The joint statement issued on February 6 following the four-day visit by the Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan to China has been an exceptional gesture by Beijing underscoring the highest importance attached to that country as a regional ally. Beijing feels the need to underscore that not only does it back the government in Islamabad to the hilt but is determined to boost the ties, especially by boosting the flagship of the Belt and Road Initiative known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Aside its overt emphasis on the launch of the CPEC’s Phase 2, the two highlights of the joint statement are: one, the affirmation that ’stronger’ defence and security cooperation will be ‘an important factor of peace and stability in the region,’ and, two, the joint initiative to take up with the Taliban government the holding of the China-Pakistan-Afghanistan Trilateral Foreign Ministers’ Dialogue as well as the ‘extension of CPEC to Afghanistan.’

New trends have appeared in regional security during the past 6-month period since the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan last August, which are highly consequential for regional politics. For a start, all evidence suggests that various terrorist groups continue to operate in Afghanistan. And groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir or the Islamic State affiliates have a long history of working as the West’s geopolitical tool.

The acute humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan following the abrupt ending of western assistance in August and the U.S. vengeful decision to freeze the country’s funds abroad are being turned around as pressure points by Washington to engage with the Taliban Government with a view to manipulate its attitudes and policies. With the departure of U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad, the CIA is in direct control of Washington’s dealings with the Taliban.

The Oslo talks (January 23-25) between the Taliban and the U.S. has been a turning point. Notably, last week, the U.S. Treasury Department has unilaterally ‘tweaked’ the sanctions regime against the Haqqani Network. Funds can now be transferred to Afghanistan by international banks, and aid agencies are allowed to work with the Haqqanis. Alongside, President Biden has designated Qatar as a ‘major non-NATO ally’ even as direct flights commenced last week between Kabul and Doha (where CIA operatives dealing with Afghan affairs are based), and, furthermore, Qatar will now be operating the Afghan airports and controlling that country’s air space. Taken together, Washington is rapidly putting in place the infrastructure for conducting its operations in Afghanistan pending diplomatic recognition and the establishment of physical presence.

Meanwhile, the climate of Pakistan’s relations with the Taliban government has deteriorated. A surge of cross-border violence culminated last week in brazen attacks on Pakistani military. The picture remains hazy. Intriguing questions arise as to the culpability.

The internal tensions within the Taliban are no big secret. It is only to be expected that at a time when the group is trying to gain international legitimacy and tackle domestic crisis, internal tensions get accentuated, as interest groups competing for positions and privileges pull in different directions. Suffice to say, the Taliban is more vulnerable today than ever to infiltration and manipulation by the western intelligence.

Recently, Barnett Rubin, former State Department official and expert on Afghanistan who was a key aide to late Richard Holbrooke, took a historical perspective when he said, “The Taliban are the most unified organisation in Afghanistan. There has never been a significant split in the organisation. There are many differences and rivalries that are seized on by their opponents as evidence that the Taliban are divided, but they have never been divided in practice. The CIA spent $1 bn trying to split the Taliban and failed.”

That was time past. Time present may hold surprises. What is apparent is that while the Taliban government is being seen by the world community as the monarch of all it surveys in Afghanistan, Washington is singling out the Haqqani Network as its interlocutor. The folklore used to be that the Haqqanis were the blue-eyed boys of Pakistan. Equally, they became synonymous with brutal acts of terrorism. That said, however, the Haqqanis also have another side to their bio-profile.

Lest it gets forgotten, the great patriarch Jalaluddin Haqqani’s rift with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the subsequent split with Hizb-i-Islami in 1979 was not due to the acceptance or rejection of radicalism but reflected regional geography and their respective tribal origins. The Haqqanis belong to the Zadran Pashtun tribe, a branch of the Kalani tribal confederacy inhabiting southeastern Afghanistan (Khost, Paktia and Paktika provinces) and parts of Pakistan’s Waziristan. That is what distinguishes the Haqqanis in the top rungs of the Taliban leadership in Kabul. Mullah Hasan Akhund, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Mullah Mohammed Yaqoob, etc. are largely drawn from the Abdali (Durrani) confederacy of the dominant Pashtun tribes.

True, the Taliban movement managed to put up a show of unity, but that was the period of the jihad against foreign occupation when clan and tribal identity got submerged and the friendship networks, or andiwali (Pashto for camaraderie) played an important cementing role. But even then, interestingly, the Haqqani Network had enjoyed battlefield autonomy while remaining politically subservient to the Quetta Shura.

Today, two factors become particularly important. First, no one knows whether the Taliban supremo Amir Hibatullah Akhundzada is still alive or not. There is a leadership vacuum. Second, since 2013-2014, Pakistan’s control of the Taliban had been progressively weakening following the assassination of several senior Taliban figures in Quetta. Now, these two factors combined together, there is no one with power or authority who can rein in the Taliban factions from going overboard. In all likelihood, Pakistan is helplessly watching. The cross-border tensions could well be a manifestation of this epochal transition in the Taliban’s tumultuous history.

Then, there is an interesting detail that has great relevance today. The Haqqanis and the CIA go back a long way. The Haqqani Network was the only Mujahideen group that then Pakistani President Zia-ul-Haq permitted the CIA to have direct dealings during the 1980s jihad. How far that had anything to do with the Haqqanis’ devotion to ‘global jihad’ is a moot point today. The point is, it was in the safe hands of the Haqqanis that the CIA entrusted Osama bin Laden’s life and security during the 1980s jihad.

Is it coincidental that the U.S. has ‘tweaked’ the sanctions against the Haqqanis unilaterally so soon after the defeat in Afghanistan so as to revive their direct line of communication with them?

The regional states cannot but be worried. Simply put, the spectre that is haunting the region is the U.S.’ return to Afghanistan to finesse a new geopolitical tool for influencing regional politics in a wide arc of countries — Central Asian states, China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan. The China-Pakistan joint statement issued in Beijing on Sunday is a forceful signal from Beijing against any such attempt to use Afghan soil as a springboard to destabilise the region. But it is going to be an uphill struggle unless the attempt is nipped in the bud.

It is not without reason that the Chinese President Xi Jinping told his Kazakh counterpart Kassym-Jomart Tokayev at their meeting in Beijing on Saturday that ‘The dimension of China-Kazakhstan relations has gone beyond the bilateral scope and is of great significance to regional and even world peace and stability.’ The very next day, at the meeting with Imran Khan, President Xi emphasised that ‘as the world finds itself in a period of turbulence and transformation, China-Pakistan relations have gained greater strategic significance.’

India and Pakistan share a long border and do not get along well, to put it mildly.  The main cause of disagreement is the divided territory of Kashmir which as long ago as 1948 necessitated UN Security Council attention, resulting in a Resolution determining, among other things, that there should be a “free and impartial plebiscite to decide whether the State of Jammu and Kashmir is to accede to India or Pakistan.”  This has not happened and the seemingly insoluble dispute could well lead to a fourth war between the countries, both of which are nuclear-armed.

It might be thought that in such circumstances the world’s “best-educated, best-prepared” nation that President Biden also declares has “unmatched strength” would apply at least some of its education, preparation and power to encouraging India and Pakistan to engage in meaningful negotiations and move towards rapprochement.

Not a hope.

US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman recently visited India and Pakistan, but rather than attempting to coax and persuade her host nations to reduce bilateral tension and confrontation she publicly insulted Pakistan and urged India to cooperate militarily even more closely with the US.  She widened the chasm of polarisation in a public speech in India’s commercial centre, Mumbai, by declaring “We don’t see ourselves building a broad relationship with Pakistan, and we have no interest in returning to the days of hyphenated India-Pakistan. That’s not where we are. That’s not where we’re going to be.” Not content with demonstrably taking sides and thus stoking fires in a tinder-box region, she said that when she went on to Pakistan next day her discussions there would be for “a very specific and narrow purpose”, and everything that was discussed would be passed on to India because “we share information back and forth between our governments”.

The reasons for this surge in US support for India in its face-off with Pakistan are not hard to detect, and the main one is that India and China are at loggerheads, and indeed in a state of aggressive military standoff.  Any country in disagreement with China is automatically regarded with approval by Washington, while any country that actively cooperates with China — like Pakistan — is equally automatically considered to be an enemy of freedom.

The US needed Pakistan during its 20-year military occupation of Afghanistan, and attempted to use successive governments in Islamabad to assist in its operations.  But now that it and the Nato military alliance and some 300,000 members of Afghanistan’s own military forces have been decisively routed by about 70,000 barbaric, bigoted, raggy-baggy Taliban savages, it is increasingly attractive for the Biden administration to blame anyone other than the Pentagon and the Washington establishment for the catastrophic debacle.  They claim that Pakistan helped the Taliban — and it cannot be denied that the government and its military in Islamabad maintained contact with the Afghan Taliban, for good reasons.

