Barely three weeks after Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s official visit, the other Sharif — General Raheel Sharif — sets foot on U.S. soil, albeit without an official invitation. Will Gen. Sharif get what he wants from the U.S. to further his game plan?

By Seema Sirohi*

Pakistan’s army chief General Raheel Sharif is in the U.S. to convince the Obama Administration to stick with him in Afghanistan and leave his growing nuclear arsenal alone.

Pakistan has gone to great lengths to say there would be no discussion on its ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons — the small battlefield nukes that are giving the U.S. establishment sleepless nights.

But this doesn’t mean that the U.S. won’t raise the question. The idea of restraining Pakistan’s nuclear programme in exchange for “mainstreaming” it is on the table and will remain so. It is another matter if the U.S. can convince Pakistan to accept constraints.

That General Sharif comes barely three weeks after Pakistan’s duly elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, to discuss some of the same issues with the Americans is not surprising. The Americans have gone along with this civil-military democracy, even encouraged the military’s supremacy while pleading they can’t change the equation.

The timing of the other Sharif’s visit – without an official invitation – may also signal certain nervousness on his part about PM Sharif’s appearance at the White House. The long, exhaustive U.S.-Pakistan joint statement issued on 22 October appeared to give due importance to Nawaz Sharif. Perhaps it was an attempt by the U.S. to restore a better civil-military balance and egg Gen. Sharif on to do the right thing in Afghanistan.

Though what that right thing is – is very much in question, especially after the fiasco around peace talks with the Taliban, the revelation of Mullah Omar’s death being a long kept secret by Pakistan, the ugly succession fight, the fall of Kunduz to the Taliban, the struggle by Afghan forces to re-take it, Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani’s disillusionment with Pakistan’s promises and finally the absence of a coherent U.S. policy.

The Obama Administration was forced to reconsider Pakistan army’s role in light of Ghani’s public denunciation of Islamabad’s “undeclared” war against Afghanistan. Washington has leaned on Gen. Sharif to close down the safe havens of the Haqqani Network, its public praise of Pakistan army’s brave fight in North Waziristan notwithstanding.

An Indian analyst who recently visited Afghanistan said the Afghans are “extremely worried” about a Taliban takeover even though President Barack Obama has delayed the departure of the remaining 5,500 U.S. troops until December 2016.

The acting U.S. special representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan, Laurel Miller, was in Islamabad recently to find ways to revive the peace process. A minor threat of withholding $300 million in military assistance to Rawalpindi hangs but that’s small change in the larger scheme of things.

Pakistan has received $23 billion in U.S. military and economic aid since 2002 – the year it became a non-NATO ally in the war against terror. Washington announced last month that it would sell eight new F-16 fighter planes to Pakistan, another big carrot in what appears to be a ‘carrots-only’ policy.

It has become clear over the past 15 years that the Pakistan army has benefitted greatly from this war on terror. It has been paid handsomely despite harbouring terrorists who have killed thousands of U.S. and Afghan troops. No doubt, Gen. Sharif will once again pitch for the Taliban and once again interests of the Afghans will be secondary in Rawalpindi’s calculations. The myth-making will resume.

In the absence of a clear U.S. commitment to adequately arm the Afghan forces, Gen. Sharif will likely get what he wants from the U.S. – more time, more pressure on Ghani for concessions and more space for his game plan.

It is not as if Washington is unaware of what is actually going on in Afghanistan. A report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) titled “Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy,” released 15 October said that Pakistan is more worried about denying India space than securing peace in Afghanistan.

“Experts and officials of many governments continue to debate whether Pakistan is committed to Afghan stability or to exerting control of Afghan decisions through the use of proxies and ties to insurgent groups,” the report said.

The Pentagon has repeatedly identified safe havens for Afghan Taliban in Pakistan as a threat and more recent reports say that Pakistan uses “proxy forces in Afghanistan to counter Indian influence there.”

It is well known that Pakistan, in 2013, during a meeting in Britain, demanded that Afghanistan should scale back its relations with India and allow Pakistan to train Afghan security forces. The British formula, unopposed by Washington, has borne no fruit.

Despite Pakistan’s attempted veto, periodically supported by the West, India has played a significant role in Afghanistan with its development aid. It has generated vast amounts of goodwill over the years building schools and roads. Afghan goodwill remains New Delhi’s greatest strength, something that neither the Pakistanis nor the U.S.-UK combined can ignore.

But, this won’t stop Gen. Sharif from raising the Indian bogey with the U.S. The compartmentalised U.S. bureaucracy will ensure he gets a “fair” hearing. He may even get a green signal.

About the author:
*Seema Sirohi is a Washington-based analyst and a frequent contributor to Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. Seema is also on Twitter, and her handle is @seemasirohi

Source:
This feature was written for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations.

The international football federation has banned Laos’ football association chief from all soccer-related activities for two years and fined him nearly U.S. $20,000 for bribery.

Viphet Sihachakr, president of the Lao Football Federation since September 2010, solicited and accepted a payment from another football official, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), which governs association football, said in a press release on Monday.

Viphet accepted the payment in relation to the 2011 elections for FIFA’s executive committee at the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) congress, FIFA said. The AFC is the body that governs the game in Asia.

“It is true that FIFA has banned the president of the Lao Football Federation, and the federation must follow FIFA’s ruling,” said a statement issued by the Lao Football Federation on Wednesday, but added that in this instance, Viphet had not accepted a bribe.

“That is not true,” the statement said, explaining that Viphet had been searching for funds from international and external sources as part of his plan to develop football in Laos when the incident occurred.

“In early 2011, he attended the executive meeting of the Asian Football Confederation and asked for funds from it,” the statement said. “The AFC issued the funds, which is why FIFA says Viphet accepted a bribe.”

The AFC, however, first transferred the funds to Viphet’s own bank account, and not directly to the account of Lao Football Federation, it said.

The statement went on to say that Viphet had transferred the money from his bank account to that of the Lao Football Federation and provided proof of the transfer to internal and external auditors.

“I never thought that my lack of knowledge of football management at that time would cause such a problem today,” Viphet told the Vientiane Times in a Wednesday report. “I never learned football management rules before taking up the position. I just tried my best to look for sponsors from this region of the world to develop football in Laos, but FIFA found that I accepted a payment from the Asian Football Confederation…”

Viphet and his lawyers plan to appeal the decision with the Court of Arbitration for Sport, an international body headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, which settles sports-related disputes through arbitration.

“FIFA will not ban anyone without concrete evidence and facts because it is a large, world-class organization,” said a Lao football fan who resides in the capital Vientiane. “Viphet Sihachakr … has just issued a statement at a press conference making excuses [for his actions] and to save face.”

The fan pointed out that it was illegal for Viphet to allow any sponsors or the AFC to transfer money to his own bank account.

“Based on financial rules, the AFC must transfer [funds] to the account of the Lao Football Federation, which are the normal guidelines that any football federation or civil society organizations and nonprofit associations in Laos must always follow,” he said.

A blow to Lao sports

The corruption scandal is a blow not only for football in Laos, but also for sports as a whole in the developing Southeast Asian nation.

Laos has about 10 semiprofessional football teams, but no leagues as do other countries where the sport is more developed.

“No matter whether he [Viphet] accepted a payment or not, he has to step down to show responsibility for what happened,” another Vientiane resident who requested anonymity.

An official who works for the Lao National Sports Committee told RFA that all football federations have problems with corruption, and Laos is no exception.

“Officials with high-ranking positions on the committee have big houses and become wealthier than they were before [they joined],” he said.

Phouthong Seang-Akhom, former president of the Lao National Sports Committee, was forced to retire after the country hosted the Southeast Asian Games in 2009 because he engaged in corruption, said the source, who declined to be named.

“That’s why the government decided to place the Lao National Sports Committee under the administration of the Ministry of Education and Sports,” he said. “Before that, the government was planning to establish a sports ministry but failed.”

On Monday, FIFA also banned Ganesh Thapa, president of the All-Nepal Football Association, from all football-related activities for 10 years and fined him 20,000 Swiss Francs (nearly U.S. $20,000) following an investigation on bribery charges.

Thapa “committed various acts of misconduct over several years, including the solicitation and acceptance of cash payments from another football official, for both personal and family gain,” in relation to the 2009 and 2011 elections at the AFC congress, according to FIFA’s statement.

The former AFC vice president and current member of Nepal’s parliament is also under investigation by Nepalese authorities for allegedly embezzling millions of dollars of football development money.

Thapa told the BBC that he will appeal the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Reported by Ounkeo Souksavanh for RFA’s Lao Service. Translated by Ounkeo Souksavanh. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

By Sergey Markedonov*

Why does Russia so stubbornly support the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad? This question is frequently discussed in media and political circles. Many American and European analysts consider Moscow’s policy a “phantom of the Cold War” or some kind of dictatorial solidarity. But realism plays a more important role in Moscow’s reasoning than anti-American hostility.

For Russia, Syria is a three-dimensional phenomenon. The first two dimensions are better known: Russia, along with China, has a long-running dispute with the West about the relationship between sovereignty and intervention in the domestic political process. That controversy has not been sparked by the current Syrian crisis; instead, it dates back to the ethnic conflicts in the Balkans in the early 1990s. Secondly, Moscow has economic and geopolitical interests in Syria, ranging from potential business contracts to Russia’s only naval facility on the Mediterranean Sea in Tartus.

The third dimension of Russia’s approach to Syria relates to the situation in the North Caucasus. The currently dominant discourse in Russia is that of a culture that incorporates both Western and Eastern influences while preserving its own distinctiveness. Thus the Kremlin identifies prominent threat to its vision of Russia as a civilization at the intersection of the Christian and Islamic worlds. The most important challenge to be faced is radicalized and militant Islamism.

Nowadays the situation in the North Caucasus no longer resembles the dynamics of the Chechen conflict. Contrary to popular belief, the insurgency in the region is not centered in Chechnya and ethnic secular nationalism does not play any significant role. In each year since 2005, the incidence of recorded violence in Chechnya has been less than or equal to the levels of violence observed in the neighboring republics of Ingushetia and Dagestan. And although the situation in Chechnya can by no means be described as secure or resolved, the vast majority of violent incidents in recent years have taken place outside of the Chechen Republic itself.

The role played by Islam in the societies across the North Caucasus has steadily increased in importance since the late 1990s and early 2000s, especially in comparison to ethnic nationalism. Although the influence of Islam is by no means a novel phenomenon in the North Caucasus, it has become a political tool only in the past decade. Political Islam in the region is a multi-faceted phenomenon. Ramzan Kadyrov, the young Sufi Muslim Chechen leader who is heavily supported by the authorities in Moscow, has used religion to consolidate his power by appealing to an important common thread tying together Chechen identity. In Dagestan, however, deep fissures have developed between the Sufi Muslims who consider religion to be a part of their ethno-national heritage, ultra-religious Salafis who exhibit different levels of radicalism, and outright Jihadists.

The growing influence of the notion of Jihad in the region has been particularly troubling. The Beslan tragedy of September 2004 marks the turning point where the main anti-Russian vocabulary in the North Caucasus switched from one of nationalism to the language of radical Islamism. Though the Jihadist leaders in the North Caucasus often demonstrate a very shallow knowledge of Islam, evidence at times by laughable spelling errors, they have managed to utilize the Islamist discourse effectively to tap into and mobilize the extremist potential in the region.

Since 2011 the number of terrorist attacks in the North Caucasus decreased seriously (especially in Ingushetia). Russia’s special services provided a very effective work on the eve and aftermath the Sochi 2014 Olympics. However the weakened Caucasus Emirate (established in October, 2007) being the most dangerous challenge to Moscow for a long time has been replaced by so-called “Islamic State” (or ISIS).

In November and December last year, some North Caucasian jihadists swore allegiance to Islamic State’s latter-day “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The «inner circle» of ISIS contains more than a few natives of the Greater Caucasus region (one of the most colorful characters, Tarkhan Batirashvili, hails from Pankisi Gorge, Georgia bordering on the Russian North Caucasus). Islamic State is by no means the only force opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — and besides fighting him they are also fighting each other. There are many anti-Assad groups (which are also fighting ISIS) with radical Islamist slogans on their banners. If Assad does indeed fall, do not expect the ideals of European democracy to spring forth in this part of the world.

