By Amit Gupta

The Republican party has won the US senate and added to its majority in the House of Representatives. Optimists think this will usher in a new era of cooperation between the White House and Congress much as what happened when Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were faced with majorities from the other party in both houses and actually modified their approaches to achieve compromise and get work done. This time round, the pessimists fear that an energised group of Republicans may just play hardball with President Obama and try to undo some of his pet projects like healthcare. While it remains to be seen which prediction comes true on the domestic front, in the international arena one can quite confidently say so what? US foreign policy is unlikely to change in any significant way. Nor is it likely to get a coherent strategy together to deal with global issues.

The new Congress like its predecessor is unlikely to hold the president’s feet to the fire since it recognises that the Iraq war is deeply unpopular amongst the American public and that escalation would only lead to a backlash at the polls. Thus the President’s recent demand from Congress for an additional US$5.6 billion to send 1,500 troops to Iraq will not be met with much opposition. The last Congress, similarly, was happy to let Obama take the heat on how to prevent ISIS from gaining ground.

There is talk that Congress may push for the Obama Administration to hasten in bringing about the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) treaty that was being held up due to resistance from the Democrats who felt that the TPP would go against the interests of American labour. It is believed that the Republicans might agree to give the President a fast track authority to negotiate since the party favours increased trade. Skeptics feel, however, that the Tea Party faction of the Republican party which has been complaining about an imperial presidency is unlikely to give Barack Obama even greater authority. More importantly, free trade agreements are an anathema to the US working class so there may be a backlash that Republicans, looking to win the presidential election in 2016, may be leery of antagonising.

Which then leaves China, Iran, and Russia and in none of these cases is the US Congress interested in doing anything to radically shift these relationships. China cannot be dealt with through traditional security measures like an arms build-up or an attempt at containment – which by the way is how the Chinese perceive the Pivot to Asia. Instead it requires a combination of building up allies, increasing economic collaborations, and a judicious use of soft power, but that would require a degree of imagination and creativity that is not being displayed at present in the US foreign policy debate.

A new relationship with Iran could create new options for the US in both the Middle East and more importantly in Afghanistan. An opening through Iran would decrease US dependence on the supply routes through Pakistan while rapprochement with Tehran would also permit a coordination of policy between Iran and the US to counter the efforts of the Taliban. Yet for such a rapprochement to happen, Congress would have to work with the President to deliver a bipartisan consensus that would limit public criticism and convince the Iranians that the US means business. Again, Congress is unlikely to rise to the occasion given the negative reaction from Congressmen to the secret letter sent by President Obama to the supreme leader of Iran.

Which then leaves Russia and there the President has done what he can by slapping Moscow with a range of sanctions that have begun to bite. But no one in the US wants to go much further than that because not only is Russia a bit player – President Obama dismissed it as a regional power – but getting involved in Ukraine would only stretch the US’ already overextended resources.

In the immortal words of David Byrne, “Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.”

Amit Gupta
Associate Professor, Department of International Security, USAF Air War College, Alabama

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Air Force or the Department of Defense.

The post Mid-Term Elections: So What If The US Swings Hard Right? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By K. Yhome

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is beginning his three-country tour on Tuesday. His first stop is Myanmar, where he will be participating in the ASEAN and East Asia Summits (EAS) in Nay Pyi Taw. Modi will meet Burmese President Thein Sein as well as opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Modi’s visit to Myanmar is significance for two reasons. First, this is his first visit to the country as Prime Minister and second, he debuts in the multilateral EAS. The visit gives Prime Minister Modi an opportunity to spell out his vision on India-Myanmar bilateral relations as also India’s wider interests when he meets other regional leaders at the EAS.

Myanmar is at a critical stage in its reforms process that began in 2011 and the country is gearing up for a general election next year. Impressive progress has been made in bringing about change in political and economic sectors. There are, however, several daunting challenges that confront the country. The Modi government had earlier expressed its support to Myanmar’s democratisation process during External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s visit to the country in June and Prime Minister Modi will reiterate the same position.

Even so, whether in dealing with religious radicalism or military offensives in the ethnic minority areas of Myanmar, the role of the government has come under both domestic and international scrutiny. If the Myanmar government under President Thein Sein has won international support on several reform initiatives including release of political prisoners, ethnic peace process, judicial reforms, opening up of the economy, and so on; scepticism remains, both inside and outside the country.

It is at this crucial time that Prime Minister Modi needs to reassure Myanmar of all possible help from India in its move towards democratisation at its own pace, at the same time, re-emphasise the importance of inclusiveness in diverse societies for the success of democracy. Encouragement from the international community at this juncture is crucial as still there are forces, both political and social, whose actions could adversely impact on the reform process.

The growing cordiality in India-Myanmar bilateral relations in the recent years has been reflected in the frequent exchanges of high-level visits. Modi’s current visit will be the third by an Indian Prime Minister to visit Myanmar in three years. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited the country in earlier in March this year to attend the BIMSTEC Summit. Earlier in May 2012, Manmohan Singh undertook a bilateral visit to Myanmar. In the same year, Myanmar President Thein Sein visited India in December. The two countries reached several agreements during these visits and Prime Minister Modi will use his visit to review the progress of the various bilateral projects that was underway.

As part of his emphasis on re-connecting with the neighbourhood, bringing connectivity as the top priority during his meetings with Myanmar leaders is of urgent need. In India, we often say Myanmar is our “gateway” to the East. Against the rhetoric, the existing connectivity between the two neighbours remains much to be desired. Today, there is only one direct flight between Kolkata and Yangon that operates just thrice a week; there is no direct shipping links; and although road connectivity exists, we are yet to have cross-border passenger or goods transport services. With long land and maritime boundaries, surely, the neighbours are yet to take full advantage of geography.

This is not to say that there are no efforts to increase and improve connectivity between the two neighbours. A recent positive development was the agreement to launch a weekly bus-service between Mandalay in central Myanmar and Imphal in Manipur in June, soon after the Modi government came to power. There is need to push for operationalisation of the service at the earliest possible.

India had earlier agreed to undertake the task of repair and upgradation of 71 bridges on the Tamu-Kalewa friendship road, the Kalewa-Yargyi road segment and the Yargyi-Monywa stretch. Progress in these segments is important as they form part of the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway that is expected to be completed by 2016.

In maritime connectivity, the joint study group on shipping was set up to examine the commercial feasibility of direct shipping links. India’s interest to strengthen maritime connectivity with Southeast Asia in the recent years is a good opportunity for India to involve itself the Dawei port in southern Myanmar, a port that might emerge as main sea link between India and Southeast Asia and the main point of proposed India-Mekong Economic Corridor.

Although reports on regular chartered flight services between Mandalay and Imphal and direct flights between New Delhi and Yangon have been emerging since the bilateral air service agreement was signed between the two countries in 2012, no new flight services has yet started. A joint working group was set up to explore the feasibility of rail connectivity between the two neighbours. However, apart from the other challenges, India needs to firm up rail project in its border states if these railheads were to link with Myanmar.

An important sea and inland-waterways project of India and Myanmar is the Kaladan Multi Model Transit and Transport project facility that will link India’s Northeast to the Bay of Bengal. There is need for ensuring that a strategic project such as this gets completed without any further delay. Besides, important regional trans-national connectivity projects that will link India with the rest of Asia passes through Myanmar, including the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) Economic Corridor and the India-ASEAN connectivity.

As the Modi government brings in a renewed push to India’s Look East policy with an “Act East” policy, Myanmar’s geostrategic position becomes all the more important for India to put the necessary connectivity links with the country and the wider region. Needless to say, greater trade and commerce, tourism, people-to-people contacts depend on improved and easy connectivity.

(The author is a Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi)

The post The Importance Of Modi’s Visit To Myanmar – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Nana Kirtzkhalia

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili announced at a special briefing that the acting First Deputy Foreign Minister Tamar Beruchashvili was appointed to the post of Georgian foreign minister.

Garibashvili said during the special briefing that the new minister is the ardent supporter of Georgia’s accession to the EU and NATO.

“Our aspirations towards Europe are unquestionable and I’m confident that Beruchashvili’s professionalism will allow us to take strong steps in this direction,” he said. “All the more so, she has worked 22 years towards Georgia’s accession to EU.”

The new foreign minister said the accession to the EU is the “existential” choice of Georgia and promised to make every effort to reach this goal.

Beruchashvili has worked at Georgian Foreign Ministry for many years. Previously, she served as the country’s deputy state minister for European integration.

Earlier, Beruchashvili submitted a resignation letter together with the former Foreign Minister Maia Panjikidze who resigned in solidarity with the dismissed Defense Minister Irakli Alasania.

But later, after a private talk with the prime minister, Beruchashvili returned to the civil service.

The post New Georgian Foreign Minister Appointed appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Israel’s economy minister Naftali Bennett, the leader of the right-wing party “The Jewish Home”, published an article in the New York Times1 in which he buried the concept of a “two-state solution” as a way out of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Bennett does not belong to the radical Zionist fringe. Although he is an advocate of extremist colonial Zionist ideas, he is considered to be the successor of Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu. In his Op-ED, Bennett has made a mockery of the policy of the last 20 years, which was connected to the Oslo Accords and the two-state solution. His words won’t bear fruit right now, but they might be in the future.

The threat scenario, which Bennett forecasts for Israel, seems to be the consequence of the behavior of Israel as an occupying power: the strangulation of the Palestinian people for the last 47 years, the 18 year-long occupation of Southern Lebanon, the arbitrary bombardments of its neighboring countries, and the killing of thousands of Palestinian people. If Israel would pull out of the occupied West Bank, not only Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion Airport and its Stock Exchange but also the old-City of Jerusalem could come under rocket attacks, writes Bennett.

In support of his reasoning he adduces three examples: The Oslo Agreement and the pull-out from some West bank cities under Yitzhak Rabin, the head-over-head-withdrawal from Southern Lebanon in 2000 by the Barak government, and the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005 under Ariel Sharon. According to Bennett, all ended up in more terror attacks against Israel.

As a favor for the Palestinians, he proposes the annexation of over 61 percent of the West Bank (Area C in which only 6 percent of the Palestinians live), and on the top of it, he proposes to grant to them citizenship rights in Israel. However, this “gift” does not mean a thing, as Israeli Palestinians know. After 66 years, they are still treated as second class citizens in Israel. Observing how the Zionist majority treated Azmi Bishara and treats Hanin Zoabi, a former and a current member of the Israeli Knesset, should be a warning signal for the proposed “new” Palestinian “citizens” in Israel.

In the last couple of years, Palestinian and anti-Zionist Israeli and Jewish activists all over the world have been calling for a “one-State solution” in order to solve the Israeli Palestinian conflict. They picked up old bi-national ideas discussed during the British Mandate period that lasted until 1948. At the 12th Zionist Congress of 1921, the representative of a “spiritual” version of Zionism, the German philosopher Martin Buber, proposed a resolution that urged Jews to reject “the methods of nationalistic domination, under which they themselves have long suffered”, and to reject any desire “to suppress another people or to dominate them”, since in Palestine “there is room both for us and its present inhabitants”. The resolution further asked for “a just alliance with the Arab peoples” in order to turn the future “dwelling-place into a community that will flourish economically and culturally, and whose progress would bring each of these peoples unhampered independent development”.

The difference between Buber’s proposed resolution and the finally accepted one by the Zionist Congress seemed, at first sighed, minor, but Buber did not condition agreement with Arabs on acceptance of the Balfour Declaration. That official Zionist position was a non-starter. No Arab official could have accepted the Declaration because it privileged the Jewish minority in Palestine over the Arab majority. With the establishment of the State of Israel these reasonable voices fell silent. At the end, political Zionism prevailed and became Israel’s dominant ideology.

Predominantly, radical Zionists dominate public opinion not only in Israel but also in the USA and increasingly in Germany. The strength of the forces behind Bennett and the Netanyahu government is demonstrated by the casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and media mogul Haim Saban. Both belong to the so-called Zionist mainstream. And their political ideas are chilling. If the “Two -State Solution” fails, it would make Israel an “Apartheid-State.” For Adelson this would not represent a problem: “So Israel won’t be a democratic state, so what?” At least, Haim Saban wants to secure “the future of a democratic Israel”. For Adelson, these ideas would be “committing demographic suicide”. Saban offered a charming alternative to President Obama’s negotiation efforts to reach a fair agreement with Iran. He “would bomb the living daylights out of these sons of bitches”. And Netanyahu would perhaps left “screwed”.2

For the Palestinian leadership, time appears to run out. President Mahmoud Abbas has to spend all his skills to push for the recognition of Palestine within the EU. He must finally make a motion to the United Nations to admit the State of Palestine as a member, despite the warning of the US that it would hurt the peace process that has been moribund for the last 20 years. The political haggling had been intended to lull the West and to deceive the public about Israel’s expansionist goals.