As I wrote some years ago, in 2007 the then head of the Directorate of Inter Services Intelligence, General Kayani (who became army chief), “told the author, in answer to a direct question, that ‘of course’ he maintained contact with some subversive groups, thereby not only holding doors ajar for negotiations but keeping track of various members of such organisations.  He stated that if he did not have some sort of contact with these people they would simply disappear and his directorate would lose what ever degree of influence it had that it might be able to bring to bear on them when the need arose.”

So he kept contact — and there was indubitable need for Pakistan’s influence and assistance in Afghanistan.

In December 2018 even Voice of America reported that after US-Taliban negotiations in Abu Dhabi “Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan… reiterated his country “will do everything within its power” to further the Afghan peace process.”  Khan is quoted as saying “Pakistan has helped in the dialogue between Taliban and the U.S. in Abu Dhabi. Let us pray that this leads to peace and ends almost three decades of suffering of the brave Afghan people.” Washington downplayed the importance of Pakistan’s assistance, but VOA acknowledged that “The U.S. spokesperson also said a recent letter from U.S. President Donald Trump to Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan ‘emphasized that Pakistan’s assistance with the Afghan peace process is fundamental to building an enduring U.S.-Pakistan partnership’.”

The International Crisis Group is objective about Pakistan and noted recently that “As early as the 2001 Bonn conference that drew up a roadmap for post-invasion Afghanistan, Pakistan had asked for the Taliban’s inclusion in consultations on Afghanistan’s constitutional and political restructuring. A former senior Pakistani diplomat said Pakistan had ‘pleaded with the U.S. to include the Taliban in Bonn’. Pakistan’s consistent efforts to persuade the U.S. to bring the Taliban into the political mainstream appeared to bear fruit a decade later, when the Obama administration signalled its intention to leave Afghanistan and its openness to talking with the Taliban.”  And the numerous attempts to move to a peaceful solution staggered along, aided by Pakistan’s influence, which incurred the wrath of Washington on the grounds that Pakistan provided “safe havens to terrorist organisations”.

The fact that before the US invasion in 2001 Pakistan had suffered only one suicide bombing (by a nutty Egyptian trying to blow up his embassy) and that in the period January 2002 to October 10, 2021, as calculated by India’s South Asia Terrorism Portal, there were 594 suicide attacks, killing over 5,000 civilians, might seem at variance with allegations that Pakistan likes terrorists, as does the fact that 1231 members of the military have been killed as a result of the US war, including 24 who died in a particularly savage strafing attack by US strike aircraft on the Pakistan side of the border with Afghanistan.

Not only has Pakistan suffered enormously from terrorist barbarism, there are about 1.4 million registered Afghan refugees in the country along with a further 1.5 million unregistered — and more are flooding in following the recent debacle.  Social, economic and security problems arising from the presence of these exiles continue to be enormous, yet the US refuses to acknowledge that there could be great difficulty in identifying Taliban sympathisers or adherents among the millions.  And, as an Atlantic Council analyst points out, “US policymakers have turned a blind eye to the negative impact of an unstable Afghanistan on Pakistan . . .”

But Pakistan is on Washington’s back-burner and President Biden won’t speak with Prime Minister Imran Khan, which is regarded by Pakistan as a deliberate insult. On the other hand, the President warmly greeted Indian Prime Minister Modi to the White House in September and was effusive in declaring that he wanted “to welcome my friend — and we have known each other for some time — back to the White House.  And, Mr. Prime Minister, we’re going to continue to build on our strong partnership.”

Washington’s continuing bias regarding India versus Pakistan will serve no useful purpose for the US.  It will drive Pakistan closer to China, with which it already has most extensive and important economic ties, and bolster India’s determination to step up its dangerous face-off with Beijing.  Washington wants to conquer by dividing the sub-continent, but all it’s doing is increasing the probability of greater confrontation which will lead to conflict. Wendy Sherman’s declaration that “We don’t see ourselves building a broad relationship with Pakistan” was a major diplomatic blunder that fueled the fires of  hostility.

Biden and his hawks should pause to think where they’re trying to take the world, and consider an approach that could lead to negotiation and compromise rather than encouraging India and Pakistan on a course to war.

counterpunch.org

India and Pakistan share a long border and do not get along well, to put it mildly. The main cause of disagreement is the divided territory of Kashmir which as long ago as 1948 necessitated UN Security Council attention, resulting in a Resolution determining, among other things, that there should be a “free and impartial plebiscite to decide whether the State of Jammu and Kashmir is to accede to India or Pakistan.” This has not happened and the seemingly insoluble dispute could well lead to a fourth war between the countries, both of which are nuclear-armed.

It might be thought that in such circumstances the world’s “best-educated, best-prepared” nation that President Biden also declares has “unmatched strength” would apply at least some of its education, preparation and power to encouraging India and Pakistan to engage in meaningful negotiations and move towards rapprochement.

Not a hope.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman recently visited India and Pakistan, but rather than attempting to coax and persuade her host nations to reduce bilateral tension and confrontation she publicly insulted Pakistan and urged India to cooperate militarily even more closely with the U.S. She widened the chasm of polarisation in a public speech in India’s commercial centre, Mumbai, by declaring “We don’t see ourselves building a broad relationship with Pakistan, and we have no interest in returning to the days of hyphenated India-Pakistan. That’s not where we are. That’s not where we’re going to be.” Not content with demonstrably taking sides and thus stoking fires in a tinder-box region, she said that when she went on to Pakistan next day her discussions there would be for “a very specific and narrow purpose”, and everything that was discussed would be passed on to India because “we share information back and forth between our governments”.

The reasons for this surge in U.S. support for India in its face-off with Pakistan are not hard to detect, and the main one is that India and China are at loggerheads, and indeed in a state of aggressive military standoff. Any country in disagreement with China is automatically regarded with approval by Washington, while any country that actively cooperates with China — like Pakistan — is equally automatically considered to be an enemy of freedom.

The U.S. needed Pakistan during its 20-year military occupation of Afghanistan, and attempted to use successive governments in Islamabad to assist in its operations. But now that it and the Nato military alliance and some 300,000 members of Afghanistan’s own military forces have been decisively routed by about 70,000 barbaric, bigoted, raggy-baggy Taliban savages, it is increasingly attractive for the Biden administration to blame anyone other than the Pentagon and the Washington establishment for the catastrophic debacle. They claim that Pakistan helped the Taliban — and it cannot be denied that the government and its military in Islamabad maintained contact with the Afghan Taliban, for good reasons.

As I wrote some years ago, in 2007 the then head of the Directorate of Inter Services Intelligence, General Kayani (who became army chief), “told the author, in answer to a direct question, that ‘of course’ he maintained contact with some subversive groups, thereby not only holding doors ajar for negotiations but keeping track of various members of such organisations. He stated that if he did not have some sort of contact with these people they would simply disappear and his directorate would lose what ever degree of influence it had that it might be able to bring to bear on them when the need arose.”

So he kept contact — and there was indubitable need for Pakistan’s influence and assistance in Afghanistan.

In December 2018 even Voice of America reported that after U.S.-Taliban negotiations in Abu Dhabi “Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan . . . reiterated his country “will do everything within its power” to further the Afghan peace process.” Khan is quoted as saying “Pakistan has helped in the dialogue between Taliban and the U.S. in Abu Dhabi. Let us pray that this leads to peace and ends almost three decades of suffering of the brave Afghan people.” Washington downplayed the importance of Pakistan’s assistance, but VOA acknowledged that “The U.S. spokesperson also said a recent letter from U.S. President Donald Trump to Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan ‘emphasized that Pakistan’s assistance with the Afghan peace process is fundamental to building an enduring U.S.-Pakistan partnership’.”

The International Crisis Group is objective about Pakistan and noted recently that “As early as the 2001 Bonn conference that drew up a roadmap for post-invasion Afghanistan, Pakistan had asked for the Taliban’s inclusion in consultations on Afghanistan’s constitutional and political restructuring. A former senior Pakistani diplomat said Pakistan had ‘pleaded with the U.S. to include the Taliban in Bonn’. Pakistan’s consistent efforts to persuade the U.S. to bring the Taliban into the political mainstream appeared to bear fruit a decade later, when the Obama administration signalled its intention to leave Afghanistan and its openness to talking with the Taliban.” And the numerous attempts to move to a peaceful solution staggered along, aided by Pakistan’s influence, which incurred the wrath of Washington on the grounds that Pakistan provided “safe havens to terrorist organisations”.

The fact that before the U.S. invasion in 2001 Pakistan had suffered only one suicide bombing (by a nutty Egyptian trying to blow up his embassy) and that in the period January 2002 to October 10, 2021, as calculated by India’s South Asia Terrorism Portal, there were 594 suicide attacks, killing over 5,000 civilians, might seem at variance with allegations that Pakistan likes terrorists, as does the fact that 1231 members of the military have been killed as a result of the U.S. war, including 24 who died in a particularly savage strafing attack by U.S. strike aircraft on the Pakistan side of the border with Afghanistan.

