On June 23 the French National Assembly passed by majority the draft bill on the additional protocol to the Convention on Mutual Judicial Assistance in Criminal Matters between Morocco and France. Both socialist and right-wing lawmakers voted in favor of the bill.

It is worth noting that the French government had pledged, on 15 April, to fast track the bill.

The Additional Protocol, signed on 6 February in Rabat and passed on June 23 in the plenary of the National Assembly, tends to favor a more sustainable and effective cooperation between France and Morocco, in compliance with domestic law and international commitments of both

The President of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the French National Assembly Elisabeth Guigou recalled the central place given to the judicial part in the 2011 Constitution, stressing the need to support Morocco in the continuation of reforms.

This protocol is a “strong political message of confidence in Morocco,” she has said, noting that the Moroccan reality has changed dramatically in recent years under the leadership of HM King Mohammed VI.

The Additional Protocol should be seen as an act of confidence in the ability of the judiciary in Morocco and France to dialogue on good terms for better administration of justice and that judicial cooperation is in tune with bilateral cooperation Ms. Guiguo noted.

She has, in this regard, noted that Morocco is a key partner of France in the Sahel, the Near and Middle East and is an invaluable ally in the conflict resolution, whether in Libya, Mali even in the fight against radicalization.

For his part, President of the France-Morocco friendship group in the National Assembly, Luc Chatel said that Additional Protocol “in no way upsets what already exists” and “simply to facilitate the transmission of information between France and Morocco’s judicial system.

Former education minister and president of the Franco-Moroccan Friendship Association, Luc Chatel, praised the decision saying it “puts an end to a series of events that angered Morocco”

French Minister of State for Development and Francophony, Annick Girardin, told parliament: “Morocco is a friend and ally of France against terrorism. Both Morocco and France need each other more than ever.

It is worth noting that Morocco suspended all judicial co-operation with France following a diplomatic row over lawsuits in Paris that accused Morocco’s intelligence chief of complicity in torture. In February 2014 a telephone conversation between President Francois Hollande and King Mohammed VI, put an end to the diplomatic row between the two countries. “The president wanted to send a message of confidence and friendship to Morocco,” a French diplomatic source said. “The misunderstandings have been cleared up.”

France and Morocco enjoy powerful and historical relations and similar incidents could never jeopardize them. The legitimate question now is whose interest in the current geopolitical context to have created such diplomatic spat between two strong allies?

The post Morocco-France: French National Assembly Votes For Protocol For Mutual Judicial Assistance – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Many readers of the European and American press must be confused about what actually is happening in the negotiations between Greece (Alexis Tsipras and Yannis Varoufakis). The European Troika (the IMF, European Central Bank and European Council now object to the name and want to be called simply “the Institutions”) have stepped up their demands on Syriza. What is called “negotiation” is in reality a demand for total surrender. The Troika’s demand is to force Syriza to go back on the campaign promises that it made to voters who replaced the old right-wing Pasok (“socialist”) and Conservative New Democracy coalition, or else simply apply the austerity program to which that coalition had agreed:cutbacks in pensions, deeper austerity, more privatization selloffs, and a tax shift off business onto labor. In short, economic suicide.

Last weekend a group of us met in Delphi to discuss and draft the following Declaration of Support for Greece against the neoliberal Institutions. It is now clear that finance is the new mode of warfare. The creditors’ objective is the same as military conquest: they want the land, the natural resource rights and monopolies, and they want tribute (in this case, debt service). And they don’t want sovereign Greece to tax the economic rent from these assets. In short, the negotiation between The Institutions and Greece is a bold exercise in rent extraction.

To read the press, one might think that Tsipras and Varoufakis are simply trying to capitulate, only to be turned down. Even many left observers have criticized them for taking the positionthat “We want to pay.”

What is not recognized is howsuccessful the Syriza negotiating strategy has been. While most voters opposed austerity, they also initially (and still) have a fear from withdrawing from the eurozone. Tsiparas and Varoufakis have walked a fine line and accurately judged unyielding and totalitarian the Institutions’ “hard money” creditor approach would be.

The eurozone’s rejection of what obviously is an attempt at reason has greatly strengthened Syriza’s hand to say “NO” to deeper austerity. It would bring yet more unemployment, yet more emigration, yet more bankruptcy – and deeper distress prices for the public domain that the Institutions are insisting be sold off.

On the surface, Syriza’s non-payment of the debt that earlier coalitions ran up (largely by not taxing the oligarchs who supported them) need not cause a great disturbance in financial markets. After all, the debts to which Greece objects are those run up to the IMF and ECB, not private bondholders.

Yet the eurozone may turn this non-economic crisis into a political crisis by following through on its threat to exclude Greece from the eurozone. Current conditions are such that much larger numbers of Greeks may now support this position than was the case last January.

At stake is much more than Greece itself. What the attendees at Delphi want is to rescue not only the Greek economy, but all Europe — by replacing the euro and the ECB with a less austerity-based monetary ideology. If they are driven out of the eurozone, they will be able to create a real central bank (via the Treasury) to monetize deficit spending to revive the economy.

It is clear that what is needed is to replace the IMF with an institution able to assess the ability to pay debts, and to write down bad debts accordingly. Such an institution would replace Chicago School austerity and fiscal policy with a more progressive monetary and tax policy.

If the European Central Bank follows through on its threat to wreck the Greek banking system, Syriza has put itself in a position to replace the oligarchs’ banks with a public option.

The Institutions evidently hoped that the government will face a no confidence vote if it is excluded from the eurozone. The reality is that it would have suffered a no confidence defeat if it had capitulated. Tsipras is now in a position to explain to voters, “We acted reasonably to do what we could. Nothing will satisfy them except loss of our sovereignty, our land and mineral wealth, and our power to tax. The IMF and ECB won’t admit their 2010 mistake in not writing down the Greek debts, which stemmed largely from the falsified Goldman-Sachs-Papademos ploy that got usinto the eurozone in the first place.”

In sum, followers of recent news reports should bear in mind that despite all the statements of good faith that Greece “wants to pay its debts,” the reality is that there is no money to do so – except to the extent that the IMF may “extend and pretend” the charade by advancing Greece the IMF’s own money to pay. As matters have turned out, Tsipras and Varoufakis have not paid foreign debts with Greek money. They have not balanced the Greek budget by cutting back pensions, nor have they sold off the crown jewels of publicly owned infrastructure that European banks hoped to finance to their clients.

Instead of selling out, Tsipras has given Greeks enough time to pull out their savings from the banks and convert them into euro notes (domestic circulation of which has risen by 13 billion euros), or into “hard” assets such as cars (or even boats) with a resale value.

This is the Delphi Declaration in support of Greece in its confrontation with The Institutions.

THE DELPHI DECLARATION

On Greece and Europe

European governments, European institutions and the IMF, acting in close alliance with, if not under direct control of, big international banks and other financial institutions, are now exercising a maximum of pressure, including open threats, blackmailing and a slander and terror communication campaign against the recently elected Greek government and against the Greek people.

They are asking the elected government of Greece to continue the “bail-out” program and the supposed “reforms” imposed on this country in May 2010, in theory to “help” and “save” it.

As a result of this program, Greece has experienced by far the biggest economic, social and political catastrophe in the history of Western Europe since 1945. It has lost 27% of its GDP, more than the material losses of France or Germany during the First World War. The living standards have fallen sharply. The social welfare system is all but destroyed. Greeks have seen social rights won during one century of struggles taken back. Whole social strata are completely destroyed, more and more Greeks are falling from their balconies to end a life of misery and desperation, every talented person who can leaves from the country. Democracy, under the rule of a “Troika” acting as collective economic assassin, a kind of Kafka’s “Court”, has been transformed into a sheer formality in the very country where it was born! Greeks are experiencing now the same feeling of insecurity about all basic conditions of life, that the French experienced in 1940, Germans in 1945, Soviets in 1991. At the same time, the two problems which this program was supposed to address, Greek sovereign debt and the competitiveness of the Greek economy have sharply deteriorated.

Now, European institutions and governments are refusing even the most reasonable, elementary, minor concession to the Athens government, they refuse even the slightest face-saving formula there might be. They want a total surrender of SYRIZA, they want its humiliation, its destruction. By denying to the Greek people any peaceful and democratic way out of its social and national tragedy, they are pushing Greece into chaos, if not civil war. Indeed, even now, an undeclared social civil war of “low intensity” is being waged inside this country, especially against the unprotected, the ill, the young and the very old, the weaker and the unlucky. Is this the Europe we want our children to live in?

We want to express our total, unconditional solidarity with the struggle of the Greek people for their dignity, their national and social salvation, for their liberation from the unacceptable neocolonial rule the “Troika” is trying to impose on this European country. We denounce the illegal and unacceptable agreements successive Greek governments have been obliged, under threat and blackmail, to sign, in violation of all European treaties, of the Charter of UN and of the Greek constitution. We call on European governments and institutions to stop their irresponsible and/or criminal policy towards Greece immediately and adopt a generous emergency program of support to redress the Greek economic situation and face the humanitarian disaster already unfolding in this country.

We also appeal to all European peoples to realize that what is at stake in Greece it is not only Greek salaries and pensions, Greek schools and hospitals or even the fate even of this historic nation where the very notion of “Europe” was born. What is at stake in Greece are also Spanish, Italian, even the German salaries, pensions, welfare, the very fate of the European welfare state, of European democracy, of Europe as such. Stop believing your media, who tell you the facts, only to distort their meaning, check independently what your politicians and your media are saying. They try to create, and they have created an illusion of stability. You may live in Lisbon or in Paris, in Frankfurt or in Stockholm, you may think that you are living in relative security. Do not keep such illusions. You should look to Greece, to see there the future your elites are preparing for you, for all of us and for our children. It is much easier and intelligent to stop them now, than it will be later. Not only Greeks, but all of us and our children will pay an enormous price, if we permit to our governments to complete the social slaughter of a whole European nation.

We appeal in particular to the German people. We do not belong to those who are always reminding the Germans of the past in order to keep them in an “inferior”, second-class position, or in order to use the “guilt factor” for their dubious ends. We appreciate the organizational and technological skills of the German people, their proven democratic and especially ecological and peace sensitivities. We want and we need the German people to be the main champions in the building of another Europe, of a prosperous, independent, democratic Europe, of a multipolar world.

Germans know better than anybody else in Europe, where blind obedience to irresponsible leaders can lead and has indeed led in the past. It is not up to us to teach them any such lesson. They know better than anybody else how easy is to begin a campaign with triumphalist rhetoric, only to end up with ruins everywhere around you. We do not invite them to follow our opinion. We demand simply from them to think thoroughly the opinion of such distinguished leaders of them like Helmut Schmitt for instance, we demand them to hear the voice of the greatest among modern German poet, of Günter Grass, the terrible prophecy he has emitted about Greece and Europe some years before his death.

We call upon you, the German people, to stop such a Faustian alliance between German political elites and international finance. We call upon the German people not to permit to their government to continue doing to the Greeks exactly what the Allies did to Germans after their victory in the First World War. Do not let your elites and leaders to transform the entire continent, ultimately including Germany, into a dominion of Finance.

More than ever we are in urgent need of a radical restructuring of European debt, of serious measures to control the activities of the financial sector, of a “Marshal Plan” for the European periphery, of a courageous rethinking and re-launching of a European project which, in its present form, has proven unsustainable. We need to find now the courage to do this, if we want to leave a better Europe to our children, not a Europe in ruins, in continuous financial and even open military conflicts among its nations.

Delphi, 21 June 2015

The above declaration was adopted by nearly all participants in the Delphi conference on the crisis, on alternatives to euroliberalism and EU/Russia relations, held at Delphi, Greece on 20-21st of June. It is also supported by some people who were not able to be present. The list of people who signed it follows. In it there are not only citizens of EU countries, but also of Switzerland, USA, Russia and India. Many distinguished American scholars seem to be more sensitive as regard the European crisis, than the … political leaders of EU themselves! As for Russians, it is only normal and natural to bear a great interest for what is going on in EU, as EU citizens bear also an interest for what is going on in Russia. All participants in the Delphi conference share the strong conviction that Russia is an integral part of Europe, that there is a strong interconnection between what happens in EU and in Russia. They are categorically opposed to anti-Russia hysteria, which in fact is nothing less than the preparation of a new, even more dangerous cold, if not hot war.

Altvater Elmar, Germany
Member of scientific community of AΤTAC. Retired Professor of Political Science, Free University of Berlin.

