By C. Raja Mohan*

As he swings across the Indian Ocean this week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s biggest challenge is not about countering China. After all, Beijing is far away and India is right in the middle of the Indian Ocean. In the near term, the tyranny of geography will limit the scope and intensity of Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean. Modi’s real problem is in Delhi, afflicted by a condition called continentalism, which has proved rather difficult to overcome.

Continentalism, marked by an obsession with land frontiers and a sea blindness, has deep roots in Delhi’s political history. A number of factors made independent India even more vulnerable to the affliction. Partition created new boundaries within the subcontinent and turned Delhi’s political energies inward. The emergence of a strong China to the north and the contestation with it along the Indo-Tibetan border has long drained most of India’s strategic attention.

Despite a massive coastline and geographic primacy in the Indian Ocean, India had little time for its vast maritime frontiers. Its continentalist mindset was reinforced by Delhi’s inward economic orientation in the 1950s. If India’s economic footprint spread all across the Indian Ocean under the British Raj, it steadily diminished thanks to the policies of self-reliance and import substitution in the first decades after Independence.

In the realm of security, Delhi’s focus was on turning the Indian Ocean into a “zone of peace”, whatever that meant. As Great Britain chose to withdraw from the east of Suez in the late 1960s after two centuries of dominating the Indian Ocean, Delhi believed the UN would help replace British primacy with a system of collective security. While many littoral countries sought a major Indian security role, Delhi was a reluctant partner and declared quite cheerily that talk of a power vacuum was outdated in a post-colonial world.To make matters worse, Delhi’s foreign policy revelled in chasing quixotic ideas rather than play to its inherited strengths in the littoral. On the trade and investment front, India chose high-minded rhetoric at the United Nations on building a new international economic order rather than strengthen economic ties with the ocean neighbours.

Delhi’s approach began to change in the 1990s. As India embarked on globalisation and trade, economic connectivity with the Indian Ocean littoral began to come back on Delhi’s agenda. India also inched away from the military isolationism of the non-aligned era. After decades of hectoring the great powers to get out of the Indian Ocean, Delhi began to engage all of them, including the United States. At the multilateral level, it started to de-emphasise the UN and focused on regional institutions. Over the last few years, Delhi has sought to revive the moribund Indian Ocean Rim Association, set up in the late 1990s to promote regional cooperation.

Delhi has expanded bilateral and multilateral naval exercises with many of its neighbours in the Indian Ocean. It launched the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium, which brings together the chiefs of the navies every two years to discuss naval cooperation. India has also set up a joint mechanism with Sri Lanka and the Maldives for shared maritime domain awareness. The Indian navy has also focused on maritime capacity building, especially in the island states that occupy critical locations in the Indian Ocean.

The problem for Modi is that the change in Delhi’s Indian Ocean policy has been too limited and incremental to cope with the maritime challenges staring at India. Delhi has not been good at tying different, new policy strands into a coherent strategy for the Indian Ocean. Worse still, its political leadership has not had the will or energy to shake the bureaucratic establishment of its continentalist mindset.

To realise India’s full strategic potential in the Indian Ocean, Modi will need to focus on three things. One is to boost India’s own civilian maritime infrastructure, which has become terribly creaky and utterly inadequate for a country so dependent on the seas for its economic life.

Second, India needs to ramp up its capabilities to take up major maritime projects in other countries. China has stolen a march over India in this area simply because Delhi had gone to sleep. Beijing’s projects in the neighbourhood have given India a wake-up call, but Delhi does not have the capacity or a policy framework to bid for and execute major infrastructure projects in the Indian Ocean littoral.

Third, India needs to lend some vigour to its defence diplomacy in the region. Although Delhi talks the talk on being a “net security provider”, the ministry of defence is not ready to walk the walk. The MoD is a long way from developing the capabilities, systems and attitudes to make India a productive security partner for the countries of the region.

Finally, Delhi is aware of the need for a big idea to frame the government’s plans for a more purposeful maritime engagement in the Indian Ocean. Some have toyed with “Project Mausam” to promote India’s soft power in the littoral. Others have proposed the idea of a “spice route” to capture India’s interest in restoring its historic linkages in the littoral. The prime minister might want to settle on a simple idea that is already a part of Delhi’s lexicon – the “Sagar Mala”. The concept was first unveiled by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 2003, with the objective of rapid modernisation and expansion of India’s maritime sector. Modi has sought to revitalise that idea. It can easily be extended to promote India’s connectivity in the Indian Ocean, in both economic and security domains.

Whatever we may call it, the first step is to get Delhi’s internal act on the Indian Ocean together. China’s Silk Road initiatives, for example, did not emerge from some clever foreign policy strategy; they are an extension of Beijing’s domestic initiatives on infrastructure development.

*The writer is a Distinguished Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi, and a Contributing Editor for ‘The Indian Express’.

Courtesy: The Indian Express, March 11, 2015

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Iraqi forces entered the Daesh-held city of Tikrit on Wednesday, reports AFP.

A senior officer told AFP, “we are now doing combat missions to cleanse the neighborhood of Qadisiyah.”

“We were able to control Tikrit military hospital, which is close to the center of the city,” he said.

“But we are engaging in a very delicate battle because we are not facing fighters on the ground, we are facing booby-trapped terrain and sniper fire. Our movement is slow,” the source said.

Iraqi forces and allies have been attacking Daesh from the city’s periphery over the past ten days, but this is the first time they have directly entered the strategic city.

Original article

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Google is launching a new cloud storage service that has the potential to change how many companies, ranging from startups to enterprises, view online storage, TechCrunch reports.

With Google Cloud Storage Nearline, businesses can store the data they or their customers don’t frequently need to access (think backups, log files or older photos), for $0.01 per gigabyte at rest.

As Google director of product management for the Cloud Platform team Tom Kershaw told TechCrunch earlier this week, he believes that the gap between the cost of online and offline storage has to decrease.

“We wanted to create a product that made it economical to never throw anything away,” Kershaw said. “Google is pretty good at storing things, but every organization should be able to keep its data around.”

According to Kershaw, Google is able to offer this competitive price — which is on par with Amazon’s Glacier — because it is able to host all of its data on a single system, no matter whether it’s online or “nearline.” This commonality of systems, he argues, is pretty unusual.

Historically, storage companies built two different systems, but the hardest and most costly thing about offline storage is actually moving the data between these two systems. On the backend then, Nearline uses the same system as the rest of Google’s storage products, with exactly the same encryption and other security features. It also shares its APIs with Google’s standard online storage service, TechCrunch says.

Google expects that many of its early customers will use the service primarily to store photos, videos and documents. Many companies pay a lot to keep these online, just in case a user ever needs them.

To reach an even wider market, Google has partnered with a number of storage companies, including Veritas/Symantec, NetApp, Geminare and Iron Mountain. While all of these will get Google’s new service in front of a lot of enterprise customers, the Iron Mountain relationship is interesting because that company will allow users to send in their hard drives and have them securely uploaded to Nearline.

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By Cyrus G. Robati*

Boris Nemtsov’s murder mystery is a fairy tale reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 crime thriller Dial M for Murder − with difference – unlike Mr. Hitchcock’s innocent victim being a woman, Mr. Putin’s innocent victim was a man on the receiving end of an anti-Kremlin rebellion

Moskvoretsky − built in the late 1930s − is one of the toptourist magnets in all of Moscowand a prime photo-taking spot, where you can enjoy views of St Basil’s Cathedral, the Kremlin, and the Moskva River. This is the bridge you take when you go for a long walk from Red Square to the historic neighbourhood of Zamoskvorechye. These are the same old territories on the southern bank of the Moskva River.

Once upon a time, Zamoskvorechyeitself – which translates into English as ‘behind the Moskva River’ – was a green, pastoral neighbourhood. Many local merchants lived here and built big mansions, richly decorated with huge flower gardens and warehouses. Once upon a time, Zamoskvorechye was a no-man’s land for foreigners and non-Muscovites.

However, on the night of February 27, that picturesque spot turned bloody in a split second when the sounds of four gunshots echoed around the bridge. It was on that very night that the 55-year-old Nemtsov – former deputy prime minister and a parliament member during the 1990s − a time marked by chaos under the government of Boris Yeltsin – became the latest victim in murder mysteries and disasters which have followed since Russia annexed Crimea last March.

The gunshots came from a mysterious gunman in a mysterious car, firing at Mr. Nemtsov four times in the back, as if the gunman wanted to make sure his bait was dead. Mr. Nemtsov was shot as he was crossing the bridge with his 23-year-old Ukrainian girlfriend and model, Anna Duritskaya, who, was miraculously unharmed as she picked up her pace.

No witnesses, no clues, no traces… but the precision of the hit suggests the government’s lofty hand was in the assassination. In this capital, when critics get bolder, they tend to have an uncanny habit of ending up dead

Here was a man soaked in a pool of blood; a man who seemed, once upon a time, exhausted by his role as a public enemy Number 1;a man with a larger-than-life nature, made evident by his brusqueness and his conflicted past. I was surprised by how dapper and polite he was, and how beneath that politeness there seemed to be a terrible stress – it gave the sense of a tightly coiled spring. Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, claims the president will take the investigation of Mr. Nemtsov’s death under “personal control,” and that he believes the killing to be “a provocation”.

But then, in Russia, blame-games of this sort often end up alighting on anyone with a hand in dirty politics, including Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. Many of Mr. Kadyrov’s recent statements, including one in December 2014, have declared that terrorists’ families should be held liable for terror attacks. Mr. Kadyrov’s claims caused controversy in Moscow, particularly because his comments suggested that the Chechen leader does not feel he needs to follow Russian law on his own Chechen land. Most stop short of directly blaming Mr. Kadyrov for Mr. Nemtsov’s death, but many claim that Kadyrov’s rhetoric, both in private and in public life, leads to greater acceptance of a gun-ruled society.

The gangland-style murder starkly shows the considerable distance still separating Russia from a stable and reliable rule of law. Shortly before his death, Mr. Nemtsov had predicted Mr. Putin would have him killed. Speculation after the murder swirls in that direction, but also in others. There is no shortage of conspiracy theories in Russia either, with one including the possibility that Mr. Putin’s foes actually carried out the hit, to weaken him.

