Pakistan political discussions
- Thread starter A.V.
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Well the Obama administration is too proud to go and talk to Iran and wants to lick Pakistani boots. They still dont know how much they can achieve if they reconcile with the Iranian administration and work out with the Indian administration atleast. But Israelis must be made to hold their horses.
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More blow to H&D:
Honest Holbrooke Embarrasses Pakistani Government
Honest Holbrooke Embarrasses Pakistani Government
President Obama’s special envoy Richard Holbrooke landed the pro-U.S. Pakistani government in trouble when he told journalists that the issue of CIA-manned drones that have killed hundreds of innocent Pakistanis was not even raised in any one of his several meetings with senior Pakistani officials in the Pakistani capital.
Holbrooke was brutally honest in the press conference today in Islamabad. The drone comment was one example. But there was another one. When a reporter asked him if the Pakistani military action in Swat has squeezed al Qaeda, Holbrooke surprised everyone by simply saying, ‘I don’t know.’
Not sure what happened to:
"Hans ke liya hai Pakistan
Lad ke lenge Hindustan"
It was quite popular with the Pakistanis during the partition days. They obviously felt that the death of a million people and the uprooting of an estimated 14 million was just "Hansna (laughing)".
"Hans ke liya hai Pakistan
Lad ke lenge Hindustan"
It was quite popular with the Pakistanis during the partition days. They obviously felt that the death of a million people and the uprooting of an estimated 14 million was just "Hansna (laughing)".
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Pakistan financial capital in eye of Taliban storm
By Hasan Mansoor – 1 hour ago
KARACHI (AFP) — Militants are fanning out across Pakistan's financial capital, where crime fuels funding for insurgency and its 14 million residents offer perfect cover for Islamists resting from the battlefield.
Karachi is one of the biggest Muslim cities in the world, its Arabian Sea port a gateway to the Middle East and the key transit point for NATO supplies heading to the war effort in neighbouring Afghanistan.
AFP: Pakistan financial capital in eye of Taliban storm
Pakistan's richest city, Karachi has historically been connected with the criminal underworld and more recently with Islamist fundamentalism. Indeed it was here that US journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and beheaded in 2002.
Police have in recent weeks arrested three suspected militants accused of both plotting attacks in the city and trying to recruit potential militants.
"We often go to large cities to hide and rest from fighting. These places are ideal to save us from the American (drone) attacks," said one man, who told AFP he is a follower of Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud.
Giving the name Manzar Khan, he said he does low-paid work in Karachi and goes back and forth to the mountains of tribal Pakistan on the Afghan border where Al-Qaeda and Taliban are hunkered down and targeted by US missiles.
"Karachi is the most ideal place of all. It is packed and congested with people so the risks for us are minimal compared to other places," he said.
"We come and go quite often," he added.
Karachi has long been a centre of migration, with an estimated 2.5 million Pashtuns from the northwest said to be living here. The influx began in the 1950s but accelerated in recent years with successive Pakistani offensives against Islamists.
Ethnic tensions between Pashtuns and the local population have spilled over into riots, and stalwarts in traditional local politics complain that the "Talibanisation" of their region is eating away at liberal values.
An army offensive against the Taliban in the three northwest districts launched in late April has also raised fears that militants are relocating and intensifying attacks across the nuclear-armed nation to avenge the operation.
Since late May police have arrested three would-be suicide bombers in Karachi, one of whom they said was linked to Mehsud.
"(Naeem Rehmani) is one of Mehsud's men who is an expert in making suicide jackets and is recruiting people here and sending them for training to tribal areas," said Javed Bokhari, a deputy inspector general of police.
"We are on the look-out for his accomplices who wanted to bomb government and security agency buildings in the city."
Karachi, with its moneyed residents and big business, is also proving fertile ground for financing the insurgency.
"We have come across kidnapping gangs with links to militants in the northwest and Al-Qaeda," said Sharfuddin Memon, head of the Citizen-Police Liaison Committee, a state-run watchdog organisation.
"Some of those gangs have been exposed and their members arrested. We have also found them involved in many bank robberies."
The money is wired to the northwest through the traditional but illegal method of "hundi," then used to bankroll the insurgency. Alternatively, families of kidnap victims in Karachi are asked to pay ransoms in the tribal areas, Memon said.
Another investigator, with extensive experience on jihadi cases in the city, said their involvement in organised crime had increased recently, following a government ban on jihadi groups and the seizure of their bank accounts.
The Urdu-speaking Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which sits in government and often locks horns with Pashtun political parties, says militants are entering the city in significant numbers.
"At least 15 percent of the people coming to Karachi from the troubled northwest are Taliban," said Farooq Sattar, cabinet minister for overseas Pakistanis and a senior MQM leader, without giving a source for his statistics.
"Their number could easily be in the hundreds if not thousands. There are thousands of Islamic seminaries in the city where the presence of militant sleeper cells cannot be ruled out," he told AFP.
Many locals bitterly resent the presence of Islamists in their neighbourhoods, and women in working-class areas complain of marauding vigilantes who tell them to dress more conservatively or face punishment.
Memon wants the authorities to compile a database of mosques and seminaries where people from the northwest are concentrated.
"What is being preached in mosques and seminaries should be checked, as the audience there is mostly poor and unemployed people whose minds could easily be exploited," he said.
At Karachi's Jamia Binoria madrassa, one of the city's thousands of religious schools, students and teachers say there is a conspiracy against the religious political parties and groups.