Amin Samir, Egypt/France
Economist, President of the Forum Mondial des Alternatives

Ayala Iván H., Spain
Researcher, Instituto Complutense de Estudios Internacionales

Arsenis Gerasimos, Greece
Εcconomist, ex-minister of Economy, of Finance, of National Defense and of Education, ex-UN official and ex-director of UNCTAD

Artini Massimo, Italy
Member of Parliament

Bellantis Dimitris, Greece
Lawyer, PHD in Constitutional Law, Member of the Central Committee of SYRIZA

Black William, USA
Professor of Economics, University of Missouri (Kansas City)

Cassen Bernard, France
Professor Emeritus, Université Paris 8, secretary general of “Mémoire des luttes”

Chiesa, Giulietto, Italy
Politician, journalist and author, ex MEP, president of the “Alternativa” association

Freeman, Alan, Canada/UK
Geopolitical Economy Research Group, Business School, Director

Gabriel, Leo, Austria
Director of the Institute for Intercultural Research and Cooperation (IIIC), Vienna, Member of the International Council of the World Social Forum, Coordinator of the NGO Committee for Sustainable Development of the United Nations

George, Suzan, France
Political and social scientist, writer, President of the Transnational Institute

Georgopoulos, Dimosthenis, Greece
Economist, sociologist, political scientist, Secretariat on Industrial Policy, SYRIZA

German, Lindsey, UK
Convenor, Stop the War Coalition

Graeber, David, UΚ
Professor of Anthropology, London School of Economics. Author of “Debt: The First 5,000 Years”

Hudson, Michael, USA
Professor of economics, University of Missouri (Kansas City), UMKC. President, Institute for the Study of Long-term Economic Trends (ISLET)

Irazabalbeitia, Inaki, Spain
Former MEP / responsible for International Relationships for the party ARALAR, Basque Country

Jennar, Raoul Marc, France
Dr. in political sciences, specialist on European law and on WTO regulations, writer of twenty books, among them “Europe, la trahison des élites”

Kagarlitsky, Boris, Russia
Director of the Institute for globalization studies and social movements (IGSO)

Kalloniatis, Costas, Greece
Phd on macroeconomics, adviser to the Ministry of Labour, researcher in the Labor Institute of the General Confederation of Workers of Greece

Kasimatis, Giorgos, Greece
Prof. Emeritus of Constitutional Law, University of Athens. Founder and Honorary President of the International Association of Constitutional Law, ex-advisor to PM Andreas Papandreou.

Koenig, Peter, Switzerland
Εconomist / geopolitical analyst

Koltashov, Vasiliy, Russia
Head of the economic research unit of the Institute for Globalisation and Social Movements

Konstantakopoulos, Dimitris, Greece
Journalist, Writer, Coordinator of the Delphi Initiative

Koutsou, Nikos, Cyprus
Member of Parliament from Famagusta

Kreisel, Wilfried, Germany
Former Executive Director, World Health Organization

Mavros, Giannis, Greece
Member of the National Council for the Claiming of Germany’s Debts to Greece

Mityaev, Dmitry A. , Russia
Deputy Chairman of the Council for Study of Productive Forces of the Ministry of Economic Development and the Russian Academy of Sciences on Development Issues

Ochkina, Anna, Russia
Head of Department of social theory at Penza State University

Pantelides, Panagiotis, Greece
Economist, senior researcher, European Institute of Cyprus

Petras, James, USA
Bartle Professor Emeritus , Binghamton University

Ex-Director of the Center for Mediterranean Studies (Athens), ex-adviser to the Landless Rural Workers  Movement of Brasil and the Unemployed Workers Movement in Argentina

Pinasco, Luca, Italy
National coordinator of Proudhon Circles-Editor for foreign policy of the journal “L’intellettuale dissidente”.

Radika, Desai, USA
Professor, Director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group, University of Manitoba

Rees, John, UK
Co-founder, Stop the War Coalition

Roberts, Paul Craig, USA
Former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury for Economic Policy, Associate Editor, Wall Street Journal, Senior Research Fellow, Stanford University, William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

Sideratos, Aggelos, Greece
Publisher

Sommers, Jeffrey, USA
Senior Fellow, Institute of World Affairs, Professor, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

St Clair, Jeffrey, USA
Editor, CounterPunch, author, Born Under a Bad Sky

Stierle, Steffen, Germany
Εconomist, ATTAC Germany

Syomin, Konstantin, Russia
Author, TV host at All-Russia State Television (VGTRK.com)

Tombazos, Stavros, Greece
Professor of Political Economy, University of Cyprus, member of the international “Committee of Truth on Greek Sovereign Debt” (debt auditing committee) created by the Greek parliament

Vanaik, Achin, India
Retired Professor of International Relations and Global Politics, University of Delhi

Xydakis, Nikos, Greece
Minister of Culture

Zachariev, Zachari, Bulgaria
President of the Slaviani Foundation

Zdanoka, Tatjana, Latvia
Member of European Parliament

Contact email: the.delphi.initiative@gmail.com

The post On The Delphi Declaration – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

sraeli forces on Saturday suppressed a Palestinian march protesting Israeli plans to turn a southern West Bank church compound into a settlement outpost.

The 38 dunam compound, known as Beit al-Baraka, is located to the north of al-Arrub refugee camp between Bethlehem and Hebron.

It has been in the spotlight since an investigative report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz last month alleged that an American millionaire, Irving Moskowitz, purchased the site through a Swedish company in 2012 with the intention of turning it into a settlement outpost.

The coordinator of a southern Hebron popular committe, Rateb al-Jbour, told Ma’an that the peaceful march had been called to condemn the Israeli plans and demand protection for the compound.

Israeli soldiers reportedly assaulted protesters, lightly injuring several of them with bruises.

Al-Jbour spoke out against land sales to settlers and called for Palestinians to unite efforts to protect the Beit al-Baraka.

Reverend Dani Awad from the Baraka Presbyterian Church said that Israeli forces had prevented the Orthodox Archbishop Atallah Hanna from taking part in the march, adding that they summoned him to the Russian compound detention center in Jerusalem.

Last month, Haaretz reported that a Swedish company established in 2007 had been used to cover up the sale and transfer of Beit al-Baraka in 2012 to a settler organization funded by American millionaire Irving Moskowitz.

Keith Coleman, a pastor who headed the church that previously owned the compound, told Haaretz he thought it had been sold to a Swedish company called Scandinavian Seamen Holy Land Enterprises in March 2008 that would revive its use as a church.

Haaretz discovered however that, “the Swedish group was established in Stockholm in 2007, and seems to have been used as a cover for transferring the ownership of the compound to the settlers. The group does not seem to have any offices.”

The Swedish company registered the purchase with the Israeli Civil Administration in 2012.

The company was then dissolved, with ownership handed over to an American nonprofit organization, American Friends of the Everest Foundation, funded by Irving Moskowitz and working towards the eventual “Judaization” of occupied East Jerusalem.

Haaretz reports that the Everest Foundation owns several properties in East Jerusalem totaling a value of $12 million.

The church lies in a sensitive location, which if settled, will see Israeli settlements stretch all the way from the Gush Etzion settler bloc south of Jerusalem to the cluster of settlements around Hebron.

The post Israeli Forces Suppress March Over West Bank Church Settlement Plans appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Iraqi forces have arrested Abd Al-Baqi Al-Saadun, one of the most senior officials from Saddam Hussein’s regime, Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi said on Saturday.

“The intelligence service was able to arrest the wanted man Abd Al-Baqi Al-Saadun,” Abadi announced in a televised speech.

A senior intelligence officer said Saadun was arrested on Thursday “without resistance” in the northern province of Kirkuk following an operation that lasted more than a year.

Saadun held various senior positions in Saddam’s Baath party, and the US military had previously said he was wanted for crimes against humanity committed during the suppression of a 1999 Shiite uprising.

He was the five of diamonds in the US military deck of cards picturing the most-wanted officials from Saddam’s regime.
Izzat Ibrahim Al-Duri, the most senior Baathist still at large, was said to have been killed earlier this year, but Iraq later admitted it lacked the necessary DNA results to confirm his identity.

Separately, Al-Abadi said that Iraqi forces made an “unauthorized” withdrawal from Ramadi last month, leading to Daesh’s takeover of the Anbar provincial capital.

“The withdrawal of the forces from Ramadi was unauthorized — the orders were the opposite. The forces had to resist, and if they had resisted, we would not have lost Ramadi,” Abadi said in televised remarks.

The post Iraq: Top Saddam Aide Falls In Baghdad Dragnet appeared first on Eurasia Review.

What a difference one year can make. US officials are now using less the word terrorists to describe the Islamic State, and more often words like formidable or a resilient foe. It appears they have good reason to change their view on what is evidently more of an army and less of a “group”. An army that appears like a mutating virus and that is able to adapt with swiftness and speed to its enemies’ strategies to such an extent that professional armies find themselves changing their military tactics from offensive to defensive.

The Islamic State continues to manage to acquire more territories, almost immediately after losing other territories. Is this phenomenon a coincidence or is it a well thought-out strategy?

It is common for armies to make tactical retreats, but it would appear that ISIS goes one step further. Additionally, events on the ground strongly indicate that ISIS does not make tactical retreats, but goes as far as to lose ground intentionally. In essence, its soldiers make tactical defeats to give an impression that the “group” is weakening.

When ISIS lost the Mosul Dam and later Kobani and Tikrit, these defeats were celebrated as if the war was already won. What happened after that took the world by surprise as those losses were quickly followed by the fall of Ramadi and later Tadmur to ISIS. If we compare the value of the towns taken from ISIS to the ones ISIS annexed thereafter, the difference in quality is clear.

As Tel-Abyadh fell to the Kurdish fighters a few days back, ISIS initially appeared weakened, but the soldiers of “Khilafah” quickly started probing and indeed taking quality areas in Hasakah and its fall appears a matter of days or weeks at latest.
As Tel Abyadh and neighboring villages continue to be retaken from ISIS, it is not surprising that the “group” is probing Baghdad. While many observers translate the retaking of Tel Abyadh as an indication that Raqqa itself is about to be removed from the grips of ISIS, critical probing of events of the past year should make any practical analyst uneasy about making such hasty conclusions.

If ISIS let go of Tikrit to only astonish the world by taking Ramadi, coupled with the eminent control of Hasakah, the fall of Raqqa might actually be the worst news for the forces fighting the Islamic State. Indeed, letting go of Raqqa could be the most devastating tactical defeat that ISIS would make, as the only worthy prize for its fall would be Baghdad itself.

No sane observer can ignore the fact that all the fighting of the past year is a build-up for the eventual invasion of Baghdad. Taking Baghdad requires a huge army and if ISIS is to make a choice as to which city to abandon to erect a capable and formidable force to head to the capital, then Raqqa is the most likely choice. For ISIS, expanding need not necessarily mean the impractical or costly holding of territory. ISIS expansion is a long-term goal and as such fortifying itself in Iraq could be the best choice with the intention of a more invasive invading of Syria later on.

Rather than retreating, ISIS chooses to make its retreats appear as defeats and that has psychological and practical advantages. First, it makes the advancing coalition troops pay a heavy price for capturing what ISIS deems as unworthy territory at any given point in time by planting booby traps and keeping a few hundred of its soldiers behind to inflict heavy losses on the advancing soldiers. It is rare to hear of ISIS captives, because its soldiers that have been left behind have only one obligation and that is to die by taking out as many of the advancing army as possible.

Psychologically, the tactical defeats confuse ISIS’s opponents by giving them an imagined sense of euphoria by the victory only to pop up elsewhere and send an opposing message by taking better and bigger territory.

The ongoing battle in Hasakah and its eventual fall keeps the doors opens for fighters from Turkey into Syria. The continuing battles in and around Beiji are clearly intended to create a pathway towards retaking Tikrit, in which case the route to Baghdad would be set all the way from Hasakah through Mosul towards Baghdad from the North. Provided that Western Anbar is under ISIS control, a second road towards Baghdad from Western Anbar to Ramadi to Fallujah would open the pathway to Baghdad from the West. If ISIS has to lose Raqqa to secure the two pathways, then Baghdad would face its worst assault in its recent history.

This might sound just like a theory at present, but ISIS has proven once and again that it is willing to make huge sacrifices in the short term to secure longer term goals. In as much as Syria is still contested, if ISIS manages to keep central Syria under its control, it still has a say in what goes on until it feels ready to come back into Syria. Thus far, ISIS had had its forces thinly spread but it is now clear that it intends to secure Iraq fully before later advancing on Syria in a more concerted manner and as such it is now in the process of gathering soldiers to erect bigger army units.

Nowadays, when I hear that ISIS has lost a village or a town, only two questions pop up: Is it a real defeat or is it a tactical defeat and what is the next city on ISIS’s mind?