All aforementioned factors pushed Russia to be more active in Syria and now Moscow does not choose between bad and good options. Its choice is about different sets of challenges. Thus Russia’s interests in Syria should not be viewed solely as elite complexes or imperial fantasies. They are to a large extent pragmatic and relate to a wide spectrum of issues involving domestic security. But despite this pragmatic approach, Russian diplomacy is unable to clearly articulate the country’s national interests. Its spokesmen rely more on emotions than on facts and strict arguments—sometimes exploiting anti-American rhetoric for no good reason. While some in Western circles would criticize Russia for its flawed diplomacy, they should also be careful not to oversimplify Moscow’s positions regarding Syria. Doing so would be unproductive: the North Caucasus jihadists and their potential allies will continue to promote anti-Western views in what will likely remain a problematic Syria, no matter who is in power there.

*Associate Professor at Russian State University for the Humanities, Ph.D.in History

** This article was first published in Analist monthly journal’s November issue in Turkish language.

In this week’s address, the US Vice President Joe Biden spoke to his and President Barack Obama’s commitment to protecting our country from terrorists, while also providing refuge to some of the world’s most vulnerable people. He emphasized that he and the President consider the safety of the American people to be their first priority. But slamming the door in the face of refugees fleeing precisely the type of senseless violence that occurred in Paris last week would be a betrayal of our values. The vast majority of Syrian refugees are women, children, and orphans; survivors of torture; and people desperately in need of medical help. And all refugees undergo the highest level of security checks of any category of traveler to the United States. The Vice President reminded us that ISIL wants us to turn our backs on Muslims victimized by terrorism. We win by prioritizing our security while refusing to compromise our fundamental American values of freedom, openness, and tolerance.

Remarks of Vice President Joe Biden
Weekly Address
The White House
November 21, 2015

Good morning everyone. This past week we’ve seen the best and the worst of humanity. The heinous terrorist attacks in Paris and Beirut, in Iraq and Nigeria. They showed us once again the depths of the terrorist’s depravity.

And at the same time we saw the world come together in solidarity. Parisians opening their doors to anyone trapped in the street, taxi drivers turning off their meters to get people home safety, people lining up to donate blood. These simple human acts are a powerful reminder that we cannot be broken and in the face of terror we stand as one. In the wake of these terrible events, I understand the anxiety that many Americans feel. I really do. I don’t dismiss the fear of a terrorist bomb going off. There’s nothing President Obama and I take more seriously though, than keeping the American people safe.

In the past few weeks though, we’ve heard an awful lot of people suggest that the best way to keep America safe is to prevent any Syrian refugee from gaining asylum in the United States.

So let’s set the record straight how it works for a refugee to get asylum. Refugees face the most rigorous screening of anyone who comes to the United States. First they are finger printed, then they undergo a thorough background check, then they are interviewed by the Department of Homeland Security. And after that the FBI, the National Counterterrorism Center, the Department of Defense and the Department of State, they all have to sign off on access.

And to address the specific terrorism concerns we are talking about now, we’ve instituted another layer of checks just for Syrian refugees. There is no possibility of being overwhelmed by a flood of refugees landing on our doorstep tomorrow. Right now, refugees wait 18 to 24 months while the screening process is completed. And unlike in Europe, refugees don’t set foot in the United States until they are thoroughly vetted.

Let’s also remember who the vast majority of these refugees are: women, children, orphans, survivors of torture, people desperately in need medical help.

To turn them away and say there is no way you can ever get here would play right into the terrorists’ hands. We know what ISIL – we know what they hope to accomplish. They flat-out told us.

Earlier this year, the top ISIL leader al-Baghdadi revealed the true goal of their attacks. Here’s what he said: “Compel the crusaders to actively destroy the gray zone themselves. Muslims in the West will quickly find themselves between one and two choices. Either apostatize or emigrate to the Islamic State and thereby escape persecution.” So it’s clear. It’s clear what ISIL wants. They want to manufacture a clash between civilizations. They want frightened people to think in terms of “us versus them.”

They want us to turn our backs on Muslims victimized by terrorism. But this gang of thugs peddling a warped ideology, they will never prevail. The world is united in our resolve to end their evil. And the only thing ISIL can do is spread terror in hopes that we will in turn, turn on ourselves. We will betray our ideals and take actions, actions motivated by fear that will drive more recruits into the arms of ISIL. That’s how they win. We win by prioritizing our security as we’ve been doing. Refusing to compromise our fundamental American values: freedom, openness, tolerance. That’s who we are. That’s how we win.

May God continue to bless the United States of America and God bless our troops.

The Belgian capital, Brussels, is facing a “serious and imminent” threat of a terrorist attack, with a government official warning the public to avoid crowds, while the metro has been closed. Brussels has raised its alert status to the highest possible level.

Brussels security forces are looking for at least two men, one of who might be carrying a bomb of the same type used in Paris attacks on November 13, Belgian Le Soir reported.

“The advice for the population is to avoid places where a lot of people come together, like shopping centers, concerts, events or public transport stations wherever possible,” a spokesman for the government’s crisis center said, Reuters reported.

The recommendation came after the government increased its threat scale to “level four” following a meeting of ministers, police and the security services.

The government spokesman did not say what had prompted the new measures to be taken.

A statement on the crisis center’s website has called on local authorities to cancel large events, such as football matches, and to close the Brussels metro for the weekend as well has having a greater police and military presence on the city’s streets.

The UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office has offered a new update for its citizens traveling to Belgium, or already in the country.

“Following the terrorist attacks in Paris on 13 November and subsequent police raids in Belgium and France, the Belgian government has increased its national threat level to the top level, very serious, for the Brussels region, indicating that the threat of a terrorist attack is serious and imminent; people should avoid places where there is a high concentration of people,” the statement read.

The terror threat throughout Belgium has been raised following the Paris terror attacks. The country has been at the center of investigations into who carried out the deadly assaults, as it emerged that two of the suicide bombers had been living in Brussels. Three people have been arrested so far in Belgium and are facing terrorism charges.

The Molenbeek area in central Brussels has been in the headlines over the past week as it was from this district in the Belgian capital where some of the terrorists who carried out the Paris attacks were living.

Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon says it is time for the government to take the necessary steps to tackle the problems of jihadism and radicalization in the area, while adding that they will check “every address in Molenbeek.”

“It is unacceptable that we do not know who is living in this area,” he said in an interview with the Het Nieuwsblad newspaper. “There are two people registered in some apartments, but actually 10 living there.”

Jambon is calling for door-to-door searches to take place.

“The local authorities must go from door-to-door, ring the bell and ask who actually lives there. An address should be checked by a police officer when a person goes to live at a new abode,” the interior minister added, speaking to Het Nieuwsblad.

One of the suspected participants in the Paris attacks, Salah Abdeslam, returned to Brussels from Paris following the November 13 assaults. He managed to arrive back in the Belgian capital having evaded police three times. His elder brother Brahim blew himself up at a cafe in Paris.

Fears that Salah Abdeslam could still pose a security threat caused the Belgian government to cancel an international football friendly between Belgium and Spain during the week. However, no official reason has been given for the heightened security.

“We cannot give more information… The work of federal prosecutors is still going on,” a Crisis Center spokesman said, as cited by Reuters, adding the government was assessing what extra security measures to take. Soldiers are already on guard in certain parts of Brussels, including at the institutions of the European Union headquartered in the city. Brussels is also home to the headquarters of NATO.

The last time any part of Belgium was put on maximum alert was in May 2014 when four people were shot dead by a gunman at the Jewish Museum in Brussels. In that instance, Jewish schools, synagogues and other institutions were put on a “level four” alert.

Samieh Tahmasbi, the head of the National Trust Party’s women’s branch, says it is aiming to capture 30 percent of parliamentary seats in the coming election.

Tahmasbi told the Mehr News Agency the number of women MPs “is not befitting of Iranian women and this number cannot provide women with their demands.” There are currently nine female MPs in the Iranian Parliament.

Tahmasbi said they hope that the Guardian Council does not deny eligibility to female candidates and that “active and experienced” women can find their way to Parliament in March.

Reformist organizations are seriously concerned that the Guardian Council, which is dominated by hardliners, will prevent reformist candidates from running in the election. The Guardian Council is responsible for determining the eligibility of candidates.

Fatemeh Hashmi Rafsanjani told ISNA that if women find their way into Parliament, “clearly it will help reduce gender discrimination and lead to positive change in legislation.”

Eighty women in total have been elected to Parliaments of the Islamic Republic, and the fifth Parliament had the highest number with fourteen.

The tenth round of elections for Parliament will take place in March of 2016. The elections for the Assembly of Experts, the only body charged with overseeing the Supreme Leader, will take place at the same time.

By Rodolfo C. Estimo Jr.

Saudi Arabia’s Education Minister Azzam Al-Dakhil has reiterated his commitment to widen the scope of Islamic education.

“We need to exert concerted efforts to review and discuss Islamic awareness which will help us in guiding our children onto the correct path for their emotional and intellectual development,” he said.

Al-Dakhil made the statement during a phone call to the participants in the annual meeting on Islamic awareness in Yanbu.

He apologized for his inability to join them but expressed confidence in the supervisors of the program and their role in the achievement of the objectives of the meeting.

He said that “Islamic guidance of our children is of utmost importance since it will protect them from feelings of insecurity and deception.”

“From the working papers you have submitted, I could see your clear perception regarding the most important educational strategies to achieve self-confidence and the ability to exchange appreciation with others,” he said.

He also stressed the need to draw up a list of the ideas of the participants and their recommendations and their needs at the end of the meeting for implementation.

He expressed his hope that the meeting will yield meaningful results for Islamic education that would benefit and guide the youth.

The meeting was being held for the second day and the emphasis was on the importance of Islamic education in contemporary times.

(RFE/RL) — Iranian media are reporting that thousands of Basij paramilitary troops have participated in an exercise simulating an attack on the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

Some 120 brigades of Basij, which is the paramilitary arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC), stormed and captured a replica of the mosque in the city of Qom on November 20.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest site in Islam, and the site is also sacred for Jews, who refer to it as Temple Mount.

The area has been a focus of tensions between Israelis and Palestinians in recent weeks after the Israeli government implemented new security restrictions at the site.

The restrictions sparked violence that has left 83 Palestinians and 12 Israelis dead over the last seven weeks.

The Qom exercise also included the participation of IRGC helicopters, drones, and other aircraft that simulated the bombing of hypothetical Israeli positions.

Photos showed the Iranian flag flying over the replica of the mosque compound.

Iran does not recognize Israel and has called for its dissolution. Tehran supports anti-Israeli militants throughout the Middle East.

By Kirstin Berndt

In downtown Riyadh, SUV-populated intersections and lushly landscaped parks leave little indication that Saudi Arabia is rapidly depleting its oil and water resources. The Saudi predilection for gas-guzzling vehicles and water-intensive leisure spaces is hardly surprising- governmental subsidies have long obscured the true cost of these resources.

Saudis pay about 60 cents a gallon at the pump, which makes the average cost to fill a tank less than $20. Electricity, powered primarily by oil, costs only USD 0.6 per kilowatt hour. Drinking water supplied to Saudi households is so cheap that it is practically free. These low commodity rates are viewed by many as traditional perks of Saudi birthright, and Riyadh has traditionally shied away from raising tariffs and risking public ire. Placating the masses through subsidies and handouts, after all, has been a successful strategy for maintaining the House of Saud’s enduring grip on power in a region plagued by uprisings and political volatility. Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi recently reaffirmed that there is no “dire need” for the Kingdom to cut energy subsidies in response to rumors that Riyadh was discussing adjustments to the subsidy program.

Yet a system of high subsidies is ultimately unsustainable for the Kingdom. Most obviously, the costly system is contributing to a rapid depletion of governmental coffers. With oil prices still slumping, Saudi Arabia faces skyrocketing debt and depleted monetary reserves. Equally important – high subsidies distort the true cost of resources, encourage overconsumption, and foster a public misperception that energy and water supplies are inexhaustible.