Bennett’s article and the reprehensible views of leading Zionist billionaires in the US, not to forget Netanyahu’s political obsession with Iran, should be a wake-up call for Western politicians and diplomats. To save their two-state solution, they have to recognize the State of Palestine right now. If they fail again, as they have been doing during the last 20 years, the one-state solution will be the only alternative. The one-state solution in the offing has nothing to do with a bi-national state or a state for all its citizens. It would be a one-state solution based on discrimination, an Israeli version of apartheid.

Notes:
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/06/opinion/naftali-bennett-for-israel-two-state-is-no-solution.html?_r=1
2. http://www.timesofisrael.com/adelson-palestinians-an-invented-people-out-to-destroy-israel/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=89dc212d3f-2014_11_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-89dc212d3f-54543629

The post ‘One-State Solution’ for Israel/Palestine – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

America has a media problem.

Much of commercial radio consists of music and advertisements for corporate products. Network and cable news are increasingly hyper-focused on political gaffes, irrelevant scandals, sensationalism and gossip. There are very few serious, compelling programs in the mainstream media that aim to educate and enlighten audiences about issues that deeply affect millions of Americans.

With this in mind, we have launched a weekly radio show and podcast. Along with my co-hosts Stephen Skrovan and David Feldman — two talented comedic minds based out of Los Angeles — we aim to discuss the vital issues that challenge the corporate state and which are so often overlooked by mainstream news and talk radio. The show, known as the “Ralph Nader Radio Hour”, airs on several Pacifica radio stations and is also available online. We all make the show each week as volunteers.

Of course there are hundreds, if not thousands, of cable news channels, radio stations, podcasts and the like which discuss politics and current events. Unfortunately, too few truly delve into serious matters that affect millions of people in their own communities. Our program covers a wide range of these subjects such as corporate crime, Wall Street excess, citizen activism, American imperialism, unreported movements and authors, the two-party duopoly and more. Our goal is to be informative, engaging, and even funny — there’s no reason why discussing serious matters always has to be tedious, for in humor there is truth.

We hope that by reaching a new listening audience, we can bring light to matters that are given such disturbingly limited, if any, coverage by the large news outlets that reach the most people, and thus do not find their way into the grander public discourse. We also believe that our country has far more problems than it deserves and far more solutions than it applies. Therefore while it is important to expose problems, it is equally important to showcase their solutions, such as David Bollier’s work on our immense commonwealth that is owned by the people but mostly controlled by corporations. (See his new paperback, Think Like a Commoner.)

Once upon a time, television network talk shows like Phil Donahue, and even lighter fare hosted by Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin, found some time in their schedules to inform audiences about subjects like dangerous consumer products, unsafe medicines and critical worker and environmental issues. Now, these topics are practically taboo. And forget about local television or radio covering many issues related to your own community. Too infrequent here as well.

As a whole, this degradation of the media has fueled public cynicism far more than public enlightenment. The consequences are direr than most realize. Without media coverage, the civic community cannot expand it ranks, spread word of its accomplishments and be recognized and respected by decision-makers in government. Important press releases, reports, and testimonies on key issues are routinely ignored or marginalized.

The great progress made in the past by citizen activists in the peace, consumer, environmental and civil right movements was dependent on civic leaders being able to spread their message to America via the news media. Now, global companies have concentrated their influence over the two major political parties, the federal government, the economy and our culture itself. Except for smaller, independent media like Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now, these small but powerful voices of progress have been shut out of the public discourse.

Even traditionally progressive outlets like PBS and NPR fail to give adequate airtime to many top progressive leaders, scholars, experts, writers and commentators. Names that come to mind are Harvey Wasserman, Jim Hightower, Ed Mierzwinski, Rob Richie, Patrick Burns, Robert Weissman, Phineas Baxandall, David Morris, Wenonah Hauter, Jamie Love, Amory Lovins, Margaret Flowers, Greg LeRoy, Gayle McLaughlin, Michael Gecan, Russell Mokhiber, David Halperin, Harvey Rosenfield,Sid Wolfe, Winona LaDuke and Chris Hedges . Unfortunately, many Americans have not heard of these warriors for justice who work tirelessly for our society. I recommend you to research a bit about every one of them — our country would be far better off if these experts were given as much airtime as the warmongers, the corporate apologists and the partisan talking-heads.

With the “Ralph Nader Radio Hour,” we want to provide a platform for many of these leading minds to share their expertise and wealth of knowledge. Once recent such guest was David Freeman, a profound energy expert, attorney and author, with serious renewable energy conversion proposals coming from decades of experience running giant utilities such as the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD). Other recent guests were slip and fall expert Russell Kendzior, the aforementioned David Bollier, and Bill Curry, former aide to President Bill Clinton and gubernatorial candidate in Connecticut. I think that you’ll find that these lively conversations are far more interesting, substantial and enlightening than anything you’ll hear on the cable news networks. Next week our guest will be Stephen Goldstein, author of The Dictionary of American Political Bullshit.

If there is an author or activist who you would like to hear interviewed, please send an email to info@nader.org with the appropriate information.

All past episodes of the non-profit “Ralph Nader Radio Hour” are available to listen to, free of charge, here. I hope you’ll check them out and spread the word about what we are trying to accomplish.

And if you want your local radio station to carry the show, please contact them and let them know. After all, the only way to overcome the trivialities and distortion of the media and redefine what is considered important news is to demand treatment of the issues that matter to us most.

The post Ralph Nader: Advocacy Talk – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Michael Lelyveld

As China searches for shale gas, it has been finding a host of reasons for falling short of its goals.

At recent conferences in Shanghai and Beijing, officials voiced confidence in meeting targets for the new natural gas technology in the near term.

But a host of problems surfaced for producing larger volumes of gas to fulfill the government’s longer-term forecasts.

Speaking at an industry workshop in Beijing, National Energy Administration (NEA) vice director Zhang Yuqing said China was on track to produce 1-1.5 billion cubic meters (35-53 billion cubic feet) of gas this year from shale rock formations and 6.5 billion cubic meters (229.5 billion cubic feet) in 2015.

The figures were roughly in line with the NEA targets announced in March 2012.

But participants cited a series of obstacles to expanding production and duplicating the U.S. boom in shale gas that could make it a major source of cleaner energy for China by 2020.

In August, the NEA abruptly cut its 2020 target for annual shale gas production by more than half from 60-100 billion cubic meters (2.1-3.5 trillion cubic feet) to 30 billion cubic meters (1 trillion cubic feet).

“The previous targets were more of a vague prospect, a hope. Thirty bcm (billion cubic meters) is a more realistic goal,” an unnamed government official told Reuters.

Even at the lower level, the new goal would imply an ambitious average annual growth rate of 36 percent over five years.

Comments from the conferences and other industry feedback suggested that even the revised target may be stretch.

While state-owned refining giant Sinopec has been developing significant shale resources at its Fuling field in southwest Chongqing municipality, similar successes elsewhere have been elusive.

Fuling has produced a total of 1 bcm (35 billion cubic feet) since commercial exploration started in March 2013, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Oct. 31.

Exploration has focused on China’s remote northwest, where water for hydraulic fracturing is scarce, and the southwest, including Sichuan province. The geology there is described as “difficult,” the South China Morning Post reported last month.

In March, official media reported that international oil major Shell had committed to “substantial investment” with state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) for shale gas in the Sichuan Basin.

But last month, Shell signaled its investment plans could be scaled back.

“In Sichuan, progress has been slower and more difficult than we might have hoped, partly for geological reasons, partly due to challenges operating in the highly populated agricultural region,” Shell chief financial officer Simon Henry told Bloomberg News.

“It’s likely it will be smaller than originally envisioned,” he said.

Meeting expectations

So far, shale discoveries have failed to live up to the initial enthusiasm that followed estimates by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) in 2011 that China’s technically recoverable resources could be as high as 36.1 trillion cubic meters (1.3 quadrillion cubic feet), ranked as the largest in the world.

Startup costs have also been high for relatively small returns.

By the end of July, 20 billion yuan (U.S. $3.2 billion) had been invested in 54 shale exploration projects in China, according to the Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR).

Banks have been cautious about lending for the uncertain prospects, holding back until projects reach the production stage, Interfax reported.

“China’s shale gas is still in the prospecting stage and there is a long way to go before commercialization, but banks are realistic,” said Xu Zhonghua of China Construction Bank, as quoted by the news agency.

While CNPC officials have continued to voice confidence in their development plans, some authorities have raised doubts that the 2015 goal for China’s shale gas output will be met.

“Energy consumption growth has slowed, but it is still larger than what the environment can bear,” said Zhang Yousheng, director general of the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) state planning agency.

“Due to the environmental capacity, it is not possible for China to achieve the 6.5 bcm by the end of 2015 and 100 bcm by the end of 2020,” Zhang said at the Asia Shale Gas Summit in Shanghai, also according to Interfax.

Previously in January, Zhang was quoted as saying that growth trends for next year were on track.

“Based on what we have achieved now in the shale gas sector, we are very confident to reach our target of shale gas output by 2015,” Zhang told the official English-language China Daily at the time.

Seeking scapegoat

As prospects dim for meeting the NEA targets, officials appear to be looking for something or someone to blame.

Last month, Zhang appeared to fault the MLR for providing insufficient data to investors and project developers.

“It is not reasonable to offer blocks to companies without giving them adequate resource data and asking them to explore the resources themselves,” he said.

Edward Chow, senior fellow in the energy and national security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, disagreed.

Chow cited the responsibility of developers to assess costs and risks, as well as the government’s intention to encourage private investment, announced at the ruling Chinese Communist Party Central Committee third plenary session in September 2013.

“It seems odd to blame the Ministry of Land and Resources for unreliable reserves data and against the spirit of the supposed policy announced in last year’s plenum to rely more on market mechanisms,” Chow said.

“After all, it should be up to industry to determine actual reserves and the ministry to estimate potential resources,” he said.

Interfax also compared the cost of gas imports from Russia with Chinese shale gas, citing figures suggesting that domestic production could be twice as expensive as Russian pipeline gas.

But Chow also took issue with the argument by the Russian news agency, which appeared to be aimed at promoting more Russian exports.

“I don’t believe it appropriate to cost compare Russian pipeline gas with domestic shale gas,” he said.

“The Chinese are determined to maximize domestic production. The difference between demand and domestic production will be imported,” said Chow.

Second pipeline

On Sunday, Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding on a second Russian gas pipeline to China on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Beijing, news agencies from both countries said.

The project would supply China with 30 bcm (1 trillion cubic feet) per year on a western route through Xinjiang in addition to an eastern route agreed in May to deliver 38 bcm (1.3 trillion cubic feet) per year.

Russia has been trying to persuade China to accept a western path from its Siberian gas fields for the past decade. Prospects for a final agreement remain unclear.

But barring a major breakthrough, the challenges to shale gas development suggest it will be less of a factor in China’s drive to replace high-polluting coal with cleaner energy as it pursues its massive urbanization plans.

In April, the NDRC raised the country’s gas supply target for 2020 to 420 bcm (14.8 trillion cubic feet) from the previous goal of 350 bcm (12.4 trillion cubic feet).

Although the lower forecast for shale gas could lead to a shortfall in planned domestic sources, China is expanding its import pipeline network from Central Asia in addition to signing its deal for Russia’s eastern pipeline supplies by 2019.

China’s apparent gas consumption last year reached 167.6 bcm (5.9 trillion cubic feet) with imports of 53 bcm (1.9 trillion cubic feet), China Daily reported in May.

The post China Seeks Scapegoats In Expected Shale Gas Shortfall – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Euro skeptics challenge the EU, but India’s multiparty coalition democracy could be solution for inclusive politics.

By Pallavi Aiyar

Europe has seen better days. Economic growth is either nonexistent or stagnant, unemployment is ballooning; measures to bring greater fiscal coherence to the eurozone are incomplete and willingness of national democracies to heed the supranational, austerity-preaching diktats of the European Union is being tested to the limit.