Not only has Pakistan suffered enormously from terrorist barbarism, there are about 1.4 million registered Afghan refugees in the country along with a further 1.5 million unregistered — and more are flooding in following the recent debacle. Social, economic and security problems arising from the presence of these exiles continue to be enormous, yet the U.S. refuses to acknowledge that there could be great difficulty in identifying Taliban sympathisers or adherents among the millions. And, as an Atlantic Council analyst points out, “U.S. policymakers have turned a blind eye to the negative impact of an unstable Afghanistan on Pakistan . . .”

But Pakistan is on Washington’s back-burner and President Biden won’t speak with Prime Minister Imran Khan, which is regarded by Pakistan as a deliberate insult. On the other hand, the President warmly greeted Indian Prime Minister Modi to the White House in September and was effusive in declaring that he wanted “to welcome my friend — and we have known each other for some time — back to the White House. And, Mr. Prime Minister, we’re going to continue to build on our strong partnership.”

Washington’s continuing bias regarding India versus Pakistan will serve no useful purpose for the U.S. It will drive Pakistan closer to China, with which it already has most extensive and important economic ties, and bolster India’s determination to step up its dangerous face-off with Beijing. Washington wants to conquer by dividing the sub-continent, but all it’s doing is increasing the probability of greater confrontation which will lead to conflict. Wendy Sherman’s declaration that “We don’t see ourselves building a broad relationship with Pakistan” was a major diplomatic blunder that fuelled the fires of hostility.

Biden and his hawks should pause to think where they’re trying to take the world, and consider an approach that could lead to negotiation and compromise rather than encouraging India and Pakistan on a course to war.

Afghanistan has become the United States’ longest military engagement in history, lasting 20 years.

Similar to the Vietnam War (which lasted 19.5 years), there has never been a positive military objective for “winning” in Afghanistan such that American troops could finally leave.

As Col. Prouty has stated in his book, not one of the six U.S. administrations who oversaw the Vietnam War ever stated a positive American military objective for that war. The generals sent to Saigon were told not to let the “communists” take over, period. As Prouty makes the point repeatedly in his book, this does not constitute as a military objective. (For more on this refer to my paper.)

46 years later, it would appear the United States has not learned from this hard bled lesson. Today, the U.S. is repeating the same foolish “strategy” in Afghanistan against the Taliban.

On August 15^th the capital of Afghanistan fell to the Taliban forcing President Ashraf Ghani to flee the country, ending the rule of the Afghan government.

The Taliban take-over has been spurred by the Biden Administration’s handling of American troops exit from Afghanistan, which was pre-planned over a year ago.

However, there is something not quite right about all this.

On Feb 29^th 2020, the Trump Administration signed a peace agreement with the Taliban titled “Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan,” with provisions including the withdrawal of all regular American and NATO troops from Afghanistan, a Taliban pledge that they would oppose al-Qaeda in their zones of influence and open up talks with the Afghan government. This peace agreement was also supported by Russia, China, Pakistan and unanimously endorsed by the United Nations Security Council.

Under this peace agreement there was to be an initial reduction from 13, 000 to 8, 600 troops in July 2020, followed by a full withdrawal by May 1^st 2021 if the Taliban kept its commitments during this downscaling of U.S. military presence.

This agreement looked promising under the Trump Administration, and it was thought that it would be possible to work with the Taliban in securing peace and stability in Afghanistan, to counter al-Qaeda, and to allow for American troops to finally leave a country they had been occupying for two decades. And again, this was a proposal that was supported by Russia, China, Pakistan and the UN Security Council.

Even Gen. Nick Carter, the UK chief of the General Staff stated in an interview, “I think that the Taliban is not the organization it once was, it is an organization that has evolved significantly in the 20 years that we have been there…They recognize that they need some political legitimacy and I would not be surprised if a scenario plays out that actually sees it not being quite as bad as perhaps some of the naysayers at the moment are predicting.”

However, things have gone very wrong, very fast. Why?

The American military action in Afghanistan over these past weeks does not show any seriousness in withdrawing smoothly from the country. Rather, it is doing it in the most bombastic way possible.

It is at this point, that I would like to remind the reader of the sort of tactics that were used in Vietnam and that for starters, we would be very foolish to assume that there isn’t any sort of clandestine operation at play here. In fact, Col. Prouty discussed how during the Vietnam War, mock battles were staged by paramilitary units, called “Fun and Games” by the CIA.

Using this tactic they were able to not only fool dignitaries who were given the helicopter tour of the situation but made it virtually impossible for accurate news reporting to occur (if there was ever the intention in the first place). Fun and Games allowed for a situation to go from either extreme; full containment to full blow out, depending on what the situation called for in terms of shaping public and political opinion.

Think we don’t do things that way anymore? Then refer to Dilyana Gaytandzhieva’s article “U.S. fuels Syrian war with new arms supplies to Al Qaeda terrorists” which goes through the contractual details of how the Biden Administration is presently sending new arms to al-Qaeda terrorists, mainly to the Idlib province in Syria, which they completely control presently. I will speak more on this later but one should ask themselves for now, why is the U.S. encouraging the growth and influence of al-Qaeda and adamantly opposed to that of the Taliban?

And then there is the matter with the British…

UK Defense Secretary, Ben Wallace, has been actively trying to call on NATO allies to join a British-led military coalition to re-enter Afghanistan upon the U.S. departure! Wallace states in an interview with Daily Mail:

“I did try talking to NATO nations, but they were not interested, nearly all of them…We tried a number of like-minded nations. Some said they were keen, but their parliaments weren’t. It became apparent pretty quickly that without the U.S. as the framework nation it had been, these options were closed off…All of us were saddened, from the prime minister (Boris Johnson) down, about all the blood and treasure that had been spent, that this was how it was ending.”

All the blood and treasure spent, yes that is a tragedy, but not because of how it is ending, but rather how the War on Terror was started.

That is, that the Iraq and Libya wars were both based off of cooked British intelligence, which resulted in the attempt by the British people to prosecute Tony Blair as a war criminal for his direct role in causing British and U.S. troops to enter an illegal war with Iraq. This prosecution was later blocked by the British High Court claiming that there is no crime of aggression in English law under which the former PM could be charged. It seems there is no law against being a war criminal in Britain.

And it was none other than MI6 chief (1999-2004) Sir Richard Dearlove who oversaw and stood by the fraudulent intelligence on Iraq stating they bought uranium from Niger to build a nuclear weapon, the very same Sir Richard Dearlove who promoted the Christopher Steele dossier as something “credible” to American intelligence.

In addition, the Libyan invasion of 2011 was found to be unlawfully instigated by Britain. In a report published by the British Foreign Affairs Committee in September 2016, it was concluded that it was “the UK and France in March 2011 which led the international community to support an intervention in Libya to protect civilians from forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi”. The report concluded that the Libyan intervention was based on false pretence provided by British Intelligence and recklessly promoted by the British government. This is the real reason why David Cameron stepped down.

This is what caused the United States to enter both wars, due to, what has now been officially acknowledged as fraudulent or deliberately misleading evidence that was supplied by British intelligence.

So if we are going to talk about all of the blood and treasure spent, by all means please do, since there are a lot of people who should have gone to jail by now. Suffice to say, the British have pretty much never had anything honest or constructive to say on the situation in the Middle East and the Americans would do well not to get pulled into any more of their melodrama.

A Call for Sanity in a Post-Imperial Age

The Russian government has already met with Taliban representatives who were invited to Moscow on July 8-9th, for a discussion with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Since the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, President Putin’s envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, has stated on Rossiya 24, that there were hopes for constructive relations now that the American-backed president Ashraf Ghani has gone into exile, “If we compare how easy it is to negotiate as colleagues and partners, then the Taliban have seemed to me for a long time much more prepared for negotiations than the puppet Kabul government,” he said.

According to Kabulov, Ghani, who the local Russian embassy claimed attempted to take large quantities of cash out of the country, was “doubtfully elected, ruled badly and ended shamefully.” Kabulov said that “he deserves to be brought to justice and held accountable by the Afghan people.” Adding, “We are in no hurry to grant recognition [to the Taliban]… We will see how the new regime behaves.”

Russia is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), committed to a political, economic and security alliance amongst its member nations and beyond. The SCO is widely regarded as the “alliance of the East.” With the fate of Afghanistan standing on rather shaky ground, it should not be a source of wonderment as to why Russia wishes to engage in prompt strategic talks, since security in the region is of upmost importance for the entirety of Asia.