Today, supporters of the government agenda are already claiming that Mr. Nemtsov’s murder could be the product of a liberal conspiracy, a kind of ‘sacrifice’ to the anti-government cause. The logic goes as follows: Who benefits from this cold-blooded murder? Mr. Putin himself? Perhaps. But the liberals have their own conspiracy theories, including one that suggests that because Mr. Nemtsov had hardly any political future, his own ‘little friends decided he was expendable.’

Despite Russia’s current cash confusion coupled with the West’s sanctions, these liberals still tend to believe that there is a dim light at the end of the tunnel in the future. They argue that Mr. Putin gave the public a ray of hope, and he gave them Crimeaback, which they consider to be their ‘birthright.’ This idea results in defiance against what they see as foreign provocations.

The only motive not being given in Moscow for Mr. Nemtsov’s murder late on Friday evening is the blindingly obvious one: that he was murdered for his opposition activities. Specifically, for his very public criticism of Mr. Putin’s secret war in Ukraine, in which at least 6,000 people have been killed over the past year, and which – according to Nemtsov’s friends – Mr. Nemtsov had been about to expose. Some Russians believe Miss Duritskaya’s presence at the crime scene was no accident, claiming that either she had genuine evidence of Mr. Putin’s direct involvement in Ukraine to pass on to Mr. Nemtsov or that she was acting as a proxy for the mysterious shooter by deliberately guiding the target (Mr. Nemtsov) to the bridge where the shooter so desperately wanted him to be.

Curiously, Mr. Nemtsov’s anti-Putin criticism hardly began with the undercover war in Ukraine, but from the moment Mr. Nemtsov was edged out of mainstream politics and Mr. Putin came to power. Yet, Mr. Nemtsov’s criticism of what he saw as Mr. Putin’s anti-democratic policies had largely fallen on deaf ears in the government ever since. Mr. Nemtsov had been one of few Russian liberals bold and brave enough to denounce Mr. Putin’s extensive undercover military support for the separatist rebels in Ukraine. Mr. Nemtsov described the way Mr. Putin had annexed Crimea using masked Special Forces as ‘illegal,’ though Mr. Nemtsov recognized that the majority of Crimeans wanted to join Russia. In his final interview, on the very day he was shot, he denounced Russia’s president as a “pathological liar”.

All of this made Mr. Nemtsov especially vulnerable. Moreover, mere hours before his murder, Mr. Nemtsov said he had ‘documentary’ proof that undercover Russian soldiers were fighting and dying in eastern Ukraine. It was an assertion borne out ofthe recognition of a steady flow of coffins returning in the dead of night from the war zone in Donetsk and Luhansk. According to his friend IlyaYashin, Mr. Nemtsov was preparing an explosive essay on the subject.

Even his middle-aged daughter, ZhannaNemtsova, is no exception. She believes her father died for his politics and that the killing was an end-all scenario for any future voice daring to defy Mr. Putin’s power. Even more remarkable is that she has had hardly any belief in the investigation aside from these comments.

Mr. Nemtsov had written dissenting pamphlets before. One of them, Mr. Putin: A Reckoning, accused Russia’s president and his circle of massive personal corruption. Another targeted Yuri Luzhkov, Moscow’s former mayor, who later toppled. This new pamphlet went to the heart of the Kremlin’s big lie. Over the weekend police seized Mr. Nemtsov’s hard drives. Now, there seems little prospect his last polemic will ever be published.

There is an old saying in power-to-people politics: the more public suspicion you create the better you rule the public. Perhaps this is the way Mr. Putin fancies to rule in a country that is still struggling under the pangs of economic sanctions and low oil prices. Inflation rose to 16.7 percent in February, a rate of price increases not seen for over a decade, as the weaker ruble and self-imposed sanctions on Western imports continued to drive up consumer prices. Russians are expected to have to spend half of their salaries on food alone in 2015.

*Cyrus G. Robati is a freelance writer concentrated on South Asia, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Latin America. E-mail: c_robati@yahoo.co.uk

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The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warns that the advance of Boko Haram Islamist militants and military counter-offensives have sparked “a full blown humanitarian crisis” in the Lake Chad region, where the borders of four nations cross.

“Violence in Nigeria is not only claiming lives and forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes in the country itself; it is spilling over into neighbouring Chad, Niger and Cameroon, where the humanitarian situation is also deteriorating”, ICRC said in a statement.

The Red Cross said that many were forced to flee with nothing and now depend on family and friends or survival. The flight of an increasing number of civilians from rural areas, more exposed to Boko Haram attacks, is causing an alarming hike in the city populations. The population of Maiduguri, capital of Nigeria’s Borno State, in few months went from 1 million to 2 million. The same is occurring in other north-eastern Nigerian cities, such as Yola and Gombe, where the displaced are hosted in camps, schools and other public buildings.

The violence and fighting is also causing many to flee over the borders. The Red Cross estimates that food rations were distributed to some 45,000 Nigerians in the Diffa region, in south-east Niger.

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By Nicholas A. Heras for Syria Comment*

This month, the United States and several of its Middle Eastern allies will begin training Syrian fighters through a revamped train-and-equip program that will form the core first class of Syria’s non-jihadist armed opposition. At this stage, the program will seek to identify, train, and support 5,000 Syrian rebel fighters a year for three years, and will likely involve the cooperation of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and could also include Jordan. Optimally, the end game of this reportedly more robust train-and-equip program will be a Syria that emerges from its civil war with a pluralistic government, the Assad regime removed, and the more ideologically radical elements of the Syrian rebel movement defeated and marginalized.

The need for a competent rebel force on the ground is heightened by the reality that the large segment of the Syrian population that supports the uprising will continue to need protection and security, but will want it provided by an alternative to the Assad regime. This force will also need to be strong enough to secure the local areas in which it is located and to impede the advances of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), currently the major policy objective driving the revamped program. As proposed today in a Foreign Policy article by former Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, a refashioned rebel army with a unified command and control structure that can enforce discipline within the ranks will be vital, as will its need to appeal to Syria’s minority communities.

Ford referred to the current train-and-equip program as “too little, too late,” and he makes a compelling argument for the administration’s need to either “undertake a major effort or walk away.” But while a target of 15,000 fighters trained over three years may sound insufficient to fundamentally shift the conflict, the effort can have great impact if it serves as a standard-bearing “train-the-trainer” model that builds up over time, from community to community.

From the outset, however, the train-and-equip program will have to answer questions about how its objective for the state will be an improvement over the current Syrian republic which encompasses diverse sectarian and ethnic backgrounds, despite the authoritarian power of the Assad family, the corrupt Ba’ath syndicate deep state, and its brutal security system. Nevertheless, the current Syrian republic, its advocates point out, has a longer and more practiced history of relative pluralism than that of the Syrian opposition, which has largely been splintered by factionalism and its armed groups heavily influenced by militant Islamist ideology. These are valid points, and the United States and its allies will need to address them in order to build up the capacity of the opposition to participate in a transition from the Assad regime.

Thus, United States’ strategic objective for guiding the train-and-equip program should be to build into the training a firm ideological component that seeks a pluralistic and democratic order in Syria, promoting the equal rights of all of Syrians. This will be a challenge, as the U.S.-led effort must reconcile the previous influence of its participating partners, particularly Qatar and Turkey, who have much-criticized records of influencing the armed opposition toward a more militantly Islamist ideological position. It will also need to respect and incorporate, but also moderate, the conviction of many Syrian rebel fighters that they are on a religious mission to fight a corrupt regime. Achieving the right balance in this ideological model, and making it stick for the entirety of the rest of the conflict to follow, would be an accomplishment with potentially exponential effects on the course of the war and its aftermath.

In theory, empowered Syrian rebel groups could stand their ground against both ISIS and the Assad regime, strengthening local governance, and coordinating humanitarian assistance distribution. If performed in a careful, phased manner, the train-and-equip program could focus on the local level to empower rebel communities through humanitarian assistance that is funneled through the vetted rebel groups. The focus should be on building the capacity of the vetted armed opposition to deliver social goods to their communities that are in dire need. This is a means to unify military and humanitarian assistance to the rebels in order to maximize the soft power of the United States on the Syrian opposition.

If the train-and-equip program begins to show success in accomplishing this objective, it will present an active threat to the Assad regime’s narrative that the Syrian rebel movement is a terrorist front bent on targeting and destroying Syria’s pluralism. This would make it the target of the regime and its Iranian allies and their auxiliaries, such as Hezbollah and Shi’i jihadist militias, likely producing another policy dilemma for the administration: whether or not to actively protect the empowered rebel movement it has been building. This will be an important question that could bring the U.S. closer to war with Iran, as it would spell a legitimate threat to their important proxy. This type of rebel rule could potentially establish a pluralistic precedent that could assuage the fears of Syria’s regime-loyalist communities, many of them ethnic and sectarian minorities such as Christians, Druze, and Alawites whose eventual buy-in and participation would be required to achieve a transition from the Assad regime.

However, at this initial stage of the revamped train-and-equip program is the complicating reality that throughout the country moderate Syrian armed opposition groups actively cooperate with the often more powerful rebel factions that seek to establish a fully-functioning sharia state in post-Assad Syria. Syria’s armed opposition is largely, although not completely, composed of groups whose fighters are Sunni Arabs. These factions range from militant Salafist groups such as the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra and Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyya, to groups that have a vision of a state governed by Islamic law that more closely resembles that espoused by the Muslim Brotherhood, such as Liwa al-Tawhid, Jaysh al-Islam, and Suqur al-Sham. Many of the fighters in these groups originally joined rebel militias that did not promote a sharia state. However, over time they came to adopt this ideology due to the devolution of the Syrian conflict into one characterized by sectarian anger and ideologically influenced by financial backers in the Gulf Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait.

It is difficult to know for certain which of these groups can be integrated into an expanded train-and-equip program, or if the fighters of these groups are, on average, true ideologues seeking a post-Assad sharia state. Some joined the more militant Islamist factions merely for financial reasons, and may be able to pass the requirement of supporting a pluralistic, inclusive Syria. Nevertheless, Washington is presented with a significant policy dilemma. The pressure of the war has led to greater convergence, operational cooperation, and resource sharing within Syria’s rebel ranks across the ideological spectrum, and the task of vetting fighters and separating them according to ideological distinctions will likely be quite difficult.