"None of those arrested in Karachi are Taliban, it is a part of the game plan of the rulers to take action against madrassas and appease the West," said one teacher who did not want to be named.
By Hasan Mansoor – 1 hour ago
KARACHI (AFP) — Militants are fanning out across Pakistan's financial capital, where crime fuels funding for insurgency and its 14 million residents offer perfect cover for Islamists resting from the battlefield.
Karachi is one of the biggest Muslim cities in the world, its Arabian Sea port a gateway to the Middle East and the key transit point for NATO supplies heading to the war effort in neighbouring Afghanistan.
AFP: Pakistan financial capital in eye of Taliban storm
Pakistan's richest city, Karachi has historically been connected with the criminal underworld and more recently with Islamist fundamentalism. Indeed it was here that US journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and beheaded in 2002.
Police have in recent weeks arrested three suspected militants accused of both plotting attacks in the city and trying to recruit potential militants.
"We often go to large cities to hide and rest from fighting. These places are ideal to save us from the American (drone) attacks," said one man, who told AFP he is a follower of Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud.
Giving the name Manzar Khan, he said he does low-paid work in Karachi and goes back and forth to the mountains of tribal Pakistan on the Afghan border where Al-Qaeda and Taliban are hunkered down and targeted by US missiles.
"Karachi is the most ideal place of all. It is packed and congested with people so the risks for us are minimal compared to other places," he said.
"We come and go quite often," he added.
Karachi has long been a centre of migration, with an estimated 2.5 million Pashtuns from the northwest said to be living here. The influx began in the 1950s but accelerated in recent years with successive Pakistani offensives against Islamists.
Ethnic tensions between Pashtuns and the local population have spilled over into riots, and stalwarts in traditional local politics complain that the "Talibanisation" of their region is eating away at liberal values.
An army offensive against the Taliban in the three northwest districts launched in late April has also raised fears that militants are relocating and intensifying attacks across the nuclear-armed nation to avenge the operation.
Since late May police have arrested three would-be suicide bombers in Karachi, one of whom they said was linked to Mehsud.
"(Naeem Rehmani) is one of Mehsud's men who is an expert in making suicide jackets and is recruiting people here and sending them for training to tribal areas," said Javed Bokhari, a deputy inspector general of police.
"We are on the look-out for his accomplices who wanted to bomb government and security agency buildings in the city."
Karachi, with its moneyed residents and big business, is also proving fertile ground for financing the insurgency.
"We have come across kidnapping gangs with links to militants in the northwest and Al-Qaeda," said Sharfuddin Memon, head of the Citizen-Police Liaison Committee, a state-run watchdog organisation.
"Some of those gangs have been exposed and their members arrested. We have also found them involved in many bank robberies."
The money is wired to the northwest through the traditional but illegal method of "hundi," then used to bankroll the insurgency. Alternatively, families of kidnap victims in Karachi are asked to pay ransoms in the tribal areas, Memon said.
Another investigator, with extensive experience on jihadi cases in the city, said their involvement in organised crime had increased recently, following a government ban on jihadi groups and the seizure of their bank accounts.
The Urdu-speaking Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which sits in government and often locks horns with Pashtun political parties, says militants are entering the city in significant numbers.
"At least 15 percent of the people coming to Karachi from the troubled northwest are Taliban," said Farooq Sattar, cabinet minister for overseas Pakistanis and a senior MQM leader, without giving a source for his statistics.
"Their number could easily be in the hundreds if not thousands. There are thousands of Islamic seminaries in the city where the presence of militant sleeper cells cannot be ruled out," he told AFP.
Many locals bitterly resent the presence of Islamists in their neighbourhoods, and women in working-class areas complain of marauding vigilantes who tell them to dress more conservatively or face punishment.
Memon wants the authorities to compile a database of mosques and seminaries where people from the northwest are concentrated.
"What is being preached in mosques and seminaries should be checked, as the audience there is mostly poor and unemployed people whose minds could easily be exploited," he said.
At Karachi's Jamia Binoria madrassa, one of the city's thousands of religious schools, students and teachers say there is a conspiracy against the religious political parties and groups.
"None of those arrested in Karachi are Taliban, it is a part of the game plan of the rulers to take action against madrassas and appease the West," said one teacher who did not want to be named.
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Pakistan financial capital in eye of Taliban storm
By Hasan Mansoor – 1 hour ago
KARACHI (AFP) — Militants are fanning out across Pakistan's financial capital, where crime fuels funding for insurgency and its 14 million residents offer perfect cover for Islamists resting from the battlefield.
Karachi is one of the biggest Muslim cities in the world, its Arabian Sea port a gateway to the Middle East and the key transit point for NATO supplies heading to the war effort in neighbouring Afghanistan.
AFP: Pakistan financial capital in eye of Taliban storm
Pakistan's richest city, Karachi has historically been connected with the criminal underworld and more recently with Islamist fundamentalism. Indeed it was here that US journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and beheaded in 2002.
Police have in recent weeks arrested three suspected militants accused of both plotting attacks in the city and trying to recruit potential militants.
"We often go to large cities to hide and rest from fighting. These places are ideal to save us from the American (drone) attacks," said one man, who told AFP he is a follower of Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud.
Giving the name Manzar Khan, he said he does low-paid work in Karachi and goes back and forth to the mountains of tribal Pakistan on the Afghan border where Al-Qaeda and Taliban are hunkered down and targeted by US missiles.
"Karachi is the most ideal place of all. It is packed and congested with people so the risks for us are minimal compared to other places," he said.