The Chinese government has also lost no time in establishing important ties. Beijing has been engaged with Kabul in constructing the Peshawar-Kabul motorway, which would connect Pakistan to Afghanistan and make Kabul a participant in China’s Belt and Road Initiative. This project had been long delayed due to the former Kabul government fearing scorn from Washington. Beijing is also building a major road through the Wakhan Corridor, which would connect China’s westernmost province of Xinjiang to Afghanistan.

For these economic linkages to be successful, Afghanistan must first become stable and secure. In fact, China has been undergoing negotiations with the Taliban since 2019.

The Wakhan Corridor is regarded as a rather risky endeavour having the potential to act as a corridor for terrorism rather than development.

Just a few weeks ago, Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen said in an interview that “China is a friendly country and we welcome it for reconstruction and developing Afghanistan…if [the Chinese] have investments, of course we will ensure their safety.”

On the issue of whether the Taliban might support alleged Uyghur militants against China in neighboring Xinjiang, Shaheen responded, “We care about the oppression of Muslims, be it in Palestine, in Myanmar, or in China, and we care about the oppression of non-Muslims anywhere in the world. But what we are not going to do is interfere in China’s internal affairs.”

This may seem like empty talk meant to impress Beijing and earn more brownie points, but the Wakhan Corridor is narrow and will not be difficult to monitor. Thus Beijing is offering this in good faith but it is also an easy test to see how much substance is indeed behind such words, and the Taliban know this.

On July 28^th, Taliban representatives met with Chinese officials in Tianjin. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi stated “The Taliban in Afghanistan is a pivotal military and political force in the country, and will play an important role in the process of peace, reconciliation, and reconstruction there.”

This is sending a clear message, that so long as the Taliban agrees to defend Afghanistan against terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and serves to increase stability in the region, it will continue to have a seat at the negotiation table.

Thus, the question that should be asked is, if the Taliban are going to cooperate with Russian and Chinese initiatives in the region, is this a good or a bad thing for the rest of Asia, let alone the rest of the world?

America’s Bizarre Romance with al-Qaeda

“Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.”

– Marc Anthony in  Act III scene i

Before we can answer this question, we must go over the American relationship to al-Qaeda today, to get a better understanding of the situation.

Al-Qaeda was founded by Osama bin Laden (among several others) in 1988, and has been recognised by the United States government as solely responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

This was the premise for the War on Terror, and almost 20 years later, we do not seem to be any better off in terms of global security, despite countless bombings of cities with a death toll of innocents much higher than any terrorist group could hope to achieve.

The term “moderate rebel” is no longer used by Washington, however, the reader should be reminded that the reason why is because it became undeniable that “moderate rebels” were just a PR rebranding of extremist groups, such as the al-Nusra Front which was one of the re-brandings of al-Qaeda. Not only did all U.S. trained moderate rebels defect from the U.S. as soon as they were let out “into the wild” with U.S. arms and equipment in hand, under the Obama Administration, but there was also the very troubling human heart eating episode that was committed by an al-Nusra member and caught on film with him stating “We will eat your hearts and your livers you soldiers of Bashar the dog.”

Even though this was committed against a supposed “enemy Syrian soldier” according to the western narrative, it was still too unsavoury for most that these were the apparent people the U.S. was training and arming to attack the “barbaric” Assad government.

Then there was the disturbing interview by former CIA Deputy Director (2010-2013) Michael Morell, who was supporting Hilary Clinton during the presidential election and branding Trump as a “Russian stooge,” who said in a 2016 interview with Charlie Rose that Russians and Iranians in Syria should be killed covertly to “pay the price.” That is, the Russians and Iranians who were invited by the Assad government to combat the real terrorists in the region.

With these sorts of troubling developments, it was rightfully called into question, what exactly were the priorities of the Obama Administration and the CIA in their actions within Syria, and the Middle East/North Africa in general (such as the disturbing Benghazi scene in 2012)? Many in the American military became troubled with this blasé attitude, that it did not matter who replaced Assad, so long as Assad was gone.

Then al-Qaeda was rebranded yet again, to the Hay’at Tahrir al Sham (HTS), otherwise known as Organization for the Liberation of the Levant. This was acknowledged as far back as 2017, however, since the transfer over to the Biden Administration, according to the Washington DC based think tank, Middle East Institute, the HTS is not al-Qaeda. And so the ruse under the Biden Administration continues where Obama left off.

Today, al-Qaeda is in complete control of the Idlib Province in Syria, which shares a border with Turkey. And it should be no secret that Turkey is helping to arm al-Qaeda with U.S. backing, for more on this refer here and here.

Idlib Province (colored red) as part of Syria (colored yellow). The entire northern border of Syria is shared with Turkey.

And amazingly, al-Qaeda is presently going through yet another rebranding, as seen with the tragically comical PBS fluff piece published on April 2, 2021 with the absurd title “Syrian Militant and Former al-Qaeda Leader Seeks Wider Acceptance in First Interview with U.S. Journalist.”

PBS has direct ties with the American government, so that can be seen as being given a clear green light from the Biden Administration.

And it gets worst.

Ambassador James Jeffrey who has served as the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey (2008-2010) and Iraq (2010-2012) and was the United States Special Representative for Syria Engagement and the Special Envoy to the International military intervention against ISIL (2019-2020), has publicly admitted that he “routinely” lied to Trump on what were the American troop levels in Syria, while Trump was in the midst of attempting to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria.

In addition, Ambassador James Jeffrey told PBS News in March, 2021 that the HTS is the “least bad option of the various options on Idlib, and Idlib is one of the most important places in Syria, which is one of the most important places right now in the Middle East.” This is in support of the above mentioned fluff piece on Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the al-Qaeda linked leader that is now considered an “asset” to U.S. strategy in Syria.

It is no coincidence Jeffrey was last stationed in Turkey as U.S. Ambassador to help facilitate this “special relationship.”

In 2017, even the BBC news could not avoid reporting “Trump ends CIA arms programme for rebels.” A clandestine operation to arm rebel groups that have to this day, never proved themselves anything other than extremists committing terrorist activities against the people of Syria.

Trump thought he had ended such a programme, but as Kennedy learned the hard way with the Bay of Pigs fiasco, there has been a very blurred line between the CIA and Pentagon in terms of clandestine operations since the days of Allen Dulles, and as I have gone over in previous papers here, here, and here, there is virtually no longer any official record of these sorts of black ops activities. It is strictly on a need to know basis, and as we have seen here, presidents such as Kennedy and Trump, are rarely considered part of the grouping “that needs to know.”

So, if the U.S., under the Biden Administration has returned to its former ways and once again is openly funding and arming al-Qaeda, why is there all this panicky commotion in the western news (who have been complicit in spreading the reformed al-Qaeda narrative), over the rise of the Taliban?

If Russia, China, Turkey and even Iran (who was one of the greatest enemies of the Taliban) are able to see the Taliban as something that can be potentially worked with to be a positive force for peace and stability in the region, I think we would do well do leave it to Russia and China to decide how that course should go at this point.

Britain and the U.S. have done nothing but instigate and enflame situations during their 20 year-long so-called “War on Terror,” but rather more aptly named “War of Terror.” It is absurd at this point if we are going to continue to think that they should be the leaders in reforming anything, not only due to their questionable competency but more so due to the troubling fact that they do not want to see an end to the terror, rather they are its greatest promoters and benefactors.

How to Exit the Ever Revolving Great Game

As I laid out in a previous piece titled “The Curse of Game Theory: Why It’s in Your Self-Interest to Exit the Rules of the Game,” the divide and conquer philosophy, contrary to what is being taught in most western universities today, is NOT a reflection of the true nature of humankind.

Game theory does not represent the motivations behind human nature, but rather imposes such limitations since, as they acknowledge themselves, it is easier to predict and control your chosen selfish behaviours which are encouraged and rewarded with “incentives.”

It is a system of enslavement that encourages its slaves to fight each other for “table scraps” and never question the hand that withholds, the system that creates false scarcity and promotes antagonism over artificial stressors.

We are taught never to question the rules given to us in these game theory scenarios, but to react accordingly to what has been defined to us as a limited set of options in an artificial scenario.

That is, the most effective and powerful tool of geopolitics, is the very dogmatic belief in the ideology of geopolitics itself as a necessity.

However, what we are increasingly seeing in the greater part of the globe is the very opposite. Multiple alliances are rapidly forming across South America, Africa and Asia against the Anglo-American imperialist worldview.

This intervention in ideology is most notably seen with China’s win-win philosophy as a counter to game theory. It is for this reason that institutions, such as the notorious Council on Foreign Relations, have branded the BRI as a direct threat to U.S. security. However, the BRI is not a threat to the security of the American people, but rather the security of America’s Deep State agenda.