The train-and-equip program will thus need to build a sustainable ideological model for the Syrian armed opposition movement. It should seek to work slowly and methodically, acknowledging that not all of the fighters for the revamped opposition army were always perfectly aligned with the vision for a democratic and pluralistic Syria. Realizing this, however, does not preclude the U.S. and its allies from acting now, with the soft power of financial assistance and the hard power of weapons and training, to forcefully insist on an ideological standard for the new rebel army. This effort is as much a struggle to build a pluralistic and democratic model for the Syrian armed opposition, as it is to bring the fight to ISIS and transition from the Assad regime.

*Nicholas A. Heras is the Research Associate in the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS)

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By Obinna Anyadike*

Nigeria’s insurgent group Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad), better known as Boko Haram, has declared allegiance to Islamic State (IS), the group formerly known as ISIS. While commentators – perhaps some with the benefit of hindsight – say this had been on the cards, what does it actually mean?

IRIN takes a closer look at the implications of the announcement, made in an audio recording by Boko Haram leader Abubaker Shekau over the weekend.

What happens now?

Nobody quite knows. Shekau introduced himself as the Imam of Boko Haram, and swore bay’ah (allegiance) “to the Caliph of the Muslims” IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, saying he would “hear and obey in times of difficulty and prosperity”.

In a formal sense it means that Shekau accepts the authority of Baghdadi as caliph – the transnational leader of all Muslims. But Human Rights Watch researcher Mausi Segun says she is “not sure Shekau is ready to yield any part of his authority to IS”. Fatima Akilu, director of behavioral analysis in Nigeria’s Office of the National Security Adviser, doesn’t see Shekau’s personality allowing him to be “under another person’s authority”. And according to Ryan Cummings, chief security analyst for Africa at the crisis management firm red24, “declaring allegiance doesn’t necessarily mean taking direction”. He believes Boko Haram’s narrow focus on Nigeria and the Lake Chad region may well continue, rather than the group turning to wage a broader jihadist war.

Cummings points out that ISIS has not yet formally accepted Shekau’s bay’ah – but this is presumably only a formality. The ISIS-linked Amaq news agency reported that fighters in Syria’s ar-Raqqah governorate “celebrated through the city streets” following news of the pledge, according to the jihadist monitoring service, SITE. ISIS’s Twitter accounts also published “welcome” messages to Boko Haram.

Is this out of the blue?

Commentators have noted that links between the two organisations have long-been flagged through video and social media “shout-outs”. When Shekau announced the creation of a caliphate in the captured Nigerian town of Gwoza in August 2014, his video made reference to al-Bagdahdi, who had proclaimed an ISIS caliphate in June. ISIS had earlier approvingly cited Boko Haram’s abduction of the Chibok school girls in April 2014 to justify its enslavement of Yazidi women.

In November, issue 5 of IS’s glossy English-language Dabiq magazine said that bay’ah had been received from “Nigeria”, among other territories, but recognition was being delayed. “This delay should end with … the appointment or recognition of leadership” by the caliph for “those lands where multiple groups have given [allegiance] and merged,” the magazine said. It was possibly a reference to the re-unification of elements of Boko Haram’s breakaway Ansaru faction, according to Jacob Zenn of the extremist monitoring group Jamestown Foundation, quoted by CNN. Most commentators have pointed to Boko Haram’s improved communication technical skills as further indication that links pre-dated last weekend’s announcement.

Does it have operational significance?

The Nigerian government has framed the alliance as proof of Boko Haram’s incapacity. It is evidence, they say, that regional military pressure involving neighbours Cameroon, Chad and Niger is working. “For Boko Haram it’s a big propaganda coup, even for IS. We’ve been talking about them for the last few days now, and one of their objectives is to have that global spotlight,” said Akilu. “But operationally, I can’t see how it can have a significant benefit.”

Boko Haram is known to have long-standing connections to Al-Qaeda-aligned Al Shabaab in Somalia and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). But IS has made significant inroads into North Africa, with allegiance sworn by Egypt’s most active jihadist group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, Algeria’s Jund al-Khilifa – which broke away from AQIM – and perhaps more significantly, the rise of Ansar al-Sharia in Libya. “It is easy to understand the attraction to ISIS and the growing disenchantment of younger militants with Al-Qaeda with its ageing leadership and its inability to carry out a major attack against the West. By contrast, ISIS with its slick recruitment videos, is carving out a large swathe of territory in Iraq and Syria and its military successes in spite of Western airstrikes is especially appealing to the youth,” wrote Hussein Solomon, for the think tank Research on Islam and Muslims in Africa.

While the jury is out on what level of operational and resource assistance could be shared between IS and Boko Haram, security analyst Muktar Usman-Janguza points out that on the map, Libya is just one country (Chad or Niger, both with porous borders) away from Nigeria. “Boko Haram could draw on the technical expertise of the IS network in Libya. There could be help with bomb-making and IEDs [improvised explosive devices], or command and control to help them weather the pounding they are getting from the regional military forces currently operating against them,” he said. Segun of Human Rights Watch agreed that IS making inroads into Libya “is worrying for the Sahel region. In all likelihood, the two groups will have a far easier connection.”

Is Boko Haram now in the jihadist mainstream?

Yes, and it’s new-found credibility is a significant plus for the organization. Shekau’s past media performances have been “erratic” and unlikely to appeal to a sophisticated audience abroad, said Usman-Janguza. His at times deranged diatribes, worthy of a Nollywood-style villain, are either the result of atrocious acting by a body double hired to impersonate the actually deceased leader – as researcher Andrea Brigalia insists – or, by Akilu’s reckoning, the result of the strain of being a hunted man.

Boko Haram always was to a great extent a local Nigerian phenomenon. It has its roots in the Wahabist Jama’t Izalat al Bid’a Wa Iqamat al Sunna (Society of Removal of Innovation and Reestablishment of the Sunna), also known as Izala, that was founded in 1978 with Saudi backing. Izala was in direct opposition to Nigeria’ s ancient Sufi traditions and far more liberal interpretation of Islam. Under Mohamed Yusuf, the founder of Boko Haram who regarded himself a scholar, the group was almost mainstream (although it still killed Muslims that opposed it, allegedly including Yusuf’s mentor, Ja’afar Mahmud Adam). Shekau took over in 2009 with the death of Yusuf in Boko Haram’s aborted uprising, and is far more the soldier than the sage, according to Akilu.

Boko Haram’s limited ideological horizons, fixated on battling Nigeria’s secular state, was one reason for the breakaway of Jama’atu An’aril Muslimina fi Biladis Sudan (the Vanguard for the Protection of Muslims in Black Lands), better known as Ansaru – with its far more pan-Africanist outlook. According to Nigeria’s Office of the National Security Adviser, Boko Haram further localizes its appeal by drawing 85 percent of its recruits from its Borno State stronghold, thereby narrowing membership to largely a Kanuri ethnic pool. Its extreme violence, and failure to distinguish Muslims from non-Muslims in its attacks, was further cause for the rupture with Ansaru, which now seems at least partially repaired.

Boko Haram has potentially widened its appeal with the IS endorsement. “It has enhanced its jihadist credentials in the wider West African region,” said Cummings. Boko Haram’s videos are now subtitled in French, a clear nod to a neigbouring francophone audience. Validation by IS also provides the oportunity for “people who want to fight for IS, but can’t get to the Levant” to join Boko Haram instead. Nigerians that have the wherewithal have made their way to Syria to join Baghdadi. The latest publicized case was last week, with the son of a former chief justice, who crossed to Syria from Turkey. For others, a homegrown Boko Haram, authenticated by jihadi “central command”, may be an alternative.

Where next for Nigeria?

Boko Haram is “being pummeled, deterritorialized, but I would hesitate to say these guys are on their last legs,” said Usman-Janguza, a UK-based member of a Nigeria-focused security forum. “They will definitely go back to their old guerilla tactics” employed before they started seizing towns and territory last year. Cummings believes a bombing campaign aimed at Nigeria’s presidential elections due on 28 March is a distinct possibility, with possibly attacks beyond Boko Haram’s traditional northern zone of operations.

The potential for human rights violations against the local population by Nigeria’s regional military allies mounting cross-border raids would work to Boko Haram’s advantage, said Usman-Janguza. “Inevitably the security dynamics can have an impact on the [insurgency’s] local dynamics,” he noted. He pointed out that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Nigeria and its partners Chad, Cameroon and Niger is shrouded in mystery. “We don’t know how long they will stay or where they will be operating in Nigeria,” he said. “There has been no parliamentary debate, even of the broad outlines of the MoU.”

*Obinna Anyadike, Editor-at-Large for IRIN

The post What Does The Boko Haram-Islamic State Alliance Mean? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The US ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert was attacked in the first week of March 2015 at a breakfast forum hosted by the Korea Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation, in Seoul discussing Korean unification. After the knife attack, Lippert needed 80 stitches and two and a half hours of surgery. Though preliminary investigations indicated a possible link of the attack with North Korea, the implications are rather more serious. Believed to be a Korean nationalist, he was protesting against the US-South Korean annual Key Resolve and Foal Eagle military exercises that began on March 2 to April 24.

Identified as 55-year-old Kim Ki-jong, representative of the Uri Madang, a civic organization that he founded in the 1980s, demanding reconciliation between the two Koreas and peace against war, and to promote traditional Korean folk culture, he was quickly detained and further probe of his act is underway. Kim is believed to have had visited North Korea seven times between 1999 and 2007. Kim also had tried to erect a memorial to Kim Jong-il in Seoul after the late North Korean leader’s death in 2011. Also, he staged one-man protest against Japan over disputed islands known as Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese, and led a protest outside a US army base in Seoul in November 2014. It is reported that he once self-immolated in front of the Blue House in 2010 in protest over an alleged assault on a colleague, which he blamed on the government. He needed an emergency medical care. These implicitly suggest that a link between North Korea’s roles in the attack exists.