Across Europe, euro-skepticism is on the ascent. In European parliamentary elections earlier this year anti-EU parties made substantial gains including victories in Britain and France. Recent elections in Sweden saw the far-right Sweden Democrats take almost 13 percent of the vote to become the third-largest party in the country, while in Germany the anti-euro Alternative for Germany has made inroads in regional elections.

The European Project, as the process of binding the continent in ever-closer union is commonly called, is in existential trouble. The original vision that had underpinned the creation of the EU – the bringing of peace and prosperity to a warring, unstable continent –has long become normalized into a taken-for-granted fact. Today, institutional trappings like a common customs union and a shared trade policy hold the 28-member EU together. But, the euro-crisis has underscored the failure of the union to inspire the kind of robust, reflexive loyalty that remains the preserve of nation states.

The EU yokes together countries with sharply divergent political economies, mentalities and levels of development. Intervention by the European Central Bank might have served to calibrate the euro-crisis, but the long-term sustainability of a union that includes fiscally-conservative, export-driven, inflation-despising countries like Germany and big-spending, import-dependent, inflation-accommodating states like Greece is uncertain.

However, before despairing at the seemingly impossible task of crafting a common identity out of a fractured multiplicity of nation states, the EU could look to India for inspiration. For although the European Project is often referred to as an attempt to fashion a United States of Europe, the EU more resembles poor and chaotic India than it does the USA.

In some ways India is a proto EU, having stitched together a large region of immense diversity into a strong political and economic unit. Like the EU, India has more than 20 official languages. It is a country of Sikhs and Tamils, ethnic groups that have about as much in common as Swedes and Spaniards. India, as a so-called “Hindu” country, is home to almost as many Muslims as Pakistan. With its eclectic mix of languages, ethnicities and religions, India, like the European Union, is the antithesis of the 19th-century European conception of the “nation state” according to which a single religion, a single language and a common enemy, are the only “natural” basis for a sustainable political entity. But as historian Ramachandra Guha has pointed out, on traditional European parameters of the ideal nation state, it’s Pakistan rather than India that should be deemed a success.

Over the course of its 67 years as an independent nation, India has defied the predictions of western political scientists who once consistently claimed the country would unavoidably balkanize. It is a testament to the fact that the exclusions and expulsions of the “nation-state” ideal are not inevitable, and that it is possible to imagine and fashion a common identity out of vibrant diversity. Drawing upon a shared, albeit mutable, common civilizational foundation, modern India has endured by pulling off a delicate balancing act, wherein an astonishing range of the plural and local have been allowed enough space to coexist with the unitary national.

Europe is far more accustomed to teaching lessons to India and other parts of the developing world than learning lessons from them. Yet, India should serve as hope, if not a guide, for the EU’s own arduous project of rejecting the homogenizing tyranny of the nation state and choosing instead to celebrate difference and aggregation.

That the European Union and India are entities of a similar temperament with experiences that are germane for each other was demonstrated by the European response to the euro-crisis. The main criticism of Europe’s strategy was its reluctance to pull out a “big bazooka,” such as the announcement of unequivocal debt pooling within the eurozone, which as proposed by former US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson during the 2008 financial crisis,  would allow the leadership to get ahead of markets and stabilize investor confidence.

But to promote the idea of such a solution to the euro’s problems was to totally misunderstand the nature of the EU.

Acting quickly and decisively might work for countries like the United States and China. But it is perilous for the European Union, something an Indian instinctively understands given New Delhi’s intimate experience with cumbersome, coalition-constrained, procedure-oriented, decision making.

Between 1989 and the latest elections in May 2014, which saw the decisive victory of the Bharatiya Janta Party under the leadership of Narendra Modi, India was governed by a series of shambolic and shifting coalitions. The National Democratic Alliance, in power between 1998 and 2004, for example, featured up to 16 coalition partners – some members dropped out and others joined – while the United Progressive Alliance, which dominated during the following decade, embraced some 11 political parties. India’s vast coalitions were the result of the nation’s diverse castes, classes, regions and ethnicities clamoring for and winning, adequate representation.

But while these alliances arguably allowed India as a country to cohere, they could also result in the stunting of decisive reforms. Like Europe, India too has often been accused of doing too little, too late. The necessity of building and maintaining consensus across a broad range of interests has led to regular policy flip-flopping, causing much disappointment among global pundits who compare India’s timidity unfavorably to neighboring China’s boldness. From proposals to reform India’s subsidy regime to discussions regarding the opening of sectors like retail and aviation to foreign direct investment, New Delhi has constantly been forced to revise and even reverse policy decisions.

Yet, to deride either India or the EU for shuffling and equivocation even while understandable when the need for results is pressing misses the point that both owe their existence and survival to these very phenomena. Protracted debate and sluggish consensus building are existential demands for India and Europe, not just some annoying character flaw.

The unions of India and Europe are fine balancing acts. And while lacking the military backing or strategic coherence of hard powers like China or the United States, they remain huge political achievements that allow the world to imagine alternative, inclusive configurations to the othering boundaries that national tribalism can erect. India and the EU are messy, contradictory and incomplete. But in their idealized potential, there resides considerable hope for humanity.

Pallavi Aiyar is an Indian journalist and author. Her most recent book, Punjabi Parmesan: Dispatches from a Europe in Crisis (published by Penguin in India and forthcoming with Palgrave Macmillan in the US) is an Indian-Chinese take on contemporary Europe.

The post EU Politics Could Look To Multiethnic India For Strategies – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

United Nations Security Council members should use the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor’s briefing on her Libya investigation on November 11, 2014, to express concern about the country’s deteriorating situation, Human Rights Watch said today. Security Council members should underline the ICC’s ongoing jurisdiction to investigate grave abuses being committed by all sides.

The briefing comes amid soaring insecurity in Libya, and as concerned countries pursue a political settlement and cessation of violence between the parties to the armed conflicts in the eastern and western parts of the country. Security Council members should send a strong message to the Libyan authorities to cooperate with the court, and in particular to comply with the court’s order to surrender Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, Muammar Gaddafi’s son, to The Hague.

“Security Council members should make clear that the state of impunity in Libya needs to end,” said Richard Dicker, international justice director at Human Rights Watch. “Turning a blind eye to justice has been a main driver for the country’s current instability.”

Accountability for grave abuses should remain a key component for any durable solution of the political dialogue in Libya, Human Rights Watch said. Human Rights Watch research in many countries has shown that the failure to hold those responsible for the most serious international crimes to account can fuel future abuses.

Since May, violent clashes between rival armed groups have intensified and developed into armed conflicts across Libya. Armed groups have attacked civilians and civilian property, with violations in some cases that amount to war crimes. Politically motivated assassinations may amount to crimes against humanity. Human Rights Watch has also documented other serious violations of international law since 2011, including arbitrary detentions, torture, forced displacement, and unlawful killings. Many of these violations are sufficiently organized and widespread to amount to crimes against humanity.

The ICC prosecutor’s briefing is expected to provide an updated overview of the Libya investigation. The prosecutor’s first case implicated Muammar Gaddafi (who has since been killed), Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, and Abdullah Sanussi, the Gaddafi-era intelligence chief.

In her last briefing, the prosecutor reported that her office was continuing its investigations into a second case and was also collecting evidence against other possible suspects, with a focus in particular on pro-Gaddafi officials outside Libya.

In a November 5 letter, Human Rights Watch urged the prosecutor to consider additional cases addressing serious ongoing violations by other actors in Libya. The ICC has jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide committed in Libya since February 15, 2011. Members of the Security Council, who unanimously gave the ICC authority to investigate in Libya, have a special responsibility to extend their full support to facilitate the prosecutor’s continued work there, Human Rights Watch said.

Libyan authorities have failed to conduct investigations or to prosecute those responsible for ongoing grave violations. Inaction domestically in the face of mounting crimes has contributed to a culture of impunity and has helped set the stage for the militia lawlessness in Libya today, Human Rights Watch said.

In October, Human Rights Watch and eight other organizations called on the UN Human Rights Council to convene a special session on the situation in Libya with a view to establishing a Commission of Inquiry or a similar mechanism to investigate serious violations by all sides. Security Council members should also consider ways to urgently examine the ongoing grave abuses being committed in Libya, Human Rights Watch said.

“Human Rights Watch has documented horrendous crimes in Libya since 2011, and those responsible should know that the ICC can hold them to account,” Dicker said. “Given the Libyan government’s inability to rein in abuses, much less prosecute those responsible, the ICC prosecutor still has vital role to play on behalf of victims in Libya, and shouldn’t limit its investigations to those associated with Gaddafi.”

Security Council Resolution 1970, which referred the situation in Libya to the ICC, requires the Libyan authorities to cooperate fully with the court – a binding requirement under the UN Charter, even though Libya is not a party to the treaty that established the court. This cooperation includes abiding by the court’s decisions and requests.

On May 21, ICC judges confirmed an earlier decision rejecting Libya’s bid to prosecute Saif-al-Islam Gaddafi in Tripoli. However, Libya has failed to turn Gaddafi over to the ICC, despite an outstanding obligation to surrender him to the court. On July 11, an ICC chamber noted that Libya’s obligation had been outstanding for over a year and indicated that the court may take further action to ensure Libya’s cooperation. Despite this, Libya has carried on with domestic proceedings against Gaddafi in contravention of its duty to turn him over to The Hague.

Article 87 of the ICC treaty permits the court to issue a finding of non-cooperation. Because the ICC has jurisdiction in Libya as a result of a Security Council referral, such a finding would be sent to the Security Council for follow-up. The Security Council then has a range of options, including resolutions, sanctions, and presidential statements. Human Rights Watch has repeatedly called on Libya to surrender Gaddafi to the ICC.

On July 24, ICC judges upheld an earlier decision approving a separate bid by Libya to prosecute Sanussi domestically. Sanussi, together with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and others, is on trial in Libya for, among other charges, serious crimes related to his alleged role in trying to suppress the country’s 2011 uprising. A Human Rights Watch investigation conducted in January revealed that Libya had failed to grant Sanussi and co-defendants basic due process rights. In its November letter, Human Rights Watch urged the ICC prosecutor to consider asking ICC judges to revisit the Sanussi ruling based on new facts.

“The Security Council gave the ICC jurisdiction to investigate and ordered Libya to cooperate,” Dicker said. “Council members should make clear that Libya must comply with the Court’s orders or risk sanction.”

The post UN Security Council Should Address Libya Crimes, Says HRW appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Hasan Selim Ozertem

Oil prices peaked in June 2014 at $115 per barrel when ISIS entered Mosul. But after this date, the oil prices started to regress and even slipped below $90 per barrel, surpassing the psychological threshold of $100 per barrel. Even falling below $81 per barrel of oil, the average price of Brent crude oil leveled out at $86 between September 29 and October 27.

These low prices are pleasant for the countries such as Turkey which are dependent on imports for 91-92% of their oil. This is because each one dollar decline in the average annual price of oil roughly reduces the current account deficit by $400 million. The sinking global oil prices also provide lower transportation costs for consumers, even though a decline in prices at the pump may take longer to make itself apparent.

The situation is different when it comes to global trends. The fluctuations in the market and the period in which these fluctuations are occurring have varying effects on producers and consumers. That a 25% decline in oil prices came to be witnessed just a few months after experts started to accept $100 per barrel as the standard price has sparked some debates with regard to oil supplying countries. These debates can be organized under three main headings: the state budget performances of those oil producing countries that are dependent on oil prices, the circulation of hot money in the global economy and the dynamics of production in the upcoming period.

The dilemma of OPEC and balanced budgets

If we consider budget performances, countries rich in oil and gas makes financial adjustments to the budgetary income and expenses each year depending on predicted oil prices. While the countries that are dependent on oil revenues such as the Russian Federation, Venezuela, Iran and Saudi Arabia are negatively affected by the decrease of market prices, they generally benefit from rising prices in a market where $100 per barrel is commonly accepted as standard.

The oil market cartel OPEC attempts to regulate the market in order to minimize these fluctuations by deciding whether to increase or reduce production. At this point, the role of heavyweight Saudi Arabia in this process should not be denied. In this context, Isaac Arnsdorf from Bloomberg, emphasizing the power of Saudi Arabia, remarked that this country has the distinct advantage to determine the winners and losers as it is the largest oil producing country in the world. Saudi Arabia needs an average oil price of $83.6 per barrel to balance its budget in 2014. In this regard, it seems that the decline in prices does not directly impact Riyadh. Here, the Saudis increased their oil production to 9.65 million barrels per day in September to offset the loss in revenue that arose from the declining prices.

