If Hamas Goes, Iran will be the 'Biggest Loser'

Israel's aerial blitzkrieg against Hamas is unrelenting even as it is getting ready to launch a full-scale ground assault in Gaza with a single goal: put Hamas out of existence by taking out its top leadership and destroying its massive arms and ammunition. 

If Hamas Goes, Iran will Lose Big Time
I believe that the biggest loser in the current West Asian situation is Iran. The daily threats and warnings emanating from Tehran mean nothing; the Clerics in Tehran may threaten Israel with doomsday rhetoric – but it is just that.

Tehran will not participate directly in the ongoing Israel–Hamas War. Tehran is beset by several handicaps: an economy in doldrums, widespread prevalence of unemployment, especially among the youth, rising domestic dissent for funding various actors in Syria (President Bashar Al-Assad), Iraq (a Shia dominant country and purportedly a playground for Iran’s strategic play), Lebanon (Hezbollah), Yemen (Houthi), and Palestine (Hamas).

Iran hates Israel more than it loves Hamas. For Tehran, Hamas is just a shoulder from which it fires at its archenemy Israel. However, if Israel takes down the top leadership of Hamas and destroys its sizeable weapons arsenal in the Gaza Strip, Iran may lose its political and military influence in Palestine and its voice in advocating the Palestinian cause in the wider Islamic world.

Tehran’s most powerful external militia arm is Hezbollah. Though militarily powerful, Hezbollah’s home country, Lebanon, is in political and economic ruin. If Hezbollah launches a full-scale attack against Israel, it may stretch the Israeli military on two fronts—along the Gaza Strip and the Lebanese border—but this will invite a heavy reprisal from Israel. There is a great deal of anger among the beleaguered Lebanese against any military action by Hezbollah against Israel. To me, two things confirm the idea that Hezbollah looks like it is paying attention to the ground situation in its home country: it has launched very few rockets against Israeli targets and the top leadership of Hezbollah, led by Hassan Nasrallah, has been eerily silent ever since the Israel–Hamas war broke out.

(To be concluded.)

The MbS Phenomenon

 

In this Explainer, I will focus on the ambitious Mohammed Bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. MbS, as he is usually referred to, has, in a very short time, come to dominate the tangled political landscape of West Asia (I prefer this term to the usual Middle East).

An aside on the name: In Saudi society (and generally in the Arabian Peninsula), a man’s name includes the name of his father (pretty much like in large parts of India). Bin means ‘son of’; so, Mohammed bin Salman means son of Salman.

Also, in this article you would find ‘Mohammed’ spelt in two different ways; I have taken the Saudi government accepted spellings of the names of the leaders.  

Who is Mohammed bin Salman?

Mohammed bin Salman is the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As the Crown Prince, he is next in line to succeed his father and King, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. (Understanding the name of the King: Salman, son of Abdulaziz; Al Saud is the name of the ruling house/dynasty.)

Virtually unknown in the corridors of power before his meteoric rise, MbS was appointed the Crown Prince in June 2017. Soon after his father became the King, MbS was appointed the Deputy Crown Prince; his cousin and the son of King Salman’s brother Mohammad bin Nayef, was forcibly relieved of his office by MbS.  

Today he is also the kingdom’s Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defence, Chairman of the Council for Economic and Development Affairs, and Chairman of the Council of Political and Security Affairs.

MbS is the most powerful person in today’s Saudi Arabia. The King, his father, trusts him blindly and has stood by him even as the calls for the Crown Prince’s removal for his involvement in the botched Yemen War and the Jamal Khashoggi murder saga grow louder.

MbS is seen as an ardent reformer by his supporters, while his detractors describe him as megalomaniacal and impetuous. His supporters point to the several reforms he has ushered in the deeply conservative country: lifting the ban on women drivers, allowing cinemas and music concerts, and introducing a spate of economic reforms.

MbS’ detractors, and there are many, cite his campaign in Yemen and the ill-planned embargo against Qatar as examples of his whimsical behaviour.

They also describe him as power-hungry who cannot tolerate dissent; the jailing of thousands of political dissidents, including women activists is a case in point. It is interesting to know here that the women activists were jailed for demanding driving rights for women. Ironically, MbS lifted the ban on women drivers and yet the women activists were jailed for calling for the same reform! Now, you may find this behaviour difficult to decipher. Well, it is easy if you understand the purport of MbS’ game plan: you cannot demand rights and get them; you will get rights ONLY if the King or the Crown Prince decide to give you rights – in other words, so it is the top-down approach that’s at work here.  