Does it mean that North Korea has launched another game plan to up the ante to the on-going tensions in the peninsula? The suspected North Korean link is because most South Koreans have never visited the secretive North. The two states continue to remain technically at war under a truce that ended the 1950-53 Korean War. A heavily armed border at 38 Parallel Line at Panmunjom manned by the UN forces divide the peninsula. The suspect, however, denied that he ever visited the North and that there were no connections of his actions with North Korea. But according to the records of the Unification Ministry, Kim was authorised to visit the North as he wanted to plant trees near the North Korean city of Kaesong, the place for the joint industrial complex established between the two states.

Kim is known to have a violent nature. In 2010, he had tried to attack the Japanese ambassador to South Korea by throwing a piece of concrete, for which he served a suspended jail term. Seoul prosecutors also had investigated Kim after he allegedly assaulted at least one public employee at an outdoor pop concert in January 2015. Surprisingly, he was a member of the pro-unification group that hosted the forum discussing unification when the attack on Lippert took place. His link to the North could be established from the reaction that came from Pyongyang, which said that Lippert “deserved punishment” for the military drills, calling the assault “the knife of justice”. The official KCNA observed: “The recent case amid mounting anti-Americanism reflects the mindset of south Korean people censuring the U.S. for bringing the danger of a war to the Korean peninsula through the madcap saber-rattling”.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry lost no time in condemning the statement as “senseless” and “irrational”. Despite the presence of security, it was unfortunate that diplomats’ life come under threat while on duty in another country. The US and South Korea are allies and the former has offered security guarantee under treaty obligations. The US also maintains 28,500 military personnel in South Korea since the end of the Korean War. Though some sections of Korean people do not approve the presence of US military in their territory, such opposition has waned in recent times in the wake of heightened tensions coming from North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile development programs.

As expected, the US condemned Pyongyang’s “callous” reaction to the knife attack on its ambassador. The US also termed the North Korea’s reaction as “consistent with the nature of the regime and its rhetoric”. Pyongyang always sees the joint US-South Korea military drills as preparation for invasion. It launched two small missiles into the ocean earlier in the week in apparent displeasure. Having been arrested, Kim could face charge including attempted murder, assaulting a foreign envoy, obstruction, and violating a controversial law that bans praise or assistance for North Korea. But Kim claims that he acted alone and was only protesting against the military exercises that anti-US activists see as a major obstacle to their goal of a unified Korea.

This incident has raised questions over the kind of security provided to foreign envoys in South Korea. The assault is a bit unusual because despite regular threats of war from North Korea, Seoul is considered a relatively low-risk diplomatic posting. That image has now been dented with the attack on Lippert. Curiously enough, though Lippert was provided with one full-time bodyguard by the Seoul metropolitan police, unlike in India, for example, police in South Korea are not armed. Since then, security arrangements even for other US diplomatic officials have been increased.

The Seoul police are trying to find out whether Kim violated the national security law. Enacted in 1948 to protect the fledgling South Korean state from infiltration by the communist North, the law prohibits the spoken or written promotion of North Korean ideology, deeming any such activity to be “anti-state” and subject to up to seven years imprisonment. There was also a degree of shame and anxiety that a man with a record of violence against foreign envoys was able to carry out the assault. “We are ashamed for not being able to prevent such a terrorist attack by a radical nationalist,” the English-language JoonAng daily newspaper said in an editorial.

During the assault, Kim screamed a slogan in favour of reunifying the divided Korean peninsula, and later shouted his opposition to the joint US-South Korean military drills that began the same week. The annual exercises always trigger a surge in tensions with the North and Kim said they were responsible for blocking a resumption of inter-Korean dialogue.

Therefore, the attack on the US envoy demonstrates an upsurge of pro-North radicalism in South Korea. Since coming to power, South Korean President Park Geun-hye has adopted a hard-line approach towards the North. This time too, Park countered that the “incident is not only a physical attack on the US ambassador, but an attack on the South Korea-US alliance and it can never be tolerated.”

The attacker Kim belongs to a group of Korean nationalists opposed to the American presence in the South. More than 10 years ago when families from North and South began reconciliation meetings, the group organized anti-US protests in Seoul. Their interests were seen as similar to those of North Korea, which advocates for the unification of the Korean peninsula under the rule of the Kim family dynasty – with the departure of the Americans a first step. Though protests and civic activism in the South began to wane after the North conducted a nuclear test in 2006, 2009 and again in 2013, the nationalists when learnt that that the South was paying a large amount of cash for diplomacy with the North with often no visible reciprocation, their protests intensified. Notwithstanding such voices, civic protests against the US have slowed because majority of South Koreans feel US forces are still needed because of the perceived threats from the North.

The incident has raised concern that US-South Korea might worsen. This concern was triggered by the comments made by US Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman Sherman who said that it would not be hard for “a political leader anywhere to earn cheap applause by vilifying a former enemy”, referring to frosty relations between South Korea and Japan. Her comments were interpreted as the US taking sides with Japan in the issue on wartime history shared by Seoul and Tokyo.

Political parties raised a worrying pitch toward the possible worsening of the US-South Korea alliance. Kim Moo-sung, chief of the ruling Saenuri Party, said during a party meeting that it was a “terrorist attack” against the alliance between Seoul and Washington and terrorist forces should be rooted out. “Using violence while shouting opposition to war” is a self- contradiction, Kim said. Similarly, ruling party floor leader Yoo Seung-min expressed deep worries about the possibly serious effects on the South Korea-US alliance. Moon Jae-in, head of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy, said violence can never be justified, expressing hopes for speed recovery of Lippert.

The incident demonstrated the frustration in certain section of the South Korean people who just cannot reconcile to the reality that the situation is too complex that begs an immediate solution. In a democratic system, such radicalism has no place and the attack needs to be condemned in strongest possible term. One only hopes that such aberrations do not take place again so as that threatens diplomatic relations between any two countries, with US-South Korea relations being no exception.

The post Attack On US Envoy In Seoul An Unfortunate Incident – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

China’s annual legislative gathering – the third session of the 12th National People’s Congress (NPC) – was held in Beijing on 5 March.  The key words of the government’s work report were “7 percent”, “corruption” and “comprehensive”.

Premier Li Keqiang said that China will live in the “new normal” which means adjusting to slower growth. The plan is to lower the GDP growth rate to 7% (7.5% in 2014 plan) while paying more attention to dealing with the country’s massive environmental problems. .

In the annual government report, the word “corruption” appeared eight times (four times in 2014) which is a signal that the anti-corruption remains a top priority.  The report is also a clear answer to some internal concerns that whether the anticorruption crackdown has kept some officials from doing their jobs.  Ideologically, Li’s report strongly promoted President Xi’s ideological template for the nation—the “Four Comprehensives,” (building a moderately prosperous society, deepening reforms, ruling the country according to the law, tightening party discipline) as the way to tackle China’s current challenges.

For the full report please click here

Besides the government work report, the Ministry of Finance’s budget report and the national planning agency’s draft plan for economic and social development were also released on 5March. The budget report stated that the government would continue a proactive fiscal policy and prudent monetary policy, China’s budget deficit in 2015 (2.3% GDP) will be higher than 2014 (2.1% GDP) to support the proactive fiscal policy. NDRC plans to re-green the economy by tackling the country’s depleted environment in 2015, it also plan to further relax FDI policies and permit more FTZs (free trade zone).

See full report of Ministry of Finance’s Budget here

See full report of NDRC here.

China’s economic prospects matter a great deal for the global economy. A plan that emphasizes soft landing and encourages overseas investment could give a much-needed boost to the post-crisis world economy. On the other hand, it could also raise questions about China’s international role as a new “great state power.”

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As Singapore celebrates its 50th anniversary, there may be a need to refocus its economic success narrative for it to be more relevant not only to the past, but also to current and future challenges that Singapore may face.

By Nur Diyanah Binte Anwar and Priscilla Cabuyao*

The story of Singapore’s humble beginnings and eventual rise to first world status has been used time and again for nation-building, and has effectively illustrated Singapore’s achievement of becoming a developed country. This narrative of Singapore’s ‘Third World to First World’ journey has provided Singaporeans a common past, a shared memory, and a collective identity.

As Singapore celebrates its 50th anniversary, there may be a need to refocus the narrative for it to be more relevant not only to the past, but also to current and future challenges that Singapore may face.
How can this possibly be framed?

‘From Third World to First World’

The ‘Third World to First World’ narrative depicts how Singapore had to depend on itself to ensure its survival as a sovereign nation and realise its long-term objective of becoming an economically developed country. Social and economic problems such as poverty, the lack of infrastructure and education plagued the society which led to initial struggles in its founding years. However, these challenges were largely eliminated because of Singaporeans’ diligence, perseverance, and hard work, and the country’s pragmatic economic policies.

In this regard, Singapore’s economic success story has been widely disseminated through various projects run by state institutions to encourage Singaporeans to identify to a shared history and the obstacles it had to face. The government has reinforced this narrative through efforts such as exhibitions. For instance, a national history exhibition was organised in 1984, where a comparison of old huts of the 1960s and innovative government high-rise flats was presented. This depicted the government’s implementation of an urban renewal and housing programme.

In 1998, an interactive exhibit called ‘The Singapore Story — Overcoming the Odds’ depicted the struggles Singapore had to bear and its eventual economic success. This was followed by the release of an educational CD-ROM of the same title in 1999.

Through the Social Studies subject in school, young Singaporeans are taught about the country’s phase-by-phase economic strategies such as the open-door policy to foreign investments and labour-intensive policies in the 1960s-1970s and capital-intensive programmes to build up a technologically advanced manufacturing industry in the 1980s. In the late 1990s, Singapore shifted into a knowledge-based economy from a manufacturing base. Singapore’s economic approach was re-evaluated in order to embrace the global IT age, where the government rolled out numerous initiatives to build a wide-ranging knowledge infrastructure that supports information and knowledge sharing and education.

By evolving with global economic developments and implementing pragmatic economic policies, Singapore has experienced economic success. Singapore’s ‘Third World to First World’ narrative thereby allows Singaporeans to relate to the country’s journey to developed world status.