"We come and go quite often," he added.
Karachi has long been a centre of migration, with an estimated 2.5 million Pashtuns from the northwest said to be living here. The influx began in the 1950s but accelerated in recent years with successive Pakistani offensives against Islamists.
Ethnic tensions between Pashtuns and the local population have spilled over into riots, and stalwarts in traditional local politics complain that the "Talibanisation" of their region is eating away at liberal values.
An army offensive against the Taliban in the three northwest districts launched in late April has also raised fears that militants are relocating and intensifying attacks across the nuclear-armed nation to avenge the operation.
Since late May police have arrested three would-be suicide bombers in Karachi, one of whom they said was linked to Mehsud.
"(Naeem Rehmani) is one of Mehsud's men who is an expert in making suicide jackets and is recruiting people here and sending them for training to tribal areas," said Javed Bokhari, a deputy inspector general of police.
"We are on the look-out for his accomplices who wanted to bomb government and security agency buildings in the city."
Karachi, with its moneyed residents and big business, is also proving fertile ground for financing the insurgency.
"We have come across kidnapping gangs with links to militants in the northwest and Al-Qaeda," said Sharfuddin Memon, head of the Citizen-Police Liaison Committee, a state-run watchdog organisation.
"Some of those gangs have been exposed and their members arrested. We have also found them involved in many bank robberies."
The money is wired to the northwest through the traditional but illegal method of "hundi," then used to bankroll the insurgency. Alternatively, families of kidnap victims in Karachi are asked to pay ransoms in the tribal areas, Memon said.
Another investigator, with extensive experience on jihadi cases in the city, said their involvement in organised crime had increased recently, following a government ban on jihadi groups and the seizure of their bank accounts.
The Urdu-speaking Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which sits in government and often locks horns with Pashtun political parties, says militants are entering the city in significant numbers.
"At least 15 percent of the people coming to Karachi from the troubled northwest are Taliban," said Farooq Sattar, cabinet minister for overseas Pakistanis and a senior MQM leader, without giving a source for his statistics.
"Their number could easily be in the hundreds if not thousands. There are thousands of Islamic seminaries in the city where the presence of militant sleeper cells cannot be ruled out," he told AFP.
Many locals bitterly resent the presence of Islamists in their neighbourhoods, and women in working-class areas complain of marauding vigilantes who tell them to dress more conservatively or face punishment.
Memon wants the authorities to compile a database of mosques and seminaries where people from the northwest are concentrated.
"What is being preached in mosques and seminaries should be checked, as the audience there is mostly poor and unemployed people whose minds could easily be exploited," he said.
At Karachi's Jamia Binoria madrassa, one of the city's thousands of religious schools, students and teachers say there is a conspiracy against the religious political parties and groups.
"None of those arrested in Karachi are Taliban, it is a part of the game plan of the rulers to take action against madrassas and appease the West," said one teacher who did not want to be named.
By Hasan Mansoor – 1 hour ago
KARACHI (AFP) — Militants are fanning out across Pakistan's financial capital, where crime fuels funding for insurgency and its 14 million residents offer perfect cover for Islamists resting from the battlefield.
Karachi is one of the biggest Muslim cities in the world, its Arabian Sea port a gateway to the Middle East and the key transit point for NATO supplies heading to the war effort in neighbouring Afghanistan.
AFP: Pakistan financial capital in eye of Taliban storm
Pakistan's richest city, Karachi has historically been connected with the criminal underworld and more recently with Islamist fundamentalism. Indeed it was here that US journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and beheaded in 2002.
Police have in recent weeks arrested three suspected militants accused of both plotting attacks in the city and trying to recruit potential militants.
"We often go to large cities to hide and rest from fighting. These places are ideal to save us from the American (drone) attacks," said one man, who told AFP he is a follower of Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud.
Giving the name Manzar Khan, he said he does low-paid work in Karachi and goes back and forth to the mountains of tribal Pakistan on the Afghan border where Al-Qaeda and Taliban are hunkered down and targeted by US missiles.
"Karachi is the most ideal place of all. It is packed and congested with people so the risks for us are minimal compared to other places," he said.
"We come and go quite often," he added.
Karachi has long been a centre of migration, with an estimated 2.5 million Pashtuns from the northwest said to be living here. The influx began in the 1950s but accelerated in recent years with successive Pakistani offensives against Islamists.
Ethnic tensions between Pashtuns and the local population have spilled over into riots, and stalwarts in traditional local politics complain that the "Talibanisation" of their region is eating away at liberal values.
An army offensive against the Taliban in the three northwest districts launched in late April has also raised fears that militants are relocating and intensifying attacks across the nuclear-armed nation to avenge the operation.
Since late May police have arrested three would-be suicide bombers in Karachi, one of whom they said was linked to Mehsud.
"(Naeem Rehmani) is one of Mehsud's men who is an expert in making suicide jackets and is recruiting people here and sending them for training to tribal areas," said Javed Bokhari, a deputy inspector general of police.
"We are on the look-out for his accomplices who wanted to bomb government and security agency buildings in the city."
Karachi, with its moneyed residents and big business, is also proving fertile ground for financing the insurgency.
"We have come across kidnapping gangs with links to militants in the northwest and Al-Qaeda," said Sharfuddin Memon, head of the Citizen-Police Liaison Committee, a state-run watchdog organisation.
"Some of those gangs have been exposed and their members arrested. We have also found them involved in many bank robberies."