This philosophy of win-win puts forward that to facilitate peace, a nation must first be economically uplifted, before it can be uplifted politically, societally, culturally etc. Peace through cooperative development comes first, and the blossoming of civilizations will follow. This is based on what was observed with the ancient Silk Road, and the remarkable ecumenical alliances that were formed as a result.

And despite the wishful fantasies of western oligarchs, Russia is entirely committed to its partnership with China and vice versa.

As long as nations abide by the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-Existence, uninvited outside intervention into a country’s internal politics is forbidden. This allows for mutual-trust and more importantly the freedom to focus on mutually beneficial development projects which will continue to raise the standard of living for all and increasingly influence the development of these countries in education and cultural reform.

It is clear that to keep nations isolated, impoverished, starved and kept in constant terror is not a true means to solving anything but rather is a continuation of the doctrine of empire, the unleashing of the dogs of war to sow distrust and carve division where alliances and sustainable peace could occur in its stead.

If we truly want peace in the Middle East and throughout the world, it is time we decide that we are no longer going to be used as pawns in the Empire’s Great Game.

The author can be reached at https://cynthiachung.substack.com/

By Pepe ESCOBAR

August 12, 2021. History will register it as the day the Taliban, nearly 20 years after 9/11 and the subsequent toppling of their 1996-2001 reign by American bombing, struck the decisive blow against the central government in Kabul.

In a coordinated blitzkrieg, the Taliban all but captured three crucial hubs: Ghazni and Kandahar in the center, and Herat in the west. They had already captured most of the north. As it stands, the Taliban control 14 (italics mine) provincial capitals and counting.

First thing in the morning, they took Ghazni, which is situated around 140 kilometers from Kabul. The repaved highway is in good condition. Not only are the Taliban moving closer and closer to Kabul: for all practical purposes they now control the nation’s top artery, Highway 1 from Kabul to Kandahar via Ghazni.

That in itself is a strategic game-changer. It will allow the Taliban to encircle and besiege Kabul simultaneously from north and south, in a pincer movement.

Kandahar fell by nightfall after the Taliban managed to breach the security belt around the city, attacking from several directions.

In Ghazni, provincial governor Daoud Laghmani cut a deal, fled and then was arrested. In Kandahar, provincial governor Rohullah Khanzada – who belongs to the powerful Popolzai tribe – left with only a few bodyguards.

He opted to engage in an elaborate deal, convincing the Taliban to allow the remaining military to retreat to Kandahar airport and be evacuated by helicopter. All their equipment, heavy weapons and ammunition should be transferred to the Taliban.

Afghan Special Forces represented the cream of the crop in Kandahar. Yet they were only protecting a few select locations. Now their next mission may be to protect Kabul. The final deal between the governor and the Taliban should be struck soon. Kandahar has indeed fallen.

In Herat, the Taliban attacked from the east while notorious former warlord Ismail Khan, leading his militia, put up a tremendous fight from the west. The Taliban progressively conquered the police HQ, “liberated” prison inmates and laid siege to the governor’s office.

Game over: Herat has also fallen with the Taliban now controlling the whole of Western Afghanistan, all the way to the borders with Iran.

Tet Offensive, remixed

Military analysts will have a ball deconstructing this Taliban equivalent to the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam. Satellite intel may have been instrumental: it’s as if the whole battlefield progress had been coordinated from above.

Yet there are some quite prosaic reasons for the success of the onslaught apart from strategic acumen: corruption in the Afghan National Army (ANA); total disconnect between Kabul and battlefield commanders; lack of American air support; the deep political divide in Kabul itself.

In parallel, the Taliban had been secretly reaching out for months, through tribal connections and family ties, offering a deal: don’t fight us and you will be spared.

Add to it a deep sense of betrayal by the West felt by those connected with the Kabul government, mixed with fear of Taliban revenge against collaborationists.

A very sad subplot, from now on, concerns civilian helplessness – felt by those who consider themselves trapped in cities that are now controlled by the Taliban. Those that made it before the onslaught are the new Afghan IDPs, such as the ones who set up a refugee camp in the Sara-e-Shamali park in Kabul.

Rumors were swirling in Kabul that Washington had suggested to President Ashraf Ghani to resign, clearing the way for a ceasefire and the establishment of a transitional government.

On the record, what’s established is that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin promised Ghani to “remain invested” in Afghan security.

Reports indicate the Pentagon plans to redeploy 3,000 troops and Marines to Afghanistan and another 4,000 to the region to evacuate the US Embassy and US citizens in Kabul.

The alleged offer to Ghani actually originated in Doha – and came from Ghani’s people, as I confirmed with diplomatic sources.

The Kabul delegation, led by Abdullah Abdullah, the chairman of something called the High Council for National Reconciliation, via Qatar mediation, offered the Taliban a power-sharing deal as long as they stop the onslaught. There’s been no mention of Ghani resigning, which is the Taliban’s number one condition for any negotiation.

The extended troika in Doha is working overtime. The US lines up immovable object Zalmay Khalilzad, widely mocked in the 2000s as “Bush’s Afghan.” The Pakistanis have special envoy Muhammad Sadiq and ambassador to Kabul Mansoor Khan.

The Russians have the Kremlin’s envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov. And the Chinese have a new Afghan envoy, Xiao Yong.

Russia-China-Pakistan are negotiating with a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) frame of mind: all three are permanent members. They emphasize a transition government, power-sharing, and recognition of the Taliban as a legitimate political force.

Diplomats are already hinting that if the Taliban topple Ghani in Kabul, by whatever means, they will be recognized by Beijing as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan – something that will set up yet another incendiary geopolitical front in the confrontation against Washington.

As it stands, Beijing is just encouraging the Taliban to strike a peace agreement with Kabul.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani gestures as he speaks during a gathering to assess the general security situation in Jalalabad on March 3, 2020. Photo: AFP / Noorullah Shirzada
The Pashtunistan riddle

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has minced no words as he stepped into the fray. He confirmed the Taliban leadership told him there’s no negotiation with Ghani in power – even as he tried to persuade them to reach for a peace deal.

Khan accused Washington of regarding Pakistan as “useful” only when it comes to pressing Islamabad to use its influence over the Taliban to broker a deal – without considering the “mess” the Americans left behind.

Khan once again said he “made it very clear” there will be no US military bases in Pakistan.

This is a very good analysis of how hard it is for Khan and Islamabad to explain Pakistan’s complex involvement with Afghanistan to the West and also the Global South.

The key issues are quite clear:

1. Pakistan wants a power-sharing deal and is doing what it can in Doha, along the extended troika, to reach it.

2. A Taliban takeover will lead to a new influx of refugees and may encourage jihadis of the al-Qaeda, TTP and ISIS-Khorasan kind to destabilize Pakistan.

3. It was the US that legitimized the Taliban by striking an agreement with them during the Donald Trump administration.

4. And because of the messy withdrawal, the Americans reduced their leverage – and Pakistan’s – over the Taliban.

The problem is Islamabad simply does not manage to get these messages across.

And then there are some bewildering decisions. Take the AfPak border between Chaman (in Pakistan’s Balochistan) and Spin Boldak (in Afghanistan).

The Pakistanis closed their side of the border. Every day tens of thousands of people, overwhelmingly Pashtun and Baloch, from both sides cross back and forth alongside a mega-convoy of trucks transporting merchandise from the port of Karachi to landlocked Afghanistan. To shut down such a vital commercial border is an unsustainable proposition.

All of the above leads to arguably the ultimate problem: what to do about Pashtunistan?

The absolute heart of the matter when it comes to Pakistan’s involvement in Afghanistan and Afghan interference in the Pakistani tribal areas is the completely artificial, British Empire-designed Durand Line.

Islamabad’s definitive nightmare is another partition. Pashtuns are the largest tribe in the world and they live on both sides of the (artificial) border. Islamabad simply cannot admit a nationalist entity ruling Afghanistan because that will eventually foment a Pashtun insurrection in Pakistan.

And that explains why Islamabad prefers the Taliban compared to an Afghan nationalist government. Ideologically, conservative Pakistan is not that dissimilar from the Taliban positioning. And in foreign policy terms, the Taliban in power perfectly fit the unmovable “strategic depth” doctrine that opposes Pakistan to India.

In contrast, Afghanistan’s position is clear-cut. The Durand Line divides Pashtuns on both sides of an artificial border. So any nationalist government in Kabul will never abandon its desire for a larger, united Pashtunistan.

As the Taliban are de facto a collection of warlord militias, Islamabad has learned by experience how to deal with them. Virtually every warlord – and militia – in Afghanistan is Islamic.

Even the current Kabul arrangement is based on Islamic law and seeks advice from an Ulema council. Very few in the West know that Sharia law is the predominant trend in the current Afghan constitution.

Closing the circle, ultimately all members of the Kabul government, the military, as well as a great deal of civil society come from the same conservative tribal framework that gave birth to the Taliban.

