By Hillel Fradkin and Lewis Libby*

It was little more than a year ago that Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), took the pulpit in the recently-captured great mosque of Mosul in northern Iraq. There he proclaimed the establishment of the “Islamic State,” and the re-founding of the Islamic Caliphate, the most ancient office and title of Islamic rule abolished to the dismay of the devout in 1924. In so doing, Baghdadi declared himself Caliph not just of Iraq and the Levant, but of all Muslims. To unattuned Western ears, his claim seemed grandiose. But Baghdadi had launched a revolution in the Islamist world.

Baghdadi’s revolution draws on, and indeed is surpassing, the two major revolutions in modern Islamist thought that preceded it. To explain ISIL’S rise, the West weighs the weapons in its hands and condemns the political rot in the states opposing ISIL. The West should look as well to how Baghdadi captured the dreams that fueled his rise. In that lies the coming course of Islamic radicalism.

Baghdadi strode to that pulpit on the crest of ISIL’s rapid and extensive conquests in Syria and Iraq, especially the drive to Mosul in spring, 2014. For the West, the new state and its success appeared almost to come from nowhere, or, given its particularly gruesome methods, out of a sudden and unexpected nightmare. The speed of its onset led many to believe, or at least hope, that it would just as swiftly dissipate and return to the demented void from whence it appeared to have so suddenly sprung.

Indeed, but a few months before, in January of 2014, Pres. Obama had described ISIL – then mostly huddled in Syria — as a “junior varsity” version of Al Qaeda. According to the president, this junior varsity lacked “stars” analogous to Kobe Bryant, such as Osama bin Laden had been. So Al Qaeda remained the declared focus of US efforts to counter terrorist threats.

But today the Islamic State is, in Sunni jihadi terms, not only clearly of “varsity” quality, but the “all star team.” For the moment, it is eclipsing Al Qaeda, and may yet supplant it altogether. The only other “all stars” to rival it in terrorist clout come from the Shiite side of the Islamic sectarian divide and are fostered by Iran: Hezbollah, a whole host of other Shiite militias, and, above all, Iran’s Quds force.

After first mocking ISIL, the Obama Administration then estimated that it would take three years to defeat it. But most recently, the president declared that the struggle will be “generational.” Thus, for the West, the nightmare will rage a long while.

But for many Islamists, the Islamic State is not a nightmare, but a dream come true. More particularly, a dream finally come true — a glorious dream, which represents for them the fulfillment of the Islamist movement’s whole, tortuous history. Thus Baghdadi’s simple declaration of the Islamic State is a great source of its strength. The dream resonates. Invoking it, empowers.

Indeed, for many Islamists, Baghdadi advances not a new dream, but the ancient dream, of return to the original Arab Caliphate born in blood and faith, in the heroic days of the Salaf As-Salih, the Virtuous Ancestors, Muhammad’s companions and successors. Since Islam’s political and military decline relative to the West first became too pronounced to ignore owing to defeats suffered by the seventeenth century Ottoman Caliphate, Islamic scholars blamed defeat on falling away from the good old ways, whether Islamic or Ottoman. The proposed remedy, to return to such ways, resonates through the centuries. Today, many Islamist radicals propound it. But Baghdadi’s declared State embraces a more direct return to Islam’s origins than the approaches of his modern Islamist rivals. Centuries of Ottoman overlay are abandoned for the truer Arab origins. Islam will not build on the ruins of existing states; rather, a wave of Islamic conquest will become a state, as it did in the lifetime of Islam’s Arab founder, Mohammed – Islam’s model prophet, ruler, soldier, and conqueror – and his great successors.

Baghdadi would rule, then, in the most ancient tradition. He would carve his way to authority, ruling, as said by the ancient and revered Islamic Scholar Ibn Qutayba, in the ancient way: “Islam, the ruler, and the people are like the tent, the pole, the ropes and the pegs. The tent is Islam, the pole is the ruler, the ropes and pegs are the people. None can thrive without the others.” Baghdadi’s rise would be the pole upon which all depends.

Of dreams, Ibn Qutaybah, would write: “There is nothing in … the different sciences that is more obscure, delicate, exalted, noble, difficult and problematic than dreams, because they are a type of revelation and type of Prophethood.” Baghdadi’s Caliphate hopes to evoke the power of such dreams. The much discussed millennial and apocalyptic rhetoric of his movement enhances that.

To outside observers, nothing about the rise of the Islamic State – or its ascendancy over its rivals — was inevitable. ISIL might have been destroyed early on, in Iraq, where its origins in a branch of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) lie. In fact AQI nearly was destroyed in the American surge of 2006-2008. Its resurrection and ISIL’s success has been attributed to a variety of special circumstances. The outbreak of the Arab revolts of 2011, and in particular the Syrian civil war, first gave AQI an opening to reconstitute itself as a champion of Syria’s Sunnis against the murderous Iranian-aligned regime of Bashar al Assad. The sectarian and corrupt Iraqi administration of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki both alienated Iraq’s Sunnis and enhanced ISIL’s Sunni base with the professional expertise of former Saddamist officers. The degraded Iraqi army fled at the first blow in June 2014, leaving behind the lifeblood of further conquest – cash and weapons. Weak, vacillating, and mistaken American policy not only failed to anticipate, intervene and prevent the Syrian and Iraqi dynamics, but sped them, most notably by Obama’s underestimation of his enemy and his decision to embrace a precipitous 2011 withdrawal from a position of strength in Iraq.

All these and other circumstances have been important, and had they not obtained the Islamic State might never have enjoyed the success it now does.

Nevertheless, neither is its success simply the accidental product of Middle East dysfunction and chaos, accelerated by American error. Rather it represents, and self-consciously so, the latest evolution of the modern Islamist movement, now some 90 years old. For the foundation of the Islamic State and the re-founding of the Caliphate, draw upon the declared goals of the Islamist movement from the 1920’s on, when it first adopted an institutional mode in the form of the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. In the intervening years, the Islamist movement had developed a diverse variety of strands. Yet similar goals — the restoration of an Arab Caliphate that directly confronts the West — have remained in force for all of them.

Baghdadi’s declaration of the “Islamic State” amounts to proclaiming that those goals are at hand. The long era of waiting and longing is now over. Whatever his other calculations, he knew this claim would electrify the Islamist movement and accelerate his success. And it has.

In making this claim, the Islamic State need not and does not simply dismiss the contributions of earlier phases of the Islamist movement and the diversity that displayed. That diversity did not arise from disagreements about the goals, but rather about the proper strategy and tactics in pursuing them. Roughly speaking the various groups divided into two camps: the Brotherhood on the one hand; the jihadis or Salafi Jihadis on the other.

While the Brotherhood did not reject jihad – it affirms it in the most famous slogan of its founder, Hassan al-Banna – it believed that the first tasks were to build — or more accurately rebuild — “Islamic Society” from the ground up. It would do so through a mass organization, complemented by a host of social and economic organizations providing a variety of services. This so-called “gradualist” approach had significant success. But by the 1970’s, several Islamists, usually veterans of the Brotherhood, declared that this approach was not working and that the main emphasis should be on jihad, “the forgotten duty.”

This new direction in Islamist thought was immensely encouraged by the advent in the 1980’s of the so-called Afghan jihad. Combatting the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan provided an immediate outlet for this duty by fighting one of the two global forces which Islamism defined as its enemies. Of course, the Afghan Jihad ultimately gave birth to Al Qaeda, the most successful of the jihadi groups, and a host of others which often operated in its orbit. For Al Qaeda, the first requirement was to continue to prosecute jihad against Islam’s other great enemy, America; the formation of a new society could come later.

The Islamic State implicitly claims to be the proper successor to both these strands, to be the fruit of the long experience of the Islamist movement, of both its successes and failures. It claims not so much to reject these strands as to synthesize and transcend them. Its character embodies that. On the one hand, and most clearly, it is committed to a most vigorous prosecution of jihad. On the other, it is proceeding to establish the legal, administrative, social and economic institutions which belong to a state and which are necessary to expand and consolidate its base. Its media present not only its brutal violence, but images of the Islamic utopia it claims to have established.

If this reflects its vision for the new Muslim order and follows from it, it also addresses its vulnerabilities. Of particular importance is its creation of a new system of education for children under its rule. Given a few years, this will produce a cadre of people formed in its image and loyal to its rule. Such inductees provide a hedge against the shock of future battlefield and geopolitical challenges and reversals.

In proceeding in this fashion, whether by design or de facto, the Islamic State lays claim to represent the proper evolution of the Islamist movement and its culmination. If grateful for the hard work that went before, it asserts that the time for alternative efforts is past; they are no longer necessary. It is time for other Islamists to recognize that, celebrate that, and join this new venture, the new and final norm of the Islamist movement. The Islamic State thus offers itself as “an advanced model” of the movement, as the well-known journalist Abdulrahman al Rasheed put it in Al-Arabiya. Many Islamist radicals have embraced it in that spirit.

Of course, not all of its Islamist rivals have accepted the Islamic State’s embrace; for example Al Qaeda. In a recent, lengthy, and remarkable interview in the British paper, The Guardian, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, the most important spiritual and intellectual Islamist authority in the world, especially for its jihadi branch, reaffirmed his support of Al Qaeda and his rejection of the Islamic State. (For his own audience, he had already done so with a long tract published last June.) He was joined in the interview, and his views, by Abu Qatada, another important spiritual and intellectual authority. But their critique was tinged with fear that Al Qaeda was indeed in decline, even terminally so. Though still loyal to Aymen al Zawahiri, Al Qaeda’s current leader, they described him as “isolated” and far removed from the main theater of jihadi action. As Munif Samara, another party to the interview put it, young Islamists “are waiting for al-Qaida to do something and al- Qaida is doing nothing.” By contrast, the Islamic State presents a “delicious meal {that} looks delicious and tempting.”

These dedicated Islamists even wondered whether Al Qaeda’s original strategy had helped to bring it to this pass. Maqdisi now thinks Al Qaeda unwisely neglected building a societal base and the institutions and the geographic base that implies. He urged that Al Qaeda should now do so. “That kind of enabling jihad will establish our Islamic State.” (Emphasis added.) This line of thought leads in the direction of the Islamic State’s new norm.

Of course the Islamic State claims to already embody that. Maqdisi and Qatada vehemently jeer at such claims, calling Baghdadi’s Islamic State: a meal of “dirt and filth;” “a cancerous growth; ”a mafia group;” a ruin for the “whole Ummah.” But for those familiar with the experience of the Communist movement, the tone of their remarks might suggest a qualified analogy to the case of the Trotsykites and their ultimately futile critique of the “really existing socialism” of Stalin.

For its part, the Brotherhood side of the movement has also experienced a massive failure of its approach and influence. This is most obvious in the case of Egypt, the place of its founding and home of its most important branch. The revolt of 2011 against Mubarak’s rule finally brought the Brotherhood to power, partially through the support of a sympathetic society and the indulgence of Mubarak rivals within the Egyptian military. But the Brotherhood promptly squandered that support through its strategy of authoritarian governance, put in place late in 2012; and its regime was soon overthrown. The Brotherhood’s failure was not simply accidental. In an important speech in 2011, its Deputy Guide, Khairat al Shater, proclaimed that its long gradualist approach had finally reached its goal, and that its vision of the state was at hand. It could therefore afford to be, indeed was required to be, more aggressive. The subsequent demise of its rule has undercut the Brotherhood’s approach.

Another Brotherhood loser of the Arab revolts has been the Syrian branch. With the support of Turkey, it sought to dominate the Syrian revolt. As Turkish columnist Burak Bekdil has put it, then Prime Minister Erdogan thought that “the Sunni majority would set up in Damascus a Muslim Brotherhood type of regime that would be subservient to Ankara.” It would be an extension and partner of ‘the Muslim Brotherhood type regime’ that Erdogan was progressively building in Turkey itself. But the Syrian Brotherhood is now effectively marginal to the civil war, dominated by the Islamic State, by Al Qaeda’s affiliate, al Nusra, and by other factions, both Islamist and more secular. Erdogan has sometimes found it convenient to support some of these groups, including the Islamic State. Even Erdogan’s own program for Turkey is somewhat in doubt, as a result of the losses in this June’s Turkish elections. To reverse his course, Erdogan has called for new elections, to be held in November, using violence and repression, in Turkey and around it, as his core strategy to reclaim his ascension.

Might the Brotherhood, too, move in the direction of the Islamic State model? This would mean a more vigorous embrace of jihad to augment its previous “societal’ model. After its overthrow in Egypt in 2013, the senior leadership of the Brotherhood continued to affirm a non-jihadi approach. But its massive failure in Egypt has produced dissent in the younger ranks. Some now incline toward pursuing a violent strategy. Most recently and strikingly, a group of distinguished pro-Muslim Brotherhood clerics from around the world issued a statement calling for the overthrow of the Egyptian government by all necessary means. Amr Darrag, a minister in the Brotherhood government, reflecting on its fall, has said, “The main lesson I learned is that gradual change will not work.” If these new trends continue, the Brotherhood will come ever closer to the new Islamic State’s violent norm.

At all events, for the foreseeable future the Islamic State, the Islamic Caliphate, will be the colossus of the Sunni Islamist movement. It will generate a strong gravitational pull on other Islamists.

Of course, the Islamic State faces obstacles on the road to further success. It has many enemies. Some are in the skies above in the form of the allied air campaign against it. No doubt it would prefer not to have to face allied bombing, but it has adapted to it. In this and other respects, the Islamic State has thus far proven to be strategically and tactically adept. It continues to consolidate its position, for example, through its capture of Ramadi in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria, this year.

On the ground, the enemies the Islamic State faces are diverse: other Islamist groups in Syria, the Kurds, and Shiite forces led by Iran. The enmity of the last would seem especially grievous, given their strength. Nevertheless, the Islamic State’s hostility to Shiism as a centuries-old, heretical betrayal of true Islam is well known and exceeds that of all other Islamist groups. After the capture of Mosul, the Islamic State spokesman announced its further ambition to capture and desecrate the Shiite holy cities of Kerbela and Najaf. It might appear imprudent to provoke such a powerful enemy. In fact, the leaders of Al Qaeda decried such imprudence, going back to its origins under the leadership of the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. In Iraq in 2014 it produced a large Shiite mobilization that enhanced the influence of Iran.