Depleting Monetary Resources

The Kingdom’s energy subsidy program runs up an annual bill of over $107 billion, or 13.2% of the country’s total GDP. This year has seen plenty of additional discretionary spending by Riyadh as well. When King Salman ascended the throne in January, Riyadh doled out $32 billion in handouts as a gesture of goodwill. Saudi Arabia first launched air strikes in Yemen this March, and ongoing military involvement is exorbitantly expensive.

All of these added expenses have steadily hemorrhaged the Saudi national budget at an unprecedented rate, and the rest of the world has taken note. Several weeks ago, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the Kingdom’s credit rating due to excessive Saudi expenditures and persistently depressed oil prices. After years of healthy budget surpluses from high oil revenues, Saudi Arabia will experience a large budget deficit in 2015 – as much as 20% of the country’s GDP. If oil prices fall any lower, that deficit will climb. Even more alarmingly, the International Monetary Fund predicted that Saudi Arabia could completely deplete its fiscal reserves by 2020 if oil prices fail to rebound and high governmental spending continues unabated. If the country does manage to burn through its multi-billion dollar stash of cash reserves, it has only its own negligence to blame.

Depleting Natural Resources

Depleted fiscal reserves aren’t the only source of concern for the country – Saudi Arabia is also draining its energy resources, the lifeblood of the country’s economy. Domestic oil consumption increases by more than 7% a year, which disproportionately outstrips the population growth rate. The country burns about 25% of its oil on domestic consumption alone, cutting into potential export profits in a challenging energy production environment.

Power demand grows by almost 8% every year, and low electricity prices discourage innovation and investment in energy-efficient alternatives. Tellingly, Saudi Arabia is one of the largest consumers of crude oil for electricity generation in the entire world. Increasing water demand further strains power generation capabilities. The Kingdom depends on desalination plants for the bulk of the country’s potable water supply, which require roughly 8 times the amount of energy as traditional groundwater extraction methods.

Domestic energy consumption is so out of control that Citigroup famously estimated that Saudi Arabia could become a net energy importing country by 2030 – an unthinkable demotion for the world’s oil kingpin. Even so, the more immediate problem for the Kingdom is a looming water shortage. The World Resources Institute lists Saudi Arabia as one of the world’s most water-stressed countries, but the Kingdom continues to consume water at double the average world consumption rate. The effects of never-ending water demand are already apparent. The country’s depleted domestic aquifers can no longer support water-intensive agriculture. By 2016, Saudi Arabia will become 100% dependent on foreign wheat imports after years of relative self-sustainability.

Alternatives for the Kingdom

Thus far, the Kingdom has done remarkably little to reduce overconsumption of its depleting resources. Two recent developments are particularly telling, signaling Riyadh’s unwillingness to directly confront the subsidy system.

First, Riyadh has attempted to outsource its water shortage by purchasing resources overseas. The Kingdom secured a large swath of fertile Arizona land to grow alfalfa hay for its domestic dairy herds. Purchasing foreign resources remains an option for Saudi policy-makers only if their cash reserves endure. This strategy, however, fails to tackle the underlying problem of overconsumption that led to the country’s aquifer depletion in the first place.

Second, the Ministry of Water and Electricity announced plans to double water tariffs for corporations and industries by December of this year. These rates will not impact individual consumers, suggesting that the government is still too afraid of public backlash to charge consumers for the full price.

Saudi Arabia must tackle its issues of overspending and overconsumption more aggressively by cutting dependence on governmental subsidies. Continued subsidization encourages overconsumption of resources, reduces incentive for energy-efficient innovation, and rapidly depletes national savings. The situation in Saudi Arabia may not yet be “dire,” as al-Naimi asserts. In the current oil price environment, however, Saudi Arabia should be more concerned about preserving its resources than preventing public disapproval. Otherwise, those luxury SUV sales and grassy parks might not last much longer.

This article was published at Geopolitical Monitor.com

The elections in Myanmar finally come to a close with Suu Kyi-led NLD’s landslide victory. The military establishment has accepted defeat. Suu Kyi, who can’t be the president, has made it clear that she would be ‘above the president’. How should India read Myanmar now and act to safeguard its interests?

By Rajiv Bhatia*

Even though the military in Myanmar has accepted defeat, a mixture of uncertainty and concern prevails as to which way the country will move now.

At the time of writing, results for only three seats in the bicameral parliament are yet to be announced. The National League for Democracy (NLD) has won 387 out of 478 seats. The party has already claimed credibly, based on its direct association with the counting process, that it was set to win over 75% seats.

The real uncertainty pertains to likely decisions by the two most powerful men of the present dispensation – President Thein Sein and Commander-in Chief (C-in-C) Min Aung Hlaing. But the central point is that neither man could be very happy today. Once again, as in 1990, the army leadership has been caught by surprise by the decisive nature of NLD’s victory as well as the power and magic of Aung San Suu Kyi’s charisma.

What does the military plan to do now? Some clues may be discerned in the comments made by the two leaders during the months preceding the election. Here are some of the key points:

• Two days before the election, President Thein Sein urged all parties to accept the results ‘with magnanimity.’ He asserted that the government and army would respect the outcome. He also said that to ensure peace after the elections, he would hold talks with leaders of political parties to find ‘solutions for any potential issues.’
• On 20 October the C-in-C cautioned military personnel and their families to vote for the ‘correct candidates’ who can protect ‘race and religion’ and are free from ‘any influence of external organizations or foreigners.’ This was seen as a subtle appeal to vote against NLD and its leader.
• In an interview on 22 August, the C-in-C pledged to accept the outcome of the elections, but he made it clear that the army’s role in politics would continue as before. ‘Whichever party takes control of the government, it must act within the framework of the constitution,’ he stated.
• In an interview with BBC on 20 July, the C-in-C gave no signs to reduce the military’s grip on Myanmar’s political life, indicating that this would have to wait until ceasefires and peace deals had been concluded with all of Myanmar’s ethnic armed groups. ‘It could be five or ten years – I couldn’t say,’ he revealed.

The anxiety level of the establishment may have increased considerably by the consistent reiteration by Suu Kyi that she will be ‘above the president’ or, in effect, a de facto president. The NLD presidential nominee, as she sees it, will be a president in name only, while she takes all the decisions. Experts have, in this context, pointed to a stipulation in the constitution that the President ‘takes precedence’ over all others in the Republic. This could be a major fault line in the new era. Another would be the military’s inability to even get one of the two posts of vice president, given that NLD will have an absolute majority in the parliament.

Some suggest that, instead of fashioning her role as an extra-constitutional authority, Suu Kyi should, as an interim measure, sit at the cabinet table as a Senior Minister-Mentor, guide the new president and help him to work smoothly with the military. While her recent statements leave little room for this scenario, it is possible that hers is an opening gambit. She has people’s power and the mandate; the generals have firepower and a lock on much of the state machinery.

Our main conclusion is that the people in Myanmar have spoken. They want real democracy under Suu Kyi’s leadership, but the constitution under which the elections were held, does not cater for this eventuality. The nation faces a fundamental clash of political visions, one favoured by the army and the other by the pro-democracy movement. This clash can be resolved only if both sides agree to cooperate constructively in the public interest.

Confronting an array pressing challenges, both internal and external, Myanmar cannot afford dual centers of power or confusion within its government. What it needs is a strong, stable, democratic and inclusive government, not one riven from within. It is to be hoped that the meeting requested by Suu Kyi with the president and other high dignitaries will begin to develop a credible roadmap.

A few voices in India’s civil society have boldly suggested that the Indian government should promote reconciliation between the army and Suu Kyi. This stems from an unrealistic perspective. No one has asked for New Delhi’s assistance, which remains committed to non-interference in a neighbour’s internal affairs. Myanmar offers an extremely complicated wicket, and those authorised to play are from that country alone. The solution needs to emerge from within. What India can do is to voice its commitment at the highest level to deepen its multi-dimensional cooperation with Myanmar.

About the author:
*Rajiv Bhatia is a former ambassador to Myanmar. His book India–Myanmar Relations: Changing contours has recently been published by Routledge.

Source:
This feature was written for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations.

Libya joined the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 1962, a year after Libya began exporting oil.¹ Libya holds the largest amount of proved crude oil reserves in Africa, the fifth-largest amount of proved natural gas reserves on the continent, and in past years was an important contributor to the global supply of light, sweet (low sulfur) crude oil, which Libya mostly exports to European markets.

Exploration and development

The country’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) has emphasized the need to apply enhanced oil recovery techniques to increase crude oil production at maturing oil fields. Before the 2011 civil war, the NOC claimed that capacity additions of about 775,000 b/d were possible from existing oil fields.

Management of the hydrocarbon industry

Production

Libya’s oil production was disrupted for most of 2011 because of the civil war, but it recovered relatively quickly following the cessation of most hostilities. The country’s oil sector was crippled again in mid-2013 as widespread protests led to a sharp deterioration of the security environment and the closure of loading ports, oil fields, and pipelines. Most of the country’s oil production continues to be disrupted.

Crude oil exports

Libya typically exports most of its crude oil to European countries, with Italy being the leading recipient. The United States resumed importing crude oil from Libya in 2004 after sanctions were removed, although the amount imported typically is small.

Consumption and refining

Natural gas

As with its oil sector, Libya’s natural gas industry recovered in 2012, but production still remained below the pre-war level. Libya’s rank as a producer and reserve holder is less significant for natural gas than it is for oil. About half of its natural gas production is exported to Italy via the Greenstream pipeline.

Sector organization

Exploration and production

Libya’s natural gas production and exports increased considerably after 2003 with the development of the Western Libya Gas Project and with the opening of the Greenstream pipeline to Italy. Italy is currently the sole recipient of Libya’s natural gas exports.

Consumption and exports

In 1971, Libya became the third country in the world, after Algeria and the United States (Alaska), to begin exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG). In the past, the country exported a small amount of LNG to Spain. However, Libya’s LNG plant was damaged during the 2011 civil war, and Libya has not exported LNG since early 2011.

Electricity

Electricity generation more than doubled from 2000 to 2010. Despite growth in electricity generation in Libya and a high electrification rate, Libya suffers from regular power outages.

Notes:

Endnotes:

The IMF will soon consider an important change to its policy on lending that may help continue its bailout programme to Ukraine, even if Ukraine defaults on a loan from Russia that matures in December 2015. If it does make the change, the IMF could be staking its credibility to favour the West’s political agenda

By Sharmadha Srinivasan*

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is scheduled to hold a meeting towards the end of November to review its “lending-into-arrears” policy. [1] This has important geopolitical implications for the ongoing Ukraine-Russia debt negotiations—Russia has given a $3 billion Russian loan to Ukraine, which will mature in December 2015. [2]

The IMF’s policy on sovereign arrears stipulates that the institution cannot lend to a country that has defaulted on a loan from a government—and it is this policy that will influence the trajectory of the Ukraine-Russia negotiations. [3]

At the G20 Summit in Turkey on 16 November, Russia reportedly put forth a more positive repayment proposal than it had initially offered. Ukraine has not yet responded. But if it does not accept the deal (the details of which are still unknown), will the IMF alter its lending policy to continue funding Ukraine?

The Ukraine-Russia negotiations and the IMF’s possible policy change—whereby it can continue lending to a country that has defaulted on a sovereign loan—raises pertinent questions: Can geopolitics drive the agenda of a technocratic institution such as the IMF, and if so, will the Ukraine debt negotiations bury the IMF’s credibility as a non-partisan lender?

The IMF has frequently been criticised for its policy recommendations to countries in economic crises. This has led to debates about whether the Fund’s prescriptions, ranging from structural reforms to austerity measures to curb debt, actually benefit the country in crisis. But that is not necessarily an accusation that the IMF’s policies are driven by the political agenda of the West.

Now, for the first time, it’s being asked if the IMF will bend its long-standing policy on lending by maintaining its own financial lifeline to Ukraine, in order to secure the geopolitical interests of the West.

This will be known when Ukraine’s loan from Russia matures in December. [4] The loan was part of a larger $15 billion aid package from Russia to Ukraine in December 2013; it was aimed at securing the allegiance of the country, amidst the political chaos of that time. [5]

But after an initial tranche of $3 billion, Russia stopped further disbursements in February 2014, when Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted from power and a new, West-friendly government headed by Petro Poroshenko was elected.