The money is wired to the northwest through the traditional but illegal method of "hundi," then used to bankroll the insurgency. Alternatively, families of kidnap victims in Karachi are asked to pay ransoms in the tribal areas, Memon said.
Another investigator, with extensive experience on jihadi cases in the city, said their involvement in organised crime had increased recently, following a government ban on jihadi groups and the seizure of their bank accounts.
The Urdu-speaking Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which sits in government and often locks horns with Pashtun political parties, says militants are entering the city in significant numbers.
"At least 15 percent of the people coming to Karachi from the troubled northwest are Taliban," said Farooq Sattar, cabinet minister for overseas Pakistanis and a senior MQM leader, without giving a source for his statistics.
"Their number could easily be in the hundreds if not thousands. There are thousands of Islamic seminaries in the city where the presence of militant sleeper cells cannot be ruled out," he told AFP.
Many locals bitterly resent the presence of Islamists in their neighbourhoods, and women in working-class areas complain of marauding vigilantes who tell them to dress more conservatively or face punishment.
Memon wants the authorities to compile a database of mosques and seminaries where people from the northwest are concentrated.
"What is being preached in mosques and seminaries should be checked, as the audience there is mostly poor and unemployed people whose minds could easily be exploited," he said.
At Karachi's Jamia Binoria madrassa, one of the city's thousands of religious schools, students and teachers say there is a conspiracy against the religious political parties and groups.
"None of those arrested in Karachi are Taliban, it is a part of the game plan of the rulers to take action against madrassas and appease the West," said one teacher who did not want to be named.
Sandrocottas
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Article from www.atimes.com
Hedgehogs and flamingos in Tehran
By Spengler
In Wonderland, Alice played croquet with hedgehogs and flamingos. In the Middle East, United States President Barack Obama is attempting the same thing, but with rats and cobras. Not only do they move at inconvenient times, but they bite the players. Iran's presidential election on Friday underscores the Wonderland character of American policy in the region.
America's proposed engagement of Iran has run up against the reality of the region, namely that Iran cannot "moderate" its support for its fractious Shi'ite allies from Beirut to Pakistan's northwest frontier. It also shows how misguided Obama was to assume that progress on the Palestinian issue would help America solve more urgent strategic problems, such as Iran's potential acquisition of nuclear weapons.
By assigning 64% of the popular vote to incumbent President Mahmud Ahmadinejad in last weekend's elections, Iran's reigning
mullahs, if there was indeed rigging, made a statement - but to whom? The trumpet which dare not sound an uncertain note was a call to Tehran's Shi'ite constituency, as well as to a fifth of Pakistani Muslims. Religious establishments by their nature are conservative, and they engage in radical acts only in need.
Tehran is tugged forward by the puppies of war: Hezbollah in Lebanon and its co-sectarians in Pakistan. With a population of 170 million, Pakistan has 20 million men of military age, as many as Iran and Turkey combined; by 2035 it will have half again as many. It also has nuclear weapons. And it is in danger of disintegration.
Against a young, aggressive and unstable Pakistan, Iran seems a moribund competitor. Iran's fertility decline is the fastest that demographers ever have observed. As I reported on this site last February (Sex, drugs and Islam, February 24, 2009), Iranian fertility by some accounts has fallen below the level of 1.9 births per female registered in the 2006 census to only 1.6, barely above Germany's.
Collapsing fertility is accompanied by social pathologies, including rates of drug addiction and prostitution an order of magnitude greater than in any Western country. Of the 15 countries that show the biggest drop in population growth since 1980, eight are in the Middle East, and the head of the United Nations population division calls the collapse of Islamic population growth "amazing". Pakistan is the great exception, and that makes it the fulcrum of the Muslim world.
Ahmadinejad's invective may be aimed at Jerusalem, but his eye is fixed on Islamabad. That explains the decisions of his masters in Tehran's religious establishment who may have rigged, or at least exaggerated, his election victory. Pakistan's ongoing civil war has a critical sectarian component which the Shi'ites never sought: the Taliban claim legitimacy as the Muslim leadership of the country on the strength of their militancy against the country's Shi'ite minority. Were the Taliban to succeed in crushing Pakistan's Shi'ites, Iran's credibility as a Shi'ite power would fade, along with its ability to project influence in the region.
As Middle East analyst Daniel Pipes asks, "Why did [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei select Ahmadinejad to "win" the election? Why did he not chose a president-puppet who would present a smile to the world, including Obama, handle the economy competently, not rile the population, and whose selection would not inspire riots that might destabilize the regime? Has Khamenei fallen under the spell of Ahmadinejad or does he have some clever ploy up his sleeve? Whatever the answer is, it baffles me."
The issue is less baffling when raw numbers are taken into account. The issues on which Iran's supposed moderation might be relevant, such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, are less pressing for Tehran than the problems on its eastern border. Of the world's 200 million Shi'ite Muslims, about 30% reside in Iran. Another 10% live in neighboring Iraq, and comprise about two-thirds of the country's population. Yet another 30% of the Shi'ite live in the Indian sub-continent, about equally divided between India and Pakistan. Pakistani Shi'ites make up only about one-fifth of the country's population. Their numbers are just large enough to make the Sunnis ill at ease with their presence.