Still, this enmity cuts more than one way, and in some respects strengthens the Islamic State. The current aggressiveness of Iran and its Shiite empire has raised the sectarian conflict of Sunnis and Shiites to be the defining conflict within the Middle East. This leads to the hope among Sunnis that a champion of their own will arise to do battle with Iran. The Islamic State presents itself as that champion, and an especially pure one, precisely because it appears so uncompromising. In this respect, its celebration of violence and brutality is a “plus,” rather than the “minus” outsiders suppose. It is a declaration that ISIL really “means business” in a way that evokes more ancient and glorious days. ISIL’s narrative has been and continues to be especially preoccupied by the founding generation of Islam and its presumed glories, glories which are contested in principle by Shiites. This has and may further enhance its status among Sunni Islamists

But it has also attracted no small amount of sympathy among Sunnis generally who are hardly impressed by the strength of their traditional rulers in the struggle with Iran and its Shiite revolution. Indeed, although the rulers themselves know they are threatened by the Islamic State, in principle and practice, they may quietly welcome the Islamic State the longer the struggle with Iran goes on.

The net result, for the present, bodes well for the Islamic State. It does not bode well for the Middle East if the dominant forces prove to be its empire and that of the Shiites led by Iran.

President Obama has suggested that eventually an equilibrium will come to pass among the contending forces. Perhaps. But the road to it will be drenched in blood, and it cannot be ruled out that some of it may be our own. Indeed, harming Americans may be the new coin of the realm in the competition among Islamists for funds and broader support. For despite their rivalry, there is one thing on which Iran, the Islamic State, and its Sunni Islamist rivals can agree: enmity towards us and doing us harm. Iran and Al Qaeda already have; the Islamic State is beginning to enter that competition with the winds of its new leadership of the Islamist movement at its back.

*About the authors:
Hillel Fradkin, Director, Center on Islam, Democracy and the Future of the Muslim World

Lewis Libby, Senior Vice President

Source:
This article was published by the Hudson Institute

A huge volcanic eruption in Iceland emitted on average three times as much of a toxic gas as all European industry combined, a study has revealed.

Discharge of lava from the eruption at Bárðarbunga volcano released a huge mass – up to 120,000 tonnes per day – of sulphur dioxide gas, which can cause acid rain and respiratory problems.

The eruption last year was the biggest in Iceland for more than 200 years. It released a river of lava across northern Iceland, and lasted for six months.

Researchers hope that their study will aid understanding of how such eruptions can affect air quality in the UK.

A team of European scientists, including from the Universities of Leeds and Edinburgh and the Met Office, used data from satellite sensors to map sulphur dioxide pollution from the eruption. These were reproduced by computer simulations of the spreading gas cloud.

As well as being given off by volcanoes, sulphur dioxide is also produced by burning fossil fuels and industrial processes such as smelting. Man-made sulphur dioxide production has been falling since 1990, and was recorded at 12,000 tonnes per day in 2010.

The study, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, was supported by The Natural Environment Research Council and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, amongst others.

Dr John Stevenson, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences, who took part in the study, said: “This eruption produced lava instead of ash, and so it didn’t impact on flights – but it did affect air quality. These results help scientists predict where pollution from future eruptions will spread.”

Dr Anja Schmidt from the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds, who led the study, said: “The eruption discharged lava at a rate of more than 200 cubic metres per second, which is equivalent to filling five Olympic-sized swimming pools in a minute. Six months later, when the eruption ended, it had produced enough lava to cover an area the size of Manhattan. In the study, we were concerned with the quantity of sulphur dioxide emissions, with numbers that are equally astonishing: In the beginning, the eruption emitted about eight times more sulphur dioxide per day than is emitted from all man-made sources in Europe per day.”

Women who drink beer at most once or twice per week run a 30 per cent lower risk of heart attack, compared with both heavy drinkers and women who never drink beer. These are the findings of a Swedish study which has followed 1,500 women over a period of almost 50 years.

In the study, researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, have followed a representative selection of the middle-aged female population from 1968 to 2000 (when the women in the study were between 70 and 92 years old).

Now, with the help of data from the study, the researchers have attempted to chart the relationship between the intake of different types of alcoholic beverages and the incidence of heart attacks, stroke, diabetes and cancer.

Beer consumption

In the study in question, the 1,500 women were asked about the frequency of their consumption of beer, wine or spirits (from ‘daily’ to ‘nothing in the past 10 years’), and about various physical symptoms.

The results reveal that over the 32-year follow-up period, 185 women had a heart attack, 162 suffered a stroke, 160 developed diabetes and 345 developed cancer.

Higher cancer risk

The study shows a statistically significant connection between high consumption of spirits (defined as more frequent than once or twice per month) and an almost 50 per cent higher risk of dying of cancer, compared with those who drink less frequently.

Lower risk of heart attack

The study also reveals that women who reported that they drank beer once or twice per week to once or twice per month ran a 30 per cent lower risk of a heart attack than women who drank beer several times per week/daily or never drank beer. Moderate consumption of beer thus seems to protect women from heart attacks.

“Previous research also suggests that alcohol in moderate quantities can have a certain protective effect, but there is still uncertainty as to whether or not this really is the case. Our results have been checked against other risk factors for cardiovascular disease, which substantiates the findings. At the same time, we were unable to confirm that moderate wine consumption has the same effect, so our results also need to be confirmed through follow-up studies,” explains Dominique Hange, researcher at Sahlgrenska Academy.

The article A 32-year longitudinal study of alcohol consumption in Swedish women: Reduced risk of myocardial infarction but increased risk of cancer was published online in Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care in July 2015.

You may have heard of 3D printed clothes, food, medical models and even fire arms, but have you ever imagined stepping into a 3D printed house? The World’s Advanced Saving Project (WASP) group in Italy have, and they now believe that they are close to making it a reality.

Last weekend at a 3D printing event in Massa Lombarda, WASP presented BigDelta, the largest delta 3D printer in the world. Standing at a staggering 12 metres high, the printer is now primed to attempt to 3D print a basic house.

The Independent reports, ‘The machine works in exactly the same way as a regular 3D printer. The huge metal frame supporters a nozzle linked to a computer, which dispenses clay in a pre-defined pattern. As the nozzle moves round and round and adds layers to the structure, a functioning shelter can be created quickly and easily.’

According to Digital Trends, WASP has outfitted the printer to use local materials such as dirt or clay, and built it to function using less than 100 watts of power. In August, WASP researchers also reported creating the first modular reinforced concrete beam. They used the BigDelta to develop a system to produce concrete elements that can be assembled with steel bars and beams or can compose pillars in reinforced concrete.

The WASP project team considers the printer as a revolutionary product that can help meet the needs of the world’s growing population for adequate low-cost housing. The team notes, ‘By 2030, international estimates foresee a rapid growth of adequate housing requirements for over 4 billion people living with yearly income below $3 000 [EUR 2 700]. The United Nations calculated that over the next 15 years there will be an average daily requirement of 100 000 new housing units to meet this demand.’

As The Independent suggests, BigDelta could be used in disaster-stricken areas or in developing countries, where solid and long-lasting shelter is needed, rather than just a tent or prefabricated structure.

The WASP team says that its vision goes beyond providing low-cost housing. With BigDelta, WASP aims to nurture a new ‘maker economy’ in which everything can be manufactured by users through shared solutions. Leveraging the power of 3D printing, the maker economy model would, according to WASP, help to meet our primary necessities regarding work, health and housing.

While BigDelta may be the world’s largest delta 3D printer, WASP is not the only team with its eye on 3D construction. According to the Independent, Dus Architects in Amsterdam are currently attempting to build a completely 3D printed canal house.

And there’s more to come in the future. ‘Why should we set any limits?’ asks the WASP team. ‘One day we will also be able to print more complex structures, such as bridges. And there will be broader space for creativity.’

Source: CORDIS

On September 22, a seemingly nondescript meeting was held in Tehran, Iran:

The Road Maintenance and Transportation Organisation (RMTO) held its first expert meeting for the Iran-India-Afghanistan Agreement on Transit and International Transportation Cooperation.

Bureaucratic acronyms and legalistic language abounds.

None of this seems – on the surface – to be greatly important. But this agreement is, as Mohammad Javad Atrchian of the RMTO said, “historic”. It has restarted a regional economic and political process that had been partly frozen by the P5+1 sanctions.

Eagerness to get these projects back on track was evident as early as January – before even the nuclear deal was sealed – when Indian and Iranian officials said they had opened conversations about the development of roads and ports.

In public, India’s Ambassador to Iran, DP Srivastava, met with Iran’s Minister of Urban Development, Abbas Akhoundi, to pledge $147 million for the construction of a container terminal at the Chabahar Port.

In private, officials said this was the tip of the iceberg. Much more has been on the table, which will soon make its public appearance.


Chabahar Port


India’s interest in Iran’s Chabahar Port goes back decades.

Tensions with Pakistan made a transit corridor from India to Central Asia and out to Russia through the Khyber Pass less viable. Each time India and Pakistan have tried to create confidence-building economic measures, political tensions get in their way.

To avoid the Khyber Pass, India began to work with Iran for construction at the Chabahar Port and the roads and railways that would connect it to Kabul and to points north.

The transit corridor from Chabahar to Milak, on the Iran-Afghanistan border, is now complete. It was built by Iran.

India has put in more than $100 million to extend the route from Zaranj on the Iran side of the border to the western Afghan town of Delaram. At Delaram, the road meets the old Kandahar-Herat highway that goes outward to Turkmenistan.

A rail link that connects Chabahar to the Uzbekistan border at Termez is being built in phases. It would speed the transit of goods from the port to the large markets of Central Asia and Russia.

International North-South Corridor


The Chabahar-Central Asia route is part of an ambitious plan named the International North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC).

This plan was put into motion in 2002 when India, Iran and Russia agreed to builds parts of a massive project that would integrate Asian states for economic development. Rather than rely upon Western markets, the idea was to build complementary economic links within Asia.

Some eastern European states and most of the Central Asian countries joined the NSTC project, the basic principle being to use Iranian ports to link rail and road connections to Russia via Central Asia, and to Europe via Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The general theory behind the NSTC is that this integration will increase inter-Asian trade and cut transport costs by a considerable amount (some expect savings of as much as a third).

Transportation networks inherited by Asian states had largely linked their ports to European industrial centres. Most Asian states had – in colonial times – exported raw materials to Europe, where they were turned into finished goods and then sold back to the colonies.

Even during the initial decades of the post-colonial period, the infrastructure of colonialism trapped states into exporting their raw materials to their former colonial masters. Lack of industry and lack of inter-Asian transport and infrastructure networks prevented the emergence of a new system.

Calls for South-South trade and development over the course of the past several decades remained only at the rhetorical level. It is easy to speak of increasing trade between India and Armenia, for instance, but hard to do so without shipment via Europe.

Only recently have the Asian states begun to divert their surpluses toward the creation of this new transportation system. The spur came from China – which, of course, has the largest surplus.

Chinese ambitions to link its industrial hubs to the massive raw material reservoirs and markets of Africa and Asia has resulted in the creation of a new transportation system, with new ports being built and projected in Gwadar (Pakistan), Hambantota (Sri Lanka) and Maday Island (Myanmar).

At Maday Island, a Chinese sign reads: “Our aspirations are as high as ocean waves.” China’s port system has begun to encircle India, whose investment in Chabahar could be seen as part of its competition with China. Whatever the reasons for this port construction boom, the new, immense transportation networks will have significant bearing on the political economy of Asia.


China and Iran


It is a diversion to see India’s links with Iran merely as a part of India’s competition with China. Over the past few years, Chinese investments in the southern Iranian oil and gas fields have increased.

China is also eager to use Iran’s new ports, including at Chabahar, for its trade – particularly as there remain security concerns with transit through Pakistan. A link between the Iranian port of Chabahar and the Pakistani port of Gwadar shows that there is as much cooperation on the ground as there is animosity in the political rhetoric.

China and Iran have been key players in the UN-brokered Trans-Asian Railway, the so-called Iron Silk Road, which will run from China through Iran to Turkey.

Large sections of this rail project have been completed. China also financed the high-speed train that runs from Tehran to Mashad, and the metro rail that runs from Imam Khomeini Airport to downtown Tehran.

This was financed during the peak of the sanctions regime – during which China became Iran’s largest trading partner. India is the second largest customer for Iran’s oil, after China. Both India and China have parallel interests in Iran.

The Southern Silk Road is an important development in the creation of regionalism, linking South Asia with Central Asia, West Asia with China. No longer will these regions need to go through Western-dominated routes to conduct their trade.

The US-Europe hub and spokes approach to world affairs is being rendered anachronistic by these developments.

As a result of the growth of regionalism, US primacy and its unipolar approach is being set aside. The deepening links with Iran and the nuclear deal are a testament to the lack of US domination in the region, and of its political failure to isolate Iran.

The challenge for the Southern Silk Road will be in the character of its developments: whether these actually benefit the people or become sore spots that fuel insurgency and unrest.

To turn the route into just another boondoggle for corporations would be more than a pity. It would be a waste of an historic opportunity.

This column originally appeared on alAraby.

By Deepak Sinha*

To give the devil its due, Pakistan can be proud of the fact that it has been defeated two expeditionary forces that belonged to the largest militaries in their time — the Soviets and the Americans, in Afghanistan. That it used the US for funding both these ventures without putting its own soldiers in harm, speaks highly of its ability to manipulate, misinform, coerce and blackmail. That this also exposes the gullibility of the Americans and their preconceived notions about the region goes without saying. That Pakistan has received an estimated $30 billion from the US in military aid in the past decade and a half alone, and will continue to remain beneficiaries of American munificence in the foreseeable future, speaks of the effectiveness of its policy.

This narrative has now been somewhat disrupted, as facts have started to catch up with fiction. The first has been the discovery by the US and allied troops deployed in Afghanistan of Pakistani duplicity and the state’s deep involvement in supporting the Taliban and the Al Qaeda. Doubts or suspicions of the complicity of the Pakistani establishment must have been certainly confirmed with the identification of Osama bin Laden’s hideout in the close vicinity of the Pakistan military academy at Abbottabad and from the enormous quantity of data from hard disks and other material recovered during their raid on it.