Another example is his treatment of the Prime Minister of Lebanon, Saad Hariri. When Hariri arrived in the Kingdom to meet King Salman, he was bundled to an unknown location; there was a complete blackout of the news concerning Hariri, a leader of a sovereign nation. One week later, Hariri was forced to tender his resignation from the prime minister’s post of his country from the soil of a foreign nation.

A Luxury Prison
The incident that shook the ground beneath the feet of elite Saudis took place in November 2017. Around 200 prominent Saudis, including the former Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef and Bakr bin Laden, the head of Saudi Binladin Group (a construction giant), were rounded up and detained for several months at the Ritz-Carlton Palace Hotel on the orders of MbS. The entire operation was described as a campaign against corruption and embezzlement; the detained were accused of enriching themselves at the cost of the Saudi State. It is believed that a few of those detained were tortured and forced into giving up their wealth. Bakr bin Laden and his two brothers were forced to transfer their 36 per cent shareholding in Saudi Binladin Group to a state-controlled company, overseen by MbS.    

The Jamal Khashoggi Saga
Jamal Khashoggi was a Saudi Arabian journalist and an insider in the Saudi royal court. He fled to the U.S after running afoul of the current royal administration in Saudi Arabia. A vociferous critic of the Saudi Arabian royal house, especially the Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, he was a columnist for the Washington Post newspaper and head of an Arab news channel. MbS had accused Khashoggi of working with the Kingdom’s rivals like Iran and Qatar.

On 2 October 2018, he visited the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul to collect documents pertaining to the dissolution of his marriage to a Saudi Arabian woman; the documents were necessary for him to get married to his Turkish fiancée. He was murdered inside the consulate by Saudi Arabian intelligence officials. Till date, no trace of his body has been found.

The murder of Jamal Khashoggi has since thrown West Asia into turmoil. The Khashoggi saga has embroiled Saudi Arabia and Turkey in a war of words, with the U.S. squeezed between its two important allies. The following are the major players in the Khashoggi saga: Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United States, Iran, Qatar, and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Erdogan's Wicked Glee
Turkey directly implicated Saudi Arabia of carrying out the murder on its soil, even pointing a finger at MbS for his involvement. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed the possession of unimpeachable evidence of the involvement of the Saudi Crown Prince, suggesting that the order for the murder “came from the highest authorities in the Saudi administration”.

Why did the Turkish President get so worked up about the murder of a Saudi dissident? The answer to this seemingly distasteful question lies in the ‘great power’ ambitions of the two countries.

We know that Saudi Arabia is the de facto leader of the Muslim World; however, Turkey, under Erdogan, wants to become the centre of the Muslim World, just like the Ottoman empire was before its eventual collapse in 1922. Erdogan, an Islamist, has a grand vision of becoming the voice of the Muslim World, and he has made no effort to conceal his ambitions.

Erdogan is a firm supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egyptian extremist Islamist organization with a wide support base in the Muslim World. The Muslim Brotherhood is an anti-monarchy, pro-Sharia group. The Muslim Brotherhood came to power after its newly floated political party won the Egyptian elections in 2012, a development that rang loud alarm bells in the capitals of the monarchies in the Muslim World.

The anti-monarchy, pro-Sharia core ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood raised the hackles of the Saudi monarchy who felt threatened by the hardcore Islamist who was now the president of Egypt, a neighbouring country. Alarmed by the spectre of the spread of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Arabia royal house instigated the Egyptian army to oust the Muslim Brotherhood from power and take over the country. Thus, in July 2013, barely a few months after coming to power, the Islamist President of Egypt was ousted and jailed on charges of terrorism.

The Saudi Arabian involvement in the ousting of the democratically elected government in Egypt angered Erdogan, a die-hard supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood. The murder of Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, came as a blessing to put the Saudis on the mat. He leaked evidence of the involvement of the Saudi Crown Prince in the Khashoggi murder case in a calibrated manner; in fact, the method was so effective that it has been called “death by a thousand leaks”.