Shi'ite Sunni
TOTAL 219,667,367 1,238,699,792
Iran 61,924,500 6,880,500
Pakistan 33,160,712 127,668,738
India 30,900,000 123,600,000
Iraq 18,158,400 9,777,600
Turkey 14,550,000 58,200,000
Shi'ite leaders of the region believe that they stand on the verge of an irreversible breakdown of Islamic civilization, a thesis which Iraqi leader Ali W Allawi argued forcefully in a recent book, The Crisis of Islamic Civilization. Allawi wrote, "The much heralded Islamic 'awakening' of recent times will not be a prelude to the rebirth of an Islamic civilization; it will be another episode in its decline. The revolt of Islam becomes instead the final act of the end of a civilization." I reviewed Allawi's book on this site in (Predicting the death of Islam May 5, 2009).
Iran's aspirations for a restored Islamic civilization cannot exclude Pakistan's 30 million Shi'ites. The Taliban's insurgency inside Pakistan is directed against the Shi'ites more than any other target, and to make matters worse, Pakistani intelligence is agitating among Iran's own Sunni minority.
On June 12, the day before Iran's election, a Taliban suicide bomber killed Mufti Sarfraz Naeemi in Lahore, the leader of the pro-government Barelvi Muslim current in Pakistan. As Pakistan's Daily Times wrote June 14, "The reason for this murder was not far too seek. Mufti Naeemi, arguably the most influential of the Ahle Sunnat-Barelvi school of thought in Pakistan, had recently presided over an all-Barelvi conference in Islamabad condemning the Taliban practice of suicide-bombing, and presenting to the nation, as it were, a choice between the extremist Deobandi Taliban and the moderate Ahle Sunnat clerical confederation."
The Deobandi wing of Sunni Islam preaches violence against Pakistan's Shi'ite minority, whose position would be fragile were the Taliban to take power. Although Deobandi Islam is a minority current among Pakistani Sunnis, "The conduct of covert jihad by the state has thrown the Barelvis into obscurity and a lack of street power over the years," the Daily Times wrote. "Their mosques, once in a majority in the country, were either grabbed by the more powerful Deobandis with trained jihadi cadres who could be violent, or simply outnumbered by the more resourceful Deobandi-linked ones."
The threat to Iran from the Pakistani Taliban extends to Iran's eastern provinces. A May 28 bomb destroyed a mosque in the Kordestan city of Zahedan, on the Pakistani border. Iran called in Pakistan's ambassador to protest alleged official support for the terrorists of the Pakistan-based Jundallah Sunni group which planted the bomb. Tehran also has circulated murky allegations that Israel's secret service was behind the mosque bombing.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi wrote on June 3 in Asia Times Online, "Where Iran has Hezbollah, Israel has Jundallah, given Israel's apparent efforts to destabilize Iran by playing an 'ethnic card' against it. This, by some reports, it is doing by nurturing the Sunni Islamist group Jundallah to parallel Tehran's support for Lebanon's formidable Shi'ite group, Hezbollah." (Please see Hezbollah spices up Israel-Iran mix.)
In addition to Israel, Xinhua reported May 30, "Iran also blamed the United States, Britain and some other Western countries behind these attacks, accusing them of destabilizing the Islamic Republic, a charge denied by Washington and London."
It is hard to guess who might be funding Jundallah. Pakistan's secret service as well as the Saudis have a motive to do so. Washington's interest is to strengthen the coalition against the Pashtun-speaking Taliban, which means keeping several ethnic minorities allied against the Taliban with the Punjabi core of Pakistan's armed forces. These include the Dari-speaking Kabuli Pashtuns, the Tajiks and the mainly Shi'ite Hazara, a Turkic tribe whom the Iranians tend to deprecate. That is where Washington looks for help from Teheran.
If Tehran were playing a two-sided chess game with Washington, a moderate face like that of Hossein Mousavi would have served Iranian interests better than Ahmadinejad, as Pipes suggests. But Tehran also has to send signals to the sidelines of the chess match. With the situation on its eastern border deteriorating and a serious threat emerging to the Shi'ites of Pakistan, Iran has to make its militancy clear to all the players in the region. Washington's ill-considered attempts at coalition building are more a distraction than anything else.
Because Tehran's credibility is continuously under test, it cannot hold its puppies of war on a tight leash. Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon will continue to nip at the Israelis and spoil the appearance of a prospective settlement. The louder Iran has to bark, the less credible its bite. Iran's handling of last weekend's presidential election results exposes the weakness of the country's strategic position. That makes an Israeli strike against its alleged nuclear weapons facilities all the more likely - not because Tehran has shown greater militancy, but because it has committed the one sin that never is pardoned in the Middle East - vulnerability. (CONTINUED)
Hedgehogs and flamingos in Tehran
By Spengler
In Wonderland, Alice played croquet with hedgehogs and flamingos. In the Middle East, United States President Barack Obama is attempting the same thing, but with rats and cobras. Not only do they move at inconvenient times, but they bite the players. Iran's presidential election on Friday underscores the Wonderland character of American policy in the region.
America's proposed engagement of Iran has run up against the reality of the region, namely that Iran cannot "moderate" its support for its fractious Shi'ite allies from Beirut to Pakistan's northwest frontier. It also shows how misguided Obama was to assume that progress on the Palestinian issue would help America solve more urgent strategic problems, such as Iran's potential acquisition of nuclear weapons.
By assigning 64% of the popular vote to incumbent President Mahmud Ahmadinejad in last weekend's elections, Iran's reigning
mullahs, if there was indeed rigging, made a statement - but to whom? The trumpet which dare not sound an uncertain note was a call to Tehran's Shi'ite constituency, as well as to a fifth of Pakistani Muslims. Religious establishments by their nature are conservative, and they engage in radical acts only in need.