The other oil producing countries are not as lucky as Saudi Arabia. While the oil prices continue to decline based on the oil surplus in the market and the slow-down in demand growth, the other OPEC countries are negatively affected. Libya’s OPEC Spokesman Samir Kemal has called for a decrease in the production quotas by 500,000 barrels per day in order to give the market a strong signal before the OPEC Summit on November 27 in Vienna. He also claimed that there is a market surplus of one million barrels of oil. The decision of OPEC is quite important because this group of countries controls one third of the oil market with a rate of production of 30.9 million barrels of oil per day. But Saudi Arabia signals that it does not want to be the only country to cut oil production when countries like Iran and Iraq aim at increasing their production in 2015. In this regard, Saudi Arabia considers that the burden of production cuts should be shared by all OPEC members.

For the Russian Federation the situation is a little bit different considering that this country has up until now reaped the benefits of OPEC’s regulation of the market. Moscow should closely follow oil prices because of recent developments such as the more than 25% devaluation of the Russian ruble against the US dollar, the pressure instated by European and US sanctions, and the desire of Putin’s government to realize certain reforms that would increase the government’s expenditure. The current trend is not too pleasant for Putin’s government, which will experience a budget deficit if oil prices stay below $100 per barrel in 2015. Russian Finance Minister Anton Sulianov stated in September that the decline in crude oil prices makes it necessary to review, renew and administer some serious changes to the decade-long plan to modernize the Russian Army. As the pressure exerted by the ongoing $80-90 price levels is expected to continue to take a toll on Russia’s wallet, experts remark that in the context of current financial dynamics the Russian economy will become increasingly affected by this situation over the next two years.

Hot money and the oil supply surplus in the global economy

The pressure that has been placed on the economies of oil producing countries as a result of the decline in oil prices may weaken the flow of and demand for hot money. In other words, when it comes to the global economy, very high and very low prices produce negative results. When oil prices are at high levels, oil producing countries tend to increase domestic construction and social spending thanks to the surpluses in their budgets. This inclination brings with it economic growth because it triggers production. But a decline in prices causes demand to shrink, therefore flipping the picture as it relates to economic growth trends. At first glance, it may be expected that this situation exhibits regional effects only. Nonetheless, when considering the effect on the global economy that cheap financing has had, which has been based on the surplus in capital of the countries whose incomes are generated by expeditiously increasing oil revenues, a shrinking money supply will be inevitable with these falling oil prices. In this respect, a loss of momentum in capital flows, which are fundamental for developing markets, may result in a slowdown of global growth trends.

On the other hand, another risk is the deceleration of the global oil supply growth rate. Neither the rise of oil production nor the appreciation of the US dollar should be ignored, as both of these factors have effects on today’s decline in oil prices. In this regard, the positive results that have come from offshore energy resource exploration and the gains made in developing shale-oil production in the US have rapidly increased the oil production of non-OPEC countries. While a slowdown in the upward direction of global oil demand is expected, a heavy increase is occurring in production. Therefore, oil prices are regressing despite the geopolitical risks. When we examine the oil production data from 2007, the US produced 5 million barrels per day. This production rate increased to 8.5 million barrels in 2014. This increase indicates an important change in the parameters of supply. As the US now starts to compete with Russia and Saudi Arabia in terms of oil production and as its demand for oil imports shrinks, fundamental balances have begun to shift. But considering that shale oil production costs range from between $50 and $100 per barrel of oil extracted, it is commented that each $10 decline in oil prices renders some oil wells economically inefficient. Therefore, according to this, the investment in new wells will abate and production at some wells may even be halted. Such a situation would prevent the US from attaining the capacity to produce over 9 million barrels of oil per day in the future. Furthermore, if the decline in oil prices persists, offshore resource exploration will also slow down due to its costs.

When all factors are taken into account, it is important to ask the question of whether the fluctuations in the oil market are a short term correction or a sign of a long term bear market. If the decrease in prices lasts for a short amount of time, the market will stabilize without needing to implement the aforementioned mechanisms. However, some pessimistic commentators claim that the decline will continue and that equilibrium will first be achieved at around $60-$70 per barrel. If this forecast comes to fruition, it may be necessary for different mechanisms to come into play. From this point of view, the fundamental problem should be assessed in terms of at what price the oil market equilibrium will be reached and for how long it will remain there, not in terms of the range of oil price fluctuations.

This article was first published in Analist Monthly Journal, on November 2014.

Translated into English by Cemre Nur Öztürk

The post The Decline Of Oil Prices And Questions Of Sustainability – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Sandhya Jain

Even as the world learnt with surprise that US President Barack Obama has reached out to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for a nuclear deal and help in fighting the Dawlat al-Islamiyah f’al-Iraq w Belaad al-Sham (Daesh, or Islamic State), there are startling reports that self-proclaimed caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was critically wounded and possibly dead in an airstrike near the Iraqi city of Mosul, close to the Syrian border.

After hours of suspense, confirmation came late Monday/early Tuesday via a Twitter account affiliated with Daesh-affiliated Al-I’tisaam Media, which said it would give details about the killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his succession. The news was first relayed by the Iran Government-owned Al Alam network, and then reported by IraqiNews.com, a website affiliated with Daesh.

Late Friday night (November 7), the US-led coalition hit a house and 10-truck convoy in the western Iraqi town of al-Qaim, near Mosul. Top Daesh leaders, including the ‘caliph’, were said to be in the convoy. Though 50 deaths were confirmed by Mosul morgue officials, there was silence on the whereabouts and condition of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Washington had put a bounty of $10 million for his capture.

Late Sunday (November 10), it was confirmed that al-Baghdadi’s senior aide, Abdur Rahman al-Athaee (Abu Sajar), was killed in the Friday raid. Others who died include Daesh leader in Anbar province, Adnan Latif al-Suweidi, and leader in the Euphrates valley, Bashar al-Muhandi.

Given al-Athaee’s close proximity with al-Baghdadi, experts felt it fairly certain that the two men were in the convoy together, though US Central Command said it could not be confirmed if he was present in the convoy at all. Political analysts pointed out that it would be difficult to keep the death a secret. The ‘caliph’ was last seen in public at a mosque in Mosul in July. Other jihadi groups maintained silence on the episode.

The US Central Command said that from late Friday, air strikes targetted Daesh leaders near Mosul, the town whose capture in June catapulted it to instant fame, with a view to limit its ability to move about, communicate, and commit acts of terror. It is possible the convoy was fleeing to a safer place when it came under fire. Al-Arabiya and Al-Hadath news channels quoted unnamed sources saying that al-Baghdadi was killed in the raid; the Iraqi government said it would try to confirm the news (since announced the Daesh itself in an effort to rally the ranks).

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death could prove a serious setback to Daesh as it is different from Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups that did not proclaim a ‘caliphate’. The history of Islam shows that the proclamation of a new ‘caliph’ can be problematic; al-Baghdadi’s elimination so early in his tenure will certainly impact the status of the new ‘caliph’ and the overall ranking of Daesh among the various jihadi groups in the region.

Intelligence analysts say that the reaction of militant groups that had pledged allegiance to the ‘caliph’ will have to be watched closely. Despite the uncertainty over the death of al-Baghdadi, the Sinai-based Egyptian militant group, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State on Sunday. Baghdadi’s death could trigger revenge attacks against small ethnicities (such as the Albu Nimr tribe that resisted Daesh’s advance in Hit town of Anbar province, Iraq) and Christians in the region, even ‘lone wolf’ strikes in Europe and America. Alternately, it could benefit older militant outfits like al Qaeda that distrusted al-Baghdadi. The Sunni tribes and Syrian rebel outfits that did not join the Daesh could attack it. But, as Daesh still commands considerable funds, it may regroup and win new adherents. The airstrike could also compromise the security of countries like Iraq, Turkey, Jordan, Libya and Egypt, and Arab states will have to beef up their security and flush out extremists within their borders.

Al-Qaim and the adjacent Syrian town Albukamal were targetted as they lay on a strategic supply route. Initial reports suggest that several dozen civilians died and many were injured. As both the Daesh and local people rushed victims to al-Qaim hospital, it was unable to cope. Witnesses said the militants cleared a local hospital to treat their wounded and used loudspeakers to urge residents to donate blood (it is not clear if they commandeered the al-Qaim hospital for themselves; if so, the civilian casualties could be higher).

Events over the past week suggest that the apparently invincible Daesh is on the backfoot as the international coalition against it begins to make an impact. At the same time, previously defeated communities have regrouped and begun to fight back. In Iraq’s Salahuddin province, the local Shi’ite militias joined hands with Government security forces to confront the Islamic State near Beiji town, which houses Iraq’s largest oil refinery. This forced it to change its modus operandi by moving its military bases and hospitals into civilian homes that are difficult to identity and attack from the air, and making its convoys smaller for the same reason.

But the tide has turned. Observers point out that the Daesh drew its strength from poor, Sunni Arab neighbourhoods that felt alienated from the regimes and rebelled against President Bashar al-Assad in Syria and former Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki in Iraq. This gave it the initial stunning successes in Iraq, but it soon exhausted the potential of these areas and failed to capture areas with non-Sunni populations. It spread its wings in Syria, but encountered fierce resistance from rival rebel groups there. Without support from the local populations, it could not make further inroads in either country.

Once the US-led coalition started bombing Iraq in August, the Islamic State began to lose ground. The fight by Iraqi government units, Kurdish peshmerga, Shiite militias and armed Sunni tribesmen who seized the Rabia crossing with Syria, recaptured Zumar in the north and Jurf al-Sakr south of Baghdad, and opened crucial roads in the country’s center, staved off Daesh advances. More importantly, they fractured the territory held by Daesh and disrupted its operations.

Although a militant Sunni outfit, Daesh was unacceptable to many Sunni peoples who helped the security forces – for instance in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad – to cut its supply lines and killed several of its local leaders. This made it possible for Iraqi military vehicles to drive from Baghdad to the Kurdish city of Irbil on a main highway, for the first time since the capture of Mosul in June.

In Syria, the Daesh still holds the territory it captured, but the air raids have forced it to quit the government buildings it occupied in Raqqa city. The targetting of oil wells and small refineries seized by Daesh have hit its war chest. Since the past week, Daesh has been fighting for control of natural gas fields in Homs province.

But as Daesh makes its convoys smaller and strives for invisibility from airstrikes, it will be even more difficult to exterminate without boots on the ground. Washington’s plan to use proxies to fight the Daesh in Syria flopped after Jabhat al-Nusra jihadis (partly aligned with Daesh) forced the US-favoured Jamal Maarouf of the Syrian Revolutionary Front to quit his Idlib stronghold last weekend. This has fueled anger against the United States amongst the anti-Assad rebels who expected more overt support from Washington.

President Obama, however, agreed to send 1500 US troops, in addition to 1600 military advisers already present in Iraq, to train and assist the Iraq forces to beat back the jihadis and reclaim all territory seized by them. The new surge, President Obama told Face The Nation on CBS, “signals a new phase” in the campaign against Islamic State. He clarified that the US troops would not engage in combat, but would help train and equip Iraqi troops and some Sunni tribes still resisting the jihadi group, and help them with strategy and logistics. Early Tuesday (November 11), following confirmation of the death of al-Baghdadi, 50 US forces arrived at the Al-Asad Air Base in the western Anbar province; more are expected in coming weeks.

Daesh is also on the defensive in Kobane, where it failed to take the town after weeks of intense fighting. Last weekend, Kurdish Peshmerga forces from northern Iraq entered Kobane, bringing two heavy field guns via Turkey, and turned the tide, though the Islamic State is still holding on to nearly half the town.

Kobane is now Daesh’s decisive battleground. On the one hand, the jihadis are fighting the Kurds in a bitter do-or-die struggle for control of the crucial town. On the other hand they are fighting for victory against the United States that entered this fight very late and very reluctantly, in response to global pressure. America helped the Kurds beat back the Daesh from Irbil, Iraq, in August. If Daesh manages to capture Kobane from the Kurds, it will mean the victory of their ultra-extremist version of Islam, with no leeway for humanism, women’s rights, or any modern sensibility.

Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India

Originally published by Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (www.idsa.in) at http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/ISISonbackfootasCoalitiongetscloser_sjain_111114.html

The post ISIS On Backfoot: Coalition Gets Al-Baghdadi – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Gulshan Sachdeva

On 9th November the world celebrated the 25th anniversary of, probably, the most significant event in recent European history – the fall of the Berlin wall. For decades, it stood not just as a physical division between East and West Germany but also as a symbol of division between East and the West. It was also the symbol of the ‘Iron Curtain’ that separated democratic Western countries from communist Eastern Europe.

The fall of Berlin wall was one of the series of events that marked the end of Soviet supported authoritarian regimes in Eastern Europe. The changes started in the mid-’80s when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev started his policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). This took away the threat of Soviet intervention in other socialist countries.

The Polish communist regime was the first to collapse when it signed an agreement with the Solidarity movement and paved the way for free elections. By June 1989, the Polish people had elected their first non-communist head of government. Next was Hungary, where soldiers dismantled barbed wire and fencing along its borders with Austria. Hundreds of East Germans went to Hungary on a holiday and crossed over to Austria. In August, two million people in the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania formed a human chain against the Soviet rule. In October, during his visit to East Berlin, Gorbachev advised East German leader not to delay reforms. After days of mass protests, the East German government on November 9th declared that citizens were free to go the West. This led to thousand of East Germans moving into the West, and literally tearing off the wall. These events led to further changes in other socialist countries, the unification of Germany, and finally the collapse of Soviet Union itself in 1991.

Immediately after these changes about 30 countries in the former Soviet Union and Central-Eastern Europe started their political and economic transition towards democracy and market economy. Some scholars even announced that that this was the end of history. It was thought that most countries will now be living in peace and contentment within the vision of a universal liberal, capitalist and democratic system.

A quarter of a century on, we now realize that some of these predictions were too optimistic. After an initial period of economic decline, some of these countries have become members of Western institutions and organizations like the European Union (EU), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In most of these countries, citizens enjoy higher living standards and broader political and personal rights.

For some others like the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, the process has been much more difficult as these changes also led to a break up of old nations into many new independent countries. The civil war in former Yugoslavia and Tajikistan in the 1990s and the current crisis in Ukraine shows that the process of change which started through peaceful revolutions in 1989 has not been truly peaceful. Moreover, a large number of vulnerable people in many of these countries also faced serious economic difficulties due to a steady decline of state support and subsidies. There are still significant differences between East and West Europe, even between East and West Germany.

The 1989 vision of partnering prosperous Europe has become somewhat hazy. Economic decline throughout Eastern Europe in the 1990s and then long delays in getting the EU membership created tensions. Many Eastern Europeans thought that they will become members of the EU within a few years. The first group of countries was admitted to the EU only in 2004, almost 15 years of after the fall of Berlin wall. A few others like Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia joined later in 2006 and 2013 respectively. Countries like Albania and Serbia are still waiting.

When these countries joined the EU, they also committed to join the single currency whenever they are ready and fulfilled convergence criteria of low inflation, low interest rates, low fiscal deficit and stable exchange rate. A few smaller countries viz. Estonia, Latvia, Slovenia and Slovakia have even joined the Eurozone. However, crisis in some of the Eurozone countries in the last few years have made many others skeptical. When the EU itself is facing one of the biggest crises since its inception, the earlier assumption that deepening integration with the EU institutions would automatically mean rising living standards and social security may no longer be valid easily. Euro-Skepticism, once a British decease has now entered even in some former socialist countries. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban argues, however, that his country “is not Euro-Skeptic But “Euro-Realistic.” There is a talk of authoritarianism in a country which used to practice liberal “goulash socialism” even during the Soviet period. Moreover, nationalism is on the rise in many parts of Europe. Across the continent, nationalist parties or movements gaining ground in recent years.

The fall of the Berlin wall also coincided with the collapse of the USSR and end of the Cold War. Even in changed circumstances, NATO did not disappear. It found new justifications and adapted itself to new challenges. Many old Warsaw Pact countries also became its members. But now when old super powers the US and Russia are threatening each other again, NATO has found a renewed sense of purpose. At the recent NATO summit in September, it declared that “Russia’s aggressive actions against Ukraine have fundamentally challenged our vision of a Europe whole, free, and at peace.” It also declared that the NATO “remains an essential source of stability in this unpredictable world”. So even 25 years after communism’s fall, NATO is still active even in European security.

Despite these ups and downs, overall changes since 1989 have been a remarkable success. The majority of citizens in the former socialist countries do not want to go back to earlier economic and political system. The new generation is more optimistic about their future within a united Europe. It also reminds us of the peaceful resolution of the Cold War. As Oxford professor Timothy Garton Ash wrote recently, “it has given us what is, politically, the best Germany we have ever had” and the “fall of the Wall has become a kind of master metaphor of our age.”

(The author teaches at JNU and is currently the ICCR Chair on Contemporary India at the University of Leuven, Belgium)

Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India

Originally published by Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (www.idsa.in) at http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/FalloftheBerlinWallMarking25years_gsachdeva_101114.html

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By Rafael Catalá, Spain’s Minister for Justice

The government considers that we are dealing with political propaganda organised by parties in favour of independence, lacking any form of democratic validity. The citizens of Catalonia have been called on to take part in a useless, pointless exercise by means of which Artus Mas seeks to hide his personal failure as a result of not being able to call an illegal referendum that he announced on 12 December last year.

Spain is a consolidated democratic regime with freedom of expression and association in which popular referendums are governed by strict rules that guarantee impartiality and neutrality. None of these requirements were met on Sunday.

The process was carried out outside of any pre-existing legal framework; it was sanctioned neither under Catalan law nor any other form of legality. Its promoters have renounced any appearance of neutrality, becoming judge and jury in the process and have not guaranteed the equality of all the people of Catalonia in the exercise of a referendum.

We are thus faced with an event of pure propaganda that lacks any form of legal validity which has only served to exacerbate the divisions between the people of Catalonia, and worsen the political relations both within and outside Catalonia.

The State’s Attorney General is still gathering information on the case which remains open and, in light of these investigations and the numerous complaints filed before the courts in Catalonia, will assess the existence of criminal liability and exercise the pertinent legal actions existing in the coming days.

The post Spain: Minister For Justice Says Catalonia Referendum ‘Pure’ Propaganda – Statement appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury1

Sri Lanka, earlier called Ceylon, has been part and parcel of the South Asian sub-continental ethos for thousands of years. It dates back to the epic Ramayana when it was said to be the Kingdom of Ravana who was alleged to have been the abductor of the saintly Sita, the wife of the god-king Rama (Revisionist history now tends to take a more benign view of the Lankan monarch, doubtless coloured somewhat by contemporary religious-ethnic politics). Among the Europeans, the Portuguese were the first to arrive on the Lankan shores, founding Colombo in 1517. The Sinhalese soon moved their capital to the more secure Kandy. Their King in 1638 invited in the Dutch to supplant the Portuguese. This the Dutch accomplished.

They also founded the ‘Dutch East India Company’, mostly manned by their legacy of the mixed race they left behind, the Eurasian Burghers. Apprehensive during the French control of the Netherlands at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, and in line with a burgeoning interest in sub-continental India, the British moved in. In 1803 they occupied Kandy, and snuffed out Lankan independence.

The British introduced tea to Ceylon, imported indentured Tamil and Telugu workers from southern India in large numbers, and slowly introduced universal adult suffrage, somewhat to the chagrin of the elites among the Sinhalese, Tamil (Jaffna), and Burgher communities.

Eventually an independence movement followed amidst a growing Tamil-Sinhala split (the beginning of what was later to become a most deadly ethnic strife). Ceylon had become a Dominion on 4 February 1948. The following year it achieved full independence with D S Senanayake as Prime Minister. In 1972 the name of the country was changed to Sri Lanka, a Sinhalese initiative.

The Ceylonese have been going to Britain, the old colonial mother-country, for generations. About half a million are said to live there. Overwhelmingly they are Tamils. Indeed today over three million Sri Lankans live abroad, also mostly Tamils. European legislators of Sri Lankan origin, such as Nirj Deva2, have played in important role in Sri Lankan European relationship. There have been many visits at high levels between Colombo and European capitals. One European country, though not a member of the European Union, Norway, had sought to contribute in a significant way towards calming the Sri Lankan civil war.

Literary and intellectual contacts date back to the British era and continue to this day. The author Leonard Woolf, husband of Virginia Woolf, (both of the Bloomsbury Group of writers) lived and wrote as a district officer in Ceylon. In contemporary times, Romesh Gunesekara and Shehan Karunatilaka have made significant contribution to English literature.

Trade and Economic Ties

Formal relations between Sri Lanka and the EU commenced in 1962.Though initially the EU Commission covered Sri Lanka from New Delhi, it opened its office in Colombo in September 1995.

Earlier an ‘Agreement on Trade and Economic Cooperation was signed in July 1975, and subsequently economic relations have been governed by a ‘third generation agreement’ that came into force on 1 April 1975. The Sri Lankan-EU Joint Commission has met a number of times with a view to ensuring proper implementation of agreements, and examining ways and means of enhancing cooperation. The Sri Lankan government succeeded in its endeavours to get the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) listed by the EU in May 2006 as a ‘terrorist entity’. Dialogues with the EU on ‘The Fight against Terrorism’ were held in parallel with the Commission meetings. This is not to say the Europeans did not have considerable reservations about the manner in which the Sri Lankan government brought the civil war to a close, alleging “excessive force”.

Since 1971 Sri Lanka had been a beneficiary of the EU’s Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) scheme offering trade benefits. These benefits were expanded, and tariffs reduced to a minimum by the EU, in the aftermath of the Tsunami in 2005 when Sri Lanka was accorded the ‘GSP plus’ status as was the case, later down the line, with Pakistan. But within three years the EU threatened to terminate this status if Sri Lanka did not cooperate with the “investigations” in connection with alleged human rights violation in the civil war. President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government firmly refused, and following adverse recommendation of the investigations, the EU temporarily suspended the ‘GSP plus’ facility on 31 August 2010.

The investigations relied on reports by the UN Special Rapporteurs and Representatives, other UN bodies and by human rights NGOs. These identified significant shortcomings in Sri Lanka’s implementation of, specifically, three human rights conventions: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention against Torture, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Nevertheless trade and investments continued to flow both ways substantially. Sri Lanka continued to enjoy the earlier ‘standard’ GSP privileges. In 2013, the total volume was over 3.5 billion Euros. Imports from Sri Lanka into the EU amounted to Euros 2.3 billion and exports, Euros 1.2 billion. 36% of Sri Lanka’s total exports go to European destinations, more than 50% of which comprise textile and clothing and the rest, machinery, rubber-based goods, jewellery and agricultural products, whereas imports are mostly machineries.

About 40% of Sri Lanka’s total tourist arrivals are from the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden and Belgium.
The bloody civil war, which over a span of nearly two and half decades cost 80,000 to 100,000 lives, came to an end with the defeat of the LTTE in May 2009.The final days were particularly fierce. Western media was very critical of Sri Lankan army behaviour, and the British Broadcasting Corporation Channel 4 brought out a series of gory episodes, laying the blame on the Sri Lankan authorities. The government of Sri Lanka is making all possible efforts to confront Western, in particular, European criticism, not only during the final phases of the war, but in the current times.

Peace Building and R2P

Sri Lanka appeared to offer grounds for the testing of two important contemporary concepts, both endorsed by the international community at the United Nations. One is with regard to ‘Peace Building’. It implies a series of measures to stabilise a post-conflict society into such equilibrium so as to prevent it from sliding back into a situation of chaos. In this respect much will depend on how the genuine grievances of the minority Tamil community are addressed, and not swept under the carpet. A good way to go about it would be to focus on the ‘low hanging fruits’ to start with. These are issues and complaints that may be easily remedied. ‘Quick Impact Projects’ or QIPS that can be easily implemented will be seen by the international and European communities as positive gestures.

These would be manageable projects that could start with the delivery of welfare to the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). A graduated progression along the ‘four Rs’ for the affected – relief, rehabilitation, reconstruction, and reconciliation- will help immensely. These will assist in the creation of the much-needed structure of confidence. The setting up of a ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission’, a la South Africa, could be worth examining. A credible inquiry into the events of the final phase would have to be undertaken, though Sri Lanka is likely to resist any foreign participation in this.