The post Why Is Islamic State A Master Of ‘Tactical’ Defeats? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Malte Brosig

At the conclusion of the 25th African Union summit last week, African leaders committed again to fully operationalise an African Standby Force by December this year. The ASF has been ten years in the planning, and in that time has failed to establish a rapid response tool to deal with conflict on the continent.

A South African initiative, the African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crises (ACIRC), was expected to fill this functional gap. In February, President Jacob Zuma had announced a South African Battalion was being prepared for use under ACIRC.The AU resolutions adopted last week seem to indicate that ACIRC will move closer to established structures of the ASF.

Undoubtedly the AU is in need of a rapid response instrument as the events around Mali demonstrated where France was the only actor able to provide quick and decisive military action against the Tuareg/Jihadist insurgency. The idea of a rapid response tool under the AU Commission – as opposed to a region-based ASF – can be an innovative tool, as most conflicts do not neatly fall into regional categorisations. De facto the ACIRC is intended to address gaps and flaws in the existing security architecture.

However, in practice it is confronted with significant challenges that endanger the whole project. At the forefront is political disunity. Although the ACIRC was adopted by the AU assembly it rests only on the support of a minority of African countries. So far 13 countries have committed to the project. With the opposition camp being filled with political heavyweights such as Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya or Nigeria (all four are major troop contributors to peacekeeping missions) it is doubtful if the ACIRC can gather enough political momentum and military capability to get off the ground quickly. Additionally South Africa’s spear-heading of the initiative and its leadership ambitions are not well received everywhere.

The second major challenge is the open question of how to harmonise the ACIRC with existing peacekeeping structures such as the ASF: while the ACIRC is supposed to be only a stop-gap instrument until the full operationalisation of the ASF, which from the beginning was supposed to have a rapid response capability, de facto it is much more. The idea of a rapid response instrument under the direct administration of the AU runs against the design of the ASF which is based on regional support. While from a functional perspective it plugs an institutional gap, from a political perspective the ACIRC can easily be seen as a competing project at the cost of Regional Economic Communities. These concerns need to be allayed for the project to succeed.

The setting up of the ACIRC followed a pattern not untypical for the AU which in the past has seen the quick establishment of institutions at the cost of prior comprehensive and strategic deliberation with stake-holders and the wider expert community. Setting up an institution first before negotiating its exact mandate and details risks sparking opposition and in the end delayed implementation.

From these observations two core policy recommendations follow:

• In order to overcome political resentment against the ACIRC, strategic guidance and clarity in mandate is required. The unfinished nature of the ACIRC is neither implementable nor is it likely to increase its support basis. A strategic consultation process with stakeholders is essential.
• A consultation process must entail more than technical meetings at the level of the AU. It requires strategic thinking from member states and African think tanks that need to address two grievances: the objective need for a rapid response instrument and the inability of the current structures to deliver it.

Source: This article was published by SAIIA.

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A future independent Kurdish state faces many political, economic, and administrative challenges, but its success could be a game-changer in the Middle East.

By Gary Kent*

The Queen’s Birthday Party at the poolside of a classy hotel in the simmering summer heat attracted business and political leaders as well as Arab, Iranian, European and American diplomats. What made it different was we were in Erbil, the capital of the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan and just 25 miles from fierce fighting between the Islamic State and the Peshmerga.

A diplomat at another such party once accidentally toasted the President of the Kurdish Republic but that slip of the tongue may prove prescient. Nearly a century after failing to achieve nationhood in the post-Versailles period, the Kurds are now on the move. A greater Kurdistani nation-state taken from the four countries where Kurds are minorities is improbable, although greater autonomy is growing within Turkey and Syria if not Iran, and an independent Iraqi Kurdistan is becoming more likely by the day.

The advance of the Kurds has taken many years. When I started visiting Kurdistan in 2006 most people had never heard of it. They would ask if I meant Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan but shake their heads and wish me luck when I mentioned Iraq. Two years ago my family and I toured mountain resorts, randomly stopped at roadside cafes for kebabs and walked without fear in a lively cosmopolitan city. There had been just seven jihadist attacks in Kurdistan in ten years with under 200 killed and most on one terrible day in 2004.

Facing ISIS

But things began to change in late 2013 when Kurdish leaders began to issue urgent warnings about a then little known group called ISIS. Last June the sum of all their fears became real as a small convoy of ISIS fighters captured Mosul, the second biggest city in Iraq.

The onslaught was like a knife cutting through butter—and flesh. The fear of their barbarism spread like wildfire. Shia soldiers with no dog in the game in Sunni areas fled, leaving the keys in 1500 American armoured Humvees, while Sunnis who had been persecuted by a sectarian government in Iraq chose ISIS over Baghdad or fled to Iraqi Kurdistan.

This was also a high point of Kurdistani nationalism. The army of Iraq—I Ran Away Quickly—was unfavourably compared to the Peshmerga, now facing ISIS along a 1,000 km border. The historic Kurdistani city of Kirkuk was reinforced overnight when the Iraqi Army ‘disappeared in a puff of smoke’ as the governor told me last June. Violence in the ethnically mixed Kirkuk province has since dropped dramatically and tight security in the rest of Kurdistan means there have been just three ISIS suicide bombs in Erbil in the past 18 months.

The common assumption that ISIS would ignore Kurdistan was wrong, however, and they turned on the Kurds in August. ISIS came within artillery range of Erbil but the Americans stepped in and air strikes saved the city. The traditional mountain Peshmerga fighters’ extended supply lines and insufficient weapons, ammunition and experience in facing a frontal assault on the plains forced a temporary retreat.

The Peshmerga also needs modern weapons, including tanks, APCs and helicopters. Most of the 1300 Peshmerga fatalities are because their AK47s cannot stop heavily armoured Mad Max suicide vehicle bombs barreling towards their lines, or because they cannot counter IEDs with which ISIS seeds villages they leave after massacring everyone. Battlefield medical care is inadequate and they lack basics such as night vision goggles and body armour.

Many countries have armed the Kurds. Britain provided 40 heavy machine guns while Germany broke its taboo on exporting many more weapons and their Milan anti-armour guns stop truck bombs at distance. The need for more arms was raised directly with President Obama by a KRG delegation led by President Barzani, whose Chief of Staff and a participant in the talks, Dr Fuad Hussein told me in Erbil:

“We said we would be happy to receive arms directly. But some countries have difficulties because we are not yet independent. But anyhow we [told the Americans] that the main question is do we need these weapons—yes or no, of course we do. Can we get them from you? If you send them to us we will be happy. If Iraq delays, you are responsible so you can talk to them. We understood from the American side that until now Iraq has not rejected weapons so let’s continue but [the Americans say] ‘you will get the right weapons.’ Now that the British election is over it is time for the British to do more to support the Kurds.”

The sudden Isis advance was also a wake-up call for the Peshmerga to up its game and become a national institution answerable to the state rather, as do most of its soldiers, to the two historic parties. Dlawer al Alaadin, a former Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Higher Education minister who now heads Kurdistan’s major independent think-tank, the Middle East Research Institute, told me that his organisation is “a bridge between external expertise and the Peshmerga in finding a home made solution.”

He concedes that reform should have been undertaken earlier and “Kurdistan is beginning to make the most of its international support but the Kurds need to be more efficient in putting our own house in order.” He argues that the reason for the political division of the Peshmerga—mutual suspicion between the two main parties—no longer holds with young people.

Wider reform is needed. It sometimes seems to me that the Kurds have no word with the urgency of mañana but they have managed major changes. Back in 2006, there was no oil and gas industry and 100,000 Turkish troops were poised to invade.

The energy sector became the world’s final frontier and oil production could reach a million barrels per day next year. Kurdistani oil is piped to Turkey, which is becoming a significant energy hub and needs Kurdistani energy. The Turkish invasion took the form of 100,000 businessmen and workers in Kurdistan making Turkey the single biggest trading partner for Iraqi Kurdistan.

Yet the Kurds now face new crises. The Syrian war sent 250,000 mainly Kurdish refugees into Kurdistan in 2013 but they were welcomed warmly and there was then plenty of work for them. The capture of Mosul propelled over a million displaced people, mainly Arab Iraqis and Christians, into Kurdistan. The Kurds, who have often been refugees themselves, have been extraordinarily generous but the strain on services is immense.

Baghdad, which is the responsible government, is less than helpful. Nearly 200,000 people who fled when Ramadi was captured by ISIS were refused entry to Baghdad and cynically directed to Erbil. Iraqi civil servants from Mosul are paid salaries by Baghdad via Kurdistani civil servants who have not been paid for the last three months.

Even if Ramadi or Mosul were taken back now, many Arabs would stay in Kurdistan. Of the thousands who fled when ISIS took Tikrit, just twelve families have returned since its liberation. The 20,000 strong Kurdish resort town of Shaqlava now hosts 30,000 Arabs and has been dubbed Shaqllujah. The Kurds are very wary of Arabisation and permanent changes in the ethnic mix will cause major problems.

Problems with Baghdad

Having repaired relations with Erdogan’s erratic Turkey and enjoying correct relations with Iran, its second biggest trading partner, the main problem is relations with Baghdad, which are based on mutual suspicion and loathing. Many Shia politicians never accepted the Iraqi constitution’s enshrining of federalism, and autonomy in energy matters to Kurdistan. The Kurds have never received their full share of the Iraqi budget—set at 17 percent to reflect the population and the economic effects of genocide including the destruction of thousands of villages.

The Peshmerga, a recognised national defence force, were never paid, let alone armed or trained, by Baghdad. Maliki cut all budget payments at the behest, it is said, of the then Chairman of the parliamentary Finance Committee, Haider al Abadi. But when Abadi became Prime Minister, he became a more emollient figure who concluded an interim agreement last December on Kurdistani energy exports in return for that 17 percent plus a billion a year to the Peshmerga. The overall budget had fallen by a third in line with lower oil prices but payments to the KRG have fallen even further because Baghdad is finding excuses to keep the Kurds on a short leash. Hawrami estimates that they received one third of their entitlement in the past five months.

The result has been catastrophic given war—private companies are charitably providing daily meals to the Peshmerga, some of whom have to buy their own weapons and ammo—and the cost of caring for about 1.6 million guests. Double digit growth has nosedived with hundreds of public investment projects suspended and little is moving at construction sites that dot the capital although a major British company is about to announce a major water project. Kurds are surviving on handouts from their families or from savings. Some cite an increased suicide rate and poverty and unemployment have doubled while international flights to Kurdistan are emptier, office rents have halved and housing costs have soared.

Baghdad’s belligerence is counter-productive. The world knows that the Peshmerga are fighting ISIS with increasing efficiency, certainly compared to the shambles that is the Iraqi Army. Despite this, the Kurds were excluded from two recent international meetings of the coalition against ISIS in London and Paris. Dr Hussein expressed disappointment:

“It would have been better if [Abadi] had taken representatives from the Kurdistan Region to show he could be proud of what the Peshmerga have done against ISIS. I think it would have been better to also have somebody from the Sunni community with him. He blamed the whole world about Ramadi but didn’t blame himself or his government. But people are not stupid and know what’s going on.”

Baghdad’s obstinacy is also driving independence but Kurdistan is landlocked and many are wary of putting all their eggs in the Turkish basket, which once prompted former KRG Prime Minister Barham Salih to argue for three export routes through Iraq, Turkey and Iran (and, conceivably, Syria one day.) A unilateral declaration of independence could cut off imports, exports, passports, and airports. Independence would have to be negotiated with Baghdad through complex agreements on assets and liabilities, water, energy and security. Crucially, the KRG’s southern boundaries including Kirkuk must to be finalised to avoid the province becoming a flashpoint for Arab revanchism for decades to come.

The commonsense view is that ISIS should first be defeated before independence but given, as a senior security adviser told me, “Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall and definitely won’t be put back together,” maybe the way to defeat ISIS is to recognise that Sunnis and Kurds will never again accept unalloyed Baghdad rule.

Before ISIS, Sunni provinces neighbouring Kurdistan had begun to think that the dynamic Kurds could assist their economic salvation, especially in reliable electricity supplies. Shia Basra in the south, about the same size, population and economic weight as Kurdistan but with much more oil, had been champing at the bit for greater decentralisation. A much looser arrangement, perhaps one day a confederation, could be a bigger incentive for Sunnis to overthrow ISIS in Sunnistan than centralised and sectarian Shia rule from Baghdad. Every day that ISIS keeps Mosul makes it harder to reinstate the old Iraq.