Tehran is tugged forward by the puppies of war: Hezbollah in Lebanon and its co-sectarians in Pakistan. With a population of 170 million, Pakistan has 20 million men of military age, as many as Iran and Turkey combined; by 2035 it will have half again as many. It also has nuclear weapons. And it is in danger of disintegration.
Against a young, aggressive and unstable Pakistan, Iran seems a moribund competitor. Iran's fertility decline is the fastest that demographers ever have observed. As I reported on this site last February (Sex, drugs and Islam, February 24, 2009), Iranian fertility by some accounts has fallen below the level of 1.9 births per female registered in the 2006 census to only 1.6, barely above Germany's.
Collapsing fertility is accompanied by social pathologies, including rates of drug addiction and prostitution an order of magnitude greater than in any Western country. Of the 15 countries that show the biggest drop in population growth since 1980, eight are in the Middle East, and the head of the United Nations population division calls the collapse of Islamic population growth "amazing". Pakistan is the great exception, and that makes it the fulcrum of the Muslim world.
Ahmadinejad's invective may be aimed at Jerusalem, but his eye is fixed on Islamabad. That explains the decisions of his masters in Tehran's religious establishment who may have rigged, or at least exaggerated, his election victory. Pakistan's ongoing civil war has a critical sectarian component which the Shi'ites never sought: the Taliban claim legitimacy as the Muslim leadership of the country on the strength of their militancy against the country's Shi'ite minority. Were the Taliban to succeed in crushing Pakistan's Shi'ites, Iran's credibility as a Shi'ite power would fade, along with its ability to project influence in the region.
As Middle East analyst Daniel Pipes asks, "Why did [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei select Ahmadinejad to "win" the election? Why did he not chose a president-puppet who would present a smile to the world, including Obama, handle the economy competently, not rile the population, and whose selection would not inspire riots that might destabilize the regime? Has Khamenei fallen under the spell of Ahmadinejad or does he have some clever ploy up his sleeve? Whatever the answer is, it baffles me."
The issue is less baffling when raw numbers are taken into account. The issues on which Iran's supposed moderation might be relevant, such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, are less pressing for Tehran than the problems on its eastern border. Of the world's 200 million Shi'ite Muslims, about 30% reside in Iran. Another 10% live in neighboring Iraq, and comprise about two-thirds of the country's population. Yet another 30% of the Shi'ite live in the Indian sub-continent, about equally divided between India and Pakistan. Pakistani Shi'ites make up only about one-fifth of the country's population. Their numbers are just large enough to make the Sunnis ill at ease with their presence.
Shi'ite Sunni
TOTAL 219,667,367 1,238,699,792
Iran 61,924,500 6,880,500
Pakistan 33,160,712 127,668,738
India 30,900,000 123,600,000
Iraq 18,158,400 9,777,600
Turkey 14,550,000 58,200,000
Shi'ite leaders of the region believe that they stand on the verge of an irreversible breakdown of Islamic civilization, a thesis which Iraqi leader Ali W Allawi argued forcefully in a recent book, The Crisis of Islamic Civilization. Allawi wrote, "The much heralded Islamic 'awakening' of recent times will not be a prelude to the rebirth of an Islamic civilization; it will be another episode in its decline. The revolt of Islam becomes instead the final act of the end of a civilization." I reviewed Allawi's book on this site in (Predicting the death of Islam May 5, 2009).
Iran's aspirations for a restored Islamic civilization cannot exclude Pakistan's 30 million Shi'ites. The Taliban's insurgency inside Pakistan is directed against the Shi'ites more than any other target, and to make matters worse, Pakistani intelligence is agitating among Iran's own Sunni minority.
On June 12, the day before Iran's election, a Taliban suicide bomber killed Mufti Sarfraz Naeemi in Lahore, the leader of the pro-government Barelvi Muslim current in Pakistan. As Pakistan's Daily Times wrote June 14, "The reason for this murder was not far too seek. Mufti Naeemi, arguably the most influential of the Ahle Sunnat-Barelvi school of thought in Pakistan, had recently presided over an all-Barelvi conference in Islamabad condemning the Taliban practice of suicide-bombing, and presenting to the nation, as it were, a choice between the extremist Deobandi Taliban and the moderate Ahle Sunnat clerical confederation."
The Deobandi wing of Sunni Islam preaches violence against Pakistan's Shi'ite minority, whose position would be fragile were the Taliban to take power. Although Deobandi Islam is a minority current among Pakistani Sunnis, "The conduct of covert jihad by the state has thrown the Barelvis into obscurity and a lack of street power over the years," the Daily Times wrote. "Their mosques, once in a majority in the country, were either grabbed by the more powerful Deobandis with trained jihadi cadres who could be violent, or simply outnumbered by the more resourceful Deobandi-linked ones."
The threat to Iran from the Pakistani Taliban extends to Iran's eastern provinces. A May 28 bomb destroyed a mosque in the Kordestan city of Zahedan, on the Pakistani border. Iran called in Pakistan's ambassador to protest alleged official support for the terrorists of the Pakistan-based Jundallah Sunni group which planted the bomb. Tehran also has circulated murky allegations that Israel's secret service was behind the mosque bombing.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi wrote on June 3 in Asia Times Online, "Where Iran has Hezbollah, Israel has Jundallah, given Israel's apparent efforts to destabilize Iran by playing an 'ethnic card' against it. This, by some reports, it is doing by nurturing the Sunni Islamist group Jundallah to parallel Tehran's support for Lebanon's formidable Shi'ite group, Hezbollah." (Please see Hezbollah spices up Israel-Iran mix.)