Plot Archetypes

Do the stories Singapore tells of itself matter? Arguably they do, and plot archetypes may help us understand why. Plot archetypes are storytelling patterns which affect and influence beliefs and behaviours, and therefore are effective tools in allowing the audience to relate to a story. In Christopher Booker’s ‘The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories’, he explained that stories can be identified into seven plot archetypes namely ‘Overcoming the Monster’, ‘Rags to Riches’, ‘The Quest’, ‘Voyage and Return’, ‘Comedy’, ‘Tragedy’, and ‘Rebirth’. It can be argued that Singapore’s ‘Third World to First World’ narrative concurrently uses ‘The Quest’ and ‘Overcoming the Monster’ as central plot archetypes.

‘The Quest’ describes Singapore successfully setting and achieving its long-term goal of becoming a developed country. The ‘Overcoming the Monster’ plot illustrates Singapore’s survival as an independent nation after being expelled from the Malaysian Federation in 1965, and the country’s triumph over hindrances to development such as poverty and lack of infrastructure and education. However, ’The Quest’ has already been completed, and it is undeniable that Singapore has joined the ranks of highly developed, industrialised states.

The plot of ‘The Quest’ is definitive, and therefore is not easily bent. The purpose is clear, that is, to achieve the goal. In contrast, the monster in ‘Overcoming the Monster’ is more vague and amorphous, and thus can be more easily adjusted to relate to current and ever-changing reality.

Therefore, ‘The Quest’ may not be as significant as ‘Overcoming the Monster’ as Singapore would continue to experience newer challenges after achieving its goal of becoming a developed country. ‘The Quest’ may therefore be more appropriate only when relating to Singaporeans’ shared history of economic success, whereas ‘Overcoming the Monster’ offers more utility today because it relates not only to the challenges of the past, but also of the future.

Current and future odds

If the past 50 years has taught Singaporeans anything, it is to be supple in confronting obstacles. In his TODAY article ‘SG50: Look to the Future, Too, Not Only the Past’, author-consultant and former public servant Devadas Krishnadas argued that the ‘… past is no guarantee of future performance. Singapore has to remain nimble and be able to take knocks’.

As Singapore continues to develop, certain concerns have been recently raised such as the rising cost of living and the increase in the number of migrants in the country. Socio-economic problems such as a widening income gap, a shrinking job market, and higher costs of living may affect Singaporeans’ outlook on their own futures in the country.

Hence, ‘Overcoming the Monster’ — as encapsulated through ‘Overcoming the Odds’ in Singapore — may be more useful than ‘The Quest’ today in bringing Singaporeans together to face and survive the hits and blows that come to Singapore’s way. While ‘The Quest’ has served Singapore well in inspiring its people to accomplish the goal of becoming a first world country and remembering its past as a nation, ‘Overcoming the Monster’ could prove to be more appropriate in enduring current and future hardships. With this, Singaporeans could be further encouraged and inspired to work towards success for the next 50 years and beyond.

*Nur Diyanah Binte Anwar and Priscilla Cabuyao are researchers at the Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS), S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

The post ‘Overcoming The Monster’ Still Useful For Singapore – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Dear Nicolás Maduro,

President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela:

I congratulate you on your brilliant and courageous speech against the brutal plans of the U.S. government.

Your words go down in history as proof that humanity can and must know the truth.

Fraternally,

Fidel Castro Ruz

Statement from the Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Cuba

Cuba states its position with regards to the aggressive Executive Order issued by the President of the United States against the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, which declares the country a threat to U.S. national security

The Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Cuba has learnt of the arbitrary and aggressive Executive Order issued by the President of the United States against the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, which declares the country a threat to its national security, in reprisal for the measures adopted by Venezuela in defense of its sovereignty against the interventionist actions of the U.S. Congress and governmental authorities.

How does Venezuela threaten the United States? Thousands of kilometers away, without strategic weapons and without employing resources nor officials to plot against U.S constitutional order, the statement is unbelievable, and lays bare the intentions of those who have come up with it.

However, such a statement during a year in which legislative elections will be held in Venezuela reaffirms once again the interventionist nature of U.S. foreign policy.

The severity of this executive measure has alerted the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean who, in January 2014, at the Second CELAC Summit in Havana, declared the region a Zone of Peace, and these countries repudiate any act prejudicial to this, as they have accumulated enough experiences of imperial intervention throughout their history.

The Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Cuba reiterates once again its unconditional support and that of our people for the Bolivarian Revolution, the legitimate government of President Nicolás Maduro Moros and the heroic sister nation of Venezuela.

Nobody has the right to intervene in the internal affairs of a sovereign State or to declare it, without grounds, a threat to its national security.

Just as Cuba was never alone, Venezuela will not be either.

Havana, March 9, 2015

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At least 10 people died as two helicopters crashed in a remote area in northwestern Argentina during the filming of a survivalist documentary. A French TV cast perished in the accident, local officials have confirmed.

The helicopters exploded while flying near Villa Castelli in La Rioja province after a possible collision, according to Argentinian Secretary of Security Cesar Angulo, as cited by AP.

Local officials identified the victims as eight French citizens and two Argentinian pilots. An AFP report said that among those killed were French Olympic gold medalist swimmer Camille Muffat, 25, Olympic boxer Alexis Vastine, 28, and sailor Florence Arthaud, 57.

The French nationals were cast members of the TV reality series ‘Dropped,’ which was to be broadcast on TF1 later in 2015.

The identities of the victims have not yet been officially released. It is known that the cast included eight French athletes in total: swimmers Alain Bernad and Camille Muffat, boxer Alexis Vastine, cyclist Jeannie Longo, footballer Sylvain Wiltord, sailor Florence Arthaud, rider Anne-Flore Marxer, and skater Philippe Candeloro.

Wiltord and Bernard were confirmed to have not been aboard the helicopters at the time of the accident. Wiltord tweeted later on Monday: “I am sad for my friends, I tremble, I am horrified, I have no words.”

The plot of the show involved two teams being dropped off in two separate isolated locations. The goal was to beat their rivals in search for civilization. One of the helicopters reportedly belonged to the provincial government.

Authorities have begun an investigation into the cause of the crash. Weather conditions in the mountainous area where the accident took place were apparently good.

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By Musa al-Gharbi

To hear politicians and beltway pundits tell it, credibility in international relations boils down to this: Do others believe that the United States is willing and able to follow through on its word?

Actually, this is a sloppy and often pernicious way to think, leading policymakers to senselessly commit themselves to failing policies (like enforcing a “red line,” for instance) for the sake of “maintaining credibility” — and actually undermining it in the process.

Credibility is not about resolve. Strategic credibility is actually about assuring partners that things will work out well for them if they throw their lot in with you. This perception plays a pivotal role in determining whether others will support or resist U.S. interests abroad.

The primary way agents establish themselves as credible is by making good decisions, which means forming and executing policies that generate positive outcomes for the relevant stakeholders. The stronger an agent’s track record, the more likely others will be willing to get behind them — that is, the more credibility they will have. Incidentally, this is the secret to ISIS’ success: Regardless of how distasteful many find their methods and ideology, they have established themselves as one of the most effective forces at seizing territory from the governments of Iraq and Syria, making tangible progress in restoring a caliphate, and resisting the prevailing international order.

America, on the other hand, has a serious credibility problem in the Middle East. The results of U.S. interventions in the region have been consistently catastrophic: Whether in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, or Syria, direct U.S. involvement is usually followed by an erosion of state governance, the empowerment of exploitative sub-state and non-state actors, and a dramatic rise in violence, civil tension, and unrest.

American indirect involvement, meanwhile, tends to empower corrupt, oppressive, and undemocratic forces — such as in Pakistan, Egypt, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain. In terms of achieving positive outcomes, America simply has absolutely no credibility in the Middle East.

However, character is also important: Moral credibility means a nation’s intentions and motivations are more likely to be trusted.

Strategic and moral credibility are interrelated: Consistently generating good outcomes goes a long way toward bolstering one’s reputation. Even if the methods for achieving an objective seem questionable, they tend to be justified retrospectively if things turn out all right. In the interim, people are much more willing to extend the benefit of doubt to those with a strong track record of success. Conversely, moral credibility can help make up for occasional bad outcomes — an agent is afforded slack when things go awry if it’s perceived as being genuinely well-intentioned.

However, when there are glaring inconsistencies between a government’s declared aspirations (say, promotion of democracy and human rights) and their means of realization (imposing Western socio-economic models at the expense of indigenous self-determination) — especially when paired with a general failure to realize stated objectives (producing chaos rather than order, be it liberal or otherwise) — these generate suspicion about its real intentions and motives.

Hypocrisy Undermines “Resolve”

Part of what contributes to America’s cycle of diplomatic and military failures in the Middle East is an underlying distrust of the United States among most Arabs, which inspires widespread ambivalence or resistance to U.S. efforts in the region. The source of this deficit has nothing to do with U.S. follow-through or resolve, as foreign policy hawks love to allege. One can be consistent with regards to backing up threats, etc. while still being a hypocrite in the moral sphere.

Indeed, this is precisely the problem America faces.

After decades of supporting the region’s dictators with arms and money, Washington has now formed a coalition with both the surviving local autocrats and the Middle East’s former imperial powers to “bring democracy” to Syria and (once more) to Iraq. Is it any surprise the “Arab street” is mistrustful?

It further fuels skepticism when America attempts to fight ISIS — a group largely empowered by previous U.S. support for other non-state actors in Iraq, Libya, and Syria — by training and arming new, ineffective, and unpopular proxy militias. Moreover, these new groups are often aligned with, and trained in, Saudi Arabia — the power most responsible for proliferating the ideology embraced by the so-called “Islamic State.” It seems disingenuous when the U.S. condemns Russia for funding non-state actors in Ukraine, or Pakistan for doing so in Afghanistan, or Iran in Lebanon — even as America expands its own support of insurgents in Syria.

The Arab public is outraged when U.S. policymakers decry human rights violations elsewhere while continuing to support Israel and shield it from international accountability for its occupation of the West Bank or its wars on Gaza. And it doesn’t help at all when the Obama administration, among other failings, declines to prosecute clear and grievous infractions like torture by its own intelligence agencies, while calling for regime change in other countries for the same sorts of infractions.