Internal issues

Kurdistan has to be match fit for any possibility including independence and escape the sovietesque legacy of the old Iraq. The state employs most people, which suffocates the private sector and also undermines citizenship because, as one senior party official told me, “people who are employed by the state have to listen to the state.”

The rentier economy is almost wholly dependent on energy although the Kurdistan parliament has just passed a law allowing the KRG to borrow on international markets and is establishing a sovereign wealth fund for when energy revenues dry up. A mineral extraction law is also before Parliament and minerals could become a major money-spinner. Once the bread basket of Iraq, Kurdistan could achieve food self-sufficiency and export surplus wheat, apples and pomegranates.

Tourism is another potential boon. Erbil won the Arab capital of tourism before ISIS rained on everyone’s parade and thousands of archaeological sites, the 6,000 or possibly 8,000 year old Citadel in Erbil (the longest continually inhabited settlement in the world), and battlefield sites as well as canyons, mountains, waterfalls, vast plains, solitude and city life could attract western tourists.

Education is the KRG’s mantra and involves at least one third of the population but quantity needs to be turned into quality and quickly. Many young Kurds seem more interested in a qualification as a passport to a comfortable office job where very little is done and where indolence and incompetence could persuade skilled Kurds who have returned home as a patriotic duty that it is not worth staying. About 100,000 ghostworkers, in the absence of a wider welfare state and tax base, are being rewarded for past services.

But meritocracy must replace mediocrity and the (sometimes unjustifiable) practice, to use a common Kurdistani phrase, of allowing the son to cross the river on his father’s boat. One regular visitor told me that he had “never seen a minister reading a book or a newspaper” but Kurdistan has some very good strategic thinkers who carry a disproportionate burden. Enterprise needs a kick-start too. Khalid Saleh, Vice-Chancellor of the English-speaking University of Kurdistan-Hewler, told me that “Kurdistan needs a start-up tradition and not just government jobs” and to lose the dependency on foreigners, adding ‘why don’t we produce our own night vision goggles’ for the Peshmerga.

It is easy in theory to design an architecture that maximises enterprise, civil society, an independent judiciary, a thoughtful media, evidence-based policy-making and so on. It is harder in practice and hampered by what Hawrami calls the ‘geopolitical perfect storm’ of financial, humanitarian and political crises. Hawrami, who built the energy sector from scratch, says the Baghdad budget crisis means that international oil companies in Kurdistan have been paid once in 18 months and that this is unsustainable.

Many Kurds look to Dubai for inspiration but others know the opulent facade conceals a soulless society. Kurdistani politics are broadly left of centre, religiously devout but largely secular and moderate while growing inequality and environmental issues motivate many Kurds. Barham Salih speaks of Kurdistani values but moving from statist to market economics is a huge challenge.

Politics can be fractious too. Few Kurds seem to want to change their president in the middle of a war but his term was extended two years ago and there will be an election in August although the parties are divided on whether the presidency is more or less parliamentary. It is likely that Barzani will be elected and that a difficult debate on the succession will take place in four years time.

Independence

The other big question in the next few years is independence. A landmark report from the UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee in March helped break the taboo of the ‘One Iraq’ policy. MPs acknowledged rational fears about unpredictable consequences of unravelling borders, although the sound of stable doors and fleeing horses comes to mind. They also recognised that it is rational for the Kurds to seek increased self-governance or independence which they judged to be a medium term possibility that should be accepted and respected by the UK and its international partners if done with the consent of Baghdad.

The assumption has been that the neighbours would oppose independence. But Iran could settle for Baghdad being part of their sphere of influence and Kurdistan being an effective buffer between them and ISIS. David L Phillips, the author of The Kurdish Spring: A New Map of the Middle East writes Turkey and the KRG have conducted contingency planning on independence. A senior Turkish adviser privately told a recent meeting in London that he could envisage what he called the ‘liberation’ of Iraqi Kurdistan. Acquiescence to independence in the right circumstances is possible.

The Kurds see America as the key to that announcement one day in the UN Security Council. A secret CIA dossier concludes that the Kurds are “belligerently independent, distrust the governments over them, and have stubbornly resisted efforts to disarm them or restrict in any way their relative freedom.” That was in 1948.

However, America has doggedly clung to Iraqi territorial integrity but I put it to Hussein that the mood music in DC seems to be changing and moving to a more neutral position after the recent high-profile visit by President Barzani to meet President Obama. Hussein replied:

“The answer is yes, the mood has changed. First, when President Obama came to power he wanted to get rid of Iraqi policy due to the war. Later on, people in Washington started to focus on other parts of the world. The reality was that the current administration did not want to have a lot to do with Iraq. Now, once again, they are involved. Second, as far as the fight against terrorism they are still engaged, they are supporting us and there is a good co-ordination between us. They know what we have achieved and we have kept our promises. They know that the weapons given to us have stayed in our hands. All these elements have meant a positive change towards the Kurds.”

As for western ground troops, Hussein was diplomatic:

“ISIS is an organisation that has the support of groups and individuals from many countries and is an international movement with an international strategy. There must be international support and coordination. As for boots on the ground, the Kurdistani Peshmerga have done the fighting. This organisation has support and can control territory. Is it fair only to leave it to the Kurds? We have the manpower to fight but it is a long fight. We are not the ones who would ask for boots on the ground from other countries. We are realistic. We don’t think that the Americans are going to do that now at the end of President’s term. Western public opinion opposes ISIS but they still don’t see Iraq as their fight. You would need a lot of work to convince western opinion that western countries would send their units to fight. But I don’t think so in the near future.”

Hussein displays the steely determination of an increasingly experienced Kurdistani leadership, which has put the place on the map. The Kurds could yet be their own worst enemies with the worst-case scenario being a re-division of the region between Iran-centric and Turkocentric entities. But the Kurds have long survived in the violent vortex of bigger empires. They usually say they have no friends but the mountains but now count many countries as friends. Kurdistan could check the expansion of ISIS, is a willing part of the free world and is anxious to modernise itself. Their success could be a game-changer in the Middle East.

*Gary Kent is director of Labour Friends of Iraq and of the APPG on Kurdistan. He is an honorary member of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, deputy chair of the European Technology and Training Centre in Erbil and writes a weekly column, Window on Westminster, for the Kurdish newspaper Rudaw. He has visited Iraq and Kurdistan twenty times since 2006 and is a recipient of a Centre for Kurdish Progress award for extraordinary contribution to the Kurdish cause. He writes in a personal capacity and tweets @garykent.

This article was originally published by OpenDemocracy and is available by clicking here.

The post Prospects For A Future Kurdistan – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Monica Ellena*

One year ago, Georgia signed an historic free-trade deal with the European Union that many saw as the ticket for finally pulling the country’s largely agricultural economy out of its post-Soviet slump. But so far, how fast that deal can help transform Georgian agriculture is open to doubt.

With about half of Georgia’s roughly 2-million-strong workforce employed in agriculture, the answer could have long-term consequences.

Though the EU ranks as the country’s top trade partner, accounting for 30 percent of total foreign trade of $3.9 billion, Georgian support for the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union appears to be growing – up twofold since 2014 to 30 percent of 4,360 Georgians surveyed for the National Democratic Institute, an American non-governmental organization.

The Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA), signed with the EU on June 27, 2014, does not prevent trade with Russia or its economic bloc. But, for some Georgians, the roughly 350 directives and regulations, mostly related to food safety, tied to all EU-bound exports makes Russia, its eastern neighbor, an easier bet.

“Europe is far away and doesn’t want us, so why should I spend money to change my stable?” grunted Zviad, a farmer watching his three cows graze in a field near Telavi, the seat of Georgia’s main agricultural region, Kakheti.

Georgia, he thinks, should just keep on selling to Russia. “We know them, they know us. No surprises.”

EU food-safety standards, in particular, surprise many Georgian farmers. “Farmers would come up to me and say ‘I never poisoned anyone,’” recounted Nino Zambakhidze, the strongly pro-EU chairperson of the 1,200-member Georgian Farmers Association. “They almost take it personally.”

To give farmers time to adjust to the EU’s regulations, the Georgian government and EU are developing an implementation timeline spread over eight years. The government has set up consultation centers in each municipality and, according to Agriculture Minister Otar Danelia, just launched a “mobile consultancy” to “make sure we don’t miss any village.”

It also grants small farmers facilitated access to finance, subsidized insurance policies and various support for start-up agri-businesses.

But so far, the Georgian government does not appear to have the data to encourage experimentation.

Though Georgia in the past year started exporting new products like acyclic alcohol, and saw its sales of fruit juices triple, the government cannot specify what percentage of its agricultural exports goes to the EU or to any other geographic location.

Officials had touted the prospect of exports to the EU, the world’s largest market, as a way to raise overall productivity and quality standards, but between January and May of 2015, overall exports to the EU actually dropped by four percent (to $242 million) compared with the same period last year – the effect, in part, of a regional economic slump.

European demand for Georgian food products exists, however – kiwi producer Nergeta, a first-time EU exporter, sent its entire 2015 harvest to Germany, for instance.

But the DCFTA’s influence on demand appears debatable. EU and Georgian officials, though, maintain that long-term benefits from the deal are underway.

“[The EU market] is stability, which is something that Georgia has been lacking for many years in the past, especially in agri-products,” elaborated Agriculture Minister Danelia.

Danelia has high hopes in particular for hazelnuts, a product for which the EU and Turkey account for 90 percent of the world’s market, the European Delegation to Tbilisi states.

Georgia, ranked among the world’s five largest hazelnut producers, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, has seen its exports boom over the past year; the result, in part, of a bad harvest for top producer Turkey.

Bringing in more than $183 million in 2014, hazelnuts have outstripped even wine to dominate Georgia’s agricultural exports. Their share of overall exports reached eight percent in the first six months of this year, an increase of 5.6 percentage points year-on.

But, again, how much of that increase is due to the DCFTA or sales to the EU is unclear.

Even before the agreement, hazelnuts were exempt from EU customs duties under a set of trade preferences, noted Konstantine Vekua, a hazelnut expert and co-founder of Nergeta.

Nonetheless, Danelia says that Tbilisi wants to “establish [the] Georgian hazelnut as a brand worldwide and especially in [the] EU because Europe is very much interested…”

To encourage Georgian farmers’ own interest, Tbilisi provides 70 percent of the financing to set up new hazelnut plantations and covers half of the cost for any modern irrigation system. The government also is considering a “three-year support” program that it hopes would help double Georgia’s production, Danelia said.

The EU’s 52-million-euro ($58.55 million) European Neighborhood Program on Agriculture and Rural Development, designed to move Georgia beyond subsistence farming, also plays a role in providing financing for hazelnut farmers to purchase automated equipment needed to raise export volumes.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that part of those exports go to Turkey, but the EU Delegation’s agricultural attaché, Juan Echanove, stresses that the DCFTA deal is not just about exporting to the EU.

“The agreement paves the way for the country’s products to be in line with European standards; thus, to be trusted in the world market.”

“[The] DCFTA also means trade of services, knowledge, and capital,” he continued. “It impacts farmers through access to tariffs-free inputs and fertilizers, which in turn can increase the yields…”

That could prove critical for Georgia’s approximately 750,000 farmers.

At just 554.9 laris ($246.95), average monthly salaries in agriculture are the lowest of any occupation outside of education, according to official data.

Despite the country’s fertile soil, favorable climate and number of agricultural workers, productivity is low – agriculture contributed only 9.3 percent of the 2013 Gross Domestic Product of 26.8 billion laris ($11.9 billion, at the time). Imports abound.

Changing that will require time, commented exporter Vekua, but the need to conform with EU standards could help facilitate the process by putting Georgia on the world map for high-quality agricultural wares.

*Monica Ellena is a Tbilisi-based freelance journalist.

The post Georgia’s EU Trade Deal: More Pain Than Gain? appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The US tilt in South Asia is not a sudden development, in fact, after the demise of the Soviet Union there has been a gradual convergence of interests between New Delhi and Washington. Before the Cold War any alliance between the US and India remained out of the question due to Nehru’s policy of nonalignment. However, the US always recognized India’s regional importance. The first step towards India came when General Claude Kicklighter visited India in 1991. Subsequent agreements that took place to develop the joint training exercises marked the first military-to-military cooperation between United States and India. Immediately thereafter, high level discussion on strategic interests took place in January 1992 in New Delhi. At that meeting, India was considered as the only country that could act as a regional stabilizing force against the spread of “Islamic fundamentalism”.

In 1995, cooperation was further strengthened by Secretary of Defense William Perry’s visit to India, where he and his Indian counterpart agreed to move beyond bilateral military issues to encompass a wide range of military, security and strategic interests. These advances were however imperiled by India’s 1998 nuclear tests when sanctions were imposed by United States.