In addition to Israel, Xinhua reported May 30, "Iran also blamed the United States, Britain and some other Western countries behind these attacks, accusing them of destabilizing the Islamic Republic, a charge denied by Washington and London."
It is hard to guess who might be funding Jundallah. Pakistan's secret service as well as the Saudis have a motive to do so. Washington's interest is to strengthen the coalition against the Pashtun-speaking Taliban, which means keeping several ethnic minorities allied against the Taliban with the Punjabi core of Pakistan's armed forces. These include the Dari-speaking Kabuli Pashtuns, the Tajiks and the mainly Shi'ite Hazara, a Turkic tribe whom the Iranians tend to deprecate. That is where Washington looks for help from Teheran.
If Tehran were playing a two-sided chess game with Washington, a moderate face like that of Hossein Mousavi would have served Iranian interests better than Ahmadinejad, as Pipes suggests. But Tehran also has to send signals to the sidelines of the chess match. With the situation on its eastern border deteriorating and a serious threat emerging to the Shi'ites of Pakistan, Iran has to make its militancy clear to all the players in the region. Washington's ill-considered attempts at coalition building are more a distraction than anything else.
Because Tehran's credibility is continuously under test, it cannot hold its puppies of war on a tight leash. Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon will continue to nip at the Israelis and spoil the appearance of a prospective settlement. The louder Iran has to bark, the less credible its bite. Iran's handling of last weekend's presidential election results exposes the weakness of the country's strategic position. That makes an Israeli strike against its alleged nuclear weapons facilities all the more likely - not because Tehran has shown greater militancy, but because it has committed the one sin that never is pardoned in the Middle East - vulnerability. (CONTINUED)
Sandrocottas
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Spengler is channeled by David P Goldman, associate editor of First Things (First Things - Home).
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
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We already know this any way:
'US admn allowed Pak to acquire nuke tech' - Pakistan - World - The Times of India
'US admn allowed Pak to acquire nuke tech' - Pakistan - World - The Times of India
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Ten myths about the war on terror
1) The US fully backs India on its war on terror: Only to a certain extent. The US has its own interests in South Asia now clearly outlined in its Af-Pak policy. Chief among them are the destruction of Al Qaeda, the stability of Afghanistan and the safety of their supply lines which stretch through Pakistan. India's concerns are secondary. The US establishment is now proposing soft borders in Kashmir Valley only to ensure Pakistan moves more troops away from the Indian border. Guess which dictator is having the biggest post-retirement laugh?
2) The Pakistan establishment is committed to the war on terror: Only so long as the US prods them to act against the Taliban. Pakistan created the Taliban in 1996 and used it as a geo-strategic lever in Afghanistan. There is considerable evidence that the Pakistan army regards the Taliban as a strategic asset and analysts feel they are biding for the departure of the US forces to re-establish their hold over Afghanistan.
3) The Taliban are a homogenous entity: There are two Taliban. The Afghan Taliban, which operates in Af-Pak and includes Mullah Omar, Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The Pakistani Taliban includes those led by Baitullah Mehsud and Sirajuddin Haqqani. Pakistan has managed a clever bifurcation of its war on terror by acting against the Taliban on its territory but continuing to support the Afghan Taliban.
4) India is part of the war on terror: The sad truth is, we are not. There are two types of attacks. The ones on western targets by Al Qaeda and its associates fall under the purview of the war on terror, the ones on Indian targets by the Lashkar-e-Taiba do not. India has to learn to fight its battles alone.
5) Pakistan is being armed to fight the war on terror: Pakistan has been tacitly armed by the US for over seven years, with the full knowledge that these would boost their conventional capability against India.
6) The US will stand by and watch if India attacks Pakistan: Unlikely. The US leaned heavily after 26/11 to prevent any Indian surgical air strikes on Pakistan. Apart from this developing into a potential nuclear flashpoint, the US feels war could shift its ally's focus away from the war in the tribal regions of Afghanistan.
7) All terrorists in Pakistan are terrorists: The US has always made a subtle differentiation between the two types of terrorists in Pakistan. Those like the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which the US perceives as fighting in Jammu and Kashmir, are not on the radar of the US who are interested only in pursuing the Al Qaeda and Taliban.
8) There is a rogue ISI group supporting terror against India: The Pakistan army completely controls the ISI. It is an extremely professional if dubious organization carrying out their unstated goal of bleeding India through the war of a thousand cuts. Colonel Sadatullah whose mobile number forms part of the dossier against Pakistan in the 26/11 attacks, is with the Corps of Signals, a Pakistani army unit.
9) The Taliban will get their hand on Pakistan's nukes: Kim Jong Il uses nuclear tests to get world attention. The Pakistani establishment routinely uses this 'loose nukes' scenario for the same reason.
10) A.Q. Khan was operating on his own: Not a war on terror truism but I used this to illustrate how the Pakistan army works. There is ample evidence Khan was hawking weapons on behalf of his country to get missiles and hard currency. His last mission was to serve as the fall guy for Pakistan's nuclear Walmart.
1) The US fully backs India on its war on terror: Only to a certain extent. The US has its own interests in South Asia now clearly outlined in its Af-Pak policy. Chief among them are the destruction of Al Qaeda, the stability of Afghanistan and the safety of their supply lines which stretch through Pakistan. India's concerns are secondary. The US establishment is now proposing soft borders in Kashmir Valley only to ensure Pakistan moves more troops away from the Indian border. Guess which dictator is having the biggest post-retirement laugh?