There has also been a growing realisation, that Pakistan has been at the epi-center of global terrorism till the meteoric rise of the Islamic State. After all, what explains the fact that the common thread that runs through acts of terror, whether successful or otherwise, from the UK to the US and from Mumbai to the recent attack in Bangkok, revolves around fundamentalists from Pakistan.

Moreover, some academics and scholars within the intellectual community in the US, like Ms Christine Fair, author of the seminal work on the Pakistani military, Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War, have begun to see through the Pakistani narrative. They have identified the state’s intricate links with terror groups and have begun to question its intentions for supporting these groups. They have also been critical of the US Government response to Pakistan’s unique mixture of cajolement, coercion and blackmail with monetary inducements predicated on the sole belief that an unstable or failed Pakistan can result in its nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of terrorists which will be a catastrophe for the US and the West.

The other strand in the collapse of this narrative has been an increasing understanding among the international community of the post-Independence development in the sub-continent, including Partition, and the consequent collapse of the two-nation theory, after the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, on the basis of which Pakistan came into being.

In addition, there has also been a growing realisation on the issue of Kashmir and the complete lack of legitimacy to the Pakistani claim due to its refusal to implement troop withdrawals from all of Jammu & Kashmir as required by the United Nations Security Council Resolution No 47 of 21 April 1948 for a fair and impartial plebiscite to be held.

However, despite the fact that Pakistan’s fiction has been exposed, it has not only fought and lost three wars over this issue, but it still continues its attempts to create turmoil in the valley through proxies. This initiative has lost momentum over the past two decades and has instead led to serious blow-back internally, as these very same groups have now taken on their mentors, as was expected.

That Pakistan continues on its path of confrontation and nuclear blackmail clearly indicates that its ambitions are not just restricted to the ‘liberation’ of Kashmir, but that it sees itself as the true and legitimate inheritor of the Muslim sultanate and the Mughal empire that ruled over the sub-continent for nearly a 1,000 years. This, unfortunately, is not a belief restricted to hardline elements within the military and the religious establishment, who are unable to come to terms with the present situation, but also appears to have supporters among the civil society and the public at large, who have been conditioned over the years, thanks to the revisionist educational curriculum and slanted media coverage that they have been regularly exposed to.

While it may be difficult for pacifists among us to accept, there can be little doubt that Pakistan is embroiled in an ideological war with the very concept of a secular India. Its actions are further bolstered in the mistaken belief that Indian Muslims, supposedly suppressed and deprived by the Hindu majority over the years, and now under attack from the pro-Hindutva agenda of the BJP Government in power, are ripe for rebellion. Those within our polity who have used secularism as a vote catching gimmick have certainly contributed to this state of affairs, without question.

There are those who continue to suggest that yet another round of talks on outstanding issues or increased bilateral trade and cultural exchanges as a means to engage Pakistan will pay dividends. While such an option may appear attractive, especially if you are one of those like this writer who believed that talks give us an opportunity to rapidly increase our economic strength, relative to Pakistan, to such an extent that issues between us become redundant.

This has even been suggested in a study by the Rand Corporation, but suffers from one fatal flaw: Relative weakness between nuclear Armed states means little. We just need to look at the US-North Korea equation to understand that. Supporters of this optionare undoubtedly in denial and distract us from focusing on the actual threat that confronts us. So, despite repeated failures of all our attempts to engage Pakistan, we are condemned to face a cycle of violence from the Pakistani establishment and so-called non-state actors, unless we decide to bite the bullet and tackle this menace head on.

While we are undoubtedly faced with a Hobson’s choice, but so is the rest of the international community since it is as much at risk as we are, thanks to the Pakistani establishments’ preference for using terror as a state policy. History has clearly shown that appeasement as an option has never worked and it is time that we refused to give in to nuclear coercion and called Pakistan’s bluff. So what options do we or the international community have to deal with another Mumbai-type attack or may be something even worse? While it is incumbent on the international community, especially the US, China and the other Western powers to initiate stringent economic sanctions, regardless of Pakistani claims of not being involved, we have little choice but to look at targeted punitive action, both covert and overt against the perpetrators, the individuals involved and the leaders.

It is also time that we re-examined Operation Parakram, our response to the attack on Parliament. Conventional wisdom would have us believe that it was a huge mistake and a strategic failure because of the delay in positioning of our strike forces and the subsequent inaction on our part. In fact one of the lessons that emerged was the adoption of the Cold Start doctrine by the Army that envisages use of integrated battle groups to commence offensive operations within three to four days and capture limited targets rapidly before the international community intervened. The one positive aspect of that operation that received little attention was the fact that it forced the Pakistan Armed Forces to mobilise as well and hold their positions for the duration at huge economic costs.

The question we need to ask ourselves is, what will be the impact of such an operation, may be of lesser duration, undertaken repeatedly over the slightest provocation on the effectiveness of the Pakistani Army already facing internal threats and to its economy in general? If this were to be carried out in conjunction with targeted punitive action, we may be able to restrict Pakistan from ratcheting up tensions or escalating the situation while simultaneously damaging it economic viability, similar to what President Reagan did to the Soviet Union. May be this is the only hope we have to get out of this maelstrom of violence we find ourselves boxed into.

*The writer is a military veteran and a consultant with Observer Research Foundation, Delhi

Courtesy : The Pioneer, September 24, 2015

Following is the full text of Pope Francis’ Sept. 24 address to members of the United States Congress:

Mr. Vice-President, Mr. Speaker, Honorable Members of Congress, Dear Friends,

I am most grateful for your invitation to address this Joint Session of Congress in “the land of the free asnd the home of the brave”. I would like to think that the reason for this is that I too am a son of this great continent, from which we have all received so much and toward which we share a common responsibility.

Each son or daughter of a given country has a mission, a personal and social responsibility. Your own responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this country, by your legislative activity, to grow as a nation. You are the face of its people, their representatives. You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of all politics. A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. Legislative activity is always based on care for the people. To this you have been invited, called and convened by those who elected you.

Yours is a work which makes me reflect in two ways on the figure of Moses. On the one hand, the patriarch and lawgiver of the people of Israel symbolizes the need of peoples to keep alive their sense of unity by means of just legislation. On the other, the figure of Moses leads us directly to God and thus to the transcendent dignity of the human being. Moses provides us with a good synthesis of your work: you are asked to protect, by means of the law, the image and likeness fashioned by God on every human face.

Today I would like not only to address you, but through you the entire people of the United States. Here, together with their representatives, I would like to take this opportunity to dialogue with the many thousands of men and women who strive each day to do an honest day’s work, to bring home their daily bread, to save money and –one step at a time – to build a better life for their families. These are men and women who are not concerned simply with paying their taxes, but in their own quiet way sustain the life of society. They generate solidarity by their actions, and they create organizations which offer a helping hand to those most in need.

I would also like to enter into dialogue with the many elderly persons who are a storehouse of wisdom forged by experience, and who seek in many ways, especially through volunteer work, to share their stories and their insights. I know that many of them are retired, but still active; they keep working to build up this land. I also want to dialogue with all those young people who are working to realize their great and noble aspirations, who are not led astray by facile proposals, and who face difficult situations, often as a result of immaturity on the part of many adults. I wish to dialogue with all of you, and I would like to do so through the historical memory of your people.

My visit takes place at a time when men and women of good will are marking the anniversaries of several great Americans. The complexities of history and the reality of human weakness notwithstanding, these men and women, for all their many differences and limitations, were able by hard work and self- sacrifice – some at the cost of their lives – to build a better future. They shaped fundamental values which will endure forever in the spirit of the American people. A people with this spirit can live through many crises, tensions and conflicts, while always finding the resources to move forward, and to do so with dignity. These men and women offer us a way of seeing and interpreting reality. In honoring their memory, we are inspired, even amid conflicts, and in the here and now of each day, to draw upon our deepest cultural reserves.

I would like to mention four of these Americans: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton.

This year marks the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, the guardian of liberty, who labored tirelessly that “this nation, under God, [might] have a new birth of freedom”. Building a future of freedom requires love of the common good and cooperation in a spirit of subsidiarity and solidarity.

All of us are quite aware of, and deeply worried by, the disturbing social and political situation of the world today. Our world is increasingly a place of violent conflict, hatred and brutal atrocities, committed even in the name of God and of religion. We know that no religion is immune from forms of individual delusion or ideological extremism. This means that we must be especially attentive to every type of fundamentalism, whether religious or of any other kind. A delicate balance is required to combat violence perpetrated in the name of a religion, an ideology or an economic system, while also safeguarding religious freedom, intellectual freedom and individual freedoms. But there is another temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners. The contemporary world, with its open wounds which affect so many of our brothers and sisters, demands that we confront every form of polarization which would divide it into these two camps. We know that in the attempt to be freed of the enemy without, we can be tempted to feed the enemy within. To imitate the hatred and violence of tyrants and murderers is the best way to take their place. That is something which you, as a people, reject.

Our response must instead be one of hope and healing, of peace and justice. We are asked to summon the courage and the intelligence to resolve today’s many geopolitical and economic crises. Even in the developed world, the effects of unjust structures and actions are all too apparent. Our efforts must aim at restoring hope, righting wrongs, maintaining commitments, and thus promoting the well-being of individuals and of peoples. We must move forward together, as one, in a renewed spirit of fraternity and solidarity, cooperating generously for the common good.

The challenges facing us today call for a renewal of that spirit of cooperation, which has accomplished so much good throughout the history of the United States. The complexity, the gravity and the urgency of these challenges demand that we pool our resources and talents, and resolve to support one another, with respect for our differences and our convictions of conscience.

In this land, the various religious denominations have greatly contributed to building and strengthening society. It is important that today, as in the past, the voice of faith continue to be heard, for it is a voice of fraternity and love, which tries to bring out the best in each person and in each society. Such cooperation is a powerful resource in the battle to eliminate new global forms of slavery, born of grave injustices which can be overcome only through new policies and new forms of social consensus.

Here I think of the political history of the United States, where democracy is deeply rooted in the mind of the American people. All political activity must serve and promote the good of the human person and be based on respect for his or her dignity. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (Declaration of Independence, 4 July 1776). If politics must truly be at the service of the human person, it follows that it cannot be a slave to the economy and finance. Politics is, instead, an expression of our compelling need to live as one, in order to build as one the greatest common good: that of a community which sacrifices particular interests in order to share, in justice and peace, its goods, its interests, its social life. I do not underestimate the difficulty that this involves, but I encourage you in this effort.

Here too I think of the march which Martin Luther King led from Selma to Montgomery fifty years ago as part of the campaign to fulfill his “dream” of full civil and political rights for African Americans. That dream continues to inspire us all. I am happy that America continues to be, for many, a land of “dreams”. Dreams which lead to action, to participation, to commitment. Dreams which awaken what is deepest and truest in the life of a people.

In recent centuries, millions of people came to this land to pursue their dream of building a future in freedom. We, the people of this continent, are not fearful of foreigners, because most of us were once foreigners. I say this to you as the son of immigrants, knowing that so many of you are also descended from immigrants. Tragically, the rights of those who were here long before us were not always respected. For those peoples and their nations, from the heart of American democracy, I wish to reaffirm my highest esteem and appreciation. Those first contacts were often turbulent and violent, but it is difficult to judge the past by the criteria of the present. Nonetheless, when the stranger in our midst appeals to us, we must not repeat the sins and the errors of the past. We must resolve now to live as nobly and as justly as possible, as we educate new generations not to turn their back on our “neighbors” and everything around us. Building a nation calls us to recognize that we must constantly relate to others, rejecting a mindset of hostility in order to adopt one of reciprocal subsidiarity, in a constant effort to do our best. I am confident that we can do this.

Our world is facing a refugee crisis of a magnitude not seen since the Second World War. This presents us with great challenges and many hard decisions. On this continent, too, thousands of persons are led to travel north in search of a better life for themselves and for their loved ones, in search of greater opportunities. Is this not what we want for our own children? We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation. To respond in a way which is always humane, just and fraternal. We need to avoid a common temptation nowadays: to discard whatever proves troublesome. Let us remember the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Mt 7:12).

This Rule points us in a clear direction. Let us treat others with the same passion and compassion with which we want to be treated. Let us seek for others the same possibilities which we seek for ourselves. Let us help others to grow, as we would like to be helped ourselves. In a word, if we want security, let us give security; if we want life, let us give life; if we want opportunities, let us provide opportunities. The yardstick we use for others will be the yardstick which time will use for us. The Golden Rule also reminds us of our responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of its development.

This conviction has led me, from the beginning of my ministry, to advocate at different levels for the global abolition of the death penalty. I am convinced that this way is the best, since every life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes. Recently my brother bishops here in the United States renewed their call for the abolition of the death penalty. Not only do I support them, but I also offer encouragement to all those who are convinced that a just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation.

In these times when social concerns are so important, I cannot fail to mention the Servant of God Dorothy Day, who founded the Catholic Worker Movement. Her social activism, her passion for justice and for the cause of the oppressed, were inspired by the Gospel, her faith, and the example of the saints.

How much progress has been made in this area in so many parts of the world! How much has been done in these first years of the third millennium to raise people out of extreme poverty! I know that you share my conviction that much more still needs to be done, and that in times of crisis and economic hardship a spirit of global solidarity must not be lost. At the same time I would encourage you to keep in mind all those people around us who are trapped in a cycle of poverty. They too need to be given hope. The fight against poverty and hunger must be fought constantly and on many fronts, especially in its causes. I know that many Americans today, as in the past, are working to deal with this problem.

It goes without saying that part of this great effort is the creation and distribution of wealth. The right use of natural resources, the proper application of technology and the harnessing of the spirit of enterprise are essential elements of an economy which seeks to be modern, inclusive and sustainable. “Business is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving the world. It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the area in which it operates, especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good” (Laudato Si’, 129). This common good also includes the earth, a central theme of the encyclical which I recently wrote in order to “enter into dialogue with all people about our common home” (ibid., 3). “We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all” (ibid., 14).