However, the trend of coming closer to India again started during the second term of President Clinton, who during the Kargil War of 1999 not only pressured Pakistan to withdraw its troops, but also chided Pakistan for its role in promoting terrorism. In the 2000, President Clinton’s visit to India was the turning point in the Indo-US relationship. During his visit, President Clinton admitted that the US had ignored India in the preceding 20 years and indicated that it would end the passive impact caused by nuclear issues in future.

Previously US interests in South Asia had been important, but were never vital. However, its War against Terrorism in Afghanistan brought the region into focus. Considering the US interests in the region, the US approach to relations with India needs to be seen in the context of several identifiable areas in South Asia during the post-Cold War period: first, eliminating terrorism and curbing Islamic extremism in Pakistan and Afghanistan; second, development of a strong economic and strategic relationship with India for possible containment of China; and lastly, preventing a potentially dangerous nuclear arms race on the subcontinent.

In early March 2006, President Bush made a three-day trip to India. In a speech preceding his trip, the President called India a “natural partner for the United States” and identified the broad areas of bilateral cooperation as: counterterrorism, trade promotion, environmental protections, energy initiatives.
On December 2006, Congress under Bush administration passed the historic Henry J. Hyde, “United States-India Peaceful Atomic Cooperation Act”, which allows direct civilian nuclear commerce with India for the first time in 30 years. The very next year, on July 27, 2007, the US and India reached an agreement on civil nuclear deal known as the 123 Agreement. Americans have termed it as the “symbolic centerpiece of a growing global partnership between the two countries. This agreement governs civil nuclear trade between the two countries and opens the door for American and Indian firms to participate in each others civil nuclear energy sector.

After taking the charge of the presidential office, President Obama made two visits to India. On January 26, 2015, he visited India as the chief guest at India’s 66th Republic Day celebrations. During his visit he opened up more doors of bilateral cooperation between the two, including in the nuclear sphere.

To sum up, the US unprecedented tilt towards India in the post Cold War era, even after the Indian nuclear test in 1998, has seriously undermined the cause of peace and stability in this region. Presently, the US is hewing the NSG membership for India which will have serious implications for the stability of the region. The military relationship between the US and India has added a new dimension to Pakistan’s security equation – thereby aggravating its security perceptions. By cultivating India for any balancing role in Asia US would endanger Pakistan’s security environment and destabilize the region. Unless this impact is contained, it could aggravate the strategic milieu of Pakistan. The US should understand the gravity of the damage they are committing to the cause of peace and stability by giving India country-specific special treatment by improving India’s position in the South Asian region that would ultimately disturb the regional equilibrium.

*Sidra Ajaib Kayani as research associate works for Strategic Vision Institute Islamabad, also can be reached at sidrakayani.svi@gmail.com

The post Indo-US Strategic Ties – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The post-2014 condition in Afghanistan, after the disengagement of the US-NATO-International Security Assistance Force, has been a matter of serious debate. The main trouble lies in foreseeing the genuine aspirations of sundry actors involved in the Afghan predicament, particularly of the US.

The US, without any proper strategy, has been unable to figure out the shamble in Afghanistan, for which it is to some extent accountable. As a result, the it has sabotaged the entire region through ‘defective’ strategies. The only ‘trophy’ that it can avow is the elimination of Osama bin Laden. Otherwise, the ‘terrorism’ that the Americans came to eradicate has increased, not decreased.

The exodus of foreign forces from Afghanistan, especially its extent and pace, presents a wide range of acceptance. The cognizance gap between the American-led alliance and the Taliban-led Afghan resistance groups are rather wide. Both are ecstatic about a respective victory. America is looking for at least, a figurative residual force, while political resistance groups are asking for a total disengagement. The Afghan National Security Forces’ dearth requisite capacity and potential to carry out orders after the withdrawal of foreign forces, elevate the phantom of a civil war seaping into Pakistan.

America’s Afghanistan policy is pinned around deliberate ambivalence. This ambiguity has given rise to a conjectural condition edifice based on various degrees of a rollback of American influence, viz. total hands off, partial military disengagement, complete military withdrawal and yet detention of economic and political impact of varying degrees are some of the presumptions on which most of the suppositions are hinged.

America’s core interest has now shifted to East Asia. Whatever the prospects of foreseeable objectives, Afghanistan is now of fringe interest to America. The United States has a powerful remote intelligence, surveillance, and strike capabilities that could only be dreamed of in the 1990s. These capabilities increasingly can be engaged from “stand-off” distances. Some of these potentials require localized basing, but Afghanistan is not the only country that can provide inconspicuous basing options. Eleven years of an immense quiet intelligence endeavor partnered with Afghans and Pakistanis have created a nexus of friendly contacts that will be continued long after 2014. In some ways, the post-2014 milieu in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area could extend into a prolonged “intelligence war,” with hundreds of US operatives and billions of furtive dollars invested in avert further terrorist attacks on the United States.

The Afghan National Security Forces can possibly preserve this stand-off, but only as long as the US Congress pays the multibillion-dollar annual bills needed to keep them fighting. The war will thus become a bout in stamina between the US Congress and the Taliban. Unless Congress shows more tolerance than the Taliban leader Mullah Omar, funding for the ANSF will eventually dwindle until Afghan forces can no longer control their ground, and at that point, the country could easily plunge into mayhem. If it does, the war will be lost. A policy of simply handing off an ongoing war to an Afghan government that cannot support troops needed to win is thus not a strategy for a “responsible end” to the conflict; it is closer to what the Nixon administration was willing to accept in the final stages of the Vietnam War, a “decent interval” between the United States’ departure and the eventual defeat of its local confederate.

There are only two real alternatives to this, neither of them gratifying. One is to get serious about negotiations with the Taliban. This is no elixir, but it is the only option to outright defeat. To its kudos, the Obama administration has pursued such talks for over a year. What it has not done is spend the political capital needed for an actual deal. A settlement the US could live with would require hard political engineering both in Kabul and on Capitol Hill, yet the administration has not followed through.

The other plausible approach is for the US to cut its losses and completely leave Afghanistan, leaving behind no consultative presence and reducing its aid considerably. Outright disengagement might damage US stature, but so too would a slow-motion genre of the same defeat—only at a greater cost in blood and treasure. And although a speedy US departure would cost many Afghans their lives and freedoms, continuing to fight could simply delay such an outcome and risk the sacrifice of more American lives in a lost cause.

The current administration in Kabul is seriously venturing toward open dialogue with the resistance forces. It appears that a lot of preliminary work has been done in this regard. Pakistan is not only supporting the dialogue process, but also has considerable involvement in initiating it, with the US also endorsing the proposal. There is a paradox, though. On the one hand, the parties to the confrontation are being persuade to sit for negotiations, and on the other, the US is being advised to detain the evacuation of its forces.

Considering that the key demand of the resistance movement is a complete withdrawal of all foreign forces, it remains to be seen how the talk’s initiative will pan out. If the resistance forces agree to conduct a meaningful dialogue, they would want iron-clad guarantees that the departure time frame would be uppermost on the agenda. In all probability, the resistance would agree to full-scale open talks only when the time frame issue has been resolved in secret negotiations.

The author is a M.Phil Student in the department of Politics and International Relations, Quaid-e-Azam University Islamabad, Pakistan.

The post ‘Post-Withdrawal Afghanistan’ And US – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The remark followed a Saturday meeting of finance ministers from the eurozone in Brussels, aimed at reaching an agreement on financial aid package for Greece before the June 30 deadline of the current bailout program expires. The talks ended without any substantial progress, Sputnik reported.

The country’s major creditors – the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund – made further financial assistance dependent on Greece fulfilling certain demands, in particular implementation of austerity measures and reforms.

On Sunday, the Greek government ratified the prime minister’s proposal on holding a national referendum on July 5 to decide whether to accept the deal offered by the lenders.

Earlier this month, the Bank of Greece said in a report that failure to reach an agreement on the debt issue would lead Greece to a default, possibly triggering the country’s exit from the eurozone and the European Union.

The post European Council Chief Urges EU To Keep Greece In Eurozone appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Alireza Noori*

Lack of “strategy” is one of the most important features that characterize Russia’s policy in the Middle East. Examples of this issue have been seen in discontinuous and mostly passive positions that the country has been taking on regional developments from the war in Iraq to political developments in Libya, the Arab Spring, and Iran’s nuclear issue. At the same time, Moscow has been trying to take a multi-vectoral and pragmatic approach to versatile conditions in the Middle East in order to maintain a certain level of relations “with all parties” to guarantee some of its interests and gradually boost its influence.

An example of this approach has been evident in Russia’s interactions with Saudi Arabia. These interactions are not extensive and lack of satisfaction is obvious on both sides, examples of which include Moscow’s dissatisfaction with the role played by Riyadh in reducing global oil prices on the basis of political motivations; Saudi Arabia’s direct and indirect role in spreading Islamic extremism across the region; and differences between Russia and Saudi Arabia over the ongoing regional developments, including the situation in Syria. Nonetheless, pragmatic politicians in Kremlin have been always trying to avoid increasing tension with Riyadh and have also indicated their willingness to expand relations between their country and Saudi Arabia.

The signs of this tactical approach have been evident in recent developments that have taken place in the two countries’ relations, including conclusion of a nuclear deal between the two sides, signing of a memorandum of understanding for economic cooperation, the two countries’ willingness to boost military cooperation, and their readiness to increase diplomatic exchanges, which was especially highlighted through a recent visit to Russia by Saudi Arabia’s deputy crown prince. Although there is a long way between signing the aforesaid agreements and their implementation, such developments can be considered a sign of “progress” in the two countries’ relations. Moscow has various reasons for the adoption of a pragmatic approach to Riyadh. Under current circumstances and in view of the complexity and versatility of developments in the Middle East, and also in the light of its relations with the West, Saudi Arabia is trying to use all available foreign policy tools in order to boost its bargaining power and make achievement of its foreign policy goals possible. Moscow has been also welcoming further expansion of relations with Saudi Arabia exactly for a set of similar reasons.

Kremlin knows that Saudi Arabia is a country with great influence in the region and the Islamic world, and expansion of interactions with Riyadh would mean to open a new “gateway” to developing relations with other Arab countries of the region as well. On the other hand, tension with Riyadh would limit such relations and will even pose serious challenges to Russia. Officials in Kremlin are well aware that the power of Saudi Arabia is not limited to symmetrical confrontation, but Riyadh is capable of causing serious problems for Moscow when it comes to asymmetrical confrontation. Examples of Saudi Arabia’s asymmetrical power include its influence over millions of Muslims in Russia, South Caucasus and Central Asia, and its ability to provide extremist groups in the Middle East with necessary funds and ideological backing, and direct them toward Russia’s borders. Therefore, Moscow believes that maintaining a certain level of relations with Riyadh is a more efficient mechanism which will enable Moscow to take advantage of the existing opportunities and control threats.

Russia is also aware that claiming a share in the future Middle East would be very difficult and costly in the absence of good relations with Saudi Arabia. Tactical expansion of relations with Riyadh and following a multi-vectoral policy toward the Middle East region will not only increase Russia’s bargaining power in the face of the West, but also boost its ability to take part in the regional political game along with other Middle Eastern powers, including Iran, Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. By doing this, Moscow would be able to reap benefits through relations with any of these players.

Therefore, under conditions that in practice, Moscow lacks considerable resources to influence developments in the region, expansion of interactions with the traditional regional ally of the West will not only make up for that shortcoming, but also give new impetus to foreign policy of Russia and allow it to “show” a new trump card in the face of the West. Of course, the impact of this card cannot be very considerable under the present circumstances, but further development of relations can turn it into a very effective card.

Economic benefits of interaction with Saudi Arabia are also of interest to Moscow. Selling arms to Saudi Arabia, a country whose weapons market has been monopolized by the West for many long years, can mark a turning point for the expansion of Russia’s arms exports and also give Kremlin some leverage over Riyadh. Meanwhile, nuclear cooperation between the two countries can be analyzed within this framework. Having Saudi Arabia as a new customer for Russian nuclear technology will be a breakthrough for Moscow. From the viewpoint of nonproliferation, Russia can get hold of all aspects and goals of Saudi Arabia’s nuclear program by engaging in nuclear cooperation with this country, just like what Russia has already done with Iran.