2) The Pakistan establishment is committed to the war on terror: Only so long as the US prods them to act against the Taliban. Pakistan created the Taliban in 1996 and used it as a geo-strategic lever in Afghanistan. There is considerable evidence that the Pakistan army regards the Taliban as a strategic asset and analysts feel they are biding for the departure of the US forces to re-establish their hold over Afghanistan.
3) The Taliban are a homogenous entity: There are two Taliban. The Afghan Taliban, which operates in Af-Pak and includes Mullah Omar, Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The Pakistani Taliban includes those led by Baitullah Mehsud and Sirajuddin Haqqani. Pakistan has managed a clever bifurcation of its war on terror by acting against the Taliban on its territory but continuing to support the Afghan Taliban.
4) India is part of the war on terror: The sad truth is, we are not. There are two types of attacks. The ones on western targets by Al Qaeda and its associates fall under the purview of the war on terror, the ones on Indian targets by the Lashkar-e-Taiba do not. India has to learn to fight its battles alone.
5) Pakistan is being armed to fight the war on terror: Pakistan has been tacitly armed by the US for over seven years, with the full knowledge that these would boost their conventional capability against India.
6) The US will stand by and watch if India attacks Pakistan: Unlikely. The US leaned heavily after 26/11 to prevent any Indian surgical air strikes on Pakistan. Apart from this developing into a potential nuclear flashpoint, the US feels war could shift its ally's focus away from the war in the tribal regions of Afghanistan.
7) All terrorists in Pakistan are terrorists: The US has always made a subtle differentiation between the two types of terrorists in Pakistan. Those like the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which the US perceives as fighting in Jammu and Kashmir, are not on the radar of the US who are interested only in pursuing the Al Qaeda and Taliban.
8) There is a rogue ISI group supporting terror against India: The Pakistan army completely controls the ISI. It is an extremely professional if dubious organization carrying out their unstated goal of bleeding India through the war of a thousand cuts. Colonel Sadatullah whose mobile number forms part of the dossier against Pakistan in the 26/11 attacks, is with the Corps of Signals, a Pakistani army unit.
9) The Taliban will get their hand on Pakistan's nukes: Kim Jong Il uses nuclear tests to get world attention. The Pakistani establishment routinely uses this 'loose nukes' scenario for the same reason.
10) A.Q. Khan was operating on his own: Not a war on terror truism but I used this to illustrate how the Pakistan army works. There is ample evidence Khan was hawking weapons on behalf of his country to get missiles and hard currency. His last mission was to serve as the fall guy for Pakistan's nuclear Walmart.
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was trying to look for some sort of number of human cost that two nation theory has caused to Indian sub-continent, since the inception of the theory. something on the lines of people killed + displaced + terrorist casualties + riots + violence against women etc.. considering that the count has not stopped, it is still adding up even now on a daily and weekly basis.
if any one comes across such a number from academic sources, do tag me.
if any one comes across such a number from academic sources, do tag me.
rambogandhi
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A movie on our partition and how it affected Sikhs and hindus the most as they lost all their native land and became refuge in a secular country where the same oppressor ideology believers are getting appeasement.
There is one such write up .I hope pmo can release a data document on casualties and affectees on our next partition remembrance day.
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in this case considering entire Indian subcontinent, not just India. human cost of two nation theory started much earlier before partition, and hasn't stopped after partition. for example : any civilians and security personnel casualties and fatalities due to terrorism even today should be considered for this number.
rambogandhi
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Yes the real partiton started in 1905 division of Bengal the muslims were rewarded for standing with british army against non abrahmic hindus.Even in 1911 muslims protested the unification of bengal as from 1905-1911 hindus minority in east bengal were asked to convert or leave and the west Bengal was doing tieing rakhi on the hands of muslims.Same sikularism we practised in 1947 till today which resulted in vanishing of hindu population in pakistan,bangladesh,srilanka,bhutan,nepal etc as muslims have their apostasy and blasphemy laws to punish the muslim apostates who wanted to join hinduism but in secular india muslims,Buddhists,Sikhs,christians etc everyone are using any method to promote apostasy among hindus thus increasing the security issues like manipur,punjab,kerala etc.
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idea was that if a political theory has such an impact on human cost for more than a century and still ongoing, then there should be some sort of quantifiable metric to measure it's impact.
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Just a thought..
wanted to find the degree of difference between origin of concept of pakistan and implementation of idea of pakistan, wrt current pakistan i.e west pakistan.
the answer is 100 °.
Used Ujjain as centre of circle, since it is centre of Indian astrological calculations, aligarh muslim university is on one line and karachi pakistan (their first capital city) as another line. if we calculate the angle between aligarh muslim university as karachi with Ujjain as vertex, the angle is 100 °.
100 is the degree of difference between concept to execution on Nazariah-e-pakistan, hence 100 is the uncertainty value for pakistan.
wanted to find the degree of difference between origin of concept of pakistan and implementation of idea of pakistan, wrt current pakistan i.e west pakistan.
the answer is 100 °.
Used Ujjain as centre of circle, since it is centre of Indian astrological calculations, aligarh muslim university is on one line and karachi pakistan (their first capital city) as another line. if we calculate the angle between aligarh muslim university as karachi with Ujjain as vertex, the angle is 100 °.
100 is the degree of difference between concept to execution on Nazariah-e-pakistan, hence 100 is the uncertainty value for pakistan.
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