Apart from the military onslaught, the Taliban seem to be winning the domestic PR battle because of a simple equation: they portray Ghani as a NATO and US puppet, the lackey of foreign invaders.

And to make that distinction in the graveyard of empires has always been a winning proposition.

asiatimes.com

As British India began moving toward independence after World War II, there were those in Britain and on the Indian sub-continent who argued that Britain had established international treaties with the various princely states and that Britain, by having overall responsibility for the defense and foreign affairs of these states, could not automatically transfer that role to the newly-independent Dominions of Hindustan and Pakistan. However, war-weary Britain was in no mood to continue to militarily protect these monarchical protectorates. The British government, in a move that continues to have ramifications in Kashmir and northeastern India, transferred control over the princely protectorates to the new dominions of India and Pakistan.

Nehru and the INC argued that granting independence to the individual Indian princely states would lead to the “Balkanization” of India. However, why should the Indian sub-continent have been any different than Africa? After all, Africa saw the emergence of small independent kingdoms in Lesotho, Rwanda, Burundi, Swaziland, and Zanzibar. In the 1930s, Indian independence leader Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi was quite content with the prospect that forward-thinking democratically-inclined royal states could rule themselves. However, as the INC began subscribing to the socialist tendency within its ranks, the princely states were put on notice that they would be forced to join an Indian federation with the same degree of autonomy they enjoyed within British India.

The INC convinced the post-war British viceroy, Viscount Mountbatten, that the partition of the sub-continent between India and Pakistan should be the last partition into independent states. It also helped the cause of an all-inclusive Indian union that Nehru had another line of communication to Mountbatten via Edwina Mountbatten, the viceroy’s wife. It was no secret that Nehru had been engaged in an ongoing affair with the Lady Mountbatten.

The rise to power in a united India of Hindu nationalist leaders like Modi was the nightmare of the leaders of the royal states of India. Modi’s political ascendancy to prime minister was fueled by anti-Muslim agitation he promoted among radical Hindus in his native Gujarat, where he served as chief minister prior to heading the Indian government. Some Indian princely states favored remaining totally independent of either India or Pakistan. Others favored forming a union of princely states tethered neither to India nor Pakistan. Twenty-two such states, including Gwalior and Indore, formed the Malwa Union.

Where Muslim rulers governed, Hindu extremists, the ideological forbearers of Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – which adheres to Hindu rights and a liberalized free-market economy stance – charged that Muslim leaders were nothing more than agents of Pakistan. Muslim leaders like Sir Hamidullah Khan, the Nawab of Bhopal, who fought alongside British forces in North Africa’s Battles of Keren and El Alamein, was fearful of his state’s domination by Hindu nationalists, some of whom, like Subhas Chandra Bose and his followers, were allied with Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan during the war.

In homage to the Indian pro-Nazis and pro-Japanese Hindus, Modi has been involved in a major project to rehabilitate Bose as a national hero of India. Modi has also praised Donald Trump, the closest the United States has seen to a fascist president throughout its entire history.

It appears that the fears of Sir Hamidullah Khan about Bhopal, long a center of Buddhist culture, being ruled by a Hindu nationalist India ultimately proved to be warranted. The Bhopal monarchy was abolished on June 1, 1949 when it became the State of Bhopal ruled by an Indian bureaucrat appointed by the president of India. In 1956, Bhopal lost its identity when it was merged with Madhya Bharat state. In 1984, Bhopal was the scene of an horrific Union Carbide chemical disaster that killed as many as 16,000 and injured at least 558,000. Unregulated actions of corporations, foreign and domestic, is a major guiding principle of Modi’s BJP.

Some princely states, tiny Cochin, for example, maintained a Cabinet answerable to an elected legislature and Indore had been heading in that same direction. The state of Baroda had instituted social legislation that was superior to that being proposed by either the INC or Muslim League. Baroda, Bikaner, and Rewa had functioning prime ministers answerable to democratic legislative assemblies. Fifteen of the principalities maintained their own postal systems. Others had their own coinage. The Gaekwar of Baroda was one of the world’s wealthiest men.

Popular sentiment against joining India was also strong in Hyderabad, governed by the Nizam, ruled by Nizam Osman Ali Khan, and Travancore, ruled by a Maharajah. The Prime Minister of Travancore, Sir C.P. Ramaswamy Ayer, declared that Travancore intended to become independent of both Britain and India, regardless of the pressure applied by the pro-INC Travancore State Congress. In 1948, the Nizam of Hyderabad, a Muslim and a close ally of Britain in World War II, appealed to both the United Nations and the International Court of Justice to save his nation from an imminent Indian invasion. Hyderabad’s case had the support of Pakistan, Argentina, and Egypt. The appeal was not successful. On September 13, 1948, Indian forces invaded Hyderabad in Operation Polo. The Indians met little resistance, Prime Minister Mir Laiq Ali was arrested by the Indian troops, and the Nizam was forced to sign an agreement that left him as head of state of what became an Indian constituent state. The Nizam was also forced to repudiate his appeals to the UN and International Court of Justice.

Indian troops put down by force a revolt of the Hindu Jat people of the princely state of Bharatpur, who did not want to be merged with the states of Alwar, Dholpur, and Karauli into the United State of Mataya.

In 1943, Leopold Amery, the British Secretary of State for India, told an audience at London’s Overseas Club, at which Maharajah Jam Sahib of Nawanagar was also a speaker, that the princely rulers of India were “not merely, as is sometimes suggested, museum pieces reproducing the splendor and chivalry and also perhaps the casualness of the Middle Ages . . . They are responsible rulers of territories, some of them equal in population and extent to major European nations, and their responsibilities are by no means small. Their primary responsibility is the good governance of their own people . . .”

Two rulers of the Rajput border states in western India, Maharajah Hanwant Singh of Jodphur and Maharawal Jawahir Singh of Jaisalmer – their nations located between the newly-partitioned India and Pakistan – saw some utility in having their kingdoms remain as neutral buffer states between India and Pakistan. Muhammad Mahabat Khanji III, the Muslim Nawab of Junagadh, a primarily Hindu border state, opted to join Pakistan with the support of his dewan or prime minister, Shah Nawaz Bhutto. However, the Hindu majority revolted and in a plebiscite the people opted to join India. The Nawab fled to Pakistan. Dewan Bhutto’s son, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, became prime minister of Pakistan. Zulfiqar was later executed by a military tribunal. His daughter, Benazir Bhutto, also became prime minister. She was later assassinated. The Muslim Nawab of Tonk, the Muslim leader of a Rajputana princely state, opted to merge with India.

The failure of the British to grant independence to the Sikh states of Patiala, Kapurthala, Jind, Faridkot, Malerkotla, Nalagarh, Kalsia, and Nabha as the Phulkian Union would later serve as a point of contention that Sikhs were not given the same independence were the Hindus and Muslims upon partition of India. There was mild resistance to joining either Hindustan or Pakistan from states like Bikaner and Mysore, as well as the Punjab Hill States. Similarly, the large Christian minorities of Travancore and Cochin feared the ultimate direction of Hindu rule. Later, that would be manifested in deadly attacks by Hindu radicals on Christian churches.

The princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, ruled by a Muslim Maharajah, opted to accede to India with guarantees of special autonomy guaranteed by the Indian Constitution. Although that guarantee was recognized by all previous Indian prime ministers, INC and BJP, alike, Modi abrogated it and turned the state into an Indian union territory, abolishing the state government in the process. Had India and Pakistan permitted the continued sovereignty of the western border states, they could have served as safety valves between the two nuclear-armed nations. However, even the Himalayan border states separating India and China – Bhutan, Sikkim, Ladakh, and Nepal – have not fared very well. India invaded and annexed the Kingdom of Sikkim in 1975 and Nepal, which became a federal republic after abolishing its monarchy, and the Kingdom of Bhutan remain wary buffer states on guard against Indian expansionism. As part of Modi’s abrogation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status, the largely Buddhist region of Ladakh was made a union territory.

Both India and Pakistan underestimated the determination of royal leaders in the remote areas of the northwestern part of British India to be left alone by Britain, India, and Pakistan. Even prior to the outbreak of World War II, the Faquir of Alingar and the Nawab of Dir fought relentlessly against British land and air forces. This initial resentment by the tribal leaders of the Northwest Frontier Hindu Kush region, including the leaders of the princely states of Amb, Chitral, and Dir, as well as the Wali of Swat, to accede to Pakistani demands would continue to inflame the political-religious situation in modern times, such as when the region became host to various Islamist extremists, including Al Qaeda.

Like India, Pakistan also dissolved the sovereignty of its ten princely states even though Jinnah had supported the princely states opting for independence upon partition of India. The first state to experience pressure was the largest, Bahawalpur, which saw its entire government, including the Amir, who claimed direct descendance from the Prophet Muhammad, dismissed by the central government of Pakistan. The dissolution of the princely states of Khairpur, Las Bela, Kharan, Makran, and Khanate of Kalat soon followed.