Moscow, however, is well aware of the limitations it faces in relations with Riyadh, the most important of which pertain to strategic relations between Riyadh and Washington. Despite some differences, relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States are still really strong. Moscow knows that Saudi Arabia does not look upon Russia as a strategic partner and the recent willingness of Riyadh to get closer to Moscow has been merely out of pure “tactical” reasons. One of those reasons is to have Russia’s cooperation, or at least impartiality, in order to pave the way for further advancement of the regional policy of Riyadh, especially when it comes to containment of Iran and achieving Saudi Arabia’s goals in Syria and Yemen.

Despite the above facts, Saudi Arabia will not succeed in its effort to make a drastic change in Russia’s positions on developments in the Middle East, at least, with regard to the three aforesaid cases. This is true because Riyadh is just one regional variable with a certain level of influence while variables influencing Moscow’s policy toward those three cases are international in nature and a function of the power equation between Russia and the West. Riyadh’s “money diplomacy” will not be effective with respect to Moscow either, because in the first place, Russia is a rich country and, secondly, Moscow has already proven in the course of the crisis in Ukraine that it is ready to spend a lot for the realization of its foreign policy goals, especially geopolitical ones. Moscow’s approach to Tehran and Damascus is influenced by geopolitical issues and Moscow is not ready to easily lose ground in these cases. On the other hand, Moscow is aware of the significance of Iran and Syria in future political developments of the Middle East and also knows that it cannot build its foreign policy on the basis of trust in regional allies of the West, especially Saudi Arabia.

* Alireza Noori
Ph.D. Candidate, Saint Petersburg State University & Expert on Russian Affairs

The post Changes In Russia-Saudi Relations Nothing More Than Tactical Maneuvering – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

On Wednesday night, June 17, 2015, Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Charleston, South Carolina, was having Bible Study. Hours later, 9 Black church members were shot to death by Dylann Roof, a 21 year old White male.

Did Dylann Roof choose the date to send a message to the black community in the USA? After all, the 199-year-old church is the oldest AME Church in the South. Often referred to as “Mother Emanuel”, it has played an important role in the history of South Carolina, including the slavery era, the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, and the Black Lives Matter movement in the 2010s. Its history is closely tied with its co-founder, Denmark Vesey, a former slave who purchased his freedom in 1799. The AME Church was founded in 1816 in response to the exclusion that Blacks received from the broader Methodist denomination; it was a safe haven site for the Underground Railroad.

Vesey was suspected of planning a slave rebellion in Charleston at the stroke of midnight on June 16, 1822, which was to erupt the following day June 17. Thirty-five people, including Vesey, were executed and the church was burned down. Was it a mere coincident that Roof killed his Black victims on the 193rd anniversary of that thwarted slave uprising? The rebuilt church, later known as Emanuel AME Church, was badly damaged in the 1886 Charleston earthquake. The current building dates from 1891.

According to reports in the media, Dylann Roof sat next to Senior Pastor State Senator Clementa Pinckney, initially listening to others during the Bible study. He started to disagree when they began discussing the Bible. At one point, he stood up and pulled a gun. Before shooting his victims, he said, “I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.” He also reportedly said, “Y’all want something to pray about? I’ll give you something to pray about.” He reloaded his gun five times. He asked one of the survivors, “Did I shoot you?” She replied, “No.” Then, he said, “Good, ’cause we need someone to survive, because I’m gonna shoot myself, and you’ll be the only survivor.” According to the son of one of the victims, who spoke to that survivor, the shooter allegedly turned the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger, but only then discovered he was out of ammunition. Before leaving the church, he reportedly “uttered a racially inflammatory statement” over the victims’ bodies.

Roof was captured the next morning (June 18) in a traffic stop in Shelby, North Carolina, approximately 245 miles (394 km) from the shooting scene. That day many flags, including those at the South Carolina State House, were flown at half-staff. The Confederate battle flag flying over the South Carolina Confederate Monument near the state house, however, was not, as South Carolina law prohibits alteration of the flag without the consent of two-thirds of the state legislature. At a statehouse press conference on June 22, 2015, Governor Nikki Haley (originally of Sikh descent from India; now a Methodist Christian), flanked by elected officials of both parties, including U.S. Republican senators and former Republican Governor, called for the flag to be removed by the state legislature, saying that while the flag was “an integral part of our past, it does not represent the future” of South Carolina. “We are not going to allow this symbol to divide us any longer,” she said.

The massacre of nine African-Americans in Charleston has been classified as a possible hate crime. But many civil rights advocates are asking why the attack has not officially been called terrorism. Apparently, the killer himself wanted to ignite a race war. He reportedly had told friends and neighbors of his plans to kill people, including a plot to attack the College of Charleston. One image from his Facebook page showed him wearing a jacket decorated with the flags of two nations used as emblems among American white supremacist movements, those of Rhodesia (today called Zimbabwe) and apartheid-era South Africa. Another online photo showed Roof sitting on the hood of his parents’ car with an ornamental license plate with a Confederate flag on it. According to his roommate, Roof expressed his support of racial segregation in the United States and had intended to start a civil war. He was agitated during scriptural discussion. To many Bible-thumping Christians, the scripture itself condemns the black people as a ‘cursed’ people (Gen. 9:20-27).

Webster’s New World College Dictionary defines terrorism as “the use of force or threats to demoralize, intimidate and subjugate, especially such use as a political weapon or policy.”

Civil rights advocates said the Charleston attack not only fit the dictionary definition of terrorism but reflected a history of attempts by the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups to terrorize African-Americans. Professor Brian Phillips, a terrorism expert, said, “…the massacre in Charleston, S.C. Wednesday was clearly a terrorist act.” However, James Comey, the FBI Director disagrees. He said, “Terrorism is act of violence done or threatened in order to try to influence a public body or citizenry, so it’s more of a political act, and again, based on what I know, I don’t see this as a political act. Doesn’t make it any less horrific, but terrorism has a definition under federal law.”

In a recent interview with the USA Today, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the themes of social disconnection and an attraction to radical thought expressed on online are responsible for recruitment of homegrown violent extremists like Roof. Lynch said, “People disaffected, people being radicalized online. Roof picked this racial hatred theme and that’s what fueled him. Others picked the ISIL theme, and that’s what fuels them.”

Texas Governor Rick Perry called the massacre “an accident.” Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (son of Indian immigrants from Punjab; he converted to Christianity), a fellow Republican, stated that it is hard to fathom an “incident” like this happening in America. To the conservative Christians like Bill O’Reilly of the Fox TV it was the action of a ‘disturbed’ individual, designed to terrorize people. In a recent broadcast of his show ‘Factor’, he staunchly insisted that racism is a nearly non-existent problem that is only represented by what he calls the “lunatic fringe.”

Most White Americans probably agree with O’Reilly on this. They see the massacre, committed by a fellow White, as a violent act (and not terrorism) done by a lone wolf – a fringe element of their society. And, as we have seen with other such cases, Roof’s religion – Christianity – is not deemed a problem here. Christianity is excused for the violence committed by one of its members!

It is worth pointing out here that assaults like the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 and the attack on an anti-Islamic gathering in Garland, Texas, last month have been widely portrayed as acts of terrorism carried out by ‘Islamic’ extremists and not some ‘lone wolves’. Critics say, however, that assaults against African-Americans and Muslim Americans are rarely, if ever, called terrorism.

Is there a clear case of double standards?

Against the backdrop of rising worries about the Middle East, esp. ISIL, civil rights advocates see hypocrisy in the way the Charleston attack and the man under arrest in the shooting have been described by law enforcement officials and the news media.

“We have been conditioned to accept that if the violence is committed by a Muslim, then it is terrorism,” Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights advocacy group in Washington, said in a telephone interview. “If the same violence is committed by a white supremacist or apartheid sympathizer and is not a Muslim, we start to look for excuses — he might be insane, maybe he was pushed too hard,” Mr. Awad said.

Dean Obeidallah, a Muslim American radio show host and commentator, said it should be obvious that the Charleston killer was a terrorist. “We have a man who intentionally went to a black church, had animus toward black people and assassinated an elected official and eight other people,” he said. “It seems he was motivated by a desire to terrorize and kill black people.”

Samuel Sinyangwe, a civil rights activist who has helped chronicle violence against African-Americans, wrote on Twitter: “#CharlestonShooting terrorist wore an Apartheid flag on his jacket. If a Muslim man wore an ISIS flag, he wouldn’t get past mall security.”

Experts tell us that assailants who are white are far less likely to be described by the authorities as terrorists. Commenting on the Waco biker gang violence in May, 2015, Sally Kohn, a CNN political commentator, wrote, “One of the most distinct characteristics of white privilege is the privilege to be unique. When white people commit violent acts, they are treated as aberrations, slips described with adjectives that show they are unusual and in no way representative of the broader racial group to which they belong. In fact, in much of the coverage of the Waco shootings, the race of the gang members isn’t even mentioned, although pictures of the aftermath show groups of white bikers being held by police. By comparison, the day after Freddie Gray died in the custody of police officers in Baltimore, not only did most coverage mention that Gray was black, but also included a quote from the deputy police commissioner noting Gray was arrested in ‘a high-crime area known to have high narcotic incidents,’ implicitly smearing Gray and the entire community.”

Kohn continued, “Research shows that implicit bias against black and brown people is real, as is white privilege. And studies show that white people greatly overestimate the share of crimes committed by black people. Is it any wonder, given the racialized nature with which we cover crime? According to one study, television stations covered crimes committed by black people in greater proportion than their actual share of criminal acts in the city.”

Amy Julia Harris – who writes for the Center for Investigative Reporting – similarly comments that when the shooter is black, the entire race is guilty; but when the shooter is white, he or she is viewed by the public (and the media) as a ‘troubled lone wolf’.

Worse is the case with Muslims. When the shooter is a Muslim, the entire religion is guilty. When one Muslim person even threatens violence in the United States, it is treated as terrorism of crisis-like proportions, and the person may rot in the jail for decades. The judicial mantra ‘everyone is innocent until proven otherwise’ does not seem to shield them from such allegations. It is patently obvious that the media and society at large treats criminals of color with more severe, less-balanced judgements than they do white criminals.

A 2011 survey by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute found that Americans are much more willing to say Muslim extremists who commit violence in the name of Islam are really Muslims than they are to say Christian extremists who kill in the name of God are truly Christians. Overall, 83 percent of Americans surveyed said that people who commit violence and claim to be Christians are not really Christian. Interestingly, this poll was conducted not in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11 or another terrorist attack in the name of Islam, but in the wake of the 2011 terrorist attacks in Norway, where Anders Behring Breivik, who is often called a Christian terrorist, killed 77 Norwegians by setting off a bomb and gunning down victims. Bill O’Reilly of Fox News stridently said, “Breivik is not a Christian.” “No one believing in Jesus commits mass murder,” O’Reilly said. “The man might have called himself a Christian on the ’net, but he is certainly not of that faith.”

When it comes to Muslim suspects, I wish Christian apologists like O’Reilly had the impartiality to separate their crime from their religion. What would one call such an attitude but hypocrisy?
Explaining the 2011 survey, Robert P. Jones, the institute’s CEO, said, “Americans gave the answers they gave in the context of a blond-haired, blue-eyed, white Christian man committing terrorism. Even when they had a palpable example of someone who linked violence with his Christian faith, they weren’t willing to buy it at the end of the day.”

That is why, it is not difficult to understand the white American nonchalant attitude towards the latest terrorism committed by a fellow White Christian. In their passionate whitewashing of gruesome acts of terrorism by one of their own race, the Whites duck the fact that White right-wing domestic terrorism is one of the greatest threats to public safety and security in the post 9/11 America. Such a hard fact is, sadly, forbidden in mainstream American public discourse.

In the context of AME terrorism, it may be proper for White Americans to self-introspect and look into the mirror. What is radicalizing white men to commit such acts of domestic terrorism and mass shootings? Is something wrong with the white family? Why are their sons and men so violent? When will white leadership step up and stop white right-wing domestic terrorism? Are Fox News and the right-wing media encouraging violence? Is White American culture pathological? Why is White America so violent? Are there appropriate role models for white men and boys? Could better role models and mentoring help to prevent white men and boys from committing mass shootings and being seduced by right-wing domestic terrorism? Is there something wrong with Christianity? Is Bible the problem for their violence?

If they can’t look into the mirror of self-introspection, either every mass murderer of any race and religion should enjoy the “mentally disturbed” identity (that the mainstream media pampers about white spree killers with), or nobody deserves it. Let’s bury prejudice and call a spade a spade.

The post Media Treatment Of White Terrorism In USA – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Dr. Sridhar Krishnaswami*

If anyone was under the impression that India’s notification to the United Nations sanctions Committee to rein in Pakistan under Resolution 1267 over the release of dreaded terrorist and commander of the Lakshar-e-Taiba, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, would have the nod of China, he/she was living in an illusory world. Even if India had provided “enough information” China would still have maintained that New Delhi had failed to do so and would have adopted every other procedural manoeuvre to prevent Pakistan from being raked over the coals.