In Laudato Si’, I call for a courageous and responsible effort to “redirect our steps” (ibid., 61), and to avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity. I am convinced that we can make a difference and I have no doubt that the United States – and this Congress – have an important role to play. Now is the time for courageous actions and strategies, aimed at implementing a “culture of care” (ibid., 231) and “an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature” (ibid., 139). “We have the freedom needed to limit and direct technology” (ibid., 112); “to devise intelligent ways of… developing and limiting our power” (ibid., 78); and to put technology “at the service of another type of progress, one which is healthier, more human, more social, more integral” (ibid., 112). In this regard, I am confident that America’s outstanding academic and research institutions can make a vital contribution in the years ahead.

A century ago, at the beginning of the Great War, which Pope Benedict XV termed a “pointless slaughter”, another notable American was born: the Cistercian monk Thomas Merton. He remains a source of spiritual inspiration and a guide for many people. In his autobiography he wrote: “I came into the world. Free by nature, in the image of God, I was nevertheless the prisoner of my own violence and my own selfishness, in the image of the world into which I was born. That world was the picture of Hell, full of men like myself, loving God, and yet hating him; born to love him, living instead in fear of hopeless self-contradictory hungers”. Merton was above all a man of prayer, a thinker who challenged the certitudes of his time and opened new horizons for souls and for the Church. He was also a man of dialogue, a promoter of peace between peoples and religions.

From this perspective of dialogue, I would like to recognize the efforts made in recent months to help overcome historic differences linked to painful episodes of the past. It is my duty to build bridges and to help all men and women, in any way possible, to do the same. When countries which have been at odds resume the path of dialogue – a dialogue which may have been interrupted for the most legitimate of reasons – new opportunities open up for all. This has required, and requires, courage and daring, which is not the same as irresponsibility. A good political leader is one who, with the interests of all in mind, seizes the moment in a spirit of openness and pragmatism. A good political leader always opts to initiate processes rather than possessing spaces (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 222-223).

Being at the service of dialogue and peace also means being truly determined to minimize and, in the long term, to end the many armed conflicts throughout our world. Here we have to ask ourselves: Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society? Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood. In the face of this shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade.

Three sons and a daughter of this land, four individuals and four dreams: Lincoln, liberty; Martin Luther King, liberty in plurality and non-exclusion; Dorothy Day, social justice and the rights of persons; and Thomas Merton, the capacity for dialogue and openness to God.

Four representatives of the American people.

I will end my visit to your country in Philadelphia, where I will take part in the World Meeting of Families. It is my wish that throughout my visit the family should be a recurrent theme. How essential the family has been to the building of this country! And how worthy it remains of our support and encouragement! Yet I cannot hide my concern for the family, which is threatened, perhaps as never before, from within and without. Fundamental relationships are being called into question, as is the very basis of marriage and the family. I can only reiterate the importance and, above all, the richness and the beauty of family life.

In particular, I would like to call attention to those family members who are the most vulnerable, the young. For many of them, a future filled with countless possibilities beckons, yet so many others seem disoriented and aimless, trapped in a hopeless maze of violence, abuse and despair. Their problems are our problems. We cannot avoid them. We need to face them together, to talk about them and to seek effective solutions rather than getting bogged down in discussions. At the risk of oversimplifying, we might say that we live in a culture which pressures young people not to start a family, because they lack possibilities for the future. Yet this same culture presents others with so many options that they too are dissuaded from starting a family.

A nation can be considered great when it defends liberty as Lincoln did, when it fosters a culture which enables people to “dream” of full rights for all their brothers and sisters, as Martin Luther King sought to do; when it strives for justice and the cause of the oppressed, as Dorothy Day did by her tireless work, the fruit of a faith which becomes dialogue and sows peace in the contemplative style of Thomas Merton.

In these remarks I have sought to present some of the richness of your cultural heritage, of the spirit of the American people. It is my desire that this spirit continue to develop and grow, so that as many young people as possible can inherit and dwell in a land which has inspired so many people to dream.

God bless America!

By Miguel Salazar*

On Wednesday, September 23, 2015, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader Rodrigo Londoño pledged to end the country’s internal conflict by March 26, 2016.

Ever since La Violencia—Colombia’s infamous civil war lasting from 1948 to 1958—the polarization of the country’s political parties and ideological factions has led to an escalation of a deep-seated violence throughout Colombia. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC) was initially formed as an armed peasant movement in 1964 that demanded comprehensive land and social reforms. Since then, the government and right-wing paramilitaries have waged a violent conflict against the FARC in rural Colombia that has resulted in a total of 220,000 deaths and over 5.7 million displacements.[i]

Negotiations between the FARC and the Colombian government have been ongoing since 2012, but Wednesday marked President Santos’ first appearance at the peace talks, and the beginning of a more visible role as a major force for concluding the peace accord. The two sides have agreed to create special tribunals to try former FARC combatants as well as government troops and rightist paramilitaries. Those found guilty of human rights violations will be required to pay reparations to their victims and will face a maximum sentence of eight years under special conditions, if they voluntarily opt to cooperate with the judicial process.[ii] Combatants who do not cooperate and are convicted could face much longer sentences. Those who sign the peace deal, accept responsibility, face charges and pay reparations will be safe from extradition if they are wanted by the United States on drug trafficking charges.[iii]

Pressured into the peace talks by the Colombian public, Bogotá has spent billions of dollars on efforts to combat the FARC (the 2015 budget for armed forces and police is $12.2 billion),[iv] while the United States has contributed over $9 billion for military operations since the birth of Plan Colombia in 2000.[v] Meanwhile, the FARC have suffered from sharply diminishing membership numbers (16,000 in 2001 to 7,000 in 2013) over the past decade and a half.[vi]

However, this momentous agreement comes with historical antecedents. The FARC recently demanded an inclusion of right-wing paramilitary groups in the current peace talks.[vii] These were agreed to by President Santos on Wednesday.[viii] Previous administrations have attempted to implement comprehensive demobilization and reinsertion programs with guerrilla groups but have failed due to the exclusion of paramilitary forces. In Colombia’s last peace agreement, the Betancur administration (1982-1986) legalized guerrilla members that accepted the amnesty as political actors in 1985, and the FARC subsequently demobilized and established the Patriotic Union (Unión Patriótica, UP), their political party. However, over 3,000 UP members paid dearly for this tactical mistake; having put down their weapons and rejoined civic life, they were later assassinated by paramilitary elements.[ix]

This changed with the election of President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010), who refused to negotiate with the FARC and instead opted for supporting talks with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, AUC), the largest paramilitary group in the country,[x] which has subsequently splintered off into several small criminal gangs.[xi] Since the demobilization of the AUC under Uribe, however, Colombian diplomats had not engaged in peace talks with the FARC until 2012.

COHA is cautiously optimistic about the shift in character of the Colombian government that has allowed for the promise of peace. However, insufficient funding, an inadequate monitoring of demobilized combatants, and a lack of consultation with host communities in the past have impeded Colombia from successfully maintaining peace. Although it has yet to be seen whether these agreements will prove to be successful in the long-term, President Santos’s government and the FARC are to be lauded for having taken a crucial step toward sustainable peace in Colombia.

*Miguel Salazar, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Notes:
[i] “World Report 2015: Colombia.” Human Rights Watch. 2015. Web.

[ii] Acosta, Nelson, and Daniel Trotta. “Colombia, FARC Rebels Vow to End 50-year War within Six Months.” Reuters. September 23, 2015. Web.

[iii] Lander, Rose. “Colombia Govt, FARC Agree to Maximum Prison Sentences for War Crimes.” Colombia Reports. September 23, 2015. Web.

[iv] Muñoz, Sara Schaefer. “Colombia Unlikely to Cut Defense Budget If FARC Deal Is Reached, Officials Say.” The Wall Street Journal. January 20, 2015. Web.

[v] Arsenault, Chris. “Did Colombia’s War on Drugs Succeed?” Al Jazeera. May 22, 2014. Web.

[vi] Renwick, Danielle, and Stephanie Hanson. “FARC, ELN: Colombia’s Left-Wing Guerrillas.” Council on Foreign Relations. December 1, 2014. Web.

[vii] Alsema, Adriaan. “The FARC’s Biggest Fear: Colombia’s Paramilitary Groups.” Colombia Reports. July 10, 2015. Web.

[viii] Acosta, Nelson, and Daniel Trotta. “Colombia, FARC Rebels Vow to End 50-year War within Six Months.” Reuters. September 23, 2015. Web.

[ix] Laplante, Lisa J, and Kimberly Theidon. “Transitional Justice in Times of Conflict: Colombia’s Ley De Justicia Y Paz.” Michigan Journal of International Law 28, no. 49 (2006): 59-61.

[x] Ibid: 61-62.

[xi] McDermott, Jeremy. “The BACRIM and Their Position in Colombia’s Underworld.” InSight Crime. May 2, 2014. Web.

By Aness Suheil Barghoti

Twenty-three years after the famous handshake between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin, some Palestinians now say that the Oslo Accords – which opened relations between the two sides – was a major mistake.

Signed on Sept. 13, 1993, the Oslo Accords were the first direct agreement between Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the Israeli government.

With the signing of the accords, the PLO acknowledged the state of Israel on 78 percent of historical Palestine, while Israel recognised the PLO as the “legitimate representative” of the Palestinian people.

Abd al-Sattar Qasm, a political science professor at Al-Najah University, however, believes the accords were a “historical mistake”.

“Through Oslo, the Palestinians recognized Israel, and, in return, Israel acknowledged a Palestinian interim self-governing authority – not a state,” Qasm told Anadolu Agency.

“The accords left us with no sovereignty over our land, borders, water, communications or airspace,” he said. “We remain prisoners living in isolated cantons.”

Under the terms of the Oslo Accords, Qasm noted, key issues – including the status of Jerusalem, refugees, Jewish settlements, security arrangements, borders, international relations, water, communications and airspace – were all put off until future “permanent-status talks”.

According to Qasm, the Oslo Accords have allowed Israel to assert its control over the Palestinian territories without having to bear the cost of an expensive military occupation.

“Israel has succeeded over the last 23 years in controlling the Palestinians via security coordination [with the Palestinian Authority], arrest campaigns, and frequent incursions, all of which are a result of the Oslo Accords,” he said.

“Meanwhile, Israel has failed to abide by its commitments to the Palestinians as laid out in the accords,” Qasm added. “On the contrary, it has continued to build Jewish-only settlements on confiscated Palestinian land.”

He went on to point out that, since the signing of the accords, Israel had invaded the West Bank in 2003 – where it besieged an aging Arafat – and had waged three devastating wars (in 2008, 2012 and 2014) on the blockaded Gaza Strip.

“By signing Oslo, the Palestinian leadership – which thought Israel would give them a state – has brought its people into a long, dark tunnel,” Ahmad Rafiq Awad, a Palestinian expert on Israeli affairs, told Anadolu Agency.

“The only viable solution for the Palestinians now is to abandon the Oslo agreement and choose the option of armed confrontation with Israel,” he said.

Awad went on to assert that certain Palestinian political figures were actually benefiting financially from the Israel’s decades-long occupation and did not want to challenge the status quo.

(Middle East Monitor)

Fragmented ASEAN balks at taking a position on China’s creeping expansionism in the South China Sea.

By Amitav Acharya*

The Association of Southeast Asia Nations has prided itself on its “ASEAN Way” – an informal and non-legalistic way of doing business, especially its culture of consultations and consensus that have resolved disputes peacefully. That way of doing may be fading among signs the group’s unity is seriously eroding. Against the backdrop of the rise of an assertive China, signs of disunity spell trouble for the region.

There are several reasons for this disunity. First, ASEAN today is a much bigger entity. Membership expanded in the 1990s to include Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia, with East Timor likely to be the 11th member. ASEAN’s functions and issues have also expanded. Economic cooperation has expanded from the idea of a free trade agreement to a more comprehensive economic community, which technically enters into force this year. ASEAN cooperation extends to a range of transnational issues from intelligence-sharing, counterterrorism, and maritime security to environmental degradation, air pollution, pandemics, energy security, food security, migration and people-smuggling, drug-trafficking, human rights and disaster management.

With an expanded membership, agenda and area of concern, it’s only natural that ASEAN will face more internal disagreements. It’s thus not surprising that one of the most serious breakdowns of consensus have involved its new members. Cambodia, as ASEAN’s chair, disastrously refused to issue a joint ASEAN communique in 2012 to please China – its new backer and aid donor – rejecting the position of fellow members, Philippines and Vietnam, on the South China Sea dispute.

Compounding challenges is the uncertain leadership of Indonesia. There are signs that the Jokowi government has downgraded Indonesia’s leadership role in ASEAN especially as the de facto consensus-builder of ASEAN on both intra- and extra-ASEAN conflicts, including the South China Sea. Jokowi’s “less multilateralism, more national interest” foreign policy approach, in sharp contrast to his predecessor Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s active leadership of ASEAN, could change. If not, the danger is that if the democratic, economically dynamic and stable Indonesia does not take ASEAN seriously neither will the world at large.

Without doubt, ASEAN’s main security challenge is the territorial disputes in the South China Sea. While not a new problem, the disagreement has telescoped due to recent Chinese activities. The most recent example: China’s reclamation activities in the Fiery Reef claimed by Vietnam and Mischief Reef and surrounding areas also claimed by the Philippines. This reflects a shift in China’s approach. While the Chinese military has pressed for land reclamation for some time, the leadership of Hu Jintao had resisted such moves. That restraint ended under the leadership of Xi Jinping, who is more prone to seek the PLA’s counsel in foreign policy issues related to national security and who has advanced China’s assertiveness on economic, diplomatic and military fronts. China is developing the islands further for both area denial and sea-control purposes and as a staging post for blue-water deployments into the Indian Ocean.

These developments challenge ASEAN’s role and “centrality” in the Asian security architecture. The economic ties of individual ASEAN members lead them to adopt varying positions. Until now, ASEAN’s advantage was that there was no alternative convening power in the region. But mere positional “centrality” is meaningless without an active and concerted ASEAN leadership to tackle problems, especially the South China Sea dispute.

Episodes such as the failure to issue a joint ASEAN communique in 2012 have led to the perception that ASEAN unity is fraying and China is a major factor. According to this view, China is out to divide and conquer ASEAN even as it pays lip-service to ASEAN centrality. This perception results from China’s seeming willingness to use disagreements within ASEAN, especially the consensus-breaking stance of Cambodia, insisting that ASEAN stay out of the South China Sea conflict, as an excuse to resist an early conclusion of the South China Sea Code of Conduct. China also takes the unwillingness of some ASEAN members to use strong language to criticize China as a sign of disunity. China cites earlier differences within ASEAN regarding the scope of the code of conduct over the inclusion of the Paracels, as desired by Hanoi. Moreover, China views the code as crisis-prevention tool rather than a dispute-settlement mechanism.

“Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great.”

Those words came from president Obama’s twitter account after a 14-year old Texan named Ahmed Mohamed became world famous. The high school student brought his homemade clock to school but was later escorted out in handcuffs after a teacher reported that he had a bomb. Racism, Islamophobia, draconian “zero tolerance” policies, and base ignorance all played a role in the disgraceful turn of events.

When social media turned Mohamed’s name into a household word the president weighed-in with his words of support. But unlike other individuals who felt genuine empathy or outrage about this case, the presidential tweet came with doses of hypocrisy and opportunism. Obama is no protector of the rights of Muslim teens, as Abdulrahman al-Awlaki’s family can attest.

Abdulrahman and his father Anwar were murdered on the president’ orders in 2011. Both American citizens, they ran afoul of the never ending “war on terror” and Obama’s political ambitions in the year before his re-election campaign.

In the absence of legislation, judicial precedent or any case law, Barack Obama declared that he had the right to assassinate anyone in the world, including American citizens like the Awlakis. Anwar al-Awlaki was never even charged with a crime. Like his predecessors, Obama makes a mockery of principles such as the right to trial when his agenda finds democracy too inconvenient. His acolytes love to point out that the president once taught constitutional law. That fact doesn’t count for much in reality but neither do any of the claims that justify continuing a war of terror against the Muslim world.

The Obama administration made quite a big show of announcing the “kill list” policy which ended the Awlakis lives. The New York Times was happily used as the messenger when the administration eagerly revealed the inner workings of the assassination decision making process. There was precious little outrage about the president of the United States acting like a mafia boss, even after Anwar al-Awlaki was rubbed out like a rival gangster. When his son was killed in another drone strike two weeks later the White House pretended it had all been a mistake and tried to cover their crime by claiming that the 16-year old was 21.

Needless to say there were teenage victims of the United States and NATO in Libya in 2011. That was not just a bad year for the Awlakis, but for millions of people first in Libya and then Syria who had the misfortune of being on the wrong side of the regime change line.

These aggressions should not be forgotten because the president decided to jump on the #istandwithahmed bandwagon. He may have Ramadan Iftar dinners at the White House or speak Arabic words at the opportune moment, but his policies against the Muslim world are even more ruthless than those of his much more reviled predecessor George W. Bush.

The president cannot be let off the hook because of a social media post. He bears a great deal of responsibility for the continued animus against Muslim people. By criminalizing an entire region he gives credence to the belief that its people are criminals and unworthy of being thought of as human beings. If the Awlakis can be killed, if Syrians and Libyans can have their countries torn asunder and Pakistanis and Afghans can be victims of drone strikes on presidential whims, then a precocious teenager can be hauled off by the police.

Obama has always gotten too much credit and too little scorn because he is disliked by racist, dead ender Republicans. Of course, if Fox news and Sarah Palin criticize the president’s response to the Ahmed Mohamed case he is again seen as the bulwark of enlightenment when he is in fact just the more effective evil.

Ahmed was released without being arrested and no charges were filed against him. He has been embraced by people all over the world and the White House is not alone in rolling out the red carpet of welcome. But the effects of the traumatic experience have apparently not left him. His father reported that his son has lost his appetite and isn’t sleeping well. Ahmed added that the family is now “torn and confused” by their experience.

There are thousands of Ahmeds all over the country, reliving the terror of interactions with police. There are Ahmeds in the Middle East and north Africa who have survived America’s attempts to take their lives. Unfortunately that will all be forgotten when Obama gets his photo opportunity with this teenager. He is lucky to live in Texas and not Syria. In this country the president isn’t trying to kill him.

South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma has appointed the first female Deputy President of the Supreme Court of Appeal, the Presidency announced Wednesday evening.

Justice Mandisa Muriel Maya will fill the vacancy that has occurred following the release of Justice Khayelihle Kenneth Mthiyane from active service. Justice Maya will occupy one of the top four senior positions in the leadership echelons of the judiciary.

Justice Maya has close to 30 years’ experience in the legal profession.

She started as an attorney’s clerk at a law firm in uMthatha in 1987 and then went on to work as a court interpreter, prosecutor and assistant state law adviser in uMthatha.

She served her pupillage at the Johannesburg Bar and practised as an advocate between 1993 and 1995. She was appointed as an acting judge of the High Court in 1999 and a fulltime judge the following year.

Justice Maya has also acted as a judge at the Labour Court, an acting judge in the Supreme Court of Appeal and as an acting judge at the Constitutional Court.

In 2006, she was appointed as a judge at the Supreme Court of Appeal.

Justice Maya holds three university degrees including B.Proc from the University of Transkei, LLB from the University of Natal, and LLM from Duke University in the United States, where she was a Fulbright scholar.

“We congratulate Justice Maya and wish her all the best in the execution of this critical responsibility in the South African Judiciary,” said President Zuma.

By Steven Groves*

The Obama Administration is planning an end run around the U.S. Senate in regard to a major international climate change agreement—the Paris Protocol—that will be negotiated between November 30 and December 11 at the 21st annual session of the Conference of Parties (COP 21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The Administration’s plans to avoid Senate scrutiny of the protocol should come as no surprise. During a March 31, 2015, press briefing, White House spokesman Josh Earnest was asked whether Congress has the right to approve the protocol:

[Reporter]: …Is this the kind of agreement that Congress should have the ability to sign off on?

[Earnest]: …I think it’s hard to take seriously from some Members of Congress who deny the fact that climate change exists, that they should have some opportunity to render judgment about a climate change agreement.[1]

The host of the upcoming conference in Paris, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius, agrees with Earnest that congressional scrutiny must be avoided. Addressing a group of African delegates at the June climate change conference in Bonn, Germany, Fabius expressed his desire to bypass Congress on the Paris Protocol: “We must find a formula which is valuable for everybody and valuable for the U.S. without going to Congress…. Whether we like it or not, if it comes to the Congress, they will refuse.”[2]

Apparently, no Member of Congress who questions climate science, or who disagrees with the Obama Administration’s policy views on climate change, is competent to review a major international agreement negotiated by the President. That is an alarming view on the role of Congress and particularly the Senate where, as in this case, the international commitments being made by the executive branch have significant domestic implications.

The Obama Administration should reverse course on its plan to act unilaterally in Paris, and should submit any agreement reached there to the Senate for advice and consent. To do otherwise would be to violate a commitment made by the executive branch in 1992 in connection with ratification of the UNFCCC. The President’s plans also violate internal State Department regulations concerning the legal form of international agreements.

If the Administration sticks to its scheme to avoid scrutiny of the Paris Protocol, Congress should withhold any appropriations to implement any aspect of the protocol and block the billions of dollars to be distributed to developing countries for climate change adaptation purposes. The Senate should also pass a resolution criticizing the Obama Administration’s ploy to circumnavigate the Senate in violation of previous commitments.

What Will the Obama Administration Do in Paris?

It has been widely reported that the Obama Administration intends to negotiate an agreement in Paris that, in its view, will require neither the advice and consent of the Senate as a treaty nor approval by both houses of Congress as a congressional-executive agreement. In August 2014 The New York Times reported that the Administration plans to negotiate a “hybrid” agreement in Paris geared toward “naming and shaming” countries that fail to cut their emissions:

American negotiators are instead homing in on a hybrid agreement—a proposal to blend legally binding conditions from [the UNFCCC] with new voluntary pledges. The mix would create a deal that would update the treaty, and thus, negotiators say, not require a new vote of ratification.

Countries would be legally required to enact domestic climate change policies—but would voluntarily pledge to specific levels of emissions cuts and to channel money to poor countries to help them adapt to climate change. Countries might then be legally obligated to report their progress toward meeting those pledges at meetings held to identify those nations that did not meet their cuts.[3]

This “hybrid” approach was confirmed in October 2014 by the Administration’s Special Envoy for Climate Change, Todd Stern, in a speech at Yale University:

Finally, let’s talk about the legal form of the Paris agreement. The Durban mandate says, in effect, that the new agreement will be a legally binding one in at least some respects, but doesn’t specify which ones. We think the most interesting proposal on the table is New Zealand’s, under which there would be a legally binding obligation to submit a “schedule” for reducing emissions, plus various legally binding provisions for accounting, reporting, review, periodic updating of the schedules, etc. But the content of the schedule itself would not be legally binding at an international level.[4]

The “interesting proposal” referenced by Stern is a March 2014 submission made by New Zealand to the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action.[5] In that submission, New Zealand suggested that the Paris agreement will likely be a “package…made up of a concise, legally binding agreement supported by COP decisions, and a national schedule for each Party.” Further, “[e]ach schedule will be supplementary to the legally binding agreement and will detail the Party’s nationally determined commitment” which would “sit in national schedules supplementary to, and outside the legally binding agreement.”[6]

Stern made it clear that, in harmony with New Zealand’s proposal, U.S. commitments for emissions reductions (mitigation) made in Paris would not be legally binding: “Some are sure to disapprove of the New Zealand idea, since the mitigation commitment itself is not legally binding, but we would counsel against that kind of orthodoxy.”[7]

So as it stands, the Obama Administration is contemplating that a “hybrid” agreement will emerge from Paris where the central element—the commitment to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions—would be only politically binding on the United States, while other elements—such as provisions on measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV)—would be legally binding. The mitigation targets and timetables would be appended to the legally binding agreement as a “schedule” or an “information document” (INF).[8]

Will the President Submit the Paris Protocol to the Senate?

Statements made by Todd Stern after his Yale speech indicate that the Administration is at least contemplating sending some, but not all, of the Paris Protocol to the Senate. During a December 2014 press conference Stern was asked whether the agreement would need to be submitted to the Senate, to which he circularly replied, “We will submit any kind of agreement that requires that kind of submission” and, thus, it “will depend entirely on how the agreement is written.”[9]

The likelihood, however, is that the Administration will treat the legally binding provisions of the Paris Protocol as a “sole executive agreement” not requiring Senate approval. In doing so, the Administration will cite the fact that the U.S. is already party to the UNFCCC, which requires the U.S. to implement a national program to address climate change and to submit reports on its emissions to the COP; it also authorizes the COP to assess U.S. implementation of its commitments. The Administration will likely assert that the legally binding parts of the Paris Protocol merely reflect existing UNFCCC commitments and therefore those provisions of the protocol need not be “re-approved” by the Senate. As suggested by one commentator:

The President would be on relatively firm legal ground accepting a new climate agreement with legal force, without submitting it to the Senate or Congress for approval, to the extent it is procedurally oriented, could be implemented on the basis of existing law, and is aimed at implementing or elaborating the UNFCCC.…

If the Paris climate change agreement solely elaborated [UNFCCC] requirements—for example, by establishing a process for parties to submit their national mitigation and adaptation measures, report on implementation, and accept international review—then arguably this new agreement could be concluded by the president acting alone.[10]

It is therefore entirely plausible that the Obama Administration will not submit even the legally binding parts of the Paris Protocol to the Senate for its advice and consent. That is likely the Administration’s intention, given the fact that any climate change agreement submitted to the Senate would face significant, perhaps insurmountable, opposition.

The Administration will also likely claim that the Paris Protocol requires no Senate approval because the executive branch possesses the statutory authority necessary to enforce new international commitments through domestic regulations. It may cite in support the fact that in 1979, the Carter Administration negotiated and signed the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) as a sole executive agreement, and based its authority to do so on compliance with the Clean Air Act of 1963. Congress neither authorized the LRTAP negotiations, nor was the agreement submitted to the Senate as a treaty or to Congress as a congressional-executive agreement.[11]

The Obama Administration may follow the LRTAP precedent in regard to the Paris Protocol. The Administration could then use existing statutory and regulatory provisions to enforce its international commitments domestically. The Administration has already made clear its intention to do so. Specifically, on March 31, 2015, it submitted an “intended nationally determined contribution” (INDC) to the UNFCCC.[12] The INDC submission identified the Clean Air Act, the Energy Policy Act, the Energy Independence and Security Act, and regulations (existing and proposed) thereunder as the provisions relevant to implementation of the U.S. mitigation commitment under the protocol.[13]

In sum, based on statements from White House climate negotiators and on the Obama Administration’s INDC submission, it is more likely than not that the Administration intends to bypass the Senate entirely regarding the Paris Protocol.

White House Breach of Prior UNFCCC Promise

Whatever the Obama Administration’s intentions, any agreement reached in Paris that commits the United States to specific emissions targets or timetables should be submitted to the Senate for its advice and consent. This should be done regardless of whether the commitments are made in a binding treaty document or in a non-binding “schedule” to a treaty document. That was the commitment of the executive branch when it sought Senate consent to ratification of the UNFCCC in 1992.

The UNFCCC was negotiated, signed, and ratified by the U.S. in 1992 during the Administration of President George H. W. Bush. By ratifying the convention, the United States agreed to be legally bound by its provisions. However, while the UNFCCC requires the U.S. to “adopt national policies and take corresponding measures on the mitigation of climate change, by limiting its anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases,”[14] it did not require the U.S. to commit to specific emissions targets or timetables.

The ratification history of the UNFCCC indicates that the Senate intended any future agreement negotiated under the auspices of the convention that adopted emissions targets and timetables would be submitted to the Senate.[15] Specifically, during the hearing process before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee regarding ratification of the UNFCCC, the Bush Administration pledged to submit future protocols negotiated under the convention to the Senate for its advice and consent. In response to written questions from the committee, the Administration responded as follows:

Question. Will protocols to the convention be submitted to the Senate for its advice and consent?

Answer. We would expect that protocols would be submitted to the Senate for its advice and consent; however, given that a protocol could be adopted on any number of subjects, treatment of any given protocol would depend on its subject matter.

Question. Would a protocol containing targets and timetables be submitted to the Senate?