Many of the states of northeast India, where local inhabitants joined British forces in repelling the Japanese invasion in the war, felt slighted when their legitimate demands for independence were ignored by Mountbatten and the British Colonial Office. These states included Manipur, Tripura, Nagalim, and Cooch Behar.

Successive Indian and Pakistani governments moved to obliterate any vestiges of the princely states. Small states, including Bilbari and its population of 27, were relegated to the history books in short order. In 1961, India moved to arrest and strip the Maharajah of Bastar of his royal titles. Maharajah Gajapati Pravin Chandra Bhanj Deo was found to have been in contact with the rulers of other former princely states and attempted to form an alliance to demand the restoration of their principalities. The people of Bastar were aboriginal tribesman with extreme loyalty to their maharajah.

One world leader saw some unfairness in what Nehru and his Congress Party had done to the princely rulers. In March 1962, the First Lady of the United States, Jacqueline Kennedy, wife of President John F. Kennedy, made it a point to spend part of her visit to India with five Indian princes and two princesses representing the former princely states of Mewar, Bikaner, Kotah, and Udaipur. The meetings represented JFK’s pointed jab at Nehru, who did not mask his dislike of Indian royalty.

One thing that was not endemic among the rulers of the princely states was religious extremism. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the current prime minister of India and his most avid supporters and the radical Islamist political leaders of Pakistan.

Around the world, dormant and low intensity rival claims to contested territory in mountainous regions, from the Himalayan Range to the western Golan Heights in the Middle East and the territory of the Kurdistan Regional Government to southern Sakhalin Island, have been spurred on by current and projected rise in sea levels.

Governments are beginning to contemplate the movement of urban populations living at or slightly above sea level to more secure and sustainable higher altitude zones. Nowhere has this been more evident than in the region of Jammu and Kashmir, which sits at the western end of the Himalayan Mountains and for which there are territorial claims by India, Pakistan, China, and a Kashmiri independence movement. India views Kashmir as a future home for climate change refugees from coastal metropolitan areas like Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Ghaziabad, Surat, and Faridabad. Annual monsoon rains are resulting in more intensive flooding in these urban areas.

Other than the political dimensions stemming from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution, which granted special autonomous rights to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, the action also scraps the provision that had banned land sales in the state to non-residents of Kashmir. The majority Muslim population of Kashmir now fears that there will be a rush to buy land by wealthy Hindus, especially from Indian cities threatened by increased flooding.

The blitzkrieg swiftness by which Modi altered Jammu and Kashmir’s status from an autonomous state to the bifurcated “union territories” of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh has observers on the subcontinent and beyond convinced that a major land grab is now imminent for the western Himalayan region. By executive fiat, Modi ordered additional Indian troops into the former state, supplementing the half-million Indian armed forces personnel already stationed in Kashmir. Indian forces imposed a draconian curfew in Kashmir and all telecommunications, including landlines, were severed with the outside world. Religious pilgrims and tourists were ordered to leave Kashmir immediately with Indian Air Force planes flying many stunned visitors out of the area. More than 500 Kashmiri political and religious leaders, including three former chief ministers of the now-abolished government in Kashmir, were arrested by Indian security forces.

Pakistan suspended the Friendship Express train service with India. In addition, Indian and Pakistani border troops exchanged fire along the volatile border, known as the “Line of Control,” in the Rajouri sector. Pakistan also announced the expulsion of the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad and a suspension of trade with India.

There are current fears that Modi will next move to abrogate Article 371 of the Constitution and eliminate the special status of the mountainous states of Nagaland, Sikkim, Assam, Manipur, Sikkim, Mizoram, and Arunachal Pradesh in the eastern Himalayas, which would result in the lifting current restrictions on the sale of land to outsiders. The governments of the Himalayan nations of Nepal and Bhutan are increasingly suspicious about the wider territorial ambitions of Modi, a right-wing Hindu nationalist, on the future independence of their countries.

Modi’s actions are generally similar to China’s moves in Tibet and Sinkiang, where there is a policy of populating the regions with ethnic Han Chinese from the densely populated coastal areas of eastern China. The increasing acquisition of land for Han-populated residential areas comes at the expense of Buddhist ethnic Tibetans and Turkic-speaking Muslim Uighurs in Sinkiang.

There is evidence that given the closer ties between India and Israel that Modi’s move on Kashmir was encouraged by Israel. Kashmir has become a favorite destination for Israeli tourists and Israel Defense Force mountain warfare trainees. Moreover, Trump’s recent unilateral recognition of Syria’s Golan Heights and Jerusalem as Israeli sovereign territory sent a clear green light to Modi that, as far as Washington is concerned, he could officially absorb Kashmir into India without raising even an eyebrow in Washington.

What makes matters worse with the land grab for Kashmir is that India is officially laying claim to other parts of Kashmir currently occupied by Pakistan and China. Pakistan controls “Free Jammu and Kashmir, known as “Azad Kashmir,” along with Gilgit-Baltistan. China controls Aksai Chin, which is administered as part of Hotan County in the restive Xinjiang Autonomous Region. Presenting a recipe for disaster, three nuclear-armed nations brandish competing claims to prized high altitude territory that is suitable for the relocation of displaced climate refugees from coastal urban areas. The possibility for the first exchange of nuclear weapons between nuclear-armed states has risen exponentially with Modi’s move. India and Pakistan have fought several large and smaller wars over Kashmir since 1947 and the possibility that another conventional armed skirmish could go nuclear should not be underestimated.

The reaction of Pakistan and China to India’s move has been predictably inflammatory. The Chinese Foreign Ministry reiterated that India’s absorption of Ladakh involves “Chinese land.” Pakistan officially views India’s abrogation of Kashmir’s special status within the Indian Union as “illegal.” Pakistan also stated that it would “exercise all possible options” in reaction to India’s move.

The wars for fresh water supplies and higher altitude territory has commenced. Israel’s absorption of the Golan Heights and its proximity to the fresh water Sea of Galilee is an insurance policy for the eventual resettlement of climate refugees from inundated portions of Tel Aviv and Haifa.

Iraq is reinforcing its sovereignty claims to the mountainous territory currently government by the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq. Sea level increases are already affecting Basra, which sits along the marshy Shatt al-Arab river. The city is also ready experiencing seawater intrusion into the Shatt al-Arab, which has resulted in unsuitable water for drinking and crops. A shift in the population of the largely Shi’a population of the area northward to mountainous areas is not a question of if but when.

Japan has recently been flexing its muscles over its former territories in the Kurile Islands and South Sakhalin, which are currently part of the Russian Federation. As sea-level increases and parts of Tokyo, Osaka-Kobe, and other major coastal cities in Japan become uninhabitable, the mountainous areas of what Japan calls its “Northern Territories” will become increasingly coveted, setting the stage for a further increase in tensions in the already volatile northeastern Asia.

Argentina’s and Chile’s shared freshwater-abundant and highly arable Patagonia region is attracting wealthy land purchasers from around the world – including the United States, Israel, France, Italy, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and increasingly, climate change threatened Netherlands and Dubai. This land rush is taking place even as the Patagonian icefields are melting. The joke in Argentina is that the foreigners are buying up what has been described as the extremely remote “end of the world” for the actual “end of the world.” The same is true of an increasingly habitable Greenland, which has recently attracted prospective investors from China.

Wars were once fought over natural resources, ideology, and religion. Today, the old rule book as been superseded. It is now a fight for survival and the countries that conquer the higher altitude regions with livable climates and natural resources will remain after over-populated coastal areas succumb to oceanic deluges.

The August decision by India’s ultra-nationalist Prime Minister to unilaterally change the status of the territory is only one of the many disasters to befall it in the seventy years since the Muslim majority state, the fiefdom of a Hindu Maharaja, was allocated to India by the colonial British who in 1947 had been forced to grant independence to India, resulting in creation of the separate nations of Pakistan and India which disagree about the status of the territory.

Before examining the Indian government’s recent actions, a most important aspect of the Kashmir dispute has to be clarified.  It concerns the matter of bilateralism as interpreted by India. This was indicated, for example, by the newspaper the Chandigarh Tribune which stated on 8 August that “UN chief Antonio Guterres has recalled the Simla Agreement of 1972, a bilateral agreement between India and Pakistan that rejects third-party mediation in Kashmir after Islamabad asked him to play his ‘due role’ following New Delhi’s decision to revoke Jammu and Kashmir’s special status.”

The Tribune is one of India’s best newspapers.  Its reports are usually factual, objective and well-written.  But it is flat wrong in its contention that the Simla Accord “rejects” third party mediation about Kashmir, because it most certainly does no such thing.