A second is the concept of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P). At one time around the spring of 2009, some Western politicians including Bernard Kouchner of France , were keen to apply it in the Sri Lankan context, but the Sri Lankans were most resistant, and in any case that phase of urgency is now over. Simply put, R2P means that it is the responsibility of every State to protect its own citizens: If the State in question is unable or unwilling to do so, then the responsibility for that would devolve on the international community which would discharge it working through the UN. The process would begin with economic support and diplomatic steps, with force to be used only as the last resort. The principle was unanimously adopted at the Summit of World Leaders at the UN in New York in 2005. Importantly, it was subject to only four situations: genocide, war-crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.

The Sri Lankans would have none of this and equated any such contemplation as an erosion of sovereignty. They argued that none of the four conditions was present in Sri Lanka. However the point was made that the Sri Lankans could take advantage of any broad economic package that could comprise this ‘responsibility to protect’. But they preferred not to have anything to do with a concept that might imply that the Sri Lankan authorities were not caring enough. In any case, any Western attempt, or a European effort, to bring any element of R2P into effect, in the face of Colombo’s resistance, would have been negated by China and Russia in the UN Security Council. But nonetheless Sri Lankans should be wary that it should not be said of them what the Latin historian Tacitus had written centuries ago, that they made solitude or silence and called it peace. There is expectation in Europe, and in the world, that, now that the Sri Lankan government has won the war, it must work hard towards winning the peace. Or futurity will see this only as an Ozymandian moment that was not seized upon. It is anticipated that all concerned will remain focused on Sri Lanka, to see how the victors are able to meet the challenges resulting from the end of the conflict.

The Europeans and others are well aware of Sri Lanka’s great potentials, both economic and political, to play a positive and constructive role in the region, and in the world. In the past Sri Lankans have helped shape some of the global norms and standards we live by today. One is reminded of their effective participation in many international fora, and their contributions on those occasions. This includes the development of the idea of ‘Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace’. They have had an enormous role in global thinking, progress and stability. Europe and the world now await the re-engagement of Sri Lanka in the sculpting of the global future.

1. Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury is Principal Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), an autonomous research institute at the National University of Singapore. He is a former Foreign Advisor (Foreign Minister) of Bangladesh, and he can be contacted at isasiac@nus.edu.sg. Opinions expressed in this paper, based on research by the author, do not necessarily reflect the views of ISAS.

2. Nirj Deva, also contested for the office of Secretary General of the United Nations, but not as a candidate from either the UK, or Sri Lanka, but as a nominee of Fiji, demonstrating the widespread influence of some of these South Asian diaspora members.

Source:
This article was published by ISAS as ISAS Insights No. 270 – 30 October 2014

The post Sri Lanka And Europe: Then And Now – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Osama Al Sharif

President Barack Obama is not hopeful that a final deal with Iran over its nuclear program will be reached before the Nov. 24 deadline. He says that “big gaps” remain in the ongoing negotiations; a year after Tehran and the international community reached an interim deal to limit Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for relief from western sanctions.

But in spite of Obama’s doubts there are signs that a last minute agreement could still be achieved. Oman hosted a two-day meeting on the issue this week and apparently some progress was made. The coming days will be crucial for reaching a deal that defines the size of Iran’s uranium enrichment activities while setting a timetable for lifting western sanctions on Tehran. Naturally the Gulf countries will be watching developments with interest.

Obama refused to comment on reports that he had sent Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei a letter last week in which he called on Iran to cooperate in combating the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq. Commentators were quick to suggest that the US administration was offering Tehran an incentive to sign the nuclear deal in return for recognizing its role in both Arab countries. But the president and his Secretary of State John Kerry said the two issues were not linked.

Obama’s foreign policy record, especially in the Middle East, is dismal. He has made many promises in the past that he was unable to keep. His commitment to realizing the two-state solution leading to the birth of a Palestinian state has faltered. He is yet to deliver on his promise to arm the moderate Syrian opposition. His critics believe that his dithering on the Syrian conflict and his failure to reign in former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki have contributed to the rise of the Islamic State.

His opponents in the US remain critical of the way he is running the war against IS and are dubious of his Iran strategy. That skepticism is shared by Israel and the Gulf countries. Failure to reach a deal with Tehran will be seen as another diplomatic stumble for Obama.
It is no wonder then that he is keen to see these negotiations succeed. While Tehran insists that it will not abandon its “nuclear rights,” a deal that keeps most of its program intact in addition to lifting western sanctions will be seen as a major victory.

Both sides would not want to think of alternatives if the deal falls through. Neither the US nor its western allies are in the mood to engage in another military conflict in the Middle East. Besides, Obama’s letter to Khamenei carries recognition of Tehran’s expanding influence in the region and its role in defusing crises in both Iraq and Syria. This is what worries his Arab allies.

A deal with Iran will be viewed with suspicion by America’s regional allies. It is true that Iran’s nuclear program will be monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which would ensure its civilian use. That would assure Iran’s neighbors, especially the Gulf countries. But the nuclear program is not the only contentious issue marring relations between Iran and its Arab neighbors.

Iran’s domination of Iraqi politics, since the US invasion of Iraq, is partly responsible for the eruption of sectarian violence in that country. Iran is Bashar Assad’s closest ally and its military and financial support of the Damascus regime has prolonged the civil war in Syria, which has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, destroyed half the country and allowed militants to infiltrate the opposition.

In addition, the Gulf countries believe Iran is directly involved in arming the Houthi rebellion in Yemen, a country that is quickly sliding toward civil war and probably partition. Iran’s meddling in internal Lebanese politics is one of the factors contributing to that country’s endemic instability.

A nuclear deal with Iran should not become the gateway to normalizing relations between Tehran and the West. Such a development will whet Iran’s appetite as a regional power player and will certainly increase Arab suspicions of its intents in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and others.
Reaching a deal with Iran over its nuclear program is important and key to assuring its neighbors. But our problem with Iran goes beyond the nuclear issue. Its interference in the internal affairs of Arab countries has stoked sectarian confrontations, which threaten to tear these countries apart. Obama’s offer to Iran to cooperate in the fight against IS will only fuel sectarian violence and agitate Sunnis.

If a deal is reached in the coming weeks it will be a major foreign policy breakthrough for Obama. It will surely pave the way for US-Iran détente. But such rapprochement will come at a hefty price for the Middle East, especially for America’s Gulf allies.

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The International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) has warned Iran that it would be stripped of its right to host the 2015 Under-19 men’s world volleyball championship if it bans women from attending matches. The warning signals a new assertiveness driven by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to make adherence to human, gender and labour rights a condition for potential hosts of major sporting events and raises pressure not only on Iran but also Saudi Arabia, the two nations that bar women from stadia.

The stakes for Iran and Saudi Arabia are high against a backdrop of on-and-off debate in both countries about lifting the ban that has been continuously opposed by religious conservatives.

Growing frustration with Saudi restrictions on women’s participation in international sporting events has prompted the IOC to subtly increase pressure on the kingdom. An Iranian and Saudi refusal could potentially lead to the two countries being barred from i nternational competitions.

To be clear, Iran unlike Saudi Arabia encourages women’s sports and fields female athletes in international tournaments provided they are allowed to wear a headdress that meets both cultural and security and safety standards. Saudi Arabia by contrast evaded being banned from participation in the 2012 London Olympics by fielding at the last minute two expatriate Saudi female athletes, the first time the kingdom officially sent women to an international tournament.

The kingdom has since stalled on fulfilling its promise to encourage women’s sports. A meeting in September between IOC President Thomas Bach, who has instructed his group to write adherence to human, gender and labour rights into all future Olympic host city contracts, and Saudi Olympic chief Prince Abdullah bin Mosaad bin Abdulaziz produced little progress on the issue of women’s sporting rights. Prince Abdullah insisted that the kingdom had failed to field women at the recent Asian Games because it did not have qualified athletes.

Mohammed al-Mishal, the secretary-genera l of Saudi Olympic Committee, promised however to do so at the 2016 Olympics in Rio Janeiro. Mr. Al-Mishal said however that women would be limited to sports endorsed by a literal interpretation of the Qur’an. The Saudi official said the kingdom was training women to compete in equestrian, fencing, shooting, and archery Olympic contest which are “accepted culturally and religiously in Saudi Arabia”.

The Saudi reluctance is further evident in the fact that the kingdom is taking only miniscule steps to encourage women’s sports. The kingdom has hired consultants to draft its first five-year sports plan that focuses on men only.

The country’s Shura Council, a consultative assembly, however, has urged the education ministry to study the possibility of introducing physical education for girls in public schools. The move could lead to a lifting of the ban on female sports in public schools. Moreover, authorities last year began licensing private sports clubs for women.

Women’s gyms are sprouting across the country often linked to beauty salons or in private apartments. “The government does not issue licenses for women’s sports clubs. But as long as there are women who want agile and graceful bodies, such gyms will thrive in the Kingdom,” Fatimah, an owner of a gym, told Arab News.

Efforts to lift the ban on women attending matches in Saudi Arabia and Iran have so far stranded on conservative opposition. The FIVB ban followed the sentencing to a year in prison of a 25-year old dual Iranian-British national, Goncheh Ghavami, for attempting to enter a World League volleyball match Teheran’s Azadi Stadium between Iran and Italy. Ms. Ghavami has since gone on hunger strike. She was convicted of spreading propaganda against the Iranian government.

A FIVB spokesman said that the federation “will not give Iran the right to host any future FIVB directly controlled events such as World Championships, especially under age, until the ban on women attending volleyball matches is lifted.” Iran is scheduled to next year host the Under-19 men’s world championship. Argentina has been asked to stand-by to replace Iran as the host of the tournament.

The FIVB made its decision after talks with Human Rights Watch, which has also held met with Mr. Bach. The meeting with the IOC president marked a new era in the group’s attitude towards human rights. Mr. Bach’s predecessor, Jacques Rogge, refused to meet with human rights groups during his tenure.

In a statement, FIVB president Ary Graca said that “women throughout the world should be allowed to watch and participate in volleyball on an equal basis.”

Iran’s Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei blocked an attempt in 2006 by then president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to lift the ban on women attending sports events. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly toyed in recent years with adapting stadia to offer separate sections for women, a proposal supported by the Saudi soccer association. The effort much like similar moves to lift the ban on women driving in the kingdom have so far been stymied by conservatives.

Saudi Arabia has also refused to sign on to a two-year old declaration by the majority of Middle Eastern soccer associations grouped in the West Asian Football Federation to put women’s sporting rights on par with those of men.

The FIVB sanction fuels Iran’s culture wars that are fought in part in street art. A recent mural on one of Tehran’s main thoroughfares pictured a woman wearing a national soccer team jersey as she washed dishes at home. The mural went viral on social media. In the mural, the woman raised a cup of yel lowish dishwash solution as if it were the World Cup trophy in what was seen as a rejection of conservative notions that a woman’s place is at home.

At stake in the battle is however far more than just women’s sports rights. Those rights are part of a larger struggle for Iran’s future as Iran negotiates with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council an agreement that would resolve the Iranian nuclear problem. Iranian conservatives fear that a successful negotiation would strengthen the hand of supporters of reformist president Hassan Rohani in parliamentary elections scheduled for the spring of 2016.

With popular support for the nuclear talks, conservatives hope to thwart Mr. Rouhani by appealing to traditional values in their effort to undercut his efforts to reduce repression and allow for greater freedom of expression and access to information, promote gender equality, and ease cultural and educational restrictions. Mr. Rouhani like other members of his Cabinet regularly posts messages on Facebook and Twitter despite the fact that access to social media sites is frequently blocked in Iran. The president has also argued publicly that freedom is a precondition for creativity and has contradicted conservative efforts to curb fun.

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The United Nations says opium production in Afghanistan will hit a new high this year.

A new report by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime says the country’s opium harvest jumped 17 percent from last year to about 6,400 tons.

The report says total land area used for the production of opium expanded in Afghanistan by 7 percent this year, to around 224,000 hectares.

Analysts say Afghanistan produces more than 80 percent of the world’s illicit opium, and profits from the illegal trade help fund the Taliban insurgency.

The U.S. has spent $7.8 billion fighting the drug trade in Afghanistan since invading in 2001.

The UNODC’s Jean-Luc Lemahieu said the drug trade accounts for roughly 20 percent of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product. He said the industry indirectly employs more than 410,000 people.