Saudi Arabia botched its response to the Khashoggi murder saga; from firmly denying its involvement to calling it a rogue intelligence operation without concurrence of the royal house, the Saudi Arabian government came across as confused and unprepared for the massive backlash from the international community.

To begin with, the United States called on the Saudi Arabian royal house to come clean on its role in the Jamal Khashoggi murder. Since then, the U.S. has spoken in multiple tongues; this is because the Donald Trump White House stood by MbS, even while the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the U.S. premier external spy agency, pointed to the direct involvement of the Crown Prince in the murder of the journalist. It is well known that there is no love lost between Trump and the country’s numerous spy and security agencies.

So, why did the U.S. stand by Mohammed bin Salman? The most important reason for this is Washington’s Iran policy. The U.S. policy in West Asia is centred around Iran; Washington has been categorical in stating that it will do all to stop Iran’s “wave of regional destruction and global campaign of terror”.

An enemy’s enemy is a friend. This truism defines the relationship between the U.S. and the Sunni nations in West Asia. The Sunni Muslim nations, like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, deeply distrust Shia Iran, accusing it of fomenting terrorism in their nations. So, to counter Iran, the U.S. needs Saudi Arabia, the region’s most powerful nation and the fulcrum of the Sunni Muslim World. Saudi Arabia, under MbS, is at the forefront of the anti-Iran brigade; the Saudis see Iran as an existential threat. In fact, Saudi Arabia even backs Israel (Saudi Arabia and Israel do not have diplomatic relations, owing to the Palestinian issue) in the latter’s covert and overt operations against Iran, spread across the region, especially in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon.

What about the U.S.’ professed love for the protection of rights of freedom of expression, right to dissent, and religious freedom? Well, in international politics, respect for democracy, human rights, morality, ideology are matters of convenience; they can be expended at the altar of national interest.

 

Can Iran risk a war against the U.S.?

In this short note, I will focus on two important questions on the fluid situation in West Asia following the killing of Qosem Soleimani, arguably the second most powerful person in Iran and the head of its Quds Force, a special branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The global media is screaming from the roof-top about an impending World War III. Well, I have a contrarian viewpoint. Here it is.

Can Iran risk a full-fledged war?

No.

Iran cannot risk a full-scale war against the United States.

Its economy is tottering, especially in light of the economic sanctions imposed by the U.S.; here's a short note.

(a) Iran's GDP is likely to contract by 9.5 per cent, i.e., produce a tenth less than the previous year. 

(b) Sanctions, imposed by the U.S. for Iran’s pursuit of nuke weapons, have
dragged the budget revenue down, which has squeezed the money available for welfare schemes;

(c) oil production has fallen by nearly 90 per cent;

(d) exchange value of the currency (Rial) has dropped significantly (one American dollar gets you 1,40,000 rials at the current exchange value); and

(d) the country is rationing petrol at 60 litres per person at 15,000 rials per litre (anything above is sold at 30,000 rials).

It is true that Iran has developed a large arsenal of missiles and other weapons despite being under the burden of debilitating sanctions. Its missiles can reach Israel, an arch-foe. However, Iran may not enjoy a first-strike capability as Israel has the highly effective Iron Dome anti-missile interceptor.

Even if Iran does strike Israel with a missile first, it would have to bear the brunt of a sustained barrage of missile strikes from Israel.

Iran knows that it does not have the military capability to engage in direct confrontation with the U.S.; its conventional decades-old military machine is no match for the world’s most advanced weapons system of the U.S..

Also, almost all of the oil and gas plants of Iran are on its coast in the Gulf. In the event of a full-scale war, it is likely that the U.S. will seek to destroy these strategic assets, which are at the heart of the Iranian economy.

Once destroyed, there is precious little the Iranians can do fuel their war effort; no money will flow from the destroyed energy assets.

What is the most likely way for Iran to respond?

As Iran cannot risk a full-scale direct military confrontation against the U.S. and Israel, it will most likely resort to ‘asymmetric warfare’, an idea pioneered and built by Qosem Soleimani.

In the last two decades or so, Soleimani raised, nurtured, armed, funded and guided several Shia militia groups across Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. The most popular of these militias is the Lebanon-based Hezbollah.

It is most likely that Iran will attack the U.S. and Israel using these militias as proxies to advance its interests. Considering that most of the militias are disparate groups, it may become greatly difficult for the Americans and the Israelis to defeat them.