The repayment of the $3 billion by Ukraine to Russia has enormous implications for the $17.5 billion bailout package offered by the IMF to Ukraine in March 2015. [6] While two instalments of $5 billion and $1.7 billion have already been given, the IMF will have to discontinue further disbursements if Ukraine even partly defaults on its debt to Russia, because the Fund’s lending policy states that it cannot give loans to a country that is in arrears to sovereign creditors. [7]

If the IMF bailout, provided under its Extended Fund Facility (EFF), is terminated, it will have repercussions on the willingness of other international private creditors to provide financing to Ukraine. It will also make the G7 wary of Ukraine’s vulnerable financial position.

Ukraine is aware of these geopolitics and remains confident that lending will continue even if it defaults on the Russian Eurobond. [8] Strong support to Ukraine from the G7 may indeed push the IMF to bend its rules over sovereign arrears.

At present, the West does not have a plan B to save Ukraine (if Plan A, to change the IMF policy on funding, does not work). Meanwhile, Russia has said that it will question the validity of the IMF’s lending programme in case of non-repayment of Russia’s loan. [9]

Another way that the IMF could overcome the roadblock is by simply declaring the sovereign loan as private debt, though this is less likely because the IMF has already spoken of classifying the debt as official.

If the debt were indeed categorised as private, the IMF could resume disbursing the next tranches under its “lending-into-arrears to private creditors” policy. [10] According to this policy, the Fund can lend to countries which have defaulted on their debt with private creditors, as long as the IMF member is pursuing appropriate policies to restructure the debt, and if the funding is deemed essential for the successful implementation of the member country’s adjustment programme.

Thus, in spite of Ukraine’s private creditors—Franklin Templeton, BTG Pactual (Brazil), TCW Investment Management and T.Rowe Price—taking a 20% principal writedown on a $18 billion loan in a restructured deal in August, the IMF was able to continue its bailout programme.[11] But this will not be the case if Ukraine fails to repay $3 billion to Russia and the IMF classifies the debt as “official.” [12]

A failure to either classify the debt as “official” or to change the lending policy inspite of a Ukrainian default would cast doubts on the IMF’s technocratic profile—of a Fund that gives loans to countries in times of economic crises to tide over their balance of payment problems. At stake here is the credibility of an institution mandated with ensuring the stability of the international monetary system.

The IMF can be justifiably accused of many things—particularly of lending tied to Washington Consensus economic policies, such as cutting down on fiscal spending, reducing public and foreign debt, and undertaking structural reforms to make the economy more open. But these are economic considerations, and the Fund so far has not blatantly secured the geopolitical interests of the West.  An exception made for Ukraine would be just that.

The IMF counters these doubts by stating that its “lending-into-arrears”policy has been under review since a discussion paper on sovereign debt in 2013. [13] Right now though, the timing of the potential rule change points to less innocuous intentions.

If the IMF supports Ukraine in the case of an eventual default, it will bring up the question of whether the IMF is acting differently because Russia is the creditor. It will also strengthen Greece’s case against the IMF, of unfair treatment. And it will reinforce the view that the bailouts by the European Commission, the European Central bank, and the IMF were advanced because of France and Germany’s exposure to Greece’s debt.

It will also have implications for new multilateral institutions such as the New Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which plan to follow the lending standard set by the IMF. More competition should raise standards, but what happens if the IMF sets a bad precedent?

About the author:
*Sharmadha Srinivasan is a Junior researcher at Gateway House.

Source:
This feature was written for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations.

References:
[1] International Monetary Fund, Transcript of a Press Briefing by Gerry Rice, Director, Communications Department, 12 November 2015,<https://www.imf.org/external/np/tr/2015/tr111215.htm>

[2] Ministry of Finance, Ukraine, Statement from Ukraine Ministry of Finance on talks with German and Russian counterparts, 10 October 2015, <http://www.minfin.gov.ua/en/news/view/zajava-ministerstva-finansiv-schodo-rozmovi-z-kolegami-z-nimechchini-ta-rosii?category=novini-ta-media&subcategory=vsi-novini,>; The Atlantic Council, Ukraine Must Not Pay Russia Back, 2 November 2015, <http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/ukraine-must-not-pay-russia>

[3] International Monetary Fund, Transcript of a Press Briefing by William Murray, Deputy Spokesperson, Communications Department, International Monetary Fund,  26 March 2015,<https://www.imf.org/external/np/tr/2015/tr032615.htm>

[4] The Atlantic Council, Ukraine Must Not Pay Russia Back, 2 November 2015, <http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/ukraine-must-not-pay-russia>

[5] President of Russia, Press statement following a meeting of Russian-Ukrainian Interstate Commission, 17 December 2013,<http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/19854>

[6] International Monetary Fund,  Ukriaine : Financial Position in the Fund as of October 31st 2015, <https://www.imf.org/external/np/fin/tad/exfin2.aspx?memberkey1=993&date1Key=2015-10-31>

[7] International Monetary Fund, IMF Executive Board Completes First Review of Ukraine’s EFF and Approves US$1.7 Billion, International Monetary Fund, 31 July 2015,<https://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2015/pr15364.htm>

[8] Bloomberg, Ukraine Sees IMF Bailout Continuing Even With Russia Bond Unpaid, 6 October 2015,<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-05/ukraine-sees-imf-bailout-continuing-even-with-russia-bond-unpaid>

[9] Doff, Natasha and Ilya Arkhipov, Russia Will Question Ukraine’s IMF Program If Bond Not Paid, Bloomberg, 7September  2015,<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-07/russia-will-question-ukraine-s-imf-program-if-bond-not-paid>

[10] International Monetary Fund, IMF Managing Director Issues Statement on Ukraine, 12 June 2015,<https://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2015/pr15272.htm>

[11]Federal Foreign office,Foreign Minister Steinmeier on Ukraine’s agreement with private creditors, 27 August 2015,<http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/EN/Infoservice/Presse/Meldungen/2015/150827_Ukraine.html>

[12]International Monetary Fund, Transcript of a Press Briefing by William Murray, Deputy Spokesperson, Communications Department, International Monetary Fund,  26 March 2015,<https://www.imf.org/external/np/tr/2015/tr032615.htm>

[13] International Monetary Fund, IMF Executive Board Discusses Strengthening the Contractual Framework in Sovereign Debt Restructuring, 6 October 2014,<https://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2014/pr14459.htm>

In early November, Pakistan’s chief of army staff, General Raheel Sharif, made an important visit to Saudi Arabia. The general met with King Salman and other top officials in Riyadh, where he stressed Islamabad’s commitment to ensuring the safety and protection of Mecca and Medina, as well as Saudi Arabia’s territorial integrity. The Saudi officials, in turn, called for peace and stability in Pakistan and praised the Pakistani military’s efforts to fight terrorism in the ongoing Zarb-i-Azb campaign. Dignitaries from both sides issued a joint statement emphasizing their “responsibility towards Muslim ummah” and mutual fears stemming from the plethora of ongoing regional security crises.

The Saudi media credited General Sharif’s two-day trip with ending a “somewhat cool” period in relations dating back to April, when the Pakistani parliament unanimously voted against joining Operation Decisive Storm (later named Operation Restoring Hope). Observers stated that the meeting marked the beginning of a “reset” in Saudi-Pakistani ties and an end to the friction caused by their disagreement over Yemen earlier this year. Given what is at stake in the region, both governments clearly have a vested interest in putting the alliance back on track. However, shifts in the Middle East and South Asia’s geopolitical order raise questions about the alliance’s long-term prospects.

A Unique Relationship

Saudi and Pakistani leaders have maintained warm relations throughout modern history. One former Saudi intelligence official called the relationship “probably one of the closest relationships in the world between any two countries.” It is important to remember that the Saudi monarchy is credited with having saved current Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s life. In 2000, the kingdom provided him asylum after the Saudis convinced then-President Pervez Musharraf to release him from jail, where he had been held since the military ousted Sharif in 1999.

For decades, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have maintained a unique alliance, rooted in Al Saud’s self-anointed religious legitimacy, the strength and expertise of Pakistan’s military, the two states’ common geopolitical interests and the 1.5 million Pakistani laborers in the kingdom. The Saudis see Pakistan, which shares a 565-mile border with Iran and is the only Muslim nation with nuclear weapons, as a vital ally capable of serving as an effective counterweight to growing Iranian influence.

The kingdom came to the side of Pakistan in the late 1990s and provided the country with $2 billion worth of free crude oil after the U.S. imposed nuclear sanctions on Islamabad. In fact, Riyadh tacitly bankrolled Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. It is widely presumed that if Saudi Arabia were to decide to pursue a nuclear weapons program, Pakistan would help Riyadh achieve that status.

Since the 1960s, Pakistani soldiers have been permanently stationed in the kingdom and Islamabad has provided Saudi Arabia with much military aid, expertise and cooperation on regional affairs. In 1969, Pakistani pilots helped the Saudis attack South Yemen to counter rebel forces. During the 1980s, Pakistan deployed its troops to Saudi Arabia to protect the kingdom from the mutually perceived Iranian threat, while Riyadh collaborated with Islamabad and Washington to train and arm the mujahideen fighting in the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989). During the Gulf War of 1991, 11,000 Pakistani troops were in Saudi Arabia “protecting” holy sites. When Bahrain’s uprising erupted in 2011, the Fauji Foundation (a Pakistani energy conglomerate linked to the military) recruited at least 2,500 former Pakistani servicemen to assist Gulf Arab security forces in suppressing Shi’ite demonstrators demanding equality in the Sunni-ruled island kingdom.

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan Agree to Disagree on Yemen

Despite this strong historical alliance, Pakistan decided against entering the fray in Yemen earlier this year for three main reasons. First, a high priority for Pakistan is to balance its relations with Saudi Arabia and neighboring Iran. Islamabad saw siding with Riyadh in Yemen—a flashpoint in the Saudi-Iranian geopolitical rivalry—as risky, given its potential to offset this delicate balance and poison the atmosphere for any possible improvement in relations with Iran. Second, many Pakistani Shiites staunchly opposed the Saudi campaign against Yemen’s Zaydi Houthi rebel movement. Officials in Islamabad viewed Pakistan’s entry into the conflict in Yemen as having the potential to ignite sectarian unrest and terrorism at home. Third, Pakistan’s military was focused on Operation Zarb-i-Azb along the Afghan border and did not want to open a third front for Pakistan’s already stretched military.

Despite the friction between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan stemming from their disagreement over Yemen, Riyadh is determined to prevent the conflict from creating too much space between itself and Islamabad. The Saudis face a host of setbacks internationally and domestically, and amidst these challenges the Saudi king saw much value in resetting Riyadh’s alliance with Islamabad, letting it be known that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan can agree to disagree on Yemen and still maintain their “special relationship.”

As the military campaign against the Houthis has thus far failed to achieve Saudi Arabia’s stated objectives and appears to be a quagmire, Pakistani officials were wise to have resisted joining the Gulf Arab–dominated coalition in Yemen. Some analysts have even suggested that the Saudis may soon become grateful for Pakistan’s decision to maintain a neutral stance, because it is possible that Islamabad could play a future role as peace broker in Yemen. Yet given the realities on the ground in Yemen, particularly pertaining to the growing power of militant Islamist extremists whose factions are unlikely to agree to any form of a negotiated peace agreement, any political compromise that can settle the Yemeni crisis appears merely a concept at this juncture.

China, Iran and India

As Islamabad and Riyadh explore deeper relations with other players in the region, the long-term trajectory of Saudi Arabia’s alliance with Pakistan is difficult to predict.

Like the U.S., Pakistan recently has signaled its interest in making a pivot to Asia and away from the Middle East. China, which has wielded significant political and economic influence in Pakistan for many years, is financing and constructing an economic corridor linking Pakistan’s port of Gwadar to China’s Xinjiang province. The same month in which Pakistan refused to deploy troops to join the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, Islamabad promised Beijing 10,000 troops (5,000 of which came from the elite “Special Services Group”) to protect Chinese laborers working on the construction of this corridor in Pakistan. It says a lot about Sino-Pakistani relations that the Chinese would agree to build the economic corridor under such security conditions. Unquestionably, Islamabad serves as one of Beijing’s key strategic allies in its battle against India for economic and political supremacy in greater Asia.