Answer. If such a protocol were negotiated and adopted, and the United States wished to become a party, we would expect such a protocol to be submitted to the Senate.[16]

When the Foreign Relations Committee reported the UNFCCC out of committee, it memorialized the executive branch’s commitment: “[A] decision by the Conference of the Parties [to the UNFCCC] to adopt targets and timetables would have to be submitted to the Senate for its advice and consent before the United States could deposit its instruments of ratification for such an agreement.”[17]

The Senate gave its consent to ratification of the UNFCCC based on the executive branch’s explicit promise that any future protocol “containing targets and timetables” would be submitted to the Senate. The agreement struck between the Democrat-controlled Senate and the Republican President in 1992 made no exception for a non-binding “schedule” appended to a legally binding agreement. Rather, the Senate relied on the good faith of future presidential Administrations to adhere to the commitment that any future protocol “containing targets and timetables” be submitted to the Senate for advice and consent.

The fact is that the Paris Protocol contemplated by the Obama Administration—as described in its own public statements and indicated by its endorsement of the New Zealand proposal—falls within the parameters of the commitments made by the Bush Administration to the Senate in 1992. A “hybrid” agreement composed of both binding provisions (such as measurement, reporting, and verification requirements) as well as non-binding mitigation targets and timetables still qualifies as a “protocol containing targets and timetables.”

As such, the Administration’s intentions should be seen for what they are—an attempt to skirt prior commitments made to the Senate by cobbling together a “hybrid” agreement of dubious legitimacy.

Is the Administration Violating State Department Regulations?

The Obama Administration’s disregard for the agreements made in 1992 between the Senate and the executive branch flies not only in the face of intra-governmental comity, but also violates internal regulations adopted by the State Department, known as the Circular 175 Procedure (C-175).[18]

C-175 establishes, inter alia, eight factors for determining whether an international agreement should be negotiated as a treaty (and therefore approved by the Senate through the standard Article II process) or as an “international agreement other than a treaty” (such as an executive agreement):

(1) The extent to which the agreement involves commitments or risks affecting the nation as a whole; (2) Whether the agreement is intended to affect state laws; (3) Whether the agreement can be given effect without the enactment of subsequent legislation by the Congress; (4) Past U.S. practice as to similar agreements; (5) The preference of the Congress as to a particular type of agreement; (6) The degree of formality desired for an agreement; (7) The proposed duration of the agreement, the need for prompt conclusion of an agreement, and the desirability of concluding a routine or short-term agreement; and (8) The general international practice as to similar agreements.[19]

Even a cursory review of those factors compels the conclusion that the Obama Administration should treat the Paris Protocol as an Article II treaty and submit it to the Senate for advice and consent:

• Commitments affecting the nation. The agreement certainly “involves commitments or risks affecting the U.S. as a whole.” The Administration has made clear that it intends to fulfill its mitigation commitments under the Paris Protocol by enforcing emissions standards through existing and new regulations on vehicles, buildings, power plants, and landfills.[20] These are multi-sectoral, comprehensive, nationwide commitments that have no geographic limitation. The commitments made in the Paris Protocol will affect the entire nation, and therefore the protocol should be treated as a treaty.
• Subsequent congressional legislation. As contemplated, the Paris Protocol would include major financial commitments by the United States to assist developing countries in adapting to climate change. The committed amount is likely to be many billions of dollars—funds that must be authorized and appropriated by Congress. Since key provisions of the Paris Protocol cannot be given effect without the enactment of legislation, the protocol should be treated as a treaty.
• Past U.S. practice. Major international environmental agreements are usually concluded as treaties and submitted to the Senate.[21] Past environmental agreements treated in this manner include the 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, the 1973 International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, the 1985 Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (and the 1987 Montreal Protocol thereto), the 1989 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, the 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, and the 1994 U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification.Regarding climate change, the UNFCCC was submitted to the Senate by the first Bush Administration, and the Kyoto Protocol was treated as a treaty and would have been submitted to the Senate had the Senate not already rejected it out of hand in the Byrd–Hagel Resolution by a vote of 95 to 0.[22] Since past U.S. practice has been to submit major international environmental agreements to the Senate, the protocol should be treated as a treaty.
• Preference of Congress as to legal form of agreement. Gauging congressional preference as to the legal form of an international climate change agreement is difficult, but to date no one in Congress has advocated that the Paris Protocol be negotiated as an executive agreement and that Congress be bypassed. By contrast, according to a Bloomberg report, Senate Republicans are “nearly unanimous in arguing that U.S. participation in a global climate deal should be subject to advice and consent in the Senate.”[23]Several prominent Senate Republicans have made clear that they object to the White House’s planned end run. Senator John McCain (R–AZ) stated, “All treaties and agreements of that nature are obviously the purview of the United States Senate, according to the Constitution.” Senator McCain added that “the President may try to get around that…but I believe clearly [that the] constitutional role, particularly of the Senate, should be adhered to.” Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference John Thune (R–SD) stated that any deal that commits the U.S. to cut GHG emissions “needs to be reviewed, scrutinized and looked at and I think Congress has a role to play in that.”[24]

  Given widespread opposition to proposed Environmental Protection Agency regulations to reduce GHG emissions[25] upon which the Obama Administration is basing its international mitigation commitments, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–KY) issued a warning to the other nations negotiating the Paris Protocol: “[O]ur international partners should proceed with caution before entering into a binding, unattainable deal.”[26]

• Degree of formality. Whatever else it is, the Paris Protocol, as contemplated, is not an “informal” international agreement. The current draft of the negotiating text, with all its options and counter-options, is nearly 100 pages long, in small text.[27] The draft agreement covers a wide range of topics, including mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology transfer, capacity-building, transparency, implementation, compliance, and other matters. It is, by any measure, a “formal” agreement, and should therefore be treated as a treaty.
• Duration. The proposed duration of the Paris Protocol is subject to negotiation, but it is likely to contain a commitment period that ends in 2025 or 2030. However, it is contemplated that more stringent standards will be negotiated in the years ahead by amending the protocol’s mitigation commitment schedules. There is clearly no need for “prompt conclusion” of the protocol (having been negotiated over several years’ time) and there is no desire to conclude it as a “routine or short-term agreement.” Since the duration of the protocol is effectively open-ended, and the protocol is not a “routine” or “short-term” agreement, it should be treated as a treaty.

In sum, at least five of the eight C-175 factors lean in favor of treating the Paris Protocol as a treaty that must be submitted to the Senate for advice and consent. While the C-175 factors need not be cleaved to without discretion,[28] they represent an effort to harmonize the U.S. government’s approach to making international agreements, and must be given “due consideration.”[29] That the Obama Administration apparently disregarded them entirely is indicative of its intention to bypass the Senate.

Countering President Obama’s End Run

The only conclusion that may fairly be drawn from the Obama Administration’s actions is that it intends to avoid Senate review of the Paris Protocol for a simple reason—the protocol would not receive the Senate’s consent for ratification. The protocol would likewise not receive majority support in the House and Senate if the Administration submitted it to Congress as a congressional-executive agreement.

Problematically for the Obama Administration, the first Bush Administration specifically committed to submit any agreement along the lines of the Paris Protocol to the Senate. The Bush Administration pledged that any future protocol “containing targets and timetables” would be sent to the Senate for its advice and consent.[30] The Obama Administration’s plan violates both the letter and spirit of its predecessor’s commitment to the Senate. In response to that violation of trust, the Senate should:

• Demand that the Paris Protocol be submitted to the Senate. In the spirit of the 1997 Byrd–Hagel Resolution, the Senate should express its sense that the Obama Administration is purposefully reneging on its predecessor’s commitment to submit protocols “containing targets and timetables” to the Senate for its advice and consent. The Paris Protocol, however it is configured during COP 21, will include emissions targets and timetables, even if they are part of a non-binding “schedule.” The Administration’s machinations to avoid Senate approval should be noted and denounced in the Senate resolution.
• Block funding for the Paris Protocol. An illegitimate Paris Protocol should not be legitimated by subsequent congressional action. One step that Congress can take is to refuse to authorize any funds to implement the protocol, including the billions of American taxpayer dollars in adaptation funding to which the U.S. will commit itself. The Obama Administration has successfully received at least $7.5 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars from Congress to fulfill a “nonbinding” international climate change agreement—the 2009 Copenhagen Accord.[31] That “success” should not be repeated in connection with the Paris Protocol. Moreover, if the “developing” countries understand that the U.S. will not transfer billions of dollars to them for adaptation, they will be less likely to support the protocol.
• Withhold funding for the UNFCCC. If the Administration bypasses the Senate in contravention of the commitments made by the first Bush Administration in 1992, it goes to prove what mischief can result from ratifying a “framework” convention such as the UNFCCC. The Administration will likely base its Senate end run on the argument that the UNFCCC authorizes it to do so. As such, the UNFCCC will have become precisely the danger that the Senate sought to prevent in 1992. Defunding the UNFCCC would prevent the U.S. from participating in future conferences, submitting reports, and otherwise engaging in the dubious enterprise.
• Take prophylactic legislative measures. In addition to specific legislative efforts to ensure that no adaptation funding committed under the Paris Protocol is authorized, Congress should include language in all legislation regarding the Environmental Protection Agency and related executive agencies and programs that no funds may be expended in connection with the implementation of any commitment made in the protocol.

While Presidents should have a certain amount of discretion to choose the legal form of international agreements they are negotiating, President Obama has placed his desire to achieve an international environmental win above governmental comity and historical U.S. treaty practice. Major environmental treaties that have significant domestic impacts should not be developed and approved by the executive alone. An agreement with far-reaching domestic consequences like the Paris Protocol will lack democratic legitimacy unless the Senate or Congress as a whole, representing the will of the American people, gives its approval.

The White House plan shows contempt for the U.S. treaty process and the role of Congress, particularly the Senate. It is an attempt to achieve through executive fiat that which cannot be achieved through the democratic process. All indications are that the Obama Administration intends to ignore the presidential assurances made to the Senate in 1992, categorize the Paris Protocol as a “sole executive agreement” in order to bypass the Senate, and enforce that protocol through controversial and deeply divisive regulations, such as the Clean Power Plan. Such actions, if taken by the Administration, evince an unprecedented level of executive unilateralism, and should be opposed by Congress by any and all means.

About the author:
*Steven Groves is Bernard and Barbara Lomas Senior Research Fellow in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, at The Heritage Foundation.

Source:
This article was published by The Heritage Foundation.

Notes:
[1] “Earnest: House GOP Climate Deniers Not the Right People to Vote on Emissions Deal,” Grabien, undated, https://grabien.com/story.php?id=25399&utm_source=cliplist20150401&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=cliplist&utm_content=story25399 (accessed August 6, 2015).

[2] “Climate Deal Must Avoid US Congress Approval, French Minister Says,” The Guardian, June 1, 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/01/un-climate-talks-deal-us-congress (accessed August 6, 2015).

[3] Coral Davenport, “Obama Pursuing Climate Accord in Lieu of Treaty,” The New York Times, August 26, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/27/us/politics/obama-pursuing-climate-accord-in-lieu-of-treaty.html?_r=0 (accessed August 6, 2015).

[4] Todd D. Stern, “Seizing the Opportunity for Progress on Climate,” U.S. Department of State, October 14, 2014, http://www.state.gov/s/climate/releases/2014/232962.htm (accessed August 6, 2015).

[5] UNFCCC, “New Zealand: Submission to the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, Work Stream 1,” March 2014, http://unfccc.int/files/documentation/submissions_from_parties/adp/application/pdf/adp2-4_submission_by_new_zealand_submission_20140312.pdf (accessed August 6, 2015).

[6] UNFCCC, “New Zealand,” ¶¶ 5, 9.

[7] Ibid.

[8] IDDRI, “A Comprehensive Assessment of Options for the Legal Form of the Paris Climate Agreement,” Working Paper, November 2014, p. 12, http://www.iddri.org/Publications/Collections/Idees-pour-le-debat/WP1514_SMD%20MW%20TS_legal%20form%202015.pdf (accessed August 17, 2015).

[9] Ronald Bailey, “Obama’s Possible Paris Climate Agreement End Run Around the Senate,” Reason, December 10, 2014, http://reason.com/archives/2014/12/10/obamas-possible-paris-climate-agreement#.n5cntf:8Hen (accessed August 6, 2015).

[10] Daniel Bodansky, “Legal Options for U.S. Acceptance of a New Climate Change Agreement,” Center for Climate and Energy Solutions,” May 2015, pp. v and 16, http://www.c2es.org/docUploads/legal-options-us-acceptance-new-climate-change-agreement.pdf (accessed August 17, 2015).

[11] Nigel Purvis, “The Case for Climate Protection Authority,” Virginia Journal of International Law, Vol. 50 (2009), p. 1043.

[12] News release, “Fact Sheet: U.S. Reports its 2025 Emissions Target to the UNFCCC,” The White House, March 31, 2015, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/03/31/fact-sheet-us-reports-its-2025-emissions-target-unfccc (accessed August 6, 2015).

[13] UNFCCC, “Party: United States of America—Intended Nationally Determined Contribution,” March 31, 2015, http://www4.unfccc.int/submissions/INDC/Published%20Documents/United%20States%20of%20America/1/U.S.%20Cover%20Note%20INDC%20and%20Accompanying%20Information.pdf (accessed August 17, 2015).

[14] UNFCCC, Art. 4.2(a).

[15] See Emily C. Barbour, “International Agreements on Climate Change: Selected Legal Questions,” Congressional Research Service, April 12, 2010, pp. 7–8, http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/142749.pdf (accessed August 6, 2015).

[16] Hearing, U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (Treaty Doc. 102-38), Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, 102nd Cong., 2nd Sess., September 18, 1992, pp. 105–106.

[17] S. Exec. Rept. 102-55, 102d Cong., 2d Sess., 1992, p. 14.

[18] U.S. Department of State, Foreign Affairs Manual, Vol. 11 (2006), Section 720, et seq., http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/88317.pdf (accessed August 17, 2015).

[19] Ibid., Section 723.3.

[20] UNFCCC, “Party: United States of America—Intended Nationally Determined Contribution.”

[21] “Yet studies demonstrate that…the president and Congress have tended to favor the treaty form when international agreements relate to…the environment and natural resources.” Purvis, “The Case for Climate Protection Authority,” p. 1034.