This harvest season one kilogram of dry opium sold for $114, a 20 percent drop from last year, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Lemahieu said some expansion in the poppy industry was expected as the U.S.-led military coalition winds down its combat operations.

After this year, just 12,500 foreign troops will remain in Afghanistan to focus on counterterrorism and on training Afghan troops.

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For the first time in its history, the Mormon Church, which prohibited polygamy 150 years ago, has admitted that its founder, Joseph Smith, had up to 40 wives, the youngest of whom was only 14.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) has acknowledged that its founder and most important prophet practiced polygamy. The revelation came in an essay published quietly on its website in late October, and reported by the New York Times earlier this week.

Smith, who founded the Church in 1830, married between 30 and 40 women, many of whom were already married to friends and other church members, according to the essay. The prophet said that he was visited by an angel who ordered him three times to adopt polygamy.

“During the third and final appearance, the angel came with a drawn sword, threatening Joseph with destruction unless he went forward and obeyed the commandment fully,” the essay says.

For 200 years the Church maintained that while early members practiced “plural marriage,” Smith did not engage in the practice.

According to the essay, Smith engaged in sexual relations with between 12 and 14 of his wives to whom he was “sealed for time and eternity.” The others were merely “sealed” to him for the next life. His youngest wife, the daughter of Smith’s close friends, was one such “eternity-only” bride.

“Sealings for time and eternity included commitments and relationships during this life, generally including the possibility of sexual relations. Eternity-only sealings indicated relationships in the next life alone,” the essay explains.

The Church explains that “some Saints also saw plural marriage as a redemptive process of sacrifice and spiritual refinement,” in addition to viewing the practice as way to boost the Mormon birth rate.

Although Joseph Smith was a reluctant polygamist, he was fearful of ignoring what he perceived as God’s will.

Plural marriage took a toll on Emma Smith, Joseph’s first wife, for whom it was “an excruciating ordeal.”

“After Emma opposed plural marriage, Joseph was placed in an agonizing dilemma, forced to choose between the will of God and the will of his beloved Emma,” the essay notes.

For some Mormons, the revelation came as a shock. A blogger at Feminist Mormon Housewives, a popular progressive Mormon blog, recounts her friends’ reactions to the essay.

“One friend has not heard these rumors before. ‘I don’t understand how to make this work,’ she says. ‘Spiritually, emotionally… how do I make this work?’ We have nothing of substance to say. ‘Honestly, I just ignore it,’ says an older friend,” writes the blogger, who goes by christer1979.

Meanwhile, others rushed to defend Smith. “When the commandment was given by God, Joseph Smith had to obey. He loved and served God and Jesus Christ before any man,” wrote Facebook user Kortney Chamberlain in a comment on the NY times Facebook page.

The Church is attempting to address its contentious history in a series of essays published on its website, touching on such hot button issues as its lamentable race policy. The church, which also discouraged interracial marriages, had a blanket ban on black priests until 1978. An essay on the topic explains that the church wanted to end the ban earlier, but needed a sign from God before proceeding.

Many of the essays, an attempt at transparency and openness within the Church, were written by outside experts and published with approval from the church’s leadership.

Elder Steven E. Snow, a Mormon leader, highlighted the importance of the essays. “We need to be truthful, and we need to understand our history. I believe our history is full of stories of faith and devotion and sacrifice, but these people weren’t perfect,” he was quoted as saying in the NYT.

After LDS banned polygamy in 1850, a splinter group calling itself the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) broke away, accusing the church of compromising its principles and kowtowing to mainstream society. FLDS members continue to practice polygamy in small enclaves around the US and Canada.

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Alija Izetbegović, a member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina until 2000, considered the post-Dayton peace agreement period as a frame that ought to be used as a tool to continue the war by verbal means, including both legal and diplomatic channels.

By Dražen Pehar

At the time I started formulating the theory of dediscoursification, Alija Izetbegović seemed to me to be able to serve as a highly pertinent and illustrative example.[9] There is no doubt that Izetbegović through 1991-1992 acted upon his political interlocutors as a dediscoursifier – he was demotivating them in the sense of producing in them the loss of belief in the possibility of arriving at a negotiated formula or compromise, a long term solution to Bosnia-Herzegovina’s (BiH) problems, in communicative partnership with him. Izetbegović’s discourse is filled with examples that violate all key values of the moral-discursive matrix of language: for instance, we find many contradictory statements concerning essential issues and aspects of BiH politics; the statement on a civil, ethnically unmarked BiH in parallel with a statement on BiH-Moslems as a foundational, and even majority, people to BiH who can claim some special rights over the state; or the expression of the wish to accept the condition of war with the aim of defending Bosnia’s full sovereignty in the sense of an undivided rule; but also the expression of readiness to arrange the relations within BiH in accordance with both Serb and Croat interests. The ultimate effect of such contradictions is easy to predict: your interlocutor ceases to ascribe some meaningful content to your statements because they cancel each other out, which then generates in your interlocutor the belief that, to you, language is neither an essential nor a binding medium. Furthermore, on a number of occasions Izetbegović indicated that he did not at all subscribe to the view of inherent power of argumentation or exchange of reasons as a part of political discourse: he interrupted negotiations with the Serb representatives at the most critical point in time because, in his view, the distance between negotiating positions implied that there could be no agreement, and also that negotiating per se did not make sense. He has not thought for a second that the offering of political reasons, and a joint assessment of such reasons aiming at a kind of compromise, was the only discourse-friendly strategy in the given conditions, and more importantly that it was the only strategy that could have prevented war from erupting.

However, as a dediscoursifier, Izetbegović most clearly acted so upon the others through his treatment of constitutional-institutional frame that was in force in 1992 (The constitution of Socialist Republic of BiH prior to declaration of independence in 1992), and also through his attitude to the agreements he endorsed or signed in February and March 1992 that could have prevented the war. In the former sense Izetbegović of course was not the only culpable party as he was supported by the BiH Croat representatives: their walk towards BiH independence through referendum was joint one, and also their violation of the BiH Constitution then in force was shared too. According to the constitution then in force, any alteration of territorial-constitutional status of the Socialist Republic of BiH required two-third majority of the constituent peoples. However the referendum outcome failed to reach such a majority. This means that, in fact, the BiH independence referendum did not succeed, and, given the results of the referendum, Izetbegović together with the Bosniak and Croat political representatives had no right to declare independence. As they in fact declared it, they have violated the constitution then in force, which means that they have broken a collective promise that was supposed to be binding on all the peoples and citizens of BiH. Dediscoursification is a predictable effect of such a strategy: one cannot trust the person who fails to fulfil his or her promises simply because the failure to fulfil them indicates that, to the promise-breaker, language is not sufficiently binding; hence the language of all future promises, that all agreements normally involve, is unlikely to be sufficiently binding too, which necessarily has an adverse effect of one’s will to negotiate with a promise-breaker, given the fact that all negotiations are ultimately about the making of promises.

As to the second aspect of Izetbegović’s loose attitude to the agreements he signed, or to which he was implicitly committed, this was demonstrated unmistakably through his notorious reneging on two agreements: ‘Cutilheiro’s plan’ accepted in Lisbon a few days before the referendum, and the agreement on general principles accepted and initialed in Sarajevo in March 1992. Again Izetbegović acted in his role of a dediscoursifier: he reneged on the promises he made in a very critical situation in which such promises to all carried an utmost significance. To his political adversaries, for instance the representatives of the Serb people, this could have had only one impact: due to Izetbegović’s fundamental unreliability as a negotiator, hence as a user of language, they had to form increasingly the expectation that a war was forthcoming, which involved planning for an actual use of armed force. Additionally, one can today very successfully defend the view that, while Izetbegović was reneging on the said agreements, US Administration lent him their support and made his decision in favor of the war much easier; they have spotted an easily swayable actor who, due to his lack of faith in his own, internal political discourse, can be guided to this or that direction depending on a prevailing need. However, it is also interesting to note that, by the very end of Dayton negotiations, both American and European mediators remained uncertain as to Izetbegović’s readiness to sign the peace agreement.[10] Dediscoursifiers act upon all users of language equally: as the persons whose language can never be taken, or relied on, with confidence.

Today, of course, we are aware of the option Izetbegović ultimately chose at Dayton. He opted for a peace in the sense of a peace treaty that was set on relatively clear premises and signed with a specific understanding – two strong entities, one loose central government, and, of equal importance, representation of BiH constituent peoples through entities in the following way: BiH Federation as a shared Bosniak-Croat entity, and RS as an entity to represent primarily the Serb people in BiH.[10] Additionally, Dayton Constitution has endowed the entities with the right to establish special parallel relations with the neighboring states in accordance with the division of powers between the entity and the central level of government. Based on this provision, Republic of Croatia and the BiH Federation had such a special relationship, which was abrogated by Croatia on its road to the EU; a special parallel relations agreement between Republika Srpska and the Republic of Serbia remains in force.

I deem the theory of dediscoursification as an important theoretical frame not only for the purpose of elucidating the dynamics of relationship within the period that precedes the outbreak of armed conflict; the theory is of a sufficient strength and relevance to be applied to the periods that seem to be the periods of a post-war political peace. Hence, here we may immediately pose an interesting question: is the process of implementation of the Dayton framework for peace one of rediscoursifying, or is it perhaps of such a character that it too can be couched in terms of the theory of dediscoursification? In other words, assuming that the framework for peace embodies a collective promise, which implies primarily the commitment to be guided and bound by one’s own words under their agreed meanings, and also the capacity of rational argumentation in the condition of interpretive conflict, are we in position today to claim reasonably that the promise was fulfilled to a sufficient extent? Or, have some actors, by violating their own promise and thereby dediscoursifying their political partners, in fact showed the will to initiate a new round of armed conflict? In other words, have some actors, by relating to the language of the peace agreement in a harmful and discourse-unfriendly way, diminished in the others the will to resolve further political issues by negotiating, and thereby produced in the others both the kind of silence and the sense of dehumanization that, under suitable conditions, inescapably lead to an outbreak of armed violence?

There is no doubt that Alija Izetbegović considered the period of post-Dayton peace as a continuation of armed conflict by other means. To him the peace agreement meant but a frame that ought to be used as a tool to continue the war by verbal means including both legal and diplomatic channels. This can be documented easily by his public statements. One of his key theses concerning the Dayton Constitution reads that the constitution contains “an inaudible but dangerous war of provisions;”[12] this means that, as Izetbegović views it, war through one medium is simply replaced with a war through a different medium. One group of provisions takes one to one direction, as e.g. Bosniak-Muslim armed force did during the war, and another group takes one to a different direction, as e.g. Serb armed force did. The directions are opposed and irreconcilable; hence the only important question for Izetbegović may be put as follows: which group of provisions is likely to prevail at the expense of the other?

What we need to emphasize here emphatically is peculiarity of such a view: it is a strange and disturbing kind of legal-political hermeneutics within the confines of which the state of war cannot be distinguished from the state of peace. Language is not a medium that serves to stabilize relations or to contribute to an actual conflict resolution by, say, a compromise. It is a destabilizing factor, a medium in which the war continues, and which prevents arrival at a shared position or definition of compromise. Such an image of language affects one’s view of a peace agreement in the sense that it undermines or blocks two factors without which an actual peace implementation process cannot be envisaged: first, the factor of legal interpretation as a rational process that, on the premise of the agreement taken in its entirety, establishes the most solid and persuasive reasons in support of an interpretation that could be binding on all; secondly, the factor of a meaningful compromise that can effectively determine the contents of a collective promise to which the parties could effectively adhere – in Izetbegović’s view, there are only particular or individual perceptions of such a promise that generate a conflict over the meaning of the promise, and that therefore effectively undermine the notion of ‘commitment to the compromise.’

Had Izetbegović’s musings remained in the realm of theory, no serious political consequence would have followed; however, Izetbegović has also made his views operative in the sense of a demand with a legal force and effect. Some serious political effects have then taken place of which political destabilization of the BiH state, that marks the period from year 2000 till today, is the most disturbing one. How has such post-Dayton destabilization of relations been effected?