Included in the $46 billion deal was the construction of a gas pipeline (to be completed as soon as 2017) linking the port of Gwadar to Iran’s South Pars field. The pipeline is expected to cost $3 billion, of which $2 billion will finance the construction of a Liquefied Natural Gas terminal at the port of Gwadar. China, determined to create a modern-day Silk Road linking its eastern cities to the Persian Gulf, agreed to provide 85 percent of the funding for this pipeline with a loan; Pakistan has agreed to finance the rest. Clearly, energy-starved Pakistan is eager to explore deeper relations with energy-rich Iran, now that global powers and Tehran have signed the nuclear agreement and international sanctions are beginning to loosen. Yet in viewing Iran as a predatory state determined to wreak havoc across the Middle East, the Saudi rulers are most unsettled by Islamabad’s deepening relationship with Tehran and question Pakistan’s long-term reliability as a strategic ally. The Saudis have actively sought to counter Iranian influence in Pakistan. For example, earlier this year, WikiLeaks released documents exposing high-ranking Saudi diplomats’ efforts to promote Saudi influence in Pakistan’s universities and prevent Iranian scholars from making inroads at such academic institutions in Pakistan.

Further complicating the landscape is Saudi Arabia’s deepening relationship with India. Although official diplomatic relations between the two states date back to 1955, Riyadh and Delhi’s relationship received a major upgrade in 2006 when King Abdullah visited India and signed the Delhi Declaration, aimed at enhancing bilateral cooperation in security sectors. In 2010, India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and King Abdullah signed the Riyadh Declaration, establishing the basis for enhanced counterterrorism efforts between the two governments and the eventual signing of the extradition treaty. In 2012, following the visit of India’s Defense Minister to the kingdom, Delhi reportedly helped Riyadh establish a jungle warfare college, aimed at training Saudi forces to combat al-Qaeda fighters near Saudi Arabia’s southern border with Yemen.

The extent to which Indian-Saudi cooperation on security improved was illustrated in July 2012, when Saudi authorities arrested Zabiuddin Ansari, the Indian terrorist responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks. He was living in the kingdom with a Pakistani passport while seeking new recruits for a “massive attack” in India. Although Ansari’s possession of a Pakistani passport would have normally led the Saudis to extradite him to Pakistan, officials in Riyadh extradited Ansari to India, which constituted a watershed moment in Indian-Saudi cooperation.

Although unlikely that India could ever replace Pakistan’s role in Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy strategy, growing Indian-Saudi economic ties could impact Riyadh’s perception of Pakistan’s strategic value as a long-term partner. In certain ways, trade with India appears much more promising to Saudi Arabia than with Pakistan. Even though Pakistan is largely dependent on the kingdom economically, bilateral trade is uneven. It mostly consists of Saudi exports to Pakistan, which is running a growing trade deficit with Saudi Arabia. Indian-Saudi trade is much larger, as well as much more balanced and diverse than the kingdom’s trade with Pakistan. To maintain perspective, Indian-Saudi trade surpasses Pakistan’s trade with Saudi Arabia and the five other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members combined. However, the future of Indian-Iranian trade, now that international powers and Iran have signed the nuclear agreement, will undoubtedly influence the extent to which India turns to Saudi Arabia as an economic partner in the years ahead.

Conclusion

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are bonded by a special relationship. The Saudis have used their wealth to invest in advanced weaponry, yet for decades Pakistan’s manpower and military expertise has played a pivotal role in the kingdom’s security landscape. As underscored by General Sharif’s meeting with the Saudi king in Riyadh earlier this month, which took place upon the conclusion of joint military drills, Riyadh and Islamabad continue to go to great lengths to remain engaged in each other’s security.

The alliance’s “reset” demonstrated that the Yemeni crisis is not the only issue which defines Saudi-Pakistani relations, and different strategies for reacting to the conflict did not end the “special relationship.” Nonetheless, Pakistan’s reasons for refusing to join Operation Decisive Storm are indicative of new geopolitical realities and new priorities for Pakistan’s leadership which have perhaps compromised the two nations’ previously held high level of trust. Moving forward, it is likely that the Gulf Arab monarchies—not only Saudi Arabia, but also the UAE—will raise further questions about Islamabad’s commitment to GCC security in light of the Yemen disagreement. In fact, as ties between Pakistan and the UAE suffered from the fallout over Yemen last April, many analysts maintained that General Sharif’s recent visit to Riyadh was in part aimed at reaching out to the Emirati leaders via Saudi Arabia, the GCC’s powerhouse.

As Middle Eastern conflicts raise tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran, Pakistan will find it increasingly challenging to navigate through the turmoil while maintaining a meaningful balance in its relationships with Riyadh and Tehran. At the same time, Pakistan’s own sectarian dynamics and wide resentment of Saudi Arabia on the part of large segments of Pakistan’s population (who attribute their country’s crises with Islamist extremism to the kingdom’s influence over the span of several decades) lead many in Pakistan to see wisdom in a pivot from Saudi Arabia to the Far East. Of course, looming in the background is Riyadh’s warming relationship with Delhi, a negative geopolitical development from Islamabad’s perspective that could influence the future of Saudi-Pakistani relations.

Pakistan is therefore likely to continue exploring opportunities to deepen relations with non-Arab countries such as China and Iran while Indian-Saudi ties also grow. By the same token, Riyadh will want to avoid alienating Islamabad, as the Saudis face a host of growing domestic and regional security challenges in which Pakistan’s manpower and diplomatic influence could well suit Saudi interests. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan will remain close allies, but despite the “reset” earlier this month, the evolving Saudi-Pakistani alliance will likely face unforeseen complications in the future.

Giorgio Cafiero is the co-founder of Gulf State Analytics. Daniel Wagner is the CEO of Country Risk Solutions.

This article was published by The National Interest on November 19, 2015 and reprinted with permission.

By Joel Schalit*

(EurActiv) — “Were they expecting flowers? We’ve been at war for seventy years.” This is the sort of bitter quip Israelis are wont to utter, so I shelved the words of my ninety-two year old cousin Hannah aside the past few weeks.

Until, that is, the first reports of the attacks in Paris reached me last Friday, when an Israeli friend posted on Facebook that she’d taken cover at Le Stade, and was unscathed. Home in Tel Aviv to see my family, the ‘Knife Intifada’ had just begun, and dinner conversation inevitably drifted to the matsav, or ‘situation’.

The advent of suicide stabbings, as the practice became dubbed in the press, had taken Israelis completely by surprise. A lifelong leftist who had grown up in Mandate Palestine, Hannah has always criticised Israelis for being myopic.

Back home in Berlin, I watched the coverage of the attacks on TV, feeling a profound sense of déjà vu. The commentary being offered, by politicians, by the news media, exuded shock, as though there was no way the violence could have ever been anticipated.

Not just the brutality of what had transpired, but the audacity of the militants responsible.

But why the surprise? Blowback of this sort was inevitable, especially following France’s decision to join the US-led campaign against ISIS on 26 September. The downing of a Russian airliner, in response to Moscow’s decision to join the war in Syria, at the end of October, should have been taken more seriously. Not just by the Russians, but by everyone fighting ISIS.

Clearly, the Islamist organisation was capable of holding its opponents accountable, despite the massive amount of firepower directed at it. ISIS may not be able to hold territory indefinitely, but can still instill fear in its better-equipped opponents, forcing them to undergo deep political crises, questioning the diverse makeup of their societies, and their democratic mores.

Yet, despite France’s involvement in anti-jihadist military operations since 9/11, deploying ground forces in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2012, bombing Libya in 2011, followed by deployments to Mali and the Sahel starting in 2012, Islamist terror in France still appears to come out of nowhere.

It may not be justifiable, but one cannot ignore its context, either.

That’s not even touching on France’s colonial history in the Middle East, and its relevance to contemporary politics in the region. In June 2014, ISIS singled out the Sykes-Picot agreement, declaring it dead, on the basis of its drive to reunite Syria and Iraq, under its caliphate. Agreed on by Britain and France in 1916, the treaty helped place Syria under French control, until 1946.

France’s occupation of the country was anything but benign, putting down two nationalist revolts, with aspirations to constitute a Greater Syria not too dissimilar, in terms of its grandeur, from what ISIS imagines itself entitled to today. It may seem rhetorical to those unfamiliar with Europe’s role in Middle Eastern history. But to not take its implications for France seriously is to ignore the central role that France obviously plays in ISIS military planning today.

That isn’t meant to suggest that France’s strategic worth, as a fragile, multiethnic state, hosting the largest Muslim population in Europe, isn’t important. As has been exhaustively reported in the press, there are a lot of vulnerabilities for militants to exploit, particularly the post-colonial inequalities that afflict France’s North African community.

But this is different. Though carried out by European Muslims, the Paris attacks were directed from abroad, by a foreign military organisation eager to strike back at France, as a consequence of a war France is participating in, in the Middle East.

That doesn’t mean that France deserves what it got. But what it does mean is that given the violence it has endured this year, French society should have been better prepared to gird itself for what it is going through now.

Hence, the usefulness of the Israeli example. Since the beginning of the Knife Intifada, our political echelon has been fond of pointing out how the Palestinians’ violence, with their reliance on simple kitchen knives, instead of guns, exemplifies the savagery of their culture, and the racism of their religion, as though there is no history behind such desperation. Destabilised and fearful, we buy into the narrative, because the situation is so terrifying, and brutal.

The War on Terror has introduced a similar dynamic in Europe, building up a continent-sized narrative of denial over the past fourteen years. Nevertheless, the longer Europe remains at war in the Middle East, the more difficult it will be to avoid understanding what happened in Paris last week. Blaming it on Salafist Islam, and hateful Imams, avoids the discussion that needs to be had. Europe has only itself to blame for the consequences of its unpreparedness.

*Joel Schalit is the News Editor of EurActiv.com. His books include Israel vs. Utopia, and Jerusalem Calling: A Homeless Conscience in a Post-Everything World.

A café. A stadium. A concert hall. One of the most horrifying things about the murderous attacks in Paris was the terrorists’ choice of targets.

They chose gathering places where people’s minds wander furthest from unhappy thoughts like war. And they struck on a Friday night, when many westerners take psychic refuge from the troubles of the working week.

The message was simple: Wherever you are, this war will find you.

The same could be said for the 43 Lebanese civilians murdered only the day before, when a bomb exploded in a crowded marketplace in Beirut. Or for the 224 vacationers who died when their Russian airliner blew up over Egypt a few weeks earlier.

The Islamic State, or ISIS, claimed responsibility for each of these atrocities. But that’s not the only thing they have in common. In fact, all of them occurred in countries whose governments — or, in Lebanon’s case, a powerful militia — have gotten involved in Syria.

Russia started bombing ISIS targets and other Syrian rebels last month. Hundreds of Lebanese Hezbollah fighters have fought and died defending the Syrian regime. And France was the first country to join the Obama administration’s war on ISIS last year.

Indeed, scarcely a month before ISIS attacked the French capital, French planes were bombing the Islamic State’s capital in Raqqa, Syria — dropping bombs that “did not help them at all in the streets of Paris,” as a grim communiqué from the terrorist group gloated afterward.

These horrific attacks on civilians are part of a calculated effort to bring the war in Syria home to the other countries participating in it. And our bill could come due next.

Washington’s funneling millions of dollars’ worth of weapons to its proxies in Syria. It’s dispatching special forces to “advise” an array of the Islamic State’s enemies. And in an air war totally unauthorized by Congress, U.S. warplanes have launched thousands of strikes on alleged ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria since 2014.

But you can’t simply bomb extremism out of existence. And as governments from Moscow to Paris to Beirut are learning, you put your own people’s lives on the line when you try.

Military intervention has succeeded mightily in breaking things and killing people, but it’s done nothing to wind down the greatest factor fueling the rise of ISIS: Syria’s wider civil war. An international arms embargo and a deal between the Syrian regime and other rebel groups — jobs for diplomats, not drones — would go much further toward curtailing the threat of ISIS.