[22] S. Res. 98, A Resolution Expressing the Sense of the Senate Regarding the Conditions for the United States Becoming a Signatory to any International Agreement on Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,” July 25, 1997, Congress.gov, https://www.congress.gov/bill/105th-congress/senate-resolution/98 (accessed August 6, 2015).

[23] Dean Scott and Anthony Adragna, “Senate Republicans Mull Options for Review of the U.S. Participation in Paris Climate Talks,” Bloomberg BNA, May 19, 2015, http://www.bna.com/senate-republicans-mull-n17179926673/ (accessed August 6, 2015).

[24] Ibid.

[25] Nicolas Loris, “The Many Problems of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan and Climate Regulations: A Primer,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3025, July 7, 2015, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2015/07/the-many-problems-of-the-epas-clean-power-plan-and-climate-regulations-a-primer (accessed August 17, 2015). The President’s Clean Power Plan is in addition to regulations concerning new power plants, light and heavy-duty vehicles, airplanes, and methane emissions from hydrocarbon development.

[26] Coral Davenport, “Obama’s Strategy on Climate Change, Part of Global Deal, Is Revealed,” The New York Times, March 31, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/01/us/obama-to-offer-major-blueprint-on-climate-change.html (accessed August 6, 2015).

[27] UNFCC, “Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action: Work of the Contact Group on Item 3, Negotiating Text,” February 12, 2015, https://unfccc.int/files/bodies/awg/application/pdf/negotiating_text_12022015@2200.pdf (accessed August 6, 2015).

[28] According to one commentator, the eight factors listed in C-175 are “merely indicators of conformity with historical practice and guideposts for avoiding political conflict with Congress” and are not considered legally binding on the executive branch. Purvis, “Climate Protection Authority,” p. 1032.

[29] C-175, 11 FAM 723.3.

[30] Hearing, U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (Treaty Doc. 102-38).

[31] According to the White House, the U.S. has “fulfilled our joint developed country commitment from the Copenhagen Accord to provide approximately $30 billion of climate assistance to developing countries over FY 2010–FY 2012. The United States contributed approximately $7.5 billion to this effort over the three year period.” Executive Office of the President, “The President’s Climate Action Plan,” June 2013, p. 20, https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/image/president27sclimateactionplan.pdf (accessed August 17, 2015).

By Bhaskar Roy

One of China’s leading official newspapers, the Global Times (Sept 22), gave a hint on some important points that President Xi Jinping may expound on, in his speech to the UN General Assembly next week. The report gave brief glimpses of a Position Paper prepared by leading Chinese experts for Xi’s address.

Wu Xinbo, director of the Center for American Studies at Shanghai’s Fudan University told the Global Times, “President Xi’s speech to be delivered at the UN summit will be closely linked to the Position Paper, as the international community is keen to know China’s views on the present global order”.

Before departing for the US, Xi told the Wall Street Journal that global governance system is shared by the world and not by a single country, with the UN at its core. Xi also said that it was necessary to adjust and reform the global governance system (read UN) and mechanism. The reform (of the UN) is not about dismantling the existing system and creating a new one in its place.

The Chinese, along with Pakistan, with surprising support from Russia, tried to obstruct the adoption of a discussion paper on the reform of the UN including expansion of the permanent members of the Security Council with veto powers. The US stood on the side-lines. The China led move did not succeed and the paper is now a UN document for future discussions on the subject.

When the UN was founded it had only 55 members and five permanent members (P-5) with veto powers. Now the UN has 193 members but the P-5 remains. A huge imbalance has crept in over the decades, with disproportionate powers held in the hands of the five. Does Xi Jinping equate expansion of the permanent members with dismantling the UN system?

Obviously, the intention of China is to cling to inordinate power and suppress countries like India and Japan who have achieved the status to take up greater responsibilities like veto power in the UN. A greater role for India, as the Chinese say, means nothing. The aim is to scuttle reform of the UN and retain the status quo indefinitely.

The Chinese position paper says, “We must reject double standard and not link terrorism with any particular country, ethnicity and religion.” If Xi Jinping articulates this position then the international community will be within its rights to question China’s commitment to counter-terrorism and fighting terrorism. It has become clear that China has been using its veto power in the UN not only to protect Pakistan from charges of state sponsor of terrorism, but also protect Pakistan sponsored terrorists likes Hafeez Saeed and Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi.

Yet, in the run up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics Chinese leaders including the party chief of Xinjiang accused Pakistan of harbouring Uighur separatists who wanted to disrupt the games. Countries and ethnicity on terrorism matter when they hurt China, but they are looked at differently when they serve China’s foreign policy.

It is in China’s interest that Pakistan continues with terrorism against India and India wastes it resources and intellect in countering Pakistan sponsored terror. It is a strategy that is reflected in the book “Unrestricted Warfare”, written by two brilliant strategists of the Chinese army, the PLA, colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui.

Having positioned itself somewhat of a centre stage in the Afghan issue with US military withdrawal from Afghanistan, China is apparently moving towards lifting the label of “terrorists” from the Afghan Taliban. It is well known that while the Chinese did not accord official recognition to the Taliban government in Kabul, it kept in quiet touch with the Taliban government and did business with them. Terrorism is being used as a strategic tool by China. This is a dangerous Chinese policy which, if allowed to proceed unchallenged, will be a threat not only for India but for the region and the global community.

The US waded into Afghanistan after the “9/11 terrorist attack” on its territory, and is in a hurry for a face saving exit. China, along with Pakistan, is their best bet. As for Russia, the west has driven President Vladimir Putin into China’s embrace. It will take some time for Putin to realise that China is cutting the ground under Russia’s feet.

According to the Chinese position paper, Xi is expected to address the Cyber Security issue. “China is in favour of stronger international cooperation on the basis of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit and the establishment of a peaceful, secure, open and cooperative cyberspace”, the paper said. These are standard Chinese words and phrases when they find themselves under pressure. The only meaning that can be interpreted by those words and phrases is what serves China the best. This can be seen from the South China Sea dispute and other agreements.

China’s cyber espionage has recently been under severe pressure from the US. The US claim they have suffered losses to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars in intellectual property loss by American companies. China is also alleged to have stolen personal data of millions of Americans leading to fear of security threats.

China will get around President Barack Obama on the Cyber espionage issue, and grounds have been made for a major cyber agreement with the US which is ready to be signed during Xi’s visit.

But the impact and challenge should not be lost on countries like India which have opened their floodgates to Chinese entities with dubious reputation.

The UN is an excellent forum for China to safeguard itself and promote questionable policies, Beijing is unlikely to allow a real reform of the UN.

Saudi Arabia’s Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman offered condolences to the families and relatives of those killed in Thursday’s Mina stampede that left 717 Hajis dead and 805 injured.

He reiterated his resolve to continue measures to make Haj comfortable and secure.

He said regardless of whatever is the result of the probe, the massive development plans undertaken to upgrade Haj services will continue without any break.

He said he had instructed the authorities concerned to review the current plans and arrangements and exert more efforts to ensure better management of pilgrims’ movement.
The king vowed that all obstacles and difficulties would be removed to enable the guests of God to perform their rituals with ease and comfort.

He said Mina incident was painful and a probe had been launched but that did not mean “we should undermine the magnificent work the security personnel and those deployed on Haj duties have been doing to serve the pilgrims so that they could perform their rituals with ease and comfort.”

He congratulated citizens and pilgrims on the occasion of Eid Al-Adha and prayed to Allah to bestow His blessings on the Muslim Ummah.

Earlier, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif ordered the formation of an investigation committee to determine the causes of the stampede. Its findings would be submitted to King Salman.

He held a meeting with top Haj security officials following the incident to discuss ways to deal with the issue, according to Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, Interior Ministry spokesman.

About the study on the Mina area and roads leading to Jamrat, he said that was the nature of the site, which is not changeable because it has specific borders.

The crown prince said these borderlines are part of Haj rituals and congestion and narrow roads cannot be redressed simply based on someone’s imagination.

He said security authorities have seriously considered the issue of overcrowding which happens due to the high density of pilgrims on roads leading from Mina to Jamrat, adding that the street where the incident occurred was an internal street in Mina, and not the one leading to Muzdalifa.

He stressed that the Kingdom will not hesitate to address the reasons for the stampede whatever the cost may be, adding that the country is keen to provide all possible means to ensure the safety and security of pilgrims to help them perform their rituals safely and easily.

Maj. Gen. Al-Turki said the incident occurred as a result of pilgrims’ movement toward the Street 204 intersecting with the Street 223.

He said high temperatures and fatigue due to pilgrims’ stay at Arafat could also be other factors.

He said security bodies dealt with the incident immediately and began to rescue those who had fallen in the crush.

By Hari Bansh Jha*

A new Constitution was promulgated in Nepal on 20 September 2015. It has failed to satisfy the Madheshis and Tharus who constitute 70 per cent of the Terai population, who regard the formation of seven federal provinces as per the Constitution as grossly unfair to them. Only eight districts in the Terai region, from Saptari in the East to Parsa in the West, have been given the status of a province (State 2, see Map below); the remaining 14 districts are to be joined with the hill districts, with the sole purpose of converting the local people into a minority. The Madheshis and Tharus were sidelined in the entire constitution making process due to prevailing distrust towards them among the mainstream political parties. Of course, the Bijay Kumar Gachhadar-led Madhesi Janaadhikar Forum–Democratic was initially involved in the constitution drafting process; but later on it also had no option but to quit the alliance as its point of view was not entertained.

Flaws

Consequently, none of the major Madhesh-based parties signed the Constitution, which has serious flaws. The new Constitution has a provision for a 165-member Parliament, but the constituencies have been demarcated in such a way that the people of the hill and mountain region would get 100 seats, despite the fact that their share in Nepal’s total population is less than 50 per cent. On the other hand, the Terai region constituting over half of the country’s population has been allocated only 65 seats.

Because of the insensitivity shown towards the demands of the Madheshi parties, a call was given by the Unified Democratic Madheshi Front and Tharuhat/Tharuwan Joint Struggle Committee for an indefinite strike in Terai beginning August 8. Security Forces personnel used excessive force to suppress the agitation. Even the army was mobilized for this purpose. But the situation deteriorated fast. During the last month and half of protests, over 46 people, including 10 security personnel, have been killed. Besides, hundreds of protesters have been injured. Almost all the Terai districts have turned into war-like zones.

Immediately after the promulgation of the Constitution, the ruling political parties including Nepali Congress and CPN-UML celebrated “Diwali”, while the Madheshi political parties and Tharuhat Struggle Committee observed it as a black day. Both within and outside the country, the new Constitution was welcomed by one community, while it was burnt by others. Nepal is now widely polarised between those who support and those who oppose the Constitution. China, Pakistan and a few other countries have welcomed the new Constitution, but India has indirectly shown its displeasure over the development, which is worrisome.

Marginalisation

The changing demography of Terai deserves critical scrutiny in light of the developments taking place in the region today. Until 1954, the Madheshis and the Tharus formed 94 per cent of the total population in the Terai region. But since the 1970s, the state— during the years of monarchy— helped hundreds of thousands of hill migrants to settle in Terai mostly by clearing the thick forest land. For this, even resettlement companies were set up. Though landlessness among the Madheshis is common, none of them got any piece of land as part of the resettlement policy adopted by the state.

Those who suffered the most due to the state-sponsored migration and settlement of population in Terai were the tribal groups like the Tharus, the Rajbanshis and the Satars. Land belonging to many of these people was confiscated on one or other excuse for distribution among the migrants. A sizeable chunk of the local people were forced to migrate to India. But those who stayed at home in Terai were virtually made Kamaiyas (paupers) whose only means of survival was to work as domestic help in the houses of the hill migrants. As if this were not enough, in the early 1980s a Commission on Internal and International Migration was constituted under Hark Gurung. The Commission recommended that whatever remaining forest that was left along the East West Highway be cleared with a view to settle the hill migrants.

Both under the rules of the Kings and the Ranas, large tracts of land in Terai were gifted away to civil servants, army officers and family members of the ruling class through the infamous system of Birta. The Kings of Nepal advocated a policy of not employing the Madheshis in the civil services. This deficit of trust towards the Madheshis and the Tharus was one of the major reasons why their presence in the civil services, judiciary and security agencies have remained minimal. Even their presence in corporations, industries and private sector agencies have been far from satisfactory. Until the mid-1950s, the Madheshis had to receive permits from the government authorities to enter Kathmandu, the capital city! Even in matters concerning the grant of citizenship, they were discriminated against. The Madheshis comprise the bulk of such stateless citizens in Nepal even to this day. All the major political parties usually field hill-elites as their candidates in the Terai region during the elections. They would never allow any Madheshi as their candidate in the hill constituencies.

In order to get rid of discrimination, the Terai Congress in 1950 gave a call for a federal state for the area situated in the Terai belt. But the idea could not gain much traction as the party was defeated in the 1959 General Elections. After the restoration of multi-party democracy in 1990, Nepal Sadbhavana Party was formed to protect the interests of the Madheshis. This party also echoed its voice for a federal state. Later on, the idea of federalism was picked up by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). Subsequently, in 2007, there was a major Terai uprising, which was controlled only when the government made a formal agreement with the Madheshi leaders for the formation of a single autonomous Madhesh Pradesh with the right to self-determination.

From Disarray to Unity

Despite the overwhelming size of population of the Madheshis and Tharus in Terai, they could get only 10 per cent seats in the 601-member Constituent Assembly (CA)-2 in the December 2013 elections. Many of the Madheshi leaders were defeated in CA-2 elections because they failed to address the people’s problems. Out of lust for money and power, they did not hesitate to fragment the parties. During the CA-1 elections in 2008, only three Madhesh-based parties had contested the elections and hence they had a substantial presence in CA-1. In contrast, during the CA-2 elections in 2013, there were 13 Madhesh-based parties. Though both during CA-1 and CA-2 elections, the overall voting percentage for the Madhesh based parties remained almost the same— about 12 per cent— Madhesh leaders lost the elections because their votes were divided, making it easier for non-Madheshi leaders to win.