In the fast-developing scenario enveloping West Asia, Iran might scream itself hoarse, but it knows that its best bet to hurt its biggest enemies is by using asymmetric warfare through its proxies.

The Explainer: Erdogan, Khashoggi, Gulen, & MbS

The murder of Jamal Khashoggi has brought intense focus on Turkish leader Recep T. Erdogan's campaign against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. I will explore a couple of major reasons behind the purpoted angst of the Turkish leader.

Who was Jamal Khashoggi? Jamal Khashoggi was a Saudi Arabian journalist and an insider in the Saudi royal court. He fled to the U.S after running afoul of

Jamal Khashoggi

the current royal administration in Saudi Arabia. A vociferous critic of the Saudi Arabian royal house, especially the Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, he was a columnist for the Washington Post newspaper and head of an Arab news channel.

On 2 October 2018, he visited the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul to collect documents pertaining to the dissolution of his marriage to a Saudi Arabian woman; the documents were necessary for him to get married to his Turkish fiancée. He was murdered inside the consulate by Saudi Arabian intelligence officials. Till date, no trace of his body has been found.

Read Who is Mohammad bin Salman?

The murder of Jamal Khashoggi has since thrown West Asia into turmoil. The Khashoggi saga has embroiled Saudi Arabia and Turkey in a war of words, with the U.S. squeezed between its two important allies. The following are the major players in the Khashoggi saga: Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United States, Iran, Qatar, and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Turkey directly implicated Saudi Arabia of carrying out the murder on its soil, even pointing a finger at the Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman for his involvement. Turkish President Recep T. Erdogan claimed the possession of

Recep T. Erdogan (Source: from Wikipedia)

unimpeachable evidence of the involvement of the Saudi Crown Prince, suggesting that the order for the murder “came from the highest authorities in the Saudi administration”.

Why did the Turkish President get so worked up about the murder of a Saudi dissident? The answer to this seemingly distasteful question lies in the ‘great power’ ambitions of the two countries.

We know that Saudi Arabia is the de facto leader of the Muslim World; however, Turkey, under Recep T. Erdogan, wants to become the centre of the Muslim World, just like the Ottoman empire was before its eventual collapse in 1922. Erdogan, an Islamist, has a grand vision of becoming the voice of the Muslim World, and he has made no effort to conceal his ambitions.

Erdogan is a firm supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egyptian extremist organization with a wide support base in the Muslim World. The Muslim Brotherhood is an anti-monarchy, pro-Sharia group. The Muslim Brotherhood came to power in Egypt through its political party in 2012, a development that rang alarm bells in the capitals of the monarchies in the Muslim World.

The anti-monarchy, pro-Sharia core ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood raised the hackles of the Saudi monarchy who felt threatened by the hardcore Islamist who was now the president of Egypt, a neighbouring country. Alarmed by the spectre of the spread of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Arabia royal house instigated the Egyptian army to oust the Muslim Brotherhood from power and take over the country. Thus, in July 2013, barely a few months after coming to power, the Islamist President of Egypt was ousted and jailed on charges of terrorism.

The Saudi Arabian involvement in the ousting of the democratically elected government in Egypt angered Erdogan, a die-hard supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood. The murder of Jamal Khashoggi came in a blessing for him to put the Saudis on the mat. He leaked evidence of the involvement of the Saudi Crown Prince in the Khashoggi murder case in a calibrated manner; in fact, the method was so effective that it has been called “death by a thousand leaks”.

Saudi Arabia botched its response to the Khashoggi murder saga; from firmly denying its involvement to calling it a rogue intelligence operation without concurrence of the royal house, the Saudi Arabian government came across as confused and unprepared for the massive backlash from the international community.

There is another reason behind Turkey’s shrill campaign against Saudi 

Arabia: Fethullah Gulen. Gulen, a friend-turned-foe of Erdogan, lives in self-imposed exile in the United States. He runs a social and charity organization engaged mostly in education activities. His organization is widely popular across Turkey, with millions of members, with thousands of them in influential positions in the administration.

Erdogan accused Gulen of instigating the July 2016 military coup. Thousands of 

Fethullah Gulen

his followers were arrested while another 1.5 lakh were fired from their jobs in the administration, including in the military. Turkish jails are full of Gulen’s followers with allegations of vendetta flying thick.