Yet France has responded to the carnage in Paris by pounding Raqqa with yet more air strikes — reportedly bombing medical clinics, a museum, and a stadium of its own, among other targets.

Leading U.S. presidential candidates aren’t proposing anything smarter.

Hillary Clinton declared that ISIS “must be destroyed” with “all of the tools at our disposal.” Ted Cruz called for “overwhelming air power” and condemned the Obama administration for having insufficient “tolerance for civilian casualties.” Ben Carson called for “boots on the ground,” while Donald Trump swore he’d “bomb the s— out of” ISIS-controlled oil fields and hand them over to ExxonMobil.

Virtually all GOP contenders, along with a gaggle of Republican governors, agreed that they’d close the door to Syrian refugees, too — as though they can evade the consequences of war by making life more miserable for the innocent people fleeing it.

None of this bravado makes me feel safer here in Washington, where ISIS threatened more Paris-style bloodshed in a recent video. When I imagine those cold-blooded killers running roughshod through the bars, restaurants, and concert halls my neighbors and I frequent, my stomach drops.

But that’s the lesson, isn’t it: When your government answers every problem in the world with military force, war begets war. And eventually there’s nowhere left to hide from it.

Distributed by OtherWords.org 

Speaking at the ASEAN summit in Malaysia, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi on November 21 called India and ASEAN natural partners, whose relationship goes back to ‘ancient times’. Modi is in Malaysia for the ASEAN summit and in his speech he emphasized on India’s economic growth, strong fundamentals, regular reforms and a welcoming environment setting the premises for asking investors to look at India.

Foreign investments have been going on for years, but PM Modi has popularized the subject vigorously as he tours the world ever since assumed power. However, India is yet to release the details of amounts of FDI that have come to India during his tenure. Perhaps government of India would come out soon with details to encourage more foreign investments to flow in. There can be no secrecy in this regard.

At the ASEAN Summit, PM Narendra Modi asked the global investment community to invest in India and draw comfort from its fast economic growth, strong fundamentals, continuous reforms and a welcoming environment. “By almost every major economic indicator India’s doing better than when we took office 18 months ago,” Modi said. Modi asked the business community in the ASEAN region to see the winds of change in India and promised them the full cooperation.

ASEAN is India’s fourth largest trading partner and India is the sixth largest trading partner for the ten member group. Modi said India and ASEAN are natural partners. “Our ties date back to ancient times.” Reform for me is just a way-station on the long journey to the destination. The destination is the transformation of India,” added Modi, “The GDP growth is up and inflation is down. Foreign investment is up and the CAD is down. Tax revenues are up and interest rates are down.”

The 21st century belongs to Asia. Together, ASEAN’s ten member countries form an economic powerhouse. ASEAN has emerged as one of the largest economic zones in the world. Last fifteen years have seen your rapid and yet stable growth. Macro-economic stability has been the main reason for growth and stability in South East Asia. Asserting that the time had come for India to make its mark in the resurgence of Asia, Modi called the world leaders to come to India and witness the ‘winds of change’ as he pitched his ‘Make in India’ initiative on the global forum. With good governance, futuristic infrastructure and focus on new age technologies

PM Modi provided reasons to justify his call for foreign investments in India. “We have ended retrospective taxation; stay committed to provide transparent and predictable tax regime. I want to assure you that India is committed to protect IP Rights of innovators. A National IPR policy is expected by end of the year. Most ASEAN economies have done their bit for Asia’s resurgence. Now, it is India’s turn. We know that our time has come. “I invite you to come and see the winds of change in India. Winds do take time to cross the borders. That is why I am here to invite you. We have launched a ‘Housing for All’ program. It involves building 20 million urban houses and 29.5 million rural houses. Our major ports witnessed 4.65% growth in traffic and 11.2% increase in operating income in 14-15 despite a global contraction in trade.”

Modi said India is a land of immense opportunities. “To give you some examples: our fifty cities are ready for putting up Metro Rail Systems. We have to build 50 million affordable houses. The requirement of road, rail and waterways is enormous. We have decided to go for renewable energy in a big way – 175 GW. Most of the ASEAN economies have done their bit for Asia’s resurgence”.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi met his Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang on the sidelines of ASEAN-India summit, during which the two leaders discussed bilateral ties and global issues of mutual concern.

Meanwhile, in an embarrassment for India, the tricolor was seen hoisted upside down during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s photo-op with Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe before bilateral talks on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit. The national flag was in the background of Prime Minister Modi and Abe’s customary handshake at the Summit and was hoisted on a stand next to that of Japan. The flag is seen with the green at the top and the saffron below as the two leaders met for the second bilateral on the sidelines of 13th ASEAN-India Summit here. “It was an inadvertent mistake in the rush of things. It was unfortunate,” official sources requesting anonymity told PTI. India has deliberately kept rhw green color down in the flag, while saffron on top. Green on top in the flag cannot be tolerated by many Indians because they see green as exclusive color of Pakistan or Islam.

PM Modi will be addressing the Indian Diaspora there on Sunday, inviting them to invest in India in a big way, making India shine. It is known that the growth of Indian economy owes mainly to money it gets from Indians working in Arab nations.

Though his BJP party was crushed badly in Bihar poll held recently, PM Modi looked to be in his usual good spirits at the ASEAN summit.

Perhaps, that is indeed the strength of India.

By Lev Weitz*

The majority of the Middle East’s population today is Muslim, as it has been for centuries. However, as the place of origin of a range of world religions – including Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and many lesser-known faiths – it remains a region of remarkable religious diversity. This article considers the place of religious minorities in the modern Middle East from three angles: their distinctive religious and communal identities, their place in the major transformations of the region’s political landscape from the nineteenth century to the post-World War I era, and the challenges of contemporary political conditions.

Who Are the Religious Minorities of the Middle East?

When we label certain religious communities “minorities,” we characterize them in terms of demographics: we highlight the fact that they make up only small percentages of the populations of the states in which they live. In some Middle Eastern states, like Bahrain, Iraq, and Iran, Sunni Muslims, who are the majority of the region as a whole, are themselves demographic minorities. Other than these cases, however, it is useful to think of the region’s religious minorities in terms of three broad categories: Christian denominations, Shiite Muslim groups, and a variety of smaller, unrelated traditions.

A considerable number of denominations make up the indigenous Christian population of the Middle East. Each of them has a distinct identity rooted in the region’s pre-Islamic past (the Middle East was mostly Christian at the time of the Muslim conquests of the seventh century). Today, adherents of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt are likely the Middle East’s largest non-Muslim ethno-religious group. Coptic Christians comprise approximately 10% of Egypt’s population. Christian Egyptians speak Arabic as a first language like their Muslim fellow citizens, but the Coptic Church is distinctive in that much of its liturgy is performed in Coptic, a Christian version of the ancient Egyptian language. In other words, Egyptian Christians continue to worship in the language that millennia ago was written in hieroglyphics.

Jordan, Palestine/Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq are home to a further variety of Christian communities. Among the larger ones are Arab Orthodox and Catholics who are in communion with the wider Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, but who use their native Arabic for their religious life. Lebanon and northeast Syria, southeast Turkey, and northern Iraq are home to communities of the Syriac Christian traditions. Syriac is an Aramaic dialect that was used widely in the Middle East before Arabic supplanted it. The Maronite, Syriac Orthodox, Syriac Catholic, Assyrian, and Chaldean churches still use Syriac in their ritual life, and many Christians in Turkey and Iraq speak modern dialects of the language in their daily life. The religious identity of these Middle Eastern Christians, in other words, revolves around a language closely related to what Jesus spoke two thousand years ago.

Cities in Syria and Lebanon are also home to communities of Armenian Christians. Many of these came to these regions after being forced out of their homeland in eastern Turkey during the Armenian Genocide of 1915.

In addition to Christians, Shiite Muslims constitute significant minorities in several Middle Eastern states. The Sunni-Shiite divide is a foundational denominational sectarian division within Islam. Historically, it arose from divergent opinions on who the leaders of the Muslim community should have been after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century. Some at the time favored a number of his closest companions; others gave priority to Muhammad’s family, especially his son-in-law (and cousin) Ali and his children. Those Muslims who assert that special authority lies with Muhammad’s descendants through Ali came to be known as Shiites. Generation by generation, the number of Muhammad’s descendants increased dramatically, and as a result a variety of distinct Shiite traditions took shape around particular lineages and distinctive beliefs.

The largest Shiite denomination (and the one that we almost always hear about when popular media mention Shiites) are the Twelver Shiites, so called because they recognize twelve individuals from the early centuries of Islam as Imams, or authoritative religious leaders: Ali and eleven of his direct descendants. Twelver Shiites make up the overwhelming majority of the population in Iran, solid majorities in Iraq and Bahrain, a plurality in Lebanon, and much smaller minorities elsewhere. The Zaydis and the Ismailis are two other Shiite groups that formed around different lineages among Muhammad’s descendants. Zaydi Shiism is one of the major religious traditions in Yemen, and predominates in the north of the country. Ismaili Shiism has a small presence in Syria and Lebanon.

Several other Middle Eastern religious communities have roots in Shiite Islam and venerate Muhammad’s family, but have adopted distinctive theological ideas, rituals, and scriptures in addition to the Quran that make them different from “mainstream” Shiism. These communities include especially the Druze, the Alawites, and the Alevis. The Druze form significant minorities in modern Israel, the Golan Heights, Lebanon, and Syria. The Alawites’ historical homeland is northwest Syria, and they have been especially prominent in modern Syrian politics – the Assad family that has ruled Syria since 1970 is Alawite. The Alevis constitute a significant proportion of the population of Turkey.

Finally, it is important to mention several smaller religious communities that maintain a presence in the Middle East. The Yezidis of northeast Iraq form a distinct ethno-religious community with a religious tradition that mixes elements of Islam and ancient Iranian religion. A small number of Zoroastrians, followers of the pre-Islamic religion of Iran, remain in the Islamic Republic (much larger Zoroastrian communities are found today in India). Through the first half of the 20th century, indigenous Jewish communities lived in most states of the Middle East. In the decades following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, however, the vast majority left (often forcibly) for Israel, the United States, or Europe, leaving very small Jewish communities today mainly in Morocco, Turkey, and Iran.

Even this is only a partial picture of the Middle East’s varied religious landscape, which should remind us that the region has always been home to a considerably diverse array of peoples.

Religious Minorities from the Ottoman Empire to the Mid-20th Century

From the 19th century to the present day, the political landscape of the Middle East has transformed drastically. The multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire gave way after World War I to the modern system of nation-states; more recently, radical Islamist groups like ISIS have challenged the legitimacy of those national borders and the states that they define. How have these transformations affected religious minorities, and how have they sought new political identities in a transformed region?

A fundamental change in the political status of non-Muslims in the modern Middle East is their transformation from subjects of Muslim empires to citizens of modern nation-states. Until the period of the Ottoman reforms of the 19th century, non-Muslims in the Middle East were protected subjects of the Muslim-ruled states in which they lived. They paid special taxes, owed obedience to the ruler, and were subject to a variety of restrictions related mainly to maintaining the predominance of Islam in the public sphere. In this system, non-Muslims were “protected persons” differentiated from other subjects on the basis of religion; religious belonging defined legal status, and different religious groups had differential rights. Perhaps the most conspicuous was the jizya, the special tax required of non-Muslims.

The Ottoman reform movements of the 19th century, the spread of new ideas of popular sovereignty, and the creation of the modern state system after World War I drastically transformed this state of affairs. In schematic terms, religious minorities went from being the protected subjects of Muslim rulers to citizens of modern states, with rights commensurate with those of their fellow citizens of other religions. What new forms of political identity did religious minorities engage with amidst this changing landscape?