What really would have been news is if China had gone along with other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to consider India’s referral. That being the case it is difficult to understand why there is so much heartburn in the media and elsewhere on the latest Chinese action. In fact, this is not the first time that China has let its client state off the hook, much to the dismay of the international community, even while mouthing all the nice things about having to cooperate on issues of terrorism.

The argument of officials in China or its representatives overseas that India, Pakistan and China have together to cooperate on terrorism because Pakistan is “also” a victim of terrorism is quite bizarre. China should have understood that if its vassal state is “also” a victim of terrorism it is on account of it being a state sponsor of terror, which at times comes knocking home. It is highly doubtful if China or Pakistan knew the kind and spread of terrorists who are holed up in the troubled areas of the North East Frontier.

And for that matter, Beijing would have been better off to nudge Islamabad to get tough on Lakhvi and those of his ilk for the simple reason that China is also at the receiving end of the menace of terrorism. By supporting Pakistan at New York on flimsy procedural matters China has only exposed itself and would seem like being in the company of a small group of nations who are looking the other way when it comes to dealing with a global scourge. Lakhvi is seen as the LeT commander who was the mastermind of the November 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai that left 166 persons dead and scores injured.

In bailing out Pakistan one more time at the United Nations on issues of terror, China continues to lose goodwill in India, and this comes just at a time when barely a month ago the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was given the royal red carpet welcome, and in all the hoopla that went along with it including e-visas. If anything the Indian prime minister has been snubbed at a time when he is reported to have raised issues of terrorism (and Pakistan’s involvement in those) at the very highest levels of Chinese leadership. If anything the latest Chinese posturing at the United Nations would only harden the stance of those in the foreign policy and intelligence establishments in India who were skeptical of Beijing’s intentions to start with.

Pakistan’s two-faced posture on terrorism is for all to see irrespective of its loud protestations that it is in the forefront of the fight against terror. Successive administrations in Washington have well known Islamabad’s track record on terror and yet continue to pour in billions by way of lethal and non-lethal assistance — fancifully called reimbursements. And all this despite knowing that the monies funneled to Pakistan in the name of anti-terror operations is used to fund terror activities against India through known terror based groups like the LeT. The United States seemingly keeps Pakistan afloat in the premise that the alternatives of that failed state going totally under could be worse — read loose nukes.

Official India has been reminded by China one more time as to where its loyalties and sympathies are, and New Delhi, while being utterly dismayed at the turn of events, cannot give up in continuing to pressure China on the real threat the global community faces over Pakistan. By the same token, New Delhi should ask Beijing what is the “enough information” it failed to provide on Lakhvi that warranted a roadblock. The United States, Britain, France and Russia did not have a problem with what India presented — only China did!

*Dr. Sridhar Krishnaswami has been a senior journalist with The Hindu in Chennai, Singapore and Washington and currently Heads the Departments of Journalism and Mass Communications and International Relations at SRM University, Chennai. He can be reached at sridhar54k@gmail.com

The post Why China Continues To Lose Goodwill In India – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Itapúa, is a prosperous Department (province) in southern Paraguay, characterized by its fertile soil and hard working European immigrants, who have established themselves decades ago and now are playing an important role not only in Paraguay’s economic growth and financial stability but also have gained an admirable reputation over the entire region of MERCOSUR.

One of the growing sectors in Paraguay’s agriculture production agenda is Pork farming, which is acquiring a major attention thanks to the promising domestic consumption and also due to an ever growing demand from external markets.

In the first four months of 2015, pork meat and its sub products have gained more international awareness and reached an historic high level of more than USD 6.5 million in exports’ revenues with a destination to MERCOSUR markets and Europe.

In terms of value, pork products from Paraguay have experienced increased levels over the last two years. In 2014 the exports of pork generated a revenue of USD 9.5 million and this year it is expected to bring higher profits in this important food sector.

Pig farming is not a traditional business model in Paraguay, its production and marketing have formally taken shape only fifteen years ago in Itapúa. It was shaped under the leadership of local farmers who engaged and invested heavily in genetics, infrastructure and training of human resources.

In a recent interview for Eurasia Review Journal, Marcos Medina, Paraguayan under Secretary of State for Livestock and Dairy Production stated that: “Paraguay has impressively developed its pork production which is expected to grow up to 5 percent this year. Meanwhile there is a growing need to expand the presence of such food products in foreign markets.”

Additionally, national growth of this sector provided an extensive choice of high quality animals, which favored the installation of industries that produce animal food and encouraged production of sub-products that originate from pork farming.

However, this sector has its challenges; local producers in Itapúa have requested that there must be tighter border controls in order to prevent illegal shipments of pork from the neighboring countries of Brazil and Argentina, which affect the domestic production in this sector.

According to representatives of Itapúa’s pork grazing community: “there is a great problem with the cargo shipments with live pork that are coming from Brazil legally, since Paraguay has a small market for pork consumption and it is taking shape only recently.” Brazil has supposedly more competitive prices, as a result merchants always bring shipments of live pork from across the border. This winter, Paraguayan pork production has been affected because consumption is very low anyhow.

In Itapúa, there are slaughtered over seven thousand animals per month. The largest amount of meat is sold to the local refrigeration companies such as Upisa and Producar. The remaining part of the product is destined for the consumption market in the Department of Central where Asuncion has its major share. Colonias Unidas Company, a major pork farming enterprise, is a share holder in both of the entities.

According to the representatives of Colonias Unidas: “People are placing priority to the production of pork meat and are converting grain into animal feed. Although many farmers had left pork farming sector, they all are reconsidering to immerse again in this lucrative sector because of the good prices that domestic and international markets currently offer.”

The process of pig fattening is very costly, it requires a great investment, including infrastructure (approximately USD 70 thousand to invest in housing 550 animals), acquire piglets, grain and protein foods, medicines and highly qualified technical support.

According to Under Secretary Medina, “Pork production is expected to grow even though unfair competition has its toll and the former will definitely be less harmful in the months to come.”
Itapúa has a solid agricultural sector based in four products, soy bean, corn, grain and rice. Over the last years, corn farming has lost importance and in cultivation space, meanwhile rice cultivation has grown significantly mainly in the Basin of Tebicuary River.

Cultivation space for rice continues to grow, from 39 thousand acres to 42 thousand acres today; it has a production output of 7 thousand kilogram/acre.

Cultivation of oranges and other citrus fruits, further diversifies the economy of Itapúa, considering that companies such as Frutika and Trociuk have invested in making fruit juices and fruit pulp.

Soy bean continues to be expanded in the Department, with almost eight thousand acres cultivated in the last harvest, while totaling approximately 651 thousand acres at a national level.

Itapúa has a well established cattle industry. During the last years, it has experienced an increase in cattle grazing. In 2011 there were more than 428 thousand heads and in 2014 it had more than 515 thousand heads of cattle. However, pork production is an attractive example that shows how to successfully build a production chain that brings high value to the agricultural sector.

The capital city of Itapúa is Encarnación, which is the largest center of commerce, logistics and services in the region and has historically played an important role for Paraguay’s exports. Over the last two decades, Encarnación has developed its infrastructure sector and is strategically located on the Argentinean border while connected by rail and a bridge with Posadas, Argentina.

The city of Encarnación is considered to be Paraguay’s Southern Pearl; it is poised to contribute towards the socio-economic growth of a land locked nation while slowly accepting the tradition of modern logistical parks, free trade zones and enlarge exports of agricultural products; all of these are the life blood of Paraguay’s economy.

The post Itapúa: Paraguay’s Department With Dynamic Economy – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By N. Sathiya Moorthy*

The American acknowledgement and confirmation of the continued existence of LTTE’s global network of sympathisers and finances should be a cause for concern as much for neighbouring India as much for Sri Lanka. In ways, it should also be a source of concern and embarrassment for Western nations, including the US.

“The LTTE used its international contacts and the large Tamil diaspora in North America, Europe, and Asia to procure weapons, communications, funding, and other needed supplies,” the 2014 annual report of the US State Department’s Counter-terrorism Bureau said. Whoever rules from Colombo – and administers Jaffna – and whatever the domestic political conditions and electoral compulsions, Sri Lanka cannot be silent after the US has referred to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) procuring weapons.

If ‘2+2’ can only be ‘4’, then weapons procurment indicates the continued existence of the LTTE despite the hopes and assurances to the contrary, both within and outside Sri Lanka. The US report itself says in plain lanugage that the LTTE is still around. What Sri Lanka is going to do about it, and how the world is going to help Sri Lanka in the matter is however a matter of distress and dispute at the same time.

Sri Lanka is already in election mode. Rather, it never dismounted from the presidential poll mode, and jumped onto the parliamentary electoral mode without pause. Viz Sri Lanka, the international community is more keen on the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) probe report and vote than taking an adequate note of the existing/emerging LTTE threat. In both cases, political expediency take precedence over reality checks.

LTTE ‘front organisations’ operate mostly out of Western alliance nations of the US than possibly even on the Sri Lankan soil just now. The US itself cannot escape the burden of continuing to host the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE), the post-war ‘virtual government’ of LTTE supporters/sympathisers and other ‘Tamil nationalists’ in the Sri Lankan diaspora. Germany, as is known, hosted the ‘third parliament’ of the TGTE recently, to be followed by Dubai next. Less said about some of the Nordic nations and their continued hosting of known LTTE elements from the war years, the better.

Target and base at the same time

It will be uncharitable to conclude that the new American report has anything to do with the ‘regime change’ in Sri Lanka. Yet, there is no escaping the possibility of the Sri Lankan Tamil community, both inside Sri Lanka and the diaspora hosting nations, coming under greater electoral pressure than possibly street pressure or political pressure, if the UNHRC were not to meet their specific demands and expectations that is also at times individualistic in nature. Yet, there is no apprehension just now of any or all of them becoming LTTE targets in the foreseeable future.

It is here that neighbouring India stands out. It is as much a target of LTTE propagandaists, from within and the diaspora, as it is still sought out as a base for known political operations, which could transcend legal limits, if left unchecked or ethnic emotions were to run high. Political and academic sympathisers of the ‘larger’ (?) ‘Tamil cause’ are known to be travelling overseas at regular intervals, and at times repeatedly, to participate in seminars and conferences, possibly with no cost to them. Whoever pays for their travel, etc, the Indian nation pays overall and in very many ways.

The ‘Rajiv Gandhi assassination’ probe and the ‘Eelam War IV’ in particular showed the existence of a vast LTTE network, spread across the Indian nation, from Delhi to Bengaluru to Mumbai. Post-war, the pan-Tamil propaganda has hardened the sentiments of a select section in Tamil Nadu more than even when Prabhakaran had died. It keeps cropping up every time there is a UNHRC hearing, not even when every time the Tamils and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) win a cause or election in Sri Lanka.

Recently, the Tamil Nadu police launched a case against actor-politician Seeman, founder of the ‘Naam Tamizhar Katchi’ (second edition), for making pro-LTTE and anti-national speech in Tiruchi. The state government is also believed have influenced local organisers from putting up a small statute/idol look-alike of LTTE’s Prabhakaran in a village temple for war heroes and the like from the past. It has made a reappearance with minor changes, to claim that it was not a statue of Prabhakaran.

All this is not to leave out the need for the Centre re-visiting the definition of the terms ‘terrorism’, ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorist support’, in the context of the Supreme Court’s loose interpretation in the ‘Rajiv Gandhi assassination case’ and later the ‘Vaiko detention case’. It will have application, not just for LTTE propagandists and Tamil Nadu, but also all across the board and across the country as a whole.

*N Sathiya Moorthy is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation. He can be reached at sathiyam54@gmail.com

The post Sri Lanka: US Report On LTTE A Caution For India, Too – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By ruling for the government in the case of King v. Burwell, the Supreme Court once again tied itself into rhetorical and logical knots to defend Obamacare. In King, the court disregarded Obamacare’s clear language regarding eligibility for federal health care subsides, on the grounds that enforcing the statute as written would cause havoc in the marketplace. The court found that Congress could not have intended this result and that the court needed to uphold Congress’s mythical intention and ignore Obamacare’s actual language.

While Obamacare may be safe from court challenges, its future is far from assured. As Obamacare forces more Americans to pay higher insurance premiums while causing others to lose their insurance or lose access to the physicians of their choice, opposition to Obamacare will grow. Additional Americans will turn against Obamacare as their employers reduce their hours, along with their paychecks, because of Obamacare’s mandates.