Erdogan has demanded the extradition of Gulen from the U.S., a request Washington has repeatedly turned down, citing lack of credible evidence from the Turkish government.

It is believed that Erdogan is using the Jamal Khashoggi issue as a bargaining chip: Erdogan will stop badgering the Saudi Royal House (i.e., Crown Prince MbS) if the U.S. hands over Gulen to Turkey.

Why will the U.S. agree to this arrangement? A major reason could be the extraordinary pressure from Saudi Arabia on Donald Trump; Trump sees MbS as an important cog in the U.S. policy in the region.

If you have been following the Jamal Khashoggi saga, you would have noticed that the noise from Turkey against MbS has subsided considerably; maybe the Gulen factor is at play. We do not yet know.

The Explainer: Who is Mohammad bin Salman?

Muhammad bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, has come to dominate the politics of his country and the region. His policies and action (both domestic and foreign) are changing the political landscape in West Asia.

Who is Mohammad bin Salman?
Mohammad bin Salman is the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As the Crown Prince, he is next in line to succeed his father and King, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (who is also the Prime Minister of the kingdom). 

Virtually unknown in the corridors of power before his meteoric rise, MbS, as he is popularly called, was appointed the Crown Prince in June 2017. Today, he is also the kingdom’s Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defence, Chairman of the Council for Economic and Development Affairs, and Chairman of the Council of Political and Security Affairs.

MbS is the most powerful person in today’s Saudi Arabia. The King, his father, trusts him blindly and has stood by him even as the calls for the Crown Prince’s removal for his involvement in the botched Yemen War and the Jamal Khashoggi murder saga grow louder.

Reformer. MbS is seen as an ardent reformer by his supporters. They point to the several reforms he has ushered in the deeply conservative country: lifting the ban on women drivers, allowing cinemas and music concerts, and introducing a spate of economic reforms. The once all-powerful religious police have now been restricted to the barracks.   

Megalomaniac. MbS’ detractors, and there are many, describe him as megalomaniacal and impetuous. They cite his catastrophic war campaign in Yemen and the ill-planned embargo against Qatar as examples of his whimsical behaviour.

They also describe him as power-hungry, someone who cannot tolerate dissent; the jailing of hundreds of political dissidents, including women activists, is a case in point.

Saad Hariri

The Saad Hariri Incident. Another example is his treatment of the Prime Minister of Lebanon, Saad Hariri. When Hariri arrived in the Kingdom to meet King Salman, he was bundled to an unknown location; there was a complete blackout of the news concerning Hariri, a leader of a sovereign nation. One week later, Hariri was forced to tender his resignation from the prime minister’s post of his country from the soil of a foreign nation. His freedom from the clutches of the Saudi Arabian government came only after the French President Emmanuel Macron went to Riyadh to negotiate his release. Once back home, Hariri withdrew his resignation. Analysts believe that he paid the price due to his inability to stem the growing influence of Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, a Shia militant group.

Bakr bin Laden

Whipping the Cream of the Saudi Society. The incident that jolted the elite Saudis most took place in November 2017. Around 200 prominent Saudis, including the former Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef and Bakr bin Laden, the head of Saudi Binladin Group (a construction giant), were rounded up and detained for several months on the orders of MbS. The entire operation was described as a campaign against corruption and embezzlement; the detained were accused of enriching themselves at the cost of the Saudi State. It is believed that a few of those detained were tortured and forced into giving up their wealth. Bakr bin Laden and his two brothers were forced to transfer their 36 per cent shareholding in Saudi Binladin Group to a state-controlled company, overseen by MbS.

The second part of this article will appear tomorrow.

The Explainer: Violence Against & By Rohingya

Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist country, is home to several ethnic groups. Chief among these are Burman (68%), Shan (9%), Karen (7%), and Rakhine (4%). In a diverse and multi-ethnic society, that is largely mired in poverty, the tension between the various ethnic groups, especially over their way of life and access to resources, often surfaces in violent clashes.

Rohingya – A Short Intro
The Rohingya are a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority in Rakhine state of Myanmar. The Government of Myanmar does not recognize them as Myanmese citizens and as such views the estimated 1.1 million Rohingya as illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh. Myanmar says it is ready to grant them citizenship if they identify themselves as Bengalis (i.e., Bengali-speaking migrants from Bangladesh), something that the Rohingya firmly refuse to accept. In this context, it would be apt to share one important fact: after the British annexed the Rakhine region in 1824–26, thousands of people (from what is today’s Bangladesh and some parts of northeast India) were encouraged to migrate to today’s Myanmar to work in agricultural fields.