When American representatives lecture others about upholding the very international rules and norms the U.S. government systematically and unapologetically violates through its drone strikes and mass surveillance, enhanced interrogation, and extraordinary rendition programs, others will not take American rhetoric or ideals seriously.

These glaring contradictions imbue the entire ethical project with a cynical hue — undermining not just American credibility, but the general value of moral discourse on the world stage more generally. This breakdown, in turn, disrupts consensus building and cooperation, threatening the long-term viability of the rules-based international order Americans sacrificed so much in years past to establish and preserve.

Changing the Dynamic

But there is good news: The United States can simultaneously bolster its moral and strategic credibility by adopting a more sensible foreign policy. The first step will be to adopt more modest aspirations and pragmatic strategies in order to avoid making problems worse. Within this narrower framework, the United States should strive to adopt the same policies it promotes for others.

If Washington wants to stem the growth and proliferation of non-state actors, for example, the U.S. should stop funding them as well — and should pressure its allies to follow suit. Instead, Washington can provide material and logistical support to the relevant state actors to help these governments first contain the spread of ungoverned zones and then gradually reclaim control over lost territories. (Of course, this support should be contingent on a basic respect for human rights.)

Rather than orchestrating another destabilizing regime-change in Syria, furthermore, the United States should aspire towards gradual, viable, and meaningful reform of the state — which will require an inclusive diplomatic approach regarding the Baathist government and its foreign patrons, as well as a piecemeal agenda for rehabilitating the state and its institutions. In the short term, this means prioritizing peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, and reconstruction in support of a negotiated settlement rather than trying to force polarizing elections in the wake of a violent uprising.

But perhaps most significantly, if America wants to promote democracy in the Middle East, it should start by rethinking the levels and types of aid afforded to Israel and the region’s autocrats absent substantial political reform.

All of these measures would undermine extremist groups, both materially and ideologically, by enhancing Arabs’ self-determination while advancing international law and order. As a result, this approach could generate much better results with significantly less investment and blowback. Perhaps more importantly, these policies would help rebuild America’s credibility by building a better world —in the Mideast and beyond.

*Musa al-Gharbi is a social epistemologist affiliated with the Southwest Initiative for the Study of Middle East Conflicts (SISMEC). Readers can connect to his work and social media via his website: www.fiatsophia.org

The post Why The US Lacks Credibility In The Middle East – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg discussed security challenges with NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Philip Breedlove, and participated in a conference of senior military commanders during a visit to Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe on Wednesday. The Secretary General thanked the commanders for the remarkable work of Allied forces in the face of a highly complex and uncertain security environment. “Every day, they keep our nations safe,” he said.

The Secretary General warned that Russia’s aggressive actions against Ukraine have undermined the post-Cold War security order in Europe. He underlined that the ceasefire in Eastern Ukraine remained the best foundation for a peaceful solution to the conflict. Stoltenberg noted that the ceasefire appeared to be holding, but remained fragile.

“We have seen the withdrawal of some heavy weapons, but it’s unclear to what destination,” Stoltenberg said. The Secretary General called on all parties to ensure that OSCE monitors have “the information, the freedom of movement and the security guarantees they require” in order to verify full compliance with the Minsk agreement.

In response to challenges both to the east and the south, NATO is implementing the strongest reinforcement of its collective defence since the end of the Cold War, Stoltenberg said.

“We are doubling the size of the NATO Response Force from 13,000 to 30,000 troops” and “setting up a new 5,000-strong quick reaction Spearhead Force, with some units ready to move within as little as 48 hours,” Stoltenberg said.

Stoltenberg added that NATO is establishing six command and control centres in the Baltic States and three other eastern Allies, in order to coordinate training and exercises, and facilitate rapid reinforcements.

The Secretary General said the Alliance would “keep up the momentum”, noting a current exercise of NATO ships in the Black Sea, a major U.S. deployment to the Baltic region for training, and an upcoming exercise in the autumn – expected to be the Alliance’s largest in many years – with over 25,000 troops participating.

“These measures are defensive, proportionate, and in line with our international commitments,” Stoltenberg said, adding: “these Headquarters and our Supreme Commander Europe, General Breedlove, play a key role in these efforts.”

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Arab Spring protests, Islamic State –extremists feed off narratives of injustice, elites punish reformers.

By John Githongo*

On the 8th of January the leader of Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan issued a statement condemning the “dastardly terrorist attack” on Charlie Hebdo the previous day. He joined an outpouring of solidarity in the global “Je Suis Charlie” moment, yet his sentiments were mistimed in the African context. Days earlier, Boko Haram, a vicious jihadist insurgent group in Nigeria’s north had reportedly murdered as many as 2000 innocents in the city of Baga in Borno State, according to Amnesty International.

Pundits opined that while the Jonathan administration has been manifestly lethargic in efforts to interdict Boko Haram for spreading indiscriminate terror across a broad swathe of Nigeria, it was quick to respond to an attack in Paris. The administration’s first response to the Baga massacre was reportedly a tweet by the presidential spokesman, disputing the number of Nigerians killed. The lame response may have more to do with ethnic calculations in the face of upcoming elections in Nigeria – since postponed – than they had to with the national interest. Bluntly put, the ethnic groups of the north under attack by Boko Haram are not supporters of his party.

Partisanship, neglect and corruption marking Nigeria are emblematic of a largely dysfunctional world with radicals offering increasingly violent response.

Nigeria is not alone. Identity politics seem to be back with a vengeance after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the winds of change, as the Scorpions’ song put it, that blew across the former Soviet States of Eastern Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

A combination of factors including the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, WikiLeaks, the Arab Spring and its aftermath has mixed into a rolling reaction among organized and determined minority elements of the global Muslim community. The most extreme have been franchised and become a multinational of terror at once federated and autonomous, but ultimately feeding off the same narratives of collective alienation and grievance – narratives that have genuine currency among Muslims, but are contorted by both ruling elites and globalized agents of terror.

Old nationalisms have begun to bubble up again in Europe, too – a version of identity politics whose cloak of nationalism was so potent that 100 million human beings lost their lives between 1913 and 1945 as the European tribes went to war. Vladimir Putin has deliberately cultivated an image of himself as the most coldly calculating world leader, and it was curious to see this epitome of political testosterone shed a tear in September as the Russian national anthem was played in his honor in Mongolia. In light of still unfolding events in Ukraine, the potentialities are troubling. Across Europe too, political parties on the extremes, while not supplanting their mainstream counterparts, have gained traction at precisely the time when the mainstream parties and their leaders have slid down the ladder in terms of the public trust and confidence. The recent Greek election is a case in point.

Identity politics has brought even greater ravages to the Middle East. The ability of jihadist groups to reinvent, evolve and transform themselves has been striking. It’s clear that they are not trying to win in the conventional sense. They aim to survive, subvert and undermine the essential edifice to which they are inherently opposed, as suggested by David M. Anderson and Jacob McKnight in “Kenya at War: Al Shabaab and Its Enemies in Eastern Africa,” in African Affairs. The definition of victory is not military. Indeed, the propaganda that emerges from groups like Al Qaeda and Islamic State and their permutations around the world suggests an ultimate goal of a global caliphate with the black flag fluttering atop the White House. Not being open to any rational response is fatalistic, born out of an intrinsically fragmentary logic – thus the furious contest between the Sunni and Shia. The battle is self-justifying. For some, to die fighting as a martyr to a greater cause is an end in itself.

Disconcerting to observers is the ambivalence of the leadership in Muslim countries as extremist groups propagate their ideology – and this in the face of atrocities that have been committed against Muslims on an unprecedented scale leading, for example, to the greatest refugee crisis since World War II. The world ponders why.

Few relationships between those who govern and the governed are as personally humiliating as blatant corruption, with extortion regularly practiced on the relatively powerless. Indeed, in developing countries, the concern for the ordinary citizen is not only about the huge chunks of GDP that elites misappropriate. What ultimately captures the imagination and ire is that corruption is often accompanied by willful and arbitrary repression, conspicuous consumption, and the trampling on the dignity and honor of ordinary citizens. This creates an existential alienation of the kind that caused Tunisian street vendor Mohammed Bouazizi to snap, setting himself on fire in December 2010. He not only protested confiscation of his wares. but as the story is told and retold, revealed his frustration with ongoing humiliation at the hands of a municipal official.

These words – “honor,” “dignity” and the like – are essential to the recurring narratives of groups like Al Qaeda, al Shabaab, Islamic State and other jihadist groups expressing Islamic discontent over the current age. Muslims as an identity, as an Umma, have been abused, trampled upon, often – it is perceived – by their own elites in partnership with the West. And the alienation is replicated at the international level with the alienation of their own elites and the governments they lead from an international order considered hostile to the interests of Muslims generally and, at the very least, insensitive to the injustices perpetrated against them.

While corruption and accompanying repression, inequality and a sense of helplessness, feed the alienation that caused Bouazizi’s self-immolation, corruption in turn feeds the inability of states to mount coherent responses to terrorism. The past 15 years have demonstrated the extent to which embedded networks of corruption involved in money laundering, drugs, modern slavery, environmental trafficking, terrorism finance and the laundering of illicit proceeds in general increasingly overlap. These involve the same players: politicians, bureaucrats, generals and the private sector represented by brokers and the service sector – multinational banks, international legal and audit firms. These networks can literally own a country. The primary systems of governance are not infiltrated by systemic corruption. Corruption is the system. Citizens are reduced to bit players in a gangster movie where the gangsters are in State House and head the security agencies.

Recent history has taught us that no matter how stable a systemically corrupt authoritarian state appears, inequality that is essential to its neo-patrimonial character plays into the demographic or identity politics of the day undermining security at the personal and ultimately the national level. These contradictions have served as prime fodder for the virulent and intolerant ideologies that extremists have visited upon the world.

*John Githongo is the 2015 Mimi and Peter E. Haas Distinguished Visitor, Stanford University, and CEO of Inuka NiSisi Kenya. This is adapted from the Coca-Cola Lecture he delivered at Yale University on February 11, 2015.