First, we need to have in mind an important fact: in early 1994 Izetbegović adopted Washington agreement on BiH Federation with a specific understanding in mind – BiH Federation is an entity constituted jointly by two constituent peoples, BiH Croats and BiH Bosniaks. As Izetbegović at a BiH Presidency session from 1994 emphasized, the Serb people are not constituent to the BiH Federation because that would means that “Serbs get a half of power within the whole of BiH, and one third in the BiH Federation.”[13] Such Izetbegović’s attitude remained, of course, unchanged at the date of his signature to the Dayton Framework for Peace, and continued unabated after the signature, in the period of the beginnings of implementation of the Dayton accords. One can undoubtedly recognize such an understanding in the structure of the Dayton constitution: the fact of separate entity-based constitutionality of the constituent peoples of BiH, of Croats and Bosniaks within the Federation and Serbs in the Republika Srpska (RS), is translated into adequate institutional forms; for instance, two members of the BiH Presidency (‘Croat’ and ‘Bosniak’) are elected from the territory of the Federation, whereas one member (‘Serb’) from the territory of the RS; similar forms dictate the method of electing of the BiH House of Peoples representatives; additionally, the fact of separate entity-based constitutionality is a source of the rationale for the right of establishment of special parallel relations between the entities and the neighbouring states.

However, in 1998 Izetbegović changed his view to the opposite direction. He submitted an appeal to the BiH Constitutional Court that contains the request to delete, or put out of force, exactly the provisions to which he signed in the period from 1994 till 1995. By reading carefully his appeal, one can quickly and unmistakably realize that Izetbegović now aims at devaluation of the key provisions of the Dayton Constitution for BiH: for instance, the provision on constitutionality of the peoples as entity-mediated; the provision on parallel special relations between entities and the neighboring states; the provision on the powers of entities in the area of civilian command authority over the armed force; and even the provision on official languages to be used by constituent peoples within entities.[14] Izetbegović founds his appeal on a simple idea: preambular provision on BiH constituent peoples needs to be interpreted as implying equal constitutionality throughout the BiH territory, which implies transformation of BiH entities into multiethnic units. Of course, the appeal is a kind of a symbolical projection, or a piece of symbolical struggle – Izetbegović is fully aware of the fact that the Bosniak and Croat population of RS is significantly reduced in size, which implies that actual consumption of the right of constitutionality (throughout the BiH territory) is bound to be of a very limited, actually negligible, character.

Such Izetbegović’s reasoning could have been then, as it could be now, easily defeated on the basis of the text of Dayton Constitution as it was initially, originally understood and signed in the course of Dayton negotiations: all the peoples of BiH are indeed equally constituent throughout the BiH, but ‘BiH’ under Dayton means only a certain level of power; additionally, all the peoples indeed implement their status of constituent peoples throughout the BiH, but such implementation takes place through explicitly defined institutions and in the areas of government that Dayton Constitution explicitly refers to. Primary constitutionality of the peoples pertains to them through the entities simply because the representatives of specific peoples as peoples have constituted some specific units of BiH as a federal constitutional arrangement, but the three peoples have not constituted jointly both units. The Serb people representatives, as Izetbegović already emphasized, have not constituted the BiH Federation, hence their primary constitution-making role cannot be implemented through the bodies of the BiH Federation. Constituent peoples have given their explicit consent to establishment of specific entities, but then secondarily, also to establishment of BiH as a central level of government in accordance with the list of powers of the state, which is again entity-mediated in the sense that it preserves the fact of representation of the entities at the central level – the fact that BiH is a federation makes such arrangements easy to understand.[15]

Altogether, this means that Izetbegović again acts as a dediscoursifying agent in the period after adoption of the Dayton peace package, both through his public political acting and through his appeal to the BiH Constitutional Court. He in fact conveys the following message: “the language of the peace agreement is binding on me, but not in the sense in which it is binding on other actors. My promise is understood by me in my own way; if the others have taken the promise to mean something else, this is their own problem. My only commitment is to achieve through the language of the peace agreement those goals that I set as my own prior to, and during, the war. I do not discuss such issues with my political adversaries; I simply fight for such goals, this time through the appeal to the BiH Constitutional Court.”

Long-term effects of such a view had not yet been clearly recognized. Izetbegović’s appeal has produced a symbolical revolution in BiH, not in a positive sense of the word, and has undermined the very fundamentals of post-Dayton BiH. The appeal has in fact clearly signaled that one key party to the peace treaty in fact reneged on the compromise; the party has transformed the compromise-related elements of the treaty into a means to recover and resume the process of implementing of its war-time aims. In a theoretical sense, this is an extremely important phenomenon: the phenomenon clearly indicates that the state of peace to a large extent depends on an actor’s attitude to language: if the actor did not endorse some standards of discourse, some discursive values, as a part of his or her political communication or an effort to act upon his or her political partners and interlocutors (which involves primarily the standard of promise-fulfillment under a prior joint understanding of the promise, or under an understanding that is jointly determined through the most persuasive reasons of interpretation), alienation, cessation of communication, and consequent destabilization of relations are normal and predictable effects.

However, one should not dismiss an important fact. In his dediscoursifying Izetbegović does not act alone. In fact the strongest actors of international community lend their support to Izetbegović’s movement towards the dissolution of a sophisticated Dayton compromise. How, and more importantly, why has such a support been given, and what are its actual consequences?

Dražen Pehar has a PhD in politics and international relations from Keele University (SPIRE 2006), holds an assistant professorship (BiH) in the philosophy of law and in politics with sociology. Dražen is a DiploFoundation Associate, and previously served as Chief of Staff to the BiH Federation President (1996) and as a media analyst to the OHR (1999/2000). Dražen is also part of the Institute for Social and Political Research (IDPI), a member of theGlobal Coalition for Conflict Transformation. 

Foonotes

9) Here, and in the next few paragraphs, I simply draw on Pehar (2011).

10) See Holbrooke (1999, 224, 271, 302)

11) Holbrooke (1999, 96-7)

12) Izetbegović (1998, 192)

13) The quote and context in Kostić (2013, 28)

14) See http://www.ohr.int/ohr-dept/legal/const/pdf/Djelomicna-odluka-3.pdf (accessed on 30 October 2014) 2014)

15) See Pehar (2014a)

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(EurActiv) — The European Union has underestimated the greenhouse gas emissions savings offered by biofuels by as much as 50%, according to a report published.

To correctly understand the benefits of biofuels, their emissions should be compared to the fossil fuel emissions they replace in the market, the Ecofys study said.

The EU’s Renewable Energy and Fuel Quality Directives compare the savings to the average carbon intensity of fossil fuels on the EU’s road petrol market.

The climate and energy consultancy’s report analysed what fossil fuels would be on the market, if biofuels were not available.

Under those circumstances, biofuels would mostly replace fuels made from unconventional oils and not those represented by the average blend of fuels.

Unconventional oils such as oil sands, light tight oil and kerogen have an estimated carbon intensity of 115 gCO2eq / MJ. The EU estimates the average blend comparator at 83.8 gCO2eq / MJ.

The EU’s current comparator is underestimating the greenhouse has benefit of biofuels by about 32 gCO2eq/MJ, the report said. The difference is “in the same order of magnitude as the ILUC factors currently proposed for biofuels.”

ILUC stands for Indirect Land Use Change, a way of compensating for the production of biofuels on existing agricultural land. It implies that elsewhere in the world that food must be replaced by changing, for example, forest into farmland.

Even if one accepts the “average” approach used by EU legislators, the fossil comparator should be adjusted upwards, said the study, on the greenhouse gas impact of marginal fossil fuel use.

Unconventional fuels have a growing share of the EU market and their carbon footprint is much higher than conventional oil. As their market share increases, so will their greenhouse gas footprint.

Unconventional oils are particularly emission heavy as they are difficult to extract and produce.

Conventional oil has a growing carbon footprint because, as larger fields are depleted, extractive efforts increase while smaller fields are taken into operation. Both up the fuel’s carbon footprint.

What does it mean for policy?

The study said that biofuels could help decarbonise the transport sector, one of the largest polluters.

Both the Renewable Energy Directive, which calls for a 10% renewable energy target in transport by 2020, and Fuel Quality Directive, which promotes a 6% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, are in play.

But amendments to both are before the European Parliament for a second reading as part of the ILUC Directive. The Council has had its first reading in June this year.

The recently published Commission proposal to implement existing obligations of the Fuel Quality Directive readjusts the fossil comparator to 94.1 gCO2eq.

But, for what are believed to be political reasons, it still proposes to compare biofuels with the older fossil comparator at 83.8 gCO2eq.

Environmental campaigners argue that Europe’s biofuels market causes people around the world to go hungry, rainforests to be cleared and global warming to accelerate.

EurActiv requested a comment on the findings from the European Commission. It said it had no comment to make.

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By Kanchi Gupta

Displaying a shift from the previous Indian administration, the Modi government has initiated high-level political engagement with Israel. Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, at the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September. Soon after, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh travelled to Israel in November on his first trip outside India after assuming office. Simultaneously, Prime Minister Modi also received former Israeli President Shimon Peres on November 6, 2014. President Peres was in India to boost cooperation in trade and technology, as well as to launch the Australia-India-Israel joint project on technological research and development. He also met Congress President Sonia Gandhi.

Peres referred to Modi as a “world leader, a true partner in confronting global challenges and a friend of Israel”. Modi cultivated deep ties with Israel as the chief minister of Gujarat. He took new initiatives including pharmaceuticals, water management, water recycling plants, agro-research, advanced agriculture technologies, and solar power. Modi invited Israel to partner in the 2014 Gujarat Agro Tech Global Fair. Now it has been proposed to set up a corpus fund for industrial development.

While in New York, Modi and Netanyahu agreed to expand cooperation in the above fields and discussed computer software and cyber security as emerging areas of collaboration. Prime Minister Netanyahu extended an invitation to Modi to visit Israel. Modi had visited Tel Aviv in 2006, when he was the Gujarat Chief Minister. Modi’s outreach then to Israel was developed independent of the policies of the Congress-led UPA government that came to power at the centre in 2004.

Despite strong defence and trade ties with Israel, the UPA government did not initiate any significant diplomatic activism towards Tel Aviv. The only senior ministerial level visit to Tel Aviv during the UPA government’s tenure from 2004-2014 was that of then Foreign Minister SM Krishna’s trip to Israel in 2012. His visit, however, was termed as a “regional visit” and included trips to Jordan, the UAE and the Palestinian National Authority in West Bank.

Before Rajnath Singh, L.K. Advani was the last Indian Home Minister to visit Israel in 2001. L.K. Advani, accompanied by then Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, set up the Indo-Israeli Joint Working Group on Counter-terrorism. A Joint Defence Cooperation Group was also established in 2001 and since then, defence and counter-terrorism cooperation have been the hallmark of Indo-Israeli bilateral relations.

In 2003, then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited India and the two states inked a number of bilateral agreements. However, the UPA government failed to maintain the momentum with reciprocal high-level engagements with Israel.

Following Modi’s electoral victory, the BJP government has provided a boost to India-Israel ties. It is increasingly speculated that Modi will become the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Israel. Sushma Swaraj, the new Foreign Minister, has also stressed on the importance of deeper engagement between India and Israel. Swaraj met with Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Liberman in New York on October 1, 2014 and accepted his invitation to visit Israel in 2015. Sushma Swaraj has held the post of the Indo-Israeli Parliamentary Friendship group since 2006.

While deeming Rajnath Singh’s visit as “very significant”, Prime Minister Netanyahu has conveyed Israel’s keenness to be a part of Modi’s “Make in India” campaign. “Israeli industries, including the defence industries could ‘make in India’ and thereby reduce costs of manufacturing products and systems developed by Israel”, the Prime Minister stated. Prime Minister Modi invited up to 49 per cent foreign investment in India’s defence sector, under the “Make in India” project.

Since the partition of the subcontinent, India’s Israel policy has been influenced by ideological inhibitions and domestic politics. Traditionally, the Indian leadership has been opposed to the creation of a state based on religion. Moreover, given a large Muslim population, internal criticism over New Delhi’s position towards Israel has been largely articulated through the Islamic prism. Concerns over moderating Pakistan’s influence in the Gulf and the Islamic world have also been reflected in India’s diplomatic relations with Israel.

However, India’s huge stakes with Israel and the Arab world have necessitated that New Delhi approach each relationship independently. Israel and the Arab states also want a stronger partnership with India and political transformations in the region have evolved the traditional nature of the Arab-Israeli dispute. Common strategic interests and diplomatic pragmatism, thus, have marked the Modi administration’s policy towards Israel.

(The writer is a Junior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi)

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