Myanmar has maintained that the Rohingya are illegal migrants from India and Bangladesh and have refused to recognize them as one of the country’s 135 ethnic groups. The Myanmese government has defended this approach, arguing that past secessionist movements indicate that the Rohingya never identified as part of the country (more on this later).

The Rohingya have accused the majority Buddhist community of discrimination and using violence to subdue them. As they are stateless, it is hard to quantify the exact population of Rohingya. However, because of the unending discrimination, thousands of Rohingya from Myanmar and Bangladesh flee every year in a desperate attempt to reach mainly Muslim-majority countries, Malaysia and Indonesia (even in these countries, the Rohingyas are recognised as refugees and not granted citizenship).

Widespread Violence

Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims have been at loggerheads for several decades. Episodes of intense violence have been followed by periods of uneasy calm.

About six years back, violent clashes between the Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims erupted. Tens of people were killed and triggered a flood of Rohingya migrants, especially into neighbouring Bangladesh.

In October 2017, armed militants, especially from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a Rohingya terrorist group, killed several police and military personnel in several coordinated attacks on security camps and check-posts. They also killed tens of people belonging to Buddhist and Hindu communities. In retaliation, the country’s police and security forces launched counter-terrorism operations against Rohingya Muslim militant groups. The Rohingya Muslims have accused the country’s security forces of extra-judicial killings, abuse of women, and destruction of property. Since then, about seven lakh Rohingya have fled Myanmar to escape the violence and persecution.

In a recently released report by Amnesty International, the leading human rights group accused Rohingya terrorists of killing Hindu men and children while forcing women to convert to Islam and sexually abusing them.

Rohingya and Terrorism

Myanmar has consistently accused the Rohingya Muslims of ties with radical Islamist terror groups, like the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaida, from which flow both money and arms. The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, (also known as Harakah al-Yaqin), the main Rohingya terror group, is led by a Saudi-based committee of Rohingya emigres. 

Let me cite Brahma Chellaney, one of the world’s foremost experts on conflict zones: “The external forces fomenting insurgent attacks in Rakhine bear considerable responsibility for the Rohingyas’ current plight. In fact, it is the links between Rohingya militants and such external forces, especially terrorist organizations like the IS, that have driven the Government of India, where some 40,000 Rohingya have settled illegally, to declare that their entry poses a serious security threat. Even Bangladesh acknowledges Rohingya militants’ external jihadi connections.

“But the truth is that Myanmar’s jihadi scourge is decades old, a legacy of British colonialism. After all, it was the British who, more than a century ago, moved large numbers of Rohingya from East Bengal to work on rubber and tea plantations in then-Burma, which was administered as a province of India until 1937.

“In the years before India gained independence from Britain in 1947, Rohingya militants joined the campaign to establish Pakistan as the first Islamic republic of the postcolonial era. When the British, who elevated the strategy of “divide and rule” into an art, decided to establish two separate wings of Pakistan on either side of a partitioned India, the Rohingya began attempting to drive Buddhists out of the Muslim-dominated Mayu peninsula in northern Rakhine. They wanted the Mayu peninsula to secede and be annexed by East Pakistan (which became Bangladesh in 1971).

“Failure to achieve that goal led many Rohingya to take up arms in a self-declared jihad. Local mujaheddin [holy warriors] began to organize attacks on government troops and seize control of territory in northern Rakhine, establishing a state within a state. Just months after Myanmar gained independence in 1948, martial law was declared in the region; government forces regained territorial control in the early 1950s.

“But Rohingya Islamist militancy continued to thrive, with mujaheddin attacks occurring intermittently. In 2012, bloody clashes broke out between the Rohingya and the ethnic Rakhines, who feared becoming a minority in their home state. The sectarian violence, in which rival gangs burned down villages and some 140,000 people (mostly Rohingya) were displaced, helped to transform the Rohingya militancy back into a full-blown insurgency, with rebels launching hit-and-run attacks on security forces.”
 