We can examine mid-20th century Syria for examples of religious minorities embracing broader political identities that stretched beyond their own religions. One exemplary figure is a Christian native of Damascus who became a highly influential Arab political thinker: Michel Aflaq (1910-1989). Aflaq was one of the principal architects of Ba‘athism, an Arab nationalist political movement that stressed the unity of the Arab people and promoted the idea of a pan-Arab national state. Arab nationalism offered a political identity that cut across religious divisions, and in this respect it proved attractive to many members of minority religions like Aflaq as a platform to assert belonging to national communities. Urban, educated Christians like Aflaq were far from the only religious minorities conspicuous in Arab nationalist ranks. In Syria, Ba‘athism also attracted many Druze and Alawite military officers who came from poorer, rural backgrounds. In 1963, a cell of Ba‘athist officers in the Syrian military espousing a revolutionary program took control of the state. By 1970 one of those officers, Hafez al-Assad (1930-2000), had outmaneuvered his peers and installed himself as the ruler of Syria. His family has ruled the country down to the present-day civil war. Assad hailed from an impoverished Alawite community in the country’s mountainous northwest; for someone from that marginal, minority background, the pan-religious character of Arab nationalist politics (combined with the military) provided a path into Syria’s political mainstream. Under the Assads’ authoritarian rule, however, Arab nationalist ideology did not translate into inclusive, participatory politics for the majority of Syria’s population. We will consider some of the consequences of that fact below.

Michel Aflaq and the Assads are examples of religious minorities who embraced broader, Arab nationalist political identities that stretched beyond their own religious affiliations. Other minorities in the post-World War I Middle East opted to eschew the ideal of a transreligious Arab nation and assert more particularist identities. As an example of this trend, we can consider the history of the Maronites in Lebanon. Lebanon owes its status as an independent state separate from its big neighbor Syria to a local, particularist national vision that took shape especially among a large constituency of Maronite Christians from the nineteenth into the twentieth century. This view held that that the Christians of Lebanon were different from the Arab and Syrian worlds around them, a difference that should be embodied in a sovereign Lebanese state. Several factors made the development of this view possible. The Maronites had long been concentrated geographically in and near Mount Lebanon. They also had a unique relationship with powers outside the Middle East. The Maronites had recognized the authority of the Catholic Pope as early as the 12th century, and Maronite priests frequently studied at the Vatican. Partly because of their shared Catholicism, France cultivated close relationships with the Maronites in its dealings with the Ottoman Empire, using Maronites as translator diplomatic aides, and considered itself a protector of their interests. These factors contributed to the development of a Maronite particularism distinct from the broader pan-Syrian and pan-Arab identities that were also in the works toward the end of the Ottoman period. In time, that particularism would undergird the foundation of Lebanon as an independent state.

In the aftermath of World War I and the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, France was granted a “mandate” for the Ottomans’ Syrian provinces (other than Palestine). Notionally, France was supposed to oversee those territories’ preparation for future independence, but it treated them much like any other colonial possession. A basic tool of French imperial rule was to patronize certain religious minorities as governing or military elites. This would keep the indigenous population divided against itself and ensure the loyalty of those favored groups to French interests. In certain parts of Syria, for example, France made a point of recruiting Alawites and Druze into its mandate armies. Mount Lebanon had had a special administrative status under the Ottomans, but France expanded its territory and ultimately created Lebanon as a separate state to serve the interests of its Maronites allies. After achieving full independence in 1943, Lebanon’s status as an independent country was founded on the particularist identity embraced by many among its Christian population.

Lebanon and the Maronite constituencies who were the biggest proponents of Lebanese particularism represent another path that religious minorities took to stake a claim in the political landscape of the post-Ottoman Middle East. Rather than a trans-religious pan-Arab or Syrian nationalism, they opted for a national identity rooted much more closely in ethno-religious affiliation. In fact, Lebanon institutionalized religious difference as an official legal status in a particularly notable way. Despite the leading role of its Christian communities, Lebanon was and is highly diverse, with a mixed population of Christians, Sunni and Shiite Muslims, and Druze. Ever since its independence, its political system has been confessionally based. This means that all the seats in parliament are allocated to specific confessions – Maronites get a certain number, Shiites get a certain number, Sunnis get a certain number, etc. The highest executive positions in the state are allocated along confessional lines as well. This system was ostensibly meant to ensure equality among citizens: it recognized religious differences, but it allowed proportional representation for each group in the government. In practice, however, it was intended to maintain the continued dominance of France’s allies: based on a census of the Lebanese population taken in 1932, Christians were given 6 parliamentary seats for every 5 Muslim ones. (The agreement that ended the Lebanese Civil War in 1990 altered the ratio to 1:1.) In Lebanon, religious difference was enshrined in the institutions of the state.

There are two further broad points to make on the basis of this overview of the different ways that religious minorities in Syria and Lebanon sought new political identities in the mid-20th century. One is that sectarian violence between religious groups is not the inevitable outcome of ancient hatreds. Rather, it occurs often when religious differences get hardened by their association with the institutions of modern states. Lebanon, for example, was engulfed by a bitter civil war from 1975 to 1990 that broke down largely along sectarian lines, pitting Christian militias and factions against Muslim ones. The immediate causes of conflict, however, were the pitfalls of Lebanese politics rather than immutable religious divisions. The system of confessional government gave Lebanese a stake in politics based primarily on their religious affiliation, and the makeup of the confessional parliament was never altered to reflect demographic changes – which included a shrinking Christian population and the presence of tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees. Confessionalism turned religions into political factions, and so they fought a war along those lines when the balance of power in the state was destabilized and up for grabs. Religious difference had been a feature of the Middle East for centuries, and so had violence between religious groups. But modern sectarian conflict – when religious affiliation becomes the rationale for partisan political goals and the use of violence to achieve them – is a product of the institutionalization of religious difference in modern states. This is evident as well in the current civil war in Syria. Although the Assads promoted an Arab nationalist ideology that downplayed religious difference, their authoritarian rule never allowed for inclusive, popular political participation. Instead, the Assads ruled Syria through allies in the state’s political and military institutions who had close ties to the ruling family and were often, though not only, Alawite. It is important to emphasize that there was no Alawite ideological program behind this method of rule. But its effect has been to institutionalize religious difference de facto by slotting members of certain religious communities into certain roles. As a result, after protests against the Assads in 2011 were met with violent repression by the state, it became easy for radical Islamists to portray the conflict as one of Sunnis vs. Alawites rather than the Syrian people vs. an authoritarian government. As in Lebanon, sectarian violence was enabled by the specific way that religious difference had been wedded to politics – in this case, as a result of the Assads’ method of rule.

Finally, it is important to emphasize the long-term effects that western imperial interests have had on religious minorities in the modern Middle East. From the time of the Ottomans to the mandate period, western powers frequently pursued their interests in the region by treating religious minorities as favored middlemen, local clients, or recruits for colonial armies. France did this with the Maronites in Lebanon and the Alawites and Druze to a certain extent in Syria; the British had a similar experience with Assyrian Christians and the Sunnis of Iraq. Imperialism is not the whole story; religious minorities had their own interests in seeking autonomy or guarantees of rights from foreign powers. But when western powers granted imperial favor to some religious groups, it hardened lines between them and their fellow citizens of other affiliations. This has been a long-term contributing factor to the sectarian strife that has afflicted former mandate states like Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, and Iraq.

Contemporary Conditions

Few would argue with the observation that recent history has been dire for many religious minorities in the Middle East. This holds true especially for the region’s Christian populations, whose numbers have been declining through emigration for decades. Many Christians have looked with apprehension on the rise of Islamist politics and parties since the 1970s, wary of the potential danger they pose to minorities’ rights of full citizenship. In the midst of political instability or war, moreover, religious minorities have been caught between larger forces, and have tended to emigrate in higher numbers – or, in the worst circumstances, been actively targeted and their cultural heritage destroyed. Civil war and radical jihadi groups in Syria; the American invasion, subsequent civil war, and the rise of ISIS in Iraq; violence between the government and Kurdish separatists in Turkey; life under Israeli occupation in Palestine – these and other factors have continued to squeeze the indigenous religious minorities of the Middle East and encourage emigration to diaspora communities in Europe, North America, and Australia. The Middle East has been a region of remarkable religious diversity for thousands of years, but contemporary political conditions make the future of that diversity highly uncertain.

About the author:
*Lev Weitz is an Assistant Professor at Catholic University of America, where he focuses on the medieval Middle East, law and society, and non-Muslims in Islamic societies. He is currently working on a book that examines the emergence of traditions of family law among the Christian communities of the medieval Middle East and how this law articulated new conceptions of community in the multi-religious societies of the Abbasid Caliphate. Dr. Weitz received his Ph.D. from Princeton University.

Source:
This article is based on Dr. Weitz’s talk on the same subject at the FPRI Butcher History Institute on “Understanding the Modern Middle East: History, Identity, and Politics,” held on October 17-18, 2015 in Philadelphia.

By Nurzhanat Ametbek

On Saturday, November 7, 2015, in Singapore, two sitting presidents of China and Taiwan met face-to-face for the first time since 1949. Though the meeting was held behind closed doors, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou did not sign any agreements. T

he Chinese view the meeting as a historic milestone, while some Taiwanese worry that it could damage Taiwan’s democracy. The Chinese government seeks to reunify Taiwan with China, yet most of those living in Taiwan wish to remain separate from China.

Basic background of Chinese-Taiwanese relations

The People’s Republic of China (mainland China or just “China”) and the Republic of China (“Taiwan”) separated in 1949 following the Communists’ victory in the Chinese Civil War. Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang (KMT) nationalists formed their own government in Taiwan after Mao Zedong’s communists took power in Beijing.

In 1971, Taiwan lost its seat at the UN to China; and in 1979, the US and China established diplomatic relations, with the former still committing to defend Taiwan. In 2005, Nationalist Chairman Lien Chan, then leader of Taiwan’s opposition, met Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing. In 1993, the first direct talks between the two sides took place in Singapore. In 2005, Beijing ratified a law that made secession by Taiwan illegal, at the risk of military action. Since Ma’s election in Taiwan in 2008, relations between the two have improved.

Chinese-Taiwanese relations are at their most peaceful and stable since 1949. Over the past seven years, the two sides have signed a total of 23 agreements, exchanged over 40,000 students across the Strait of Taiwan, and enjoyed an annual traffic of over 8 million tourists as well as an annual bilateral trade volume of over 170 billion USD. China is Taiwan’s largest trade partner; numerous Taiwanese companies have factories in China, Chinese banks operate in Taiwan, and hundreds of flights travel between the two nations each week.

Content and expectations of the meeting

This meeting was seen by many as the turning of a “historic page” as it has upgraded cross-Strait relations to their highest level in history. Many argue that it will benefit future Chinese generations and function to contribute to regional peace. Nonetheless, if we look at the reported content of the meeting, we can say that nothing new was really addressed. As Justin Ong reported on channel News Asia, President Ma raised five points for the advancement of cross-strait ties: The 1992 Consensus will be the foundation of cross-strait relations; animosity should be lowered across the strait; cross-strait dialogue should be expanded and work towards win-win conclusions should be pursued; a cross-strait hotline for emergent issues involving both parties should be created; the two parties should work together to build both Chinese sides for future generations.

Here, all of the above points constitute a consolidated version of the “1992 consensus” – the agreement under which both sides recognize the principle of “one China” but define it in their own ways. In this way, expectations of the emergence of a consensus on “Two Chinas” or “one China – one Taiwan” still seem farfetched from the perspectives of both Beijing and Taibei.

China’s position – everything under the “1992 Consensus”

Xi said the two parties across the Strait should prove to the world with concrete moves that the Chinese on both sides have the capabilities and wisdom to solve their own problems. “There is a new look and feel to China’s diplomacy,” Xinhua, Beijing’s official news agency, claimed on Friday, “Never before have China’s leaders been so keen to reach out to the world beyond their borders.”

China still considers the island of Taiwan to be a breakaway province, and it has warned that a formal declaration of independence by the Taiwanese could lead to military intervention. Nonetheless, Xi Jinping seems to be committed to solving the issue of reunification before it is too late. In this vein, Xi expressed a “firm and unwavering stance” on reunification under the idea of “one country, two systems” during a meeting with pro-unification delegates in Beijing.

Chinese leaders have been very cautious with regard to the meeting with Taiwanese leaders, often voicing concerns that such a move could grant legal legitimacy to the Taiwanese government. Nevertheless, in Ma Ying-jeou’s eight years in office, China and Taiwan have also reached a series of trade agreements while also increasing the scope and scale of cross-strait trade and tourism.