As dissatisfaction with Obamacare grows, there will be renewed efforts to pass a single-payer health care system. Single-payer advocates will point to Obamacare’s corporatist features as being responsible for its failures and claim the only solution is to get the private sector completely out of health care.

Unfortunately, many Republicans will inadvertently aid the single-payer advocates by failing to acknowledge that Obamacare is not socialist but corporatist, and that that the pre-Obamacare health care system was hobbled by government intervention. In fact, popular support for Obamacare was rooted in the desire to address problems created by prior government interference in the health care marketplace.

Republicans also help the cause of socialized medicine by pretending that Obamacare can be fixed with minor reforms. These Republicans do not understand that replacing Obamacare with “Obamacare Lite” will still leave millions of Americans with inadequate access to quality health care, and could strengthen the movement for a single-payer system.

Republicans’ failure to advocate for a free-market health care system is not just rooted in intellectual error and political cowardice. The insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and the other special interests that benefit from a large government role in health care are just as — or perhaps even more — influential in the Republican Party as in the Democratic Party. The influence of these interests is one reason why, despite their free-market rhetoric, Republicans have a long history of expanding the government’s role in health care.

Those who think a Republican president and Congress will enact free-market health care should consider that the last time Republicans controlled Congress and the White House their signature health care achievement was to expand federal health care spending and entitlements. Furthermore, Richard Nixon worked with Ted Kennedy to force all health care plans to offer a health maintenance organization (HMO). Even Obamacare’s individual mandate originated in a conservative think tank and was first signed into law by a Republican governor.

Instead of Obamacare Lite, Congress should support giving individuals direct control over their health care dollars through individual health care tax credits and expanded access to health savings accounts. Other reforms like long-term group insurance could ensure that those with “pre-existing conditions” have access to care. Another good reform is negative outcomes insurance that could help resolve the medical malpractice crisis.

America’s health care system is just as unsustainable as our foreign policy and our monetary system. At some point, the financial and human costs of Obamacare will prove overwhelming and Congress will be forced to replace this system. Hopefully, before this happens, a critical mass of people will convince Congress to replace Obamacare with a truly free-market health care system.

This article was published by the RonPaul Institute.

The post Ron Paul: Obamacare’s Best Allies: The Courts And The Republicans – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

An activist group said more than 3,000 people in Syria have perished at the hands of Daesh in the year since the militant group declared its self-described “caliphate,” AFP reported on Sunday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP it had documented 3,027 executions by Daesh since June 2014. Among those were 1,787 civilians, including 74 children.

The toll also includes the recent deaths of civilians in Kobani, who were killed when the militant group launched an attack on the town after being expelled in January.

The Observatory told AFP it had counted 223 executions in Kobani this week.

Original article

The post Islamic State Has Executed Over 3,000 Since Establishing ‘Caliphate’ appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Jai Kumar Verma*

The Arab world is experiencing drastic changes and the paramount transformation is in the security scenario. The United States is the most dominant military power in this unipolar world but other emerging regional powers like China and India can not be ignored. The world is becoming multipolar and economically China and India are becoming strong; the Gulf countries have also amassed huge affluence because of exploration of oil and gas.

So far the US was the main guarantor of security in the Arab Gulf region; however the US is now reluctant to provide security, hence there should be some power to fill the void. In view of the peaceful past of India, Gulf countries aspire that India should be ready to play a vigorous role in the region.

The Middle East is a very complex area. There are quite a few issues; the prominent issues are Shia-Sunni conflict, emergence of Islamic State, rising extremism/terrorism in the area, disagreements between Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Iran, ideological differences between Saudi Arabia and Iran, continuous hostility between Israel and Palestine. Arab countries are also worried about India’s growing relationship with Israel. Hence India has to be careful, so that excellent relations with one should not become the reason for unpleasantness with others.

The rulers as well as masses of the Arab world feel that Western countries have poor opinion about the Muslim world and they view Muslims with suspicion. On the other hand India, which has the second largest Muslim population in the planet, is viewed as a peaceful country as it was never an aggressor.

India has close relations with the Arab world since ancient times; the contact was at all fields, including cultural, social, historical and trade. The cordial relations were at government as well as at people to people level. India was an ardent supporter of Palestinian cause since the beginning.

More than 6.5 million Indians are working in Arab countries and they remitted US$70 billion in 2012 alone. The Indian trade with the region was more than $205 billion in 2012-13. Not only this, the region meets the major portion of India’s energy requirements.

Besides this, in view of the close proximity, India is deeply concerned about the developments in the region. In the last leg of 2010, the protests which started from Tunisia soon spread in the region and residents of several countries, especially Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Algeria, Jordan, Iraq, and Bahrain, staged demonstrations for more democratic rights and economic betterment.

India is also concerned about the rise of Islamic State (IS) in the region. IS is a Salafi terrorist organisation which controls large portions in Iraq and Syria and also controls some areas in Libya and Nigeria. IS has increased extremism and terrorism in the area and terrorists from all over the world are joining this wealthy terrorist outfit.

It is high time that India chalks out a detailed policy towards the Arab world. The dignitaries of both the countries must exchange visits and chalk out a result-oriented, pragmatic policy. India can also appoint a senior Foreign Service Officer as a special envoy for the region who can formulate a mutually beneficial policy.

India has outstanding relations with several countries of the region, including Palestine. Nonetheless after establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel in 1992, the close defence ties between India and Israel bothered several countries of the Arab world. Israel has emerged as a major supplier of defence and agricultural equipment to India. Therefore India should reinforce bilateral ties in such a way that the Arab countries feel that India-Israel relationship is not against them and India is more close and friendly to them.

Bilateral relationship is important but India should also develop multilateral relationship through various pacts, including Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) which is a political and economic alliance of 6 Middle Eastern countries, The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has a membership of 57 Muslim countries which protects the interest of Muslim world and Arab League which has membership of 22 Arab countries.

The Gulf countries have abundance of cash and India being a developing economy needs investments, hence India should launch an aggressive campaign to procure investments from the Gulf. India should identify the areas and if need be rules should also be made investor friendly. Besides this, India should include more items as well as more countries for export.

At present India purchases bulk of its energy from the region. However now India should start joint ventures in the energy field with the local companies of Middle Eastern countries. India has technical manpower and it can start joint ventures in natural gas, desalination plants, fertilizer, establishment of refineries, etc. India can also discuss about exchange programme like food for oil etc. as it will enhance interdependence to each other.

India should open cultural centers in the area; our foreign missions should spread the foreign policy of the country more aggressively. India should establish more educational institutions in the Arab world and there should be more exchange of scholars, foreign policy planners between India and countries of the region.

More than 6 million Indians reside in this volatile area hence India needs to devise a comprehensive plan to evacuate citizens of the country in the hour of need. Recently Indians from Egypt and Libya had to be withdrawn.

Unfortunately fundamentalism/extremism has increased in the region. Extremists from several countries including UK, USA, Pakistan, Afghanistan joined IS and are threatening to spread terrorism not only in the area but in the whole world. Large number of misguided Muslim youths from Pakistan, which is the epicenter of terrorism, have gone and joined the IS. When these jihadists return to Pakistan several of them will be sent to India, Afghanistan and other countries to spread terror.

Now the whole world including USA wants to have cordial relations with the Muslim world. The Muslim world should not be perceived as a source of problem or terrorism, but the world at large should identify the trouble spots in Muslim countries and try to resolve the problems. Terrorism is a major issue but very few countries like Pakistan and countries under the influence of Islamic State export terror worldwide.

Arab countries have to be dealt with independently as there are fundamental differences, diverse priorities and objectives between them. These countries will also not like to be treated under the “Islamic agenda”. Hence India has to deal with every country as an independent entity.

In fact, Arab and Gulf countries must formulate a security alliance which should include Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. The rise of Islamic State is bothering the whole world but the regional countries are the worst sufferers.

The conflict in the area has generated an arms race and as Iran is allegedly building nuclear capability a worried Saudi Arabia wanted to take help from nuclear Pakistan in procuring nuclear warheads. Increase in the number of countries having nuclear warheads is a very dangerous phenomena and it would jeopardize peace of the planet.

All the countries of the area as well as the Western world want the region must remain peaceful, stable and secure. However, for this first of all India must play an active role and there should be multilateral system which guarantees stability, peace and prosperity in the region which is full of contradictions and problems. The planners in India must remember that there cannot be a vacuum and if India will not act some other power, including China, may initiate action.

*Jai Kumar Verma is a Delhi-based strategic analyst. He can be contacted at editor@spsindia.in

The post India Must Play More Active Role In Arab World – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, a former prime minister of Norway, took the podium during last week’s meeting of NATO defense ministers to hype the Russian threat to NATO while downplaying recent NATO military moves on Russia’s border.

While criticizing “a more assertive Russia investing heavily in defence,” Stoltenberg countered that, “We do not seek confrontation [with Russia], and we do not want a new arms race.”

He then announced that the new enhanced NATO Response Force will triple in size to include 40,000 personnel instead of the originally announced 13,000 and that NATO would be setting up six new east European mini-headquarters in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania.

A joint statement of the NATO defense ministers underscored Stoltenberg’s Russia points:

Russia is challenging Euro-Atlantic security through military action, coercion and intimidation of its neighbours. We continue to be concerned about Russia’s aggressive actions.

If NATO is to be taken at its word, these accusations should set off alarm bells. One would think that NATO member countries, faced with these “aggressive actions,” would be scrambling to ramp up their military spending to whatever is necessary to counter this military threat from Russia.

Yet strangely the opposite is happening. Despite the heated rhetoric coming from Stoltenberg and his spin factory, NATO HQ is having a difficult time getting its member states interested at all in the Russian threat. NATO member countries — particularly those most geographically vulnerable to the claimed Russian aggression — are not only not ramping up military spending, but in some cases are actually cutting their budgets.

Even the above defense ministers statement suggests frustration with this phenomenon:

We reaffirm the importance of the Defence Investment Pledge adopted at the Wales Summit. Accordingly, we are working on reversing the trend of declining funding for defence, and we will make the most effective use of our defence budgets.

Last year in Wales, NATO leaders pledged to reverse their declining military spending budgets. They have not done so.

The United Kingdom, one of Washington’s most bellicose partners when it comes to foreign interventionism, has infuriated US leadership by reducing rather than increasing its military spending. British Prime Minister David Cameron has apparently reneged on his country’s pledge to maintain military spending at 2% of GDP.

The response from London is to cook the books a little rather than actually increase spending. The Guardian reports that:

UK defence officials are now drawing up proposals whereby some foreign aid and intelligence services’ spending would be reclassified as ‘defence.’

En route to the NATO meeting, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter did his best to goad the Germans into taking the Russian threat seriously. As Reuters reported:

Carter heads first to Berlin, where he is expected to call for a more muscular global security role from Germany, Europe’s largest economy. Germany remains hesitant to deploy troops abroad, seven decades after the end of World War II.

Germany, where defense spending decreased by 1.3% last year, is reportedly less than enthusiastic about contributing troops to the new 40,000 person NATO rapid reaction force to be placed on Russia’s border. Perhaps they have not forgotten history?

Even shrill Lithuania, which regularly claims that Russia is about to invade, cannot interest its citizens in signing up to fight for their country. The Baltic nation has been forced to re-introduce conscription to force Lithuanians to augment its miniscule 15,000 person armed forces. Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitė, a former member of the Communist Party, said that without conscription there was “no other way to strengthen [the] army.” Lithuania spends about half of the NATO-required 2% of GDP on defense.

Enthusiasm over NATO’s demand for a tougher stand against Russia is even less among average European citizens than in the halls of power. Taken as a whole, not even 50% of NATO member country citizens would support their government responding with force should a NATO member country come under Russian attack. That means that the population does not support the very cornerstone of the NATO Charter, Article 5, which obligates a joint defense of any NATO member under attack.

Some 68 percent of those living in NATO member countries believe it will be the US who comes to their aid should Russia attack. They do not believe their own countries will do so.

Does this look like a Europe terrified by Russian aggression and facing an existential threat because of it? Would any government that truly believes it is about to be attacked by an aggressive foreign power actually reduce defense spending? Would any citizenry facing down invasion and occupation avoid military service like the plague?

Despite the endless propaganda of US and NATO officials about the Russian threat, it is clear that citizens and even their leaders do not believe it is real. There is a huge disconnect between the hyped threat and the real perceived threat. No wonder NATO is scrambling to set up new “information warfare” outposts throughout eastern Europe.

This article was published by the RonPaul Institute.

The post NATO Hypes Russia Threat While Members Reduce Military Spending – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.