Global Reaction

There are two sides to this story: (1) the use of violence against the Rohingya for being ‘different’ and (2) the use of violence by the Rohingya against the other ethnic and religious groups in Myanmar. The former has attracted global attention; several organisations/nations have (a) condemned the Myanmar Government for its failure in stopping the violence (some have described the situation as ‘ethnic cleansing’) and (b) revoked the honours/awards bestowed on Aung Saan Suu Kyi, the tallest and de facto leader of Myanmar.

However, the international community has turned a blind eye to the intense terrorist violence perpetrated by the Rohingya militants against Buddhists, Hindus and followers of other religions. The international community’s discriminatory attitude has only emboldened the Rohingya terrorists who know that the global spotlight is on the Myanmese military and not on their own use of violence against ‘others’.  

The Explainer: China's Xinjiang Problem

The chilling warning of the Islamic State issued to the Chinese government of launching terror attacks has turned spotlight on the ethnic cauldron that’s engulfing the Xinjiang province in western China. The dangerous conflict between the native Turkic Uighur and Beijing is symptomatic of the many dangers that China faces because of its demographic and political policies.

Read The Explainer: China, IS, & Uighurs

While Beijing blames the extremist Uighur Muslims for the terrorist violence, the latter have accused the former of repression and use of excessive force against them. They also blame the Chinese Government of resorting to demographic means of subverting the Uighurs by destroying their ethnic identity in their own ancient land. Also, they have charged the Chinese Government with economic discrimination. For several years now, the Uighurs have called for secession from China.

China launches ‘Go West’ policy  
Taking a serious view of the Islamists’ call for secession of Xinjiang from China, Beijing has used, and continues to use, demography as a controlling tool. To this end, they launched the ‘Go West’ policy to encourage the migration of Han Chinese, which is the biggest ethnic group in China, to Xinjiang.

The policy of increasing the presence of the Han Chinese in a traditionally Turkic Uighur-dominated province has paid rich dividends for Beijing. Such has been the impact of this policy that the Han Chinese, who constituted a mere 6 per cent of the total Xinjiang population in 1955, now make up about 40 per cent of the total population in Xiajiang!

Economic impact of the ‘Go West’ policy

The sharp rise in the population of the migrant Han Chinese has led to a massive loss of economic opportunities for the native Turkic Uighurs. Today, most of the provincial administrative jobs go to the educated Han Chinese; also, the Han Chinese own major business and economic resources while the Turkic Uighurs languish on the margins of the society.

Cultural impact of the ‘Go West’ policy

The Uighurs are ethnically closer to the Islamic traditions of Central Asia than to the cultural traditions of the ethnic Chinese groups. However, most Uighurs practice a moderate form of Islam, unlike the ultra-orthodox Wahabbi type (brought in from Saudi Arabia by religious extremists), which is followed by the more radical elements in Central Asia.

In Xinjiang, Beijing keeps a hawk’s eye on the mosques that dot the landscape of the massive province. The secret services, Beijing’s eyes and ears, are always on the prowl looking for secessionist and terror elements. Often, such is the control that Beijing extends over the mosques that whenever there is violence, they are asked to close down for an indefinite period. 

Muslims are barred from observing fast in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan; in some extreme cases, people are forced to shave off their beards and ordered not to wear any garment that makes for public display of their faith (like burqa/yashmak/hijab).

China and War on Terror

The September 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S. and the subsequent launch of the War on Terror came in as a shot in the arm for Beijing. Soon after, in a master-stroke, Beijing labeled the radical Islamists, especially the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) members, in Xinjiang as part of Al-Qaeda network. As a result, the U.S. and major European nations banned the ETIM. By aligning its local fight with the international effort against the Islamists, Beijing won the sanction of the international community in its fight against the extremist members among the Uighurs.

In fact, Beijing cited the capture of 22 Uighurs, reportedly linked to Al-Qaeda, by the U.S. as evidence of the growing radicalisation of the Uighurs. However, Beijing suffered a major embarrassment when the U.S. released these 22 Uighurs, after a long detention period at the Guantanamo Bay prison, when it found that they were not terrorists!

Cutting the ethnic umbilical cord

Over the years, Beijing has strengthened diplomatic ties , especially economic ties, with Central Asian nations, which are linguistically and ethnically linked with the Uighurs.

