitary of about 30,000 fighters .

The whole story of the US war on terrorism is an incredible and unbelievable tale of pabulum that Washington and its mainstream repeaters have been feeding to the US public since 9-11. It stinks.

Originally Published by David William Pear at OpEdNew.com

*David William Pear is a Senior Editor for OpEdNews.com and a Senior Contributing Editor for The Greanville Post. All of his articles and comments are his own, and are not the responsibility of, or speak for the editorial opinion of anyone but himself. David is a progressive columnist writing on economic, political and social issues. His articles have been published by OpEdNews, The Greanville Post, The Real News Network, Truth Out, Consortium News, Global Research, Russia Insider, Pravda,and many other publications. David is a Vietnam veteran having served as a member of the 5th Special Forces Group as a combat advisor to the Army of the Republic of (South) Viet Nam.

Trump’s National Security Strategy: We Will Compete – Analysis

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Trump administration’s National Security Strategy depicts a dark world and views international relations as a field of many competitions

By Richard Weitz*

Difficulties dealing with China and Russia continue to impede the Trump administration’s ambitious foreign-policy objectives despite some first-year military successes against transnational terrorism. The president tweeted disappointment that Chinese ships are transferring oil to North Korea and seems prepared to escalate pressure to change Chinese trade policies. Some Russian vessels are also reportedly circumventing sanctions against North Korea, but the administration expresses more concern with growing Russian-Iranian ties. Still, Trump expresses hope, again by Twitter, that the Iranian people will curtail Tehran’s ties with terrorism.

Trump’s newly released National Security Strategy, NSS, identifies China, Russia, North Korea, Iran and terrorism as the main threats to US security. The text reaffirms longstanding US security perspectives and policies in some areas, but deviates from others in crucial ways. Above all, the Trump NSS is unique in stressing the imperative of strengthening US advantages in a perceived hyper-competitive world, emphasizing an unabashed defense of American sovereignty “without apology.”

The 2017 NSS follows more than a dozen versions from previous administrations in affirming that Washington must remain engaged abroad to avert global disorder and critical costs to US interests and values: “when America does not lead, malign actors fill the void to the disadvantage of the United States. When America does lead … in accordance with our interests and values, all benefit.” The document avows a traditional “peace through strength” philosophy that US weakness invites challenges whereas US strength deters threats.

This current NSS continues the post–Cold War tradition of affirming the value of non-kinetic tools such as diplomacy, economics, and soft power. Earlier US strategies likewise stressed the need for a “whole-of-government/society” approach pooling government, nongovernmental and international resources. Despite its overt “America First” posture, the 2017 NSS follows past versions by valuing foreign allies and multinational organizations, providing they contribute fairly to achieving common objectives.

The document espouses a liberal internationalist ideology even while denying it. The administration boasts of its “clear-eyed assessment of U.S. interests” based on “a strategy of principled realism … guided by outcomes, not ideology.” It further avows “that the American way of life cannot be imposed upon others.” Yet, the text presumes that “American principles are a lasting force for good in the world” and wants an international system that “reflects our values.”

The uneasy mix of “principles” and “realism” is only partially resolved by stating that, “we are guided by our values and disciplined by our interests.” All three of the main threat categories – the “revisionist powers” of China and Russia, the “rogue states” of North Korea and Iran, and “transnational threat organizations” like terrorists – are depicted as presenting “fundamentally political contests between those who favor repressive systems and those (i.e., Americans) who favor free societies.”

The current document departs from previous versions in depicting a darker world besieging the United States, viewing international relations as a field of “growing political, economic, and military competitions” in which the United States faces global challenges “within and across these contests,” including “economic aggression.” Even diplomats are told to “embrace a competitive mindset.” In this document, globalization, seen as largely positive by earlier administrations, destructively empowers malign actors to “exploit our free and democratic system.” In contrast, the administration will pursue a “beautiful vision – a world of strong, sovereign, and independent nations, each with its own cultures and dreams, thriving side-by-side in prosperity, freedom, and peace.”

Previous national security strategies also stressed the imperative of renewing US economic strength to sustain an impactful foreign policy. Yet, this strategy emphasizes domestic economic policy more than previous versions, calling for lower taxes, fewer regulations, but more infrastructure development. The text also offers a more comprehensive technological foundation of US power, vowing to protect a broad “national security innovation base” rather than solely the defense industrial base. It also uniquely calls upon the United States to become “an energy-dominant nation” and for US leadership to combat “an anti-growth energy agenda” based on climate change concerns.

The long list of threats reads as a bureaucratic compromise in which multiple agencies inserted their preferred problems in the text. Better prioritizations of these challenges and sequencing of US responses would recognize their varying magnitude and urgency. Although many past texts also obfuscated priorities, recent strategies were more open in discussing risk- management methodology, which is critical for revising strategies as assessments change. The administration is aware of the need for constant assessment and revisions. The section on cyber threats, for instance, remarks that, “the United States will be risk informed, but not risk averse, in considering our options.” Such deliberate ambiguity is presumably designed to deter threats while reassuring partners that US policies will manage escalation risks without being paralyzed by such dangers.

The question of affordability is also skirted. The 2017 NSS calls for sufficient resources to “overmatch the combination of capabilities” of all potential adversaries and in a range of scenarios. The text calls for expanding the size of the US armed forces, increasing their readiness, and modernizing their capabilities – begging the question of unavoidable spending tradeoffs. It also aims for deterrence by denial – the high standard of denying an aggressor any gains – rather than the threat of retaliatory punishment, of making the likely costs of aggression exceed its probable benefits. Still, the Trump NSS does single out the need for society as a whole, from the local to the national level, to become more resilient against a wide range of unpredictable threats, acknowledging that Washington “cannot prevent all dangers to the American people.”

The text identifies China and Russia as the two main “revisionist powers” seeking to subvert US leadership and values. Yet, Chinese government representatives publicly see benefits as well as costs to Beijing from the existing US-built international system. They do not seem overly eager at present to try to build an alternative world order due to stated doubts about China’s limited skill, capacity and costs. Russian leaders are more comfortable claiming the mantle of global leadership. Whereas Chinese leaders speak in terms of “win-win” diplomacy, Russian policymakers readily echo the new NSS in viewing international affairs as a competitive game.

Trump embraced the draft NSS and became the first president to present it in a major public speech. Yet, even in his remarks, divergences persisted between presidential rhetoric and the administration’s actions. For example, Trump highlighted the benefits of cooperating with Moscow and focused on past failures rather than future opportunities. Yet, at least in the national security realm, Trump’s first-year policies evince substantial continuities with those of the second Obama administration. The gap between presidential statements and actions can be useful for confusing rivals, but also can unnerve friends and allies.

The NSS is more conceptual framework than actionable playbook. The extent to which any strategy document enjoys buy-in and understanding throughout the expansive US government is not visible until the more detailed departmental sectoral strategies appear, such as the upcoming National Defense Strategy, nuclear and missile defense reviews, and integrated space strategy. And none of these strategies will be fully executed without adequate funding and sustained presidential attention.

*Richard Weitz is senior fellow and director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at  the Hudson Institute. His current research includes regional security developments relating to Europe, Eurasia and East Asia as well as US foreign, defense and homeland-security policies. He would like to thank the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for supporting his research and writing on nuclear non-proliferation issues.

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