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Travel restrictions imposed by the government of Ukraine have contributed to serious delays in the delivery of humanitarian aid, particularly medicines and medical equipment, to civilians in rebel-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch released a video based on interviews with medical personnel and patients in eastern Ukraine.

The restrictions also seriously impede access to health care for civilians from rebel-controlled areas who need to use state-funded medical services available only in government-controlled areas, Human Rights Watch said. Human Rights Watch also found that patients receiving treatment for HIV, tuberculosis (TB), and opioid substitution therapy (OST) are facing interruptions of life-saving treatment.

“Delays in delivering medicines, combined with a pass system and military hostilities, have created massive shortages at medical facilities,” said Yulia Gorbunova, Europe and Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “This is jeopardizing the lives of people with serious medical conditions and others who need medical assistance in rebel-controlled areas.”

Human Rights Watch spent three days in Kiev and seven days in the Donetsk region interviewing, in person or by phone, doctors and other health workers, patients, local residents, volunteers, and members of independent humanitarian groups that provide humanitarian aid to conflict-affected areas.

In a March 9, 2015 letter to Ukrainian officials, Human Rights Watch asked the Ukrainian government to ensure that its restrictions on movement in and out of areas not under government control do not adversely affect the health of the civilian population.

Several local and international humanitarian organizations told Human Rights Watch that since January, they have experienced restrictions and delays when trying to move medicines and medical equipment that are essential for the health of the civilian population into rebel-controlled areas. In some cases these restrictions and delays did not appear to be justified on security grounds, Human Rights Watch said.

In November 2014, the Ukrainian government stopped providing funding for government services and social benefit payments – including budgets for hospitals, pensions, and social security – in rebel-controlled areas. Civilians have to travel to government-controlled territories to get their social benefits. In January 2015, the government also began to enforce travel regulations that require civilians to obtain a special pass to move between rebel-controlled and government-controlled territories. Human Rights Watch found that rebel forces, who exercise effective control over areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, have failed to fill the gap left by the withdrawal of state funding for services and payments from rebel-held areas. People in rebel-controlled areas who need state-funded treatment now have to travel to government-controlled territory, but are often unable to, either because they do not have the financial and other resources to travel and register in government-controlled areas, they have to provide care for sick or elderly family members who are not able to travel, or they fear injury or worse due to the hostilities.

All parties to the conflict should uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law and their commitments under the February 13 Minsk ceasefire agreements to ensure access to humanitarian relief for civilians who need it, Human Rights Watch said.

The Ukrainian government has the right to control movement in and out of rebel-controlled areas, but all parties to the conflict must allow and facilitate the rapid and unimpeded access for impartial humanitarian relief for civilians in need, Human Rights Watch said. Consent for access to humanitarian operations cannot be withheld for arbitrary reasons, and neither side should seek to impose intolerable conditions on the civilian population as a tactic of war.

The government also maintains its obligations under international human rights law to respect the right to health and other economic and social rights, as well as rights such as freedom of movement for the civilian population. This includes, in particular, rights provided for in the treaties to which it is a party, such as the European Convention on Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

In areas under effective control of rebel forces, those forces have the primary responsibility to ensure that civilians have humanitarian essentials, including medical supplies, Human Rights Watch said. And, while the Ukrainian government has no obligation under international humanitarian law to provide direct financial assistance to authorities operating under the control of rebels, its human rights obligations to the civilian population do not cease due to the current conflict.

In its letter, Human Rights Watch said the Ukrainian government and de facto authorities in rebel-controlled areas should not impede humanitarian assistance and should facilitate access to it for civilians in need. The government of Ukraine and rebel forces controlling those areas should issue instructions to troops and forces staffing checkpoints, and their commanders, to ensure that delivery of medication and medical assistance for civilians in rebel-controlled areas are not subject to arbitrary or unreasonable delays, in line with humanitarian law and the Minsk agreements.

“Some of the most vulnerable civilians in rebel-controlled areas have no choice but to rely on humanitarian groups for certain medications and medical services,” Gorbunova said. “Impediments to delivering medications, such as arbitrary delays at checkpoints, can have a severe negative impact on their health with dire, and in some cases deadly, consequences.”

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Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi said Friday that his country had laid out a sustainable development strategy through 2030 to build a “civilized” society.

Al-Sisi’s statements came during his opening speech at Egypt’s economic summit, which kicked off Friday in the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh with the participation of nearly 100 countries, 25 international organizations, over 2,500 investors, and 755 firms, according to Egyptian officials.

The sustainable development strategy will be carried out with the participation of the private sector and civil society organizations, so as to guarantee the implementation of the programs and policies that will achieve the targeted economic goals, al-Sisi said in his opening speech.

The Egyptian president said his country had laid out a long-term sustainable development strategy through 2030 that included the application of a just taxation system and a narrowing of the country’s budget deficit.

He went on to note that a significant improvement could already be seen in the growth rates recorded in the first quarter of the current fiscal year.

The Egyptian government plans to unveil 50 investment projects worth a total of $35 billion during the three-day summit, according to ministry spokesman Badr Abdel-Ati.

Among the projects is the Suez Canal Corridor Development mega-project, which is expected to account for 30 to 35 percent of Egypt’s total gross domestic product, he added.

Egypt is counting on the summit to restore investor confidence and attract some $8 billion worth of foreign investment before the end of the current fiscal year ending June 30.

The country hopes to lure an additional $10 billion worth of foreign investment by the 2015/16 fiscal year to revive its economy, which has suffered major setbacks since a 2011 popular uprising that led to the ouster of longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Original article

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(RFE/RL) — Pakistan says it has successfully tested a homemade unmanned aircraft equipped with a laser-guided missile.

The military said on March 13 that the drone, called Buraq (flying horse), can hit static and moving targets with “pinpoint accuracy in all types of weather.”

Army chief General Raheel Sharif said the testing of the aircraft and the Barq (lightning) missile was a “great national achievement and momentous occasion.”

Sharif said the new drone “multiplies capability against terrorists”.

Pakistan has long asked the United States to give them the technology required to run their own program to develop unmanned aircraft.

Islamabad publicly opposes incursions of U.S. drones into Pakistani airspace to target Taliban and other militants along its northwestern border with Afghanistan.

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ONCE A Soviet citizen went to vote. He was given a sealed envelope and told to put it in the ballot box.

“Could I possibly see for whom I am voting?” he asked timidly.

“Of course not!” the official answered indignantly, “in the Soviet Union, we respect the secrecy of the ballot!”

In Israel, elections are also secret. Therefore I shall not tell you for whom I shall vote. Certainly I shall not be so impertinent as to tell my readers how to vote. But I shall set out the reasoning that will guide me.

WE ARE voting for a new government, that will lead Israel for the next four years.

If this were a beauty contest, I would vote for Yair Lapid. He is so very handsome.

If we had to decide who is the most likeable candidate, it would probably be Moshe Kahlon. He seems a very nice guy, the son of a poor, Oriental Jewish family, who as Minister of Communications has broken the monopoly of the cellphone tycoons. But sympathy has nothing to do with it.

If we were seeking a nice, well-mannered guy, Yitzhak Herzog would be the obvious candidate. He is honest, of good family.

And so on. If I were looking for a bar bouncer, Avigdor Lieberman would be my man. If I were looking for a smooth TV performer, both Lapid and Binyamin Netanyahu would be more than adequate.

But I am looking for a person who will at least prevent war (and perhaps bring peace closer), bring back some form of social justice, put an end to the discrimination against Arab and Jewish Oriental citizens, restore our health, education and other social services, and more.

LET ME start with the easy part: for whom I shall not vote under any circumstances.

On the extreme right there is Eli Yishai’s “Beyahad” (Together) party. I never liked Yishai. Before he split from “Shas”, he was Interior Minister and persecuted refugees from Sudan and Eritrea without even a modicum of compassion.

With his new party desperate to overcome the threshold clause, which is now 3.25%, Yishai made a deal with the disciples of the late and unlamented Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was branded as a fascist by the Supreme Court. No. 4 on the list is now Baruch Marzel, who once publicly called for my murder. Even a bottle of the noblest wine is spoiled by a few drops of cyanide. No sell.

Next on the list is Avigdor Lieberman, the center of whose election platform is the proposal to behead with an axe all Arab citizens who are not loyal to the state. (I am not making this up.)

Not far from there is Naftali Bennett, the smooth, baby-faced former high-tech entrepreneur with the smallest kippa on earth. After conquering the Religious-National Party in a hostile takeover, he turned it into an efficient outfit.

The Religious-National Party was once a very moderate political force, which put a brake on David Ben-Gurion’s adventurism. But its semi-autonomous education system has turned out generations of extremists. Now they are the party of the settlers, and Bennett is wooing young Arab-hating, war-loving secular Jews, who otherwise would vote for Likud.

THUS WE come to Likud, the party of “King Bibi”, as Time Magazine admiringly called him.

Binyamin Netanyahu is fighting for his political life. A few months ago, when he decided to dismiss the Knesset and call early elections, he certainly did not dream of such a predicament.

It seemed that Israel’s march to the right was inevitable and unstoppable. That Netanyahu’s eternal reign was preordained. That the Left was facing a sordid end. That the Center was evaporating. It was just a matter of Netanyahu changing his horses (or asses, some would say).

And here we are, a few days before election day, with Likud almost desperate.

Why? How?

It seems that people are just fed up with Netanyahu. They seem to be saying: Enough is enough.

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a great leader in peace and war, was elected for the fourth time, the American people decided to limit the terms of presidents henceforth to two. Perhaps the Israeli people have decided the same: three terms of Netanyahu are quite sufficient, thank you.

On the internet, a very funny clip is now circulating. Netanyahu is standing on the podium of the Congress, like a gym teacher (or like the trainer of very tame lions in a circus), commanding his pupils “Up! Down! Up! Down!” with congressmen and senators jumping at his command.

The Likud spin doctors had hoped that this sight would improve his fortunes in the election. And indeed, for a few days his numbers in the polls rose from a dismal 21 seats (of 120) to 23. But then they went down again and settled at 21, with Herzog at 24. Perhaps the senators did not jump high enough.