The Tribune was retailing the policy of the Indian government whose External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar announced on 2 August that he had “conveyed to American counterpart Mike Pompeo, this morning in clear terms, that any discussion on Kashmir, if at all warranted, will only be with Pakistan and only bilaterally.” India has for decades insisted that involvement of any third party is not permissible and that there can be no mediation.

It is obvious why India refuses to countenance mediation — because it is almost certain that any independent, objective mediator would make the point that UN Security Council agreements still apply to the territory, and that none of them, most notably the matter of a plebiscite, have been annulled or in any manner diluted.  As the BBC has noted, “In three resolutions, the UN Security Council and the United Nations Commission in India and Pakistan recommended that as already agreed by Indian and Pakistani leaders, a plebiscite should be held to determine the future allegiance of the entire state.”

But it is India’s relentless and wilful misinterpretation of its existing accord with Pakistan that is the greatest blockage in the path to reconciliation.

The Simla Agreement between India and Pakistan was signed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto following the 1971 war between the countries, which resulted in creation of Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan.  It lays down that “the principles and purposes of the Charter of the United Nations shall govern the relations between the two countries” and “the two countries are resolved to settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations or by any other peaceful means mutually agreed upon between them . . .”

First, the mention of the United Nations, which is important because the UN Charter states in Paragraph 33 that “The parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.”

Mediation and arbitration are proposed, and the Simla Accord does not in any way discount or reject them. Its statement “That the two countries are resolved to settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations or by any other peaceful means mutually agreed upon between them” is quite clear that by inclusion of the phrase “or by any other peaceful means” that mediation is not excluded.

India is intent on becoming a permanent member of the UN Security Council, but this will be impossible if it continues to ignore the content of the UN Charter Chapter 1, Article 1, Paragraph 1, which says its aim is “To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace.”

It is difficult to see how India’s inflexible opposition to international mediation can benefit India or — much more importantly — the twelve million inhabitants of Indian-administered Kashmir.  The decision by Prime Minister Modi to annul Article 370 of the Constitution and thus abolish the special status of Indian-administered Kashmir was simply a movement in his ultra-nationalist campaign to ensure supremacy of Hindus. Since 1948 the Article has meant that the territory’s citizens have their own Constitution, their own laws, and the right to property ownership, with non-Kashmiris not being permitted to buy land.  It is this last that is a major life-changer for the region, because southern Hindus will now be encouraged to by land and property, and gradually (or perhaps not-so-gradually) displace the Kashmiris themselves.

Modi promised “new opportunity and prosperity to the people” — but if he thought, before he made the announcement about annulment of citizen’s rights, that this would be greeted with enthusiasm and that his policy would indeed benefit the people of the territory, then why did he send “tens of thousands of Indian troops . . . in addition to the half a million troops already stationed there”?  Why did the Central Government “shut off most communication with [the territory], including internet, cellphone and landline networks”?

Obviously he was expecting resentment from every Kashmiri.  And he got it.

Even the news outlet India Today was slightly bemused, and three days before the Modi decision was made public reported that “In the past one week, the Narendra Modi government has decided to send an additional 38,000 troops to the Kashmir Valley in two batches — 10,000 and 28,000. This follows a statement by the home ministry in Parliament that the situation has improved in Kashmir Valley.”  In other words the Central Government was well aware that the Constitution decision would provoke anger and bitterness on the part of Kashmiris and was well-prepared to take military action to crush any manifestation of discontent.

The New York Times observed that “Clamping down on millions of people is an extraordinary step for the world’s largest democracy. . . As tensions have risen in recent days, groups of young men, full of years of pent-up frustration, have squared off with soldiers, hurling rocks and ducking buckshot. Security forces arrested more than 500 people and put them in makeshift detention centres.”

On 9 August a reporter for the UK’s Guardian managed to find out that because of the clampdown on communications “people cannot call relatives, or call ambulances if there is an emergency. Public transport is not running, which means those with health problems can only get to a hospital if they have a car – and even then they struggle to get far. Across the city, many roads are permanently blocked by loops of barbed wire. At checkpoints, people – including families with children – can be seen pleading with police to let them pass. Most people, nervous that tensions were building last week, had stocked up on food and essentials, but it’s not known how long the curfew will last.”

On 10 August the BBC’s reporter filed that “Thousands of people took to the streets in Srinagar after Friday prayers, in the largest demonstration since a lockdown was imposed in Indian-administered Kashmir. The BBC witnessed the police opening fire and using tear gas to disperse the crowd. Despite that, the Indian government has said the protest never took place.”

Welcome to the Occupied Territory of Kashmir.

India and Pakistan continue to claim the whole of Kashmir, but neither government can seriously believe that any mediation tribunal would judge this to be appropriate. There would be compromise — the sort of compromise that India and Pakistan are incapable of reaching on their own.

If ever mediation was needed, it is now, before there is eruption that could lead to nuclear war between India and Pakistan.

Two of the world’s most important powers, India and Pakistan, are locked into an extremely dangerous confrontation over the bitterly disputed Himalayan mountain state of Kashmir. Both are nuclear armed.

Kashmir has been a flashpoint since Imperial Britain divided India in 1947. India and Pakistan have fought numerous wars and conflicts over majority Muslim Kashmir. China controls a big chunk of northern Kashmir known as Aksai Chin.

In 1949, the UN mandated a referendum to determine if Kashmiris wanted to join Pakistan or India. Not surprisingly, India refused to hold the vote. But there are some Kashmiris who want an independent state, though a majority seek to join Pakistan.

India claims that most of northern Pakistan is actually part of Kashmir, which it claims in full. India rules the largest part of Kashmir, formerly a princely state. Pakistan holds a smaller portion, known as Azad Kashmir. In my book on Kashmir, ‘War at the Top of the World,’ I called it ‘the globe’s most dangerous conflict.’ It remains so today.

I’ve been under fire twice on the Indo-Pak border in Kashmir, known as the ‘Line of Control,’ and once at 15,000 feet atop the Siachen Glacier on China’s border. India has over 500,000 soldiers and paramilitary police garrisoning its portion of Kashmir, whose 12 million people bitterly oppose often corrupt and brutal Indian rule – except for local minority Hindus and Sikhs who support it. A bloody, bitter uprising has flared on against Indian rule since 1989 in which some 42,000 people, mostly civilians, have died.

About 250,000 Pakistani troops are dug in on the other side of the ceasefire line.

What makes this confrontation so dangerous is that both sides have important tactical and nuclear forces arrayed against one another. These are mostly short/medium-ranged nuclear tipped missiles, and air-delivered nuclear bombs. Strategic nuclear weapons back up these tactical forces. A nuclear exchange, even a limited one, could kill millions, pollute much of Asia’s ground water, and spread radioactive dust around the globe – including to North America.

India’s new Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, is a Hindu hardliner who is willing to confront Pakistan and India’s 200 million Muslims, who make up over 14% of the population. In February, Modi sent warplanes to attack Pakistan after Kashmir insurgents ambushed Indian forces. Pakistan shot down an Indian MiG-21 fighter. China, Pakistan’s closest ally, warned India to back off.

Modi is very close to President Donald Trump and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, both noted for anti-Muslim sentiments. Modi just revoked article 370 of India’s constitution that bars non-Kashmiris from buying land in the mountain state, and shut down its phone and internet systems.

The revocation means that non-Kashmiris can now buy land there. Modi is clearly copying Israel’s Netanyahu by encouraging non-Muslims to buy up land and squeeze the local Muslim population. Welcome to the Mideast conflict East. China is also doing similar ethnic inundation in its far western, largely Muslim, Xinjiang (Sinkiang) region.

In an ominous sign, Delhi says it will separate the high altitude Ladakh region (aka ‘Little Tibet’) from its portion of Kashmir. This move suggests India plans to chop up Indian Kashmir into two or three states, a move sure to further enrage Pakistan and thwart any future peace settlement.

There’s little Pakistan can do to block India’s actions.

India’s huge armed forces outnumber those of Pakistan by 4 or 5 to one. Without nuclear weapons, Pakistan would be quickly overrun by Indian forces. Only massive Chinese intervention would save Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Kashmir, the world’s longest-running major dispute, continues, threatening a terrible nuclear conflict. Making matters worse, both India and Pakistan’s nuclear forces are on a hair-trigger alert, with a warning time of only minutes. This is a region where electronics often become scrambled. A false alert or a flock of birds could trigger a massive nuclear war in South Asia.

India and Pakistan, where people starve in the streets, waste billions on military spending because of the Kashmir dispute. Now some of India’s extreme Hindu nationalists warn they want to reabsorb Pakistan, Bangladesh, and even Sri Lanka into Mother India.

Previous Indian leaders have been cautious. But not PM Modi. He is showing signs of power intoxication.

ericmargolis.com