Nevertheless, the Madhesh-based parties did not learn any lesson from the election debacle and they could not come together to form a united front to protect their interests. By the time they formed the Unified Democratic Madheshi Front this year, it was too late to exhibit their strength. The three major political parties, including the NC, CPN-UML and UCPN-Maoist, took advantage of this split. Because they had 90 per cent seats in the CA-2, they excluded the Madheshi parties in the constitution-making process. But this was a major blunder. It was forgotten that the Madheshis and the Tharus have always been humiliated ever since the central and eastern parts of Terai were gifted away by the British East India Company to Nepal partly after the Sugauli Treaty of 1816 and partly after the Sepoy Mutiny (1857) in 1860. The hill elites always doubted the loyalty of the Madheshis towards the nation. This distrust towards the Madheshis and the Tharus provided these groups with ample reason to unite and protest against the constitution when a call was given for an indefinite strike.

Impact of Strike

The impact of the ongoing Madheshi agitation in Nepal as a whole in general and in the Terai region in particular is quite severe. For more than one-and-a-half months now, life in the Terai region has been paralysed. All the educational institutions, hospitals, government offices, industries, banks, shops, agricultural activities and transport services have been crippled. Most of the essential items including food grains, petrol and gas are in short supply. Those who depend on daily wages for their livelihood are suffering the most. Movement of people is restricted because of continuous curfew in several places and also due to the deteriorating law and order situation. Amidst all this, unscrupulous elements hostile to India could pose a security risk by taking advantage of the open border between the two countries.

However, the government and the main political parties in Nepal are least sensitive to the needs of their own people, leave alone their concerns about security challenges such a protracted crisis could pose for Nepal and India. Instead of taking any initiative to defuse the crisis, some of them have started blaming India for the troubles in Nepal. Rumours are rife that India has imposed a blockade as trucks loaded with goods are not coming from India to Nepal. In a deliberate manner, wrong information is being fed to the people of Nepal by the media that the sealing of the border by India at certain locations has caused food scarcity in Nepal. The truth, however, is that the private trucks plying on the Indian side of the border cannot afford to cross the border and come to Nepal because of the fragile law and order situation, which is due to the mishandling of the situation by the Nepalese government.

Conclusion

If the government and the main political parties are really serious about defusing the present crisis, they should accept it as a political problem and take steps to ensure that Nepalese people of all ethnicities, including the Madheshis and the Tharus, develop a sense of ownership in the new Constitution. For this, it is urgently required to initiate a dialogue with the aggrieved Madeshi and Tharu political leaders and address some of the demands put out by them at the moment, as follows:

• Formation of two autonomous states in the Terai – one extending from Jhapa to Parasa to be called “Mithila state” with Janakpur as its capital, and the other from Chitwan to Kanchanpur to be called “Buddha State” with Lumbini as its capital.
• Provision of 83 parliamentary seats for Terai Region in the new parliament.
• Reservation of seats for the Madheshis and the Tharus in administrative, security, judiciary and diplomatic services on the basis of their population.
• Adequate representation of the Madheshis and the Tharus in decision-making process in all constitutional bodies, including in Public Service Commission at the central and state levels.
• Formation of an independent commission to investigate the excesses committed by the security forces and punish the culprits; and provision of adequate compensation for those killed during the agitation and also to those injured.

A forward looking Constitution must take adequate care to accommodate rather than leave out the genuine aspirations of a substantial cross-section of people. If such aspirations remain unmet, as the persisting movement by the people of the Terai region would indicate, the ongoing crisis may deepen causing trouble for one and all in Nepal. In such a situation, there is always a temptation to find an external scapegoat. It would require exemplary courage on the part of the Nepalese leadership to own up their mistakes and put their house in order before it is too late.

*Professor Jha is Executive Director of Centre for Economic and Technical Studies in Nepal. He has been a Visiting Fellow at IDSA. The views expressed here are his own.

Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India. Originally published by Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (www.idsa.in) at http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/NepalsNewConstitution_hbjha_240915.html

By Umid Niayesh

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham has called the recent comments made by US Secretary of State John Kerry regarding Iran’s role in Syria “unrealistic”.

“The US Secretary of State’s comments are not reflecting the Syrian realities and should be considered as physiological projection,” Afkham said, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported Sept. 24.

On Sept. 22, Kerry called on Russia and Iran to help with diplomatic efforts to end the four-year conflict in Syria.

The US top diplomat said that Washington is ready to engage in a dialogue to promote a peace agreement that would see Syrian President Bashar al-Assad removed from power.

Meanwhile the Iranian spokeswoman said that the US and its allies’ stances towards the Syria and setting conditions are the main obstacles against resolving the crisis in Syria.

She also called the US to put aside its former “wrong policies” regarding the Syria help settling the crisis.

Afkham further said that the Islamic Republic has always supported political solution and formation of Syrian-Syrian dialogue as the unique path to ending the war.

Tehran and Moscow share the same stance towards Syria, supporting the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. The Islamic Republic views the Syrian regime as its main strategic ally in the region and as part of an “axis of resistance” against Israel.

The Syrian opposition claims that Iranian military forces are fighting against them, while Iran dismisses the claims, saying that Iran only has advisors in Syria, to transfer its military experience to the Syrian army.

During the conflict in Syria, which began in March 2011, more than 150,000 people have been killed in the country and over 4.2 million have become refugees in Syrian territory and two million have fled to neighboring countries.

The mass media, with usual exceptions, have allowed themselves to be pulled down to the level of the political circus. If the Republican Party’s early primary campaigns for the presidential nomination had an elephant and a clown car, Ringling Brothers would be in trouble. It is hard for the Republican presidential candidates to resist temptation, defined by hyping an entertainment circus led by the chief circus barker – Donald Trump of gambling casino fame.

Sixteen candidates, after inexplicably excluding Mark Everson, the former IRS commissioner under George W. Bush and the first to announce, are hurling epithets, war-mongering bravados, and assorted boasts against one another. After their so-called debates, the media emphasize the insults of Trump and others against one-another. Reading the coverage and watching the TV clips, once comes away with the impression that snarls, quips, ripostes, and gaffes, now pass for news.

How rancid! How demeaning to our country and its people! It is bad enough that voters have been reduced to spectators watching a reality show with the candidates, bidding to become the most powerful person on Earth, with a finger on the button. It is bad enough that the ever-hovering Super PACs and their indentured candidates, save occasionally Rand Paul and John Kasich, don’t seem to want to be serious, knowledgeable, or at all compassionate toward the powerless and deprived.

This potpourri of poseurs made it possible for Carly Fiorina to rise to the “top tier” on the basis of a few statements that exude the feigned confidence of the failed corporate CEO she once was. The “roman candle” moment that had the political pundits call her the debate winner last week was her response to Donald Trump questioning “that face” becoming president. She calmly responded: “Women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said,” just before he exercised his usual recovery ploy and exclaimed “she’s got a beautiful face and she’s a beautiful woman.” Will Rogers or Jon Stewart would have had a field day with that exchange.

Culpable as these candidates are, with varying degrees, in debasing the most fundamental electoral expressions of the people – the delegation of their sovereignty and power to elected representatives – the media accentuated the dismal trivia with questions that matched the vacuousness of the format.

The only business protected from government by our Constitution is the media—their right of free speech based in the First Amendment. Just look how the media are handling this public trust! As Jamie Larson, a reporter for the website Rural Intelligence, said: “The media ask questions about what candidates are saying but are not asking the questions they independently should be asking.”

Such as, I would suggest: “What is your record and position on corporate crime enforcement and what would you change so as to punish and prevent corporate criminality?” Or “People everywhere feel powerless toward government and business; half do not even vote. How would you specifically shift power from the few to the many so that the citizens can have more real choices of candidates and better control the abuses of electoral politics, government, and big business?” And “Have you ever supported specific empowerment strategies for the people?” Or “How would you increase voter turnout – say by having a voting holiday, more days for absentee voting, enacting a none-of-the-above option for voters, reducing or eliminating burdensome and meaningless voter registration rules?”

When voters decide they will no longer be mistreated and summon candidates to their own citizen-powered debates, the dynamics behind the campaigns will shift toward the citizenry.

It would not take more than 500,000 people connecting with each other to make all this happen. There are about 150 million registered voters The media can indirectly create the climate for this civic engagement and shape of the presidential campaign as befits a deliberative, democratic society that is serious about its future and its children.

First, however, the press, TV, and radio have to reduce their endless appetite for focusing on political gossip, tactics, and who has raised more money.

And, the media have to have a higher estimate of their own significance. What say you, publishers, editors, and reporters? It’s your country too!

(Civil.Ge) — Georgia’s Parliamentary committee for human rights gave a go-ahead to formal initiation of a bill, which, if approved, would set mandatory quotas for women to help increase the number of female members in the legislative body

The bill, which was submitted to the parliament by a group of civil society organizations, offers introduction of so called “zipper” system, where male and female candidates would appear alternately on party lists of MP candidates for the next year’s parliamentary elections.

The bill, which was drafted by the Task Force on Women’s Political Participation, a coalition of organizations that advocate for gender equality, aims at increasing share of female legislators in the next parliament to at least 25%.

Currently there are 17 female lawmakers, accounting for 11.3% of 150-seat Parliament. The number of female MPs in the sitting parliament may increase to 18 after by-election in October.

77 seats in the Parliament are allocated based on proportional, party-list system and remaining 73 seats are distributed to majoritarian MPs from single-mandate constituencies.

If the “zipper” quota system is introduced, it will apply to the party-list component and will result into at least 38 female lawmakers in the next parliament.

The decision of the parliamentary committee of human rights does not mean that the bill will be introduced to the parliamentary session for further consideration in its current form.

There is also another bill in the Parliament, which was sponsored by GD ruling coalition lawmaker Nana Keinishvili, according to which political parties must place women in every third position on their list of top 50 MP candidates.

At the committee hearing on September 24, MP Keinishvili said that she supports the bill offered by the civil society groups, envisaging “zipper” system, but if it is not approved by the Parliament, at least her bill should be passed.

At the committee session, female lawmakers, including chairperson of the human rights committee GD MP Eka Beselia, were speaking strongly in favor of the quota system.

Although deputy chairman of the committee GD MP Gedevan Popkhadze said he was against of the quota system in general, he voted in favor of initiation of the bill along with five other members of the committee; one abstained.

Opposition lawmakers were not present at the committee session.

Justice Minister, Tea Tsulukiani, who was present at the committee hearing, said that previously she was also against of quota system, but changed her mind after studying the issue thoroughly.

“Support to opening of parliament’s door for women,” she said. “This door is now closed.”

The quota system, Tsulukiani said, “will make political parties to think about women while compiling their list of [MP] candidates.”

“It will give the country the kind of parliament, which will reflect the Georgian society. Now the parliament does not reflect it, because women are underrepresented,” the Justice Minister said.

Baia Pataraia of Union “Sapari”, an NGO working on helping victims of domestic violence, told lawmakers while presenting the bill at the committee hearing that although the Georgian legislation is gender-neutral, it is not enough to provide for actual equality.

“We do not ask for much,” she said. “We ask for having at least 38 female lawmakers in the Parliament.”

In his annual state of the nation address to the Parliament in March, 2015 President Giorgi Margvelashvili reiterated his support towards introduction of mandatory quotas for women in the legislative body.

Speaking at a conference in Tbilisi on women’s political participation in March, 2015 parliament speaker Davit Usupashvili said that although in general he’s against of any kind mandatory quotas, he’s “a supporter of equality and if I see that it is impossible to achieve equality without setting quotas, then I become a supporter of quotas.”

Usupashvili, however, also suggested that gaining enough support in the Parliament for the initiative to be passed would not be easy and added that even within his Republican Party, which is part of the ruling Georgian Dream coalition, there was no unanimous position over introduction of the quota system.

The Georgian legislation currently envisages financial incentive for parties to include more women in their list of candidates. Task Force on Women’s Political Participation, however, said that this incentive has failed to address the under-representation of women in the Parliament.

By Igor Jovanovic

Serbia and Croatia on Thursday both closed their borders to each other’s freight traffic, and to some passenger traffic, as the two countries exchanged accusations over the influx of refugees.

After Croatia closed most border crossings with Serbia last week, Serbian authorities at midnight Wednesday introduced a counter-blockade on freight coming from Croatia.

Nebojsa Stefanovic, Serbia’s Interior Minister, said that no trucks with Croatian license plates or the vehicles carrying Croatian goods could enter Serbia.

Passenger traffic from Croatia will be allowed in out normally, Stefanovic added.

“We are not happy about this but these measures were introduced to protect our national interest… What Serbia wants is European values to be respected, and that is open borders,” Stefanovic said at the Batrovci border crossing with Croatia.

Croatia then responded by closing its borders to all Serbian vehicles, both cargo and passenger transport.

The Zagreb-based daily Vecernji list cited Croatian Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic as saying that the borders with Serbia would remain closed to all vehicles with Serbian license plates, until Serbia starts sending some of the refugees back towards Hungary.

Serbian Justice minister Nikola Selakovic said that Croatia had brutally violated the idea of freedom of movement.

Croatia has faced a large influx of the refugees coming from Serbia since last week since Hungary closed its borders to Serbia.

Croatia then closed border crossings with Serbia, which alarmed Serbian officials who said their economy would suffer significant damage if the blockade continued.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has written to European officials saying that Croatia, as an EU member, had undermined Serbia’s Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU by closing the border crossings to freight.

Vucic told B92 that Serbia would not stop Croatian citizens from entering Serbia but the blockade on freight will remain. He said it was unacceptable that Croatia was preventing people with Serbian passports from entering.

“To economic measures we can respond with economic measures but to madness you cannot respond,” Vucic said.

“Serbia will not be responding to ludicrous measures. We thought that those times – when you can enter a bus and say you, you and you cannot go any further – are long past,” he said.

Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said he would inform the EU about the Serbian government decision, which he described as an abnormal reaction.

“To be clear, there will be no violence or war… but this is not normal behaviour,” Milanovic said.

He added that Serbia went against EU wishes by introducing counter-measures banning the passage of Croatian goods.

The Croatian Vecernji list reported that EU High Representative Federica Mogherini had talked with Croatian and Serbian leaders and had expressed her hope that the border can be re-opened.

Johannes Hahn, the EU Enlargement Commissioner, who will visit Belgrade on Friday, has urged Western Balkan countries to deal with the problems caused by the large influx of the refugees in a humane way.

“If borders are closed, if trucks are not allowed to cross, it has an immediate impact on the economic situation in the region,“ Hahn said in a press statement on Thursday.