Where do the Likud votes go? First of all, to Bennett’s party. That would not be an unmitigated disaster for Netanyahu, since Bennett, with all the hatred between them, will have to support Netanyahu in the Knesset.

BUT SOME of the votes will go to the two “center” parties of Kahlon and Lapid, whose eventual allegiance is uncertain.

Kahlon comes from the Likud. He was a typical party member, son of immigrants from Tripoli (Libya), the darling of the party’s powerful central committee. A Likud member can vote for him now with a clear conscience, especially if he wants to change the social situation and ameliorate the lot of the poor.

Lapid is much the same, with one great difference: he has already been Finance Minister, while Kahlon only aspires to become one. Though Lapid has an unlimited enthusiasm for explaining his huge success in this job, the general opinion is that he was just so-so, if not a complete failure.

Nobody – not even they themselves – knows the answer to the decisive question: will they join a Netanyahu or a Herzog government? They can do either. No problem. It may be a matter for a public auction: who will pay more. More ministries, more budgets, more jobs. It will probably depend on the results of the elections.

The same is true for the two Orthodox parties – the Oriental Shas and the Ashkenazi “Torah Jewry”. They believe in God and Money, and God may instruct them to join the coalition which offers the most Money for their institutions.

So there are at least four “center” parties which can decide whether Netanyahu or Herzog will be our next Prime Minister. Lieberman’s shrinking party may be the fifth.

Of course I would not dream of voting for any of them.

WHAT IS LEFT? A choice between three: Labor, now called “the Zionist Camp”, Meretz and the Joint (Arab) list.

The Arab list is composed of four vastly different parties: communist, Islamist and nationalist. It is a shotgun marriage, with Lieberman holding the gun: it was he who induced the Knesset to raise the minimum election threshold, in order to evict the small Arab parties from the Knesset. In response, the four small parties formed the big united list, which now holds third place in the polls after the two large parties.

The Arabs in Israel are second-class citizens, discriminated against and sometimes persecuted. What would be more humane for a progressive Jewish citizen than to vote for such a list?

For me that would be natural, since I was instrumental in creating in 1984 “The Progressive List for Peace” the Israeli party in which Jews and Arabs were completely integrated even more than in Hadash.

But the Joint List is problematic for me. A few days ago, they upset me with a fateful decision.

It concerns the “leftover” votes. Under our election law, two lists may make an agreement, under which the “leftover” votes of both will be pooled and turned over to one of them. (“Leftover” are votes remaining after the party has been allotted the seats for which it has the full number of votes.)

The Leftist parties devised a plan under which the Joint List was to pool its leftovers with those of Meretz. This might have given to one of them – and thus to the entire leftist bloc – one more seat, which may turn out to be crucial.

The Joint List refused, because Meretz is a Zionist party. The decision may have been logical, since many Arab voters could possibly abstain from voting if they feared that their vote might go to a Jewish “Zionist” list. But it showed that faced with any important decision, the Islamists and nationalists of the Joint List might bloc a united decision for peace. I have a problem with that.

So I am left with Meretz and the “Zionist Camp”. Meretz is far closer to my views than the larger list. But only the larger list can unseat Netanyahu. The problem would not have existed if my proposal for a joint list including “the Zionist Camp”, Meretz, Lapid and more had been set up in time. All the prospective parts refused.

So now I am faced with a choice: either vote ideologically for Meretz or vote pragmatically for the party whose chances of putting an end to Netanyahu’s reign will be enhanced if it emerges as the largest party in the next Knesset. But this party has many defects, of which I am painfully aware.

Otto von Bismarck, one of the greatest statesmen of all times, famously described politics as “the art of the possible”.

It is now possible to stop the march of the Right and restore some sanity to our country.

So how should I vote?

The post Israel: For Whom To Vote? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund

(Sharm Al-Sheikh, Egypt) — Good afternoon—masa’a el-kheir,

I would like to thank President Al-Sisi for inviting me here today. Clearly this is an important time for Egypt—a moment of opportunity—and I am very pleased to take part in this conference that was first initiated by the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (bless his soul).

Umm Kulthūm, Egypt’s iconic singer and “Star of the East” [Kawkab Al-Sharq] once said: “wa ma nay’lu al mata’alibi bettamanni” – aspirations cannot be attained through wishful thinking, but through toil and perseverance.

This is true of Egypt today. The country needs to deliver on the aspirations of its people for stronger growth, better health and education systems, and higher standards of living. Over the coming five years, there will be more than 600,000 new entrants to the labor market per year. Creating good jobs for Egypt’s youth is an economic, a social, and a human priority. This will go hand-in-hand with restoring economic stability by shrinking the fiscal deficit and reducing external vulnerabilities.

Is it possible to meet these goals at the same time? Yes, it is—with the right policies. And some of them are already in the Government’s plans. The key now is to implement these policies—to design them right, and to make them hold.

With this in mind, let me share a few thoughts on three topics:
(i) The reform process that is already underway;
(ii) Policies to restore confidence and attract investment;
(iii) Inclusiveness as a factor of sustainable growth.

1. The reform process already underway

Let me start with the good news. The journey to higher growth has already begun.

Over the past few months, there have been promising strides on the reform front. First and foremost was the energy subsidy reform which began in mid-2014—a longstanding item on the reform agenda.

Both the government and you, President Al-Sisi, personally did a lot to prepare the country for this measure. Popular buy-in was achieved through an appropriate dialogue on the need for this reform. At the same time, part of the savings were used to finance a targeted cash transfer for poor families.

Beginning this process was a major achievement. Continuing it will be equally important, and completing it for good, the ultimate goal.

There have also been important measures in the area of taxation, including increases in excises on tobacco and alcohol and now plans for VAT. This is important because non-oil tax revenue is only at about 10 percent of GDP—very low for a modern economy like Egypt’s.

Following through on the VAT will be instrumental. Nobody likes higher taxes—we all understand that. Yet, as U.S. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said: “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society”—and we might add: for a state that can provide the services the Egyptian people aspire to and deserve!

Finally, there are the planned increases in investment, some already being put into effect, through the Suez Canal project. The fact that this was financed mainly by ordinary members of the Egyptian society is a testimony to people’s confidence and desire to turn things around in the economy.

Large projects like Suez, when conducted efficiently, can support growth and job creation, and that is good. But they are not the only way to go. Other, smaller sized projects are equally—if not more—important.

The funding of these projects cannot always rely on the public purse. This is where private investment, domestic and foreign, can play a role. Yet investment only goes where there is confidence and policy certainty.

2. Policies to restore confidence—staying the course of reforms

This takes me to my second topic—what will restore confidence in Egypt’s economic prospects?

Clearly, staying the course on the reform agenda is a first order priority.

But there are other policies which can improve confidence, create jobs, and support Egypt’s financial independence. Let me give a few examples.

The first area is the business environment. Egypt ranks quite low on several competitiveness indicators—it has a rank of 119 out of 142 in the World Economic Forum’s Competitiveness Index.

Egypt can do better. With the right policies, and the right level of ambition, Egypt could crack the top 50 in global competitiveness.

The new investment law is an important step in the right direction.

But Egypt can go further in dismantling inefficient regulations. For example, according to the World Bank, it takes on average over 60 days to register property and over 1000 days to enforce a contract. It will be essential to build an environment where investment can succeed, and where good, productive jobs are created.

A second area is openness to trade. Egypt’s non-oil exports were only 5 percent of GDP last year. This represents a huge missed opportunity to create jobs in export industries, and Egypt surely has the potential.

Exchange rate flexibility can also play a role—an exchange rate which balances demand and supply of foreign currency, and can support both growth and Egypt’s financial position.

A third area is the financial sector. At present, only 10 percent of Egyptians have a bank account. Making financial services more available and extending more credit to small job-creating businesses could significantly help the economy. There has already been some progress with the recent adoption of a micro-finance law which could help develop the financial sector.

Business environment, trade liberalization, a strong financial sector—these are areas where action can generate tangible results in terms of increased investment and higher growth.

Yet, as international experience has demonstrated, the occasional episode of high growth cannot be an objective per se. Growth should be sustainable. And to be sustainable, it needs to be inclusive.

3. Inclusive growth for sustainable growth

Which brings be to my last point—can Egyptian growth be inclusive in order to be sustainable?

What do I mean by inclusive growth? It means growth that offers opportunity to all—women, youth, unemployed, disabled. It means that the benefits of growth are widely shared and felt by the people. To achieve it, Egypt must nurture its social infrastructure, not just the physical infrastructure. How?

Let’s look at youth and women—two groups that need to be better integrated in the economy.

Today one in three young Egyptians below 25 years of age is unemployed—almost three times the overall unemployment rate!

And at just 22 percent, women’s labor force participation rate is only a third that of men (73 percent). This large difference can be explained by large wage gaps between women and men, high costs of commuting, and inflexible work schedules.

There are many examples of countries that do well because women contribute a large share of economic growth. This is inclusive, and it also makes good economic sense.

There is also a role for social spending—both increasing it and improving its quality. Education is of paramount importance. Jobs cannot be created if graduates are not equipped with the skills needed in the modern labor market.

If implemented efficiently, more spending on health and education could support higher and more inclusive growth, while preserving fiscal sustainability.

Better education could also help narrow wage gaps that discourage women from working in the private sector. And of course, there is also a link to physical infrastructure. Better public transport would make it possible for women to travel safely to jobs further away from where they live.

These and other efforts will be essential for Egypt to unleash the enormous potential from its biggest asset—its people.

Conclusion

Let me conclude.

This is a moment of opportunity. With the right policies, Egypt’s government can deliver on the hopes and aspirations of the Egyptian people. Steadfast implementation of reforms can help restore economic stability, instill confidence, and spur jobs and growth. For its part, the IMF remains committed to helping Egypt achieve better living standards.

I started my remarks with a quote from an Egyptian musical icon. Let me end with another quote from an Egyptian literary icon—Naguib Mahfouz. He said, “You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.”

Today we all here in Sharm el Sheik are asking a wise question: how to help in delivering on Egypt’s aspirations? Let’s make sure to find a wise answer.

Shukran—thank you.

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