Taiwan’s position strongly related to upcoming election

While the meeting has been seen as a milestone in Chinese-Taiwanese relations, neither agreements nor joint statements were signed as Ma’s term will probably come to an end early next year. It seems that the Taiwanese public endorses good relations with China as nobody wants to have a war, but they are not voicing support for any type of political integration. The Taiwanese are very proud of their democracy and want to keep it. Over the past year, Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Presidential Candidate Tsai Ing-wen has held on to a strong lead in the polls. If she wins the election in January next year, she is expected to take a much tougher stance against China.

Ma has previously maintained a clear stance that economic relations with China should be developed but not at the expense of sovereignty, while also rejecting Xi’s idea of reunification as “unacceptable”. Today, less than 10% of people in Taiwan support the idea of immediate or eventual reunification. Moreover, the results of a June survey by National Chengchi University show that the perceived differences may run deeper within Taiwanese society at large. Here, 60% of respondents self-identified as Taiwanese, while only 3.5% self-identified as Chinese, and a clear majority of those asked support the idea of Taiwan’s political independence.

International media’s assessment

According to BBC, the meeting, as an attempt to influence Taiwan, is a calculated gamble for Xi. BBC World Service’s Asia Editor Michael Bristow claimed that the meeting may be an effort by Ma to boost the popularity of his party’s candidate before the presidential election in Taiwan in January. Here, China also has something to gain. Xi’s decision to engage in the talks reminds Taiwanese voters that China is far friendlier to a government of Ma’s KMT than one formed by the opposition, which leans towards Taiwan’s independence.

VOA also speculates that the meeting revolves around the upcoming election in Taiwan, while also criticizing the fact that it was held behind the closed doors. Moreover, VOA also points out that China’s state media did not air Ma’s speech after the meeting.

“If peaceful unification is going to happen, it is going to have to come through a democratic process whereby millions of Taiwanese choose to join China”, said Washington DC-based Researcher Kristian McGuire to CNN. When looking at the bigger picture, it can be seen that Hong Kong is regarded as a testing ground for the “one country, two systems” formula that China’s leaders originally hoped would entice Taiwan back into the fold. Considering this, Ma’s government has watched pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong closely to see whether Beijing will honor its initial promises on universal suffrage.

The Guardian reported that Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s opposition DPP candidate, is widely expected to defeat Beijing’s preferred candidate, KMT Chairman Eric Chu. Nick Bisley, the executive director of La Trobe Asia, said there were concerns in Taiwan that Beijing was using the meeting to try to swing the island’s upcoming election back towards Ma’s KMT, thus marking a clear sign of Beijing’s concerns about upcoming election in Taiwan.

“Nearly all Taiwanese supported improved dialogue with China, fewer and fewer now backed the idea of reunification, which is Beijing’s ultimate goal”, said Nathan Batto, a political scientist from Taipei’s Academia Sinica. Some see the talks as part of a Chinese charm offensive in Asia, designed to reduce tensions in the region amidst an intensifying spat over Beijing’s island building campaign in the South China Sea.

In August, the Financial Times reported that 11 Chinese shadow banks had written an open letter to the top party official in Hebei (河北) province asking for a bailout. Soon afterwards, Foreign Policy magazine ran a story headlined, “Shadow banking is killing China’s stock markets.” And, just days ago, the Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese banks are “looking to shadow banking for growth”, which is contributing to new risks.

The common denominator here is that China’s shadow banking poses a risk to the world. Yet, international data shows very clearly that shadow banking risks involve mainly the largest advanced economies.

Excesses of shadow banking – from the US to China

Shadow banks perform similar functions and have similar risks to traditional banks but operate outside the formal banking sector and with less regulatory oversight. While they lack public deposit insurance and lender-of-last-resort facilities from central banks, they may support economic growth by making financial services more affordable and more broadly available.

Modern shadow banking began in the US in the early 1970s. In an era when deposit rates were still controlled by the US Federal Reserve, money market funds provided an alternative to bank deposits. In the 1980s, the crisis involving US savings and loan institutions was essentially a shadow-banking crisis. In the following three decades, excessive deregulation and privatisation almost wrecked the international
economy.

China has certainly not been spared the excesses of shadow banking, which began to grow rapidly amid the global financial crisis in 2008-09, when Beijing launched its massive US$586 billion stimulus package. While it supported Chinese and global growth for several years, pressures soon mounted, pushing business from banks toward shadow banks, which were not subject to the same limits on loan or deposit
rates, by caps on bank lending volumes, or by other limitations.

By 2011, local government debt was already under scrutiny from national regulators. As new leadership took charge in Beijing, the momentum of debt-fuelled growth was eclipsed.

In mid-2013, China’s banks drifted to a liquidity crisis, but the People’s Bank of China no longer injected additional funds or eased monetary policy. A year later, it urged commercial banks to control credit-fuelled risk by increasing scrutiny of shadow banks’ lending practices.

In China, shadow banking remains less important than formal banking as a source of credit, however. Moreover, thanks to Beijing’s low debt-to-GDP ratio, authorities also have the fiscal capacity to deal with a large crisis.

International dimension

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the annual “Global Shadow Banking Monitoring Report” was launched to provide factual data on the size, composition and risks of shadow banking across the world. Covering most of the world economy and international financial systems, newly launched data depicts alarming trends, which suggest that little has been learned from the global crisis.

Focusing on the new “broad” measure of non-bank financial intermediation, total assets of the world’s “other financial intermediaries” continue to climb and now account for 128 per cent of world GDP. That is only 2 percentage points away from the previous high of 130 per cent, right before the near-collapse of financial systems in major advanced economies in the autumn of 2008.

In this total, emerging markets, including China, show the most rapid increase. However, this expansion is typically from a relatively small base and also reflects the relatively faster growth of these economies in comparison to their advanced counterparts.

The new “economic function” approach shows that certain kinds of credit intermediation are more susceptible to runs (money market funds, hedge funds and other investment funds, for example). It represents 60 per cent of the “narrow” measure of shadow banking and has grown more than 10 per cent on average over the past four years. The narrow measure of global shadow banking that may pose financial stability risks amounted to US$36 trillion in 2014, according to the report.

Focusing on the new, narrow measure based on economic functions, the largest shadow-banking sectors in the major advanced economies account for more than 70 per cent of the world total. In this total, the key roles belong to the US (40 per cent), Europe’s core economies (21 per cent), the UK (11 per cent) and Japan (7 per cent).

In contrast, the share of emerging economies is only 8 per cent of the total – half of which accrues to China.

Misguided spotlight

Putting it bluntly, while international attention lingers on China’s shadow banking, its sector is just one tenth that of the US and a fifth of its counterpart in Europe.

Relative to the size of the economy, the US shadow banking sector now accounts for almost 150 per cent of its GDP – which is far higher than even the comparable sector in Switzerland (90 per cent), a global banking giant.

True, China’s shadow banking has grown rapidly, but from a very low starting point in international terms. It is over 30 per cent of GDP, about the same as in Hong Kong.

So the real question is, why is shadow banking in the advanced world not subject to the same kind of scrutiny as its counterpart in the emerging markets?

Source: DifferenceGroup.net. The original, slightly shorter version was published by South China Morning Post as “Why the real shadow banking risks are in the US and Europe, not in China”

By Joseph Chamie and Barry Mirkin*

Concerned with the consequences of demographic decline and population ageing, especially with respect to economic growth, national defence and pensions and health care for the elderly, a growing number of governments are seeking to raise birth rates. Whereas nearly 40 years ago 13 countries had policies to raise fertility, today the number has increased four-fold to 56, representing more than one-third of the world’s population.

The most recent and largest addition to this pronatalist group of countries, which includes Australia, France, Germany, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Russia, South Korea, Spain and Turkey, is China. The Chinese government announced that it will change its controversial one-child policy to a two-child policy per couple in order to balance population development and address the challenge of an ageing population.

Assuming a slight increase in its current fertility level, China’s population of 1.38 billion is projected – according to the UN medium variant – to peak by 2030 at 1.42 billion and then decline to 1 billion by the end of the century (Figure 1). However, if fertility were to remain constant at its current level, China’s population would soon begin declining, reaching around 0.8 billion by the year 2100. If fertility were to instantly reach the replacement level, an unlikely event, China’s population would grow to 1.51 billion by midcentury.

Source: United Nations Population Division.

China’s population age structure is also becoming older than any time in the past. Whereas in 1950 less than five per cent of the Chinese were aged 65 years or older, today the proportion has doubled to 10 per cent. By 2035 China’s proportion elderly is expected to double again and reach one-third by around midcentury.

Similar to China, 82 other countries – accounting for almost half of the world’s population – are experiencing fertility rates below the replacement level of about two births per woman. As a result, the populations of 48 of those countries, including Germany, Japan, Russia and South Korea, are projected to be smaller and older by midcentury, even assuming modest gains in birth rates. If fertility rates were to remain constant at their current levels, the declines and ageing would be even more pronounced than currently expected (Figure 2).

Source: United Nations Population Division.

In an attempt to counter those two major demographic trends, many governments have adopted a variety of policies to raise birth rates. At one extreme are draconian measures such as prohibiting contraception, sterilization, abortion and the education and employment of women. As those measures violate basic human rights, few governments are prepared to take such drastic steps to raise fertility. Moreover, such measures have undesirable demographic consequences, including higher levels of unintended pregnancy, illegal abortion and maternal mortality.

Some governments are promoting marriage, childbearing and parenting through public relations campaigns, incentives and preferences. Such programs highlight the vital role of motherhood and its valuable contribution to the welfare and growth of the country. Australia and South Korea, for example, are among those making appeals to women to have one more child. Also, Iran is considering legislation that would encourage businesses to prioritize the hiring of men with children.

Perhaps the most common pronatalist policies aim to reduce parent’s considerable financial costs for childbearing and child rearing. Those policies include cash bonuses at the time of a child’s birth and/or recurrent cash supplements for dependent children

In Turkey, for example, parents are entitled to 300 Turkish lira (108 dollars) for the birth of their first child, 400 Turkish lira (144 dollars) for the second and 600 Turkish lira (215 dollars) for the fourth and subsequent child. One consequence of this legislation, however, has been the need for the provision of government financial assistance to needy families with large families.

Additional policies, especially popular among many Western countries, focus on making employment and family responsibilities “compatible” for working couples, especially mothers. In addition to extended maternity leave as well as paternity leave, other measures include part-time work, flexible working hours, working at home and family-friendly workplaces, including nurseries, as well as pre-school and after-school care facilities.

However, the costs of family friendly policies are not insignificant. For example, with fertility at two children per woman, France’s extensive scheme of family benefits is estimated to cost four per cent of gross domestic product, one of the highest percentages in the European Union.

Some governments are also looking to selective immigration to maintain the size of their workforce and slow down the pace of population ageing. However, a recent United Nations study concluded that international migration at current levels would be unable to compensate fully for the expected population decline. Between 2015 and 2050, the excess of deaths over births in Europe is projected to be 63 million, whereas the net number of international migrants to Europe is projected at 31 million, implying an overall shrinking of Europe’s population by about 32 million.

In addition, the financial costs, social integration and cultural impact of immigration have come to the political forefront in recent months. A growing tide of refugees and economic migrants – mainly from Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iraq, Nigeria and Pakistan, estimated at over 800,000 – have arrived on the shores of the European Union since the beginning of 2015 to escape war, repression, discrimination and unemployment.

As part of its response, the EU is considering a plan to offer aid money and visas to African countries that agree to take back thousands of their citizens who are unlawfully residing within its borders. Also aiming to stem the record inflows of refugees, various EU members have put up fences, imposed border controls and tightened asylum rules.

Other countries that are averse to encouraging immigration, such as Japan and South Korea, have instead opted to boost labour productivity as a means of compensating for a shrinking labour force. Those governments are also reviewing legislation to encourage more women to join and remain in the labour force by offering them family friendly work environments, improved career mobility and promotions to management and senior positions.

While family-oriented measures may encourage some women to have children, those policies are costly and their overall effect on fertility is weak or unclear. The many forces pushing fertility to low levels are simply too powerful for governments to overcome with dictates, financial incentives and public relations campaigns.

*Joseph Chamie is former director of the United Nations Population Division and Barry Mirkin is former chief of the Population Policy Section of the United Nations Population Division.