To this end, it took initiative to form the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), whose members include Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan (all former Soviet provinces with majority Muslim populations). Over the years, its diplomacy has paid off as these countries have cut off potential sources of support for the Uighurs from radical sources in their territories.

The Pakistan Connect

In the recent past, China also said, for the first time ever, that the Uighur separatists underwent training in Pakistan’s numerous terrorist training camps. Given that Pakistan considers China as an all-weather friend, the accusations shocked the Pakistani establishment. However, this accusation is unlikely to change the relationship equation between the two countries, though it is widely believed that Pakistani leaders have been told by their Chinese counterparts in no uncertain terms that such terror camps which export extremists to fight the Chinese State should be shut down immediately.

My Take

China is increasingly worried over the developments in Xinjiang. It believes that if the Xinjiang problem is not tackled in the ‘right’ way, it has the potential to ignite similar fires around its vast peripheral areas.

It is a fact that political rights need economic contentment, because together they give a sense of belonging and empowerment to all involved. Appropriate management of the needs and aspirations of varied groups is critical to the State’s ability to ensure good governance and provision of security. In the light of this, the major challenge that China today faces is to absorb and resolve the clashes that may arise between contending interests between the Turkic Uighurs and ethnic Chinese groups.

The Explainer: China, ISIS, & Uighurs

                                                                                                                                                                                         Source: VOA

In its first-ever direct threat against China, the Islamic State’s Uighur fighters have vowed to return home to Xinjiang, a province in western China, to launch jihad against China. The Uighur extremists, in a video, have vowed to ‘shed blood like rivers’ against the Chinese State. 

The Islamic State (IS) is also known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)/Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). For the sake of simplicity, I have used the name ‘Islamic State’ in this explanatory article. 

The Uighurs in China accuse the Chinese government of suppressing their voices and unleashing repression against them.

So, who are the Uighurs?

The Turkic Uighurs are a predominantly Islamic community with deep racial and ethnic ties to Central Asia. For centuries, the Uighurs have co-existed with about 12 other ethnic groups in Xinjiang.

Till about 1912, Xinjiang was a part of the Qing Empire. After the demise of the Qing dynasty in 1912, the status of Xinjiang has swayed between autonomy and complete independence. In 1933, Turkic insurgents broke free from Chinese control and established the Islamic Republic of East Turkestan (also known as the Republic of Uighuristan or the First East Turkistan Republic).

The following year, China reabsorbed the region. In 1944, emboldened by the support of the Soviet Union, Turkic Uighur rebels once again declared independence to set up the Second East Turkistan Republic.

However, the Turkic Uighurs’ dream of an independent state was short-lived. In 1949, the Communist Party of China (CPC) came to power after establishing full control over the whole of China and creating the People’s Republic of China (PRC).  The same year, the Communists regained complete control of Xinjiang while in 1955, Beijing classified Xinjiang, which accounts for about 16 per cent of the country’s area, as an ‘autonomous region’ of the People’s Republic of China.

Today, the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) is home to about 2.3 crore people from thirteen major ethnic groups, the largest being the Turkic Uighur community.

Nostalgic of the times when there was an independent Xinjiang, some Uighurs see China’s presence in the province as a form of imperialism. The more radical among these, like those belonging to the extremist East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), have called for secession from China.

Practice of Islam in Xinjiang
The practice of religion in a Communist State is either undercover, if such practice is illegal, or controlled by the State, if such practice is allowed. China practices the latter method; it tightly controls the citizens’ right to practice faith.

In Xinjiang, China keeps a hawk’s eye on the mosques that dot the landscape of the massive province. The secret services, Beijing’s eyes and ears, are always on the prowl looking for secessionist and terror elements. Often, such is the control that Beijing extends over the mosques that whenever there is violence, they are asked to close down for an indefinite period.

In 2014, the Chinese government banned Muslim staff from observing fasting and engaging in other religious activities in the Muslim holy month of Ramzan (also Ramadan).

The practice of one’s faith is a matter of personal choice, at least for folks like us in India; in China, it is a matter of State policy.

The second and concluding part of this article will appear tomorrow. 

Sunday Reads

"It is good sense to appoint individual people to jobs on their merit. It is the opposite when those who are judged to have merit of a particular kind harden into a new social class without room in it for others." Read Justin Fox's brilliant piece on how "meritocracy is just another way of bringing you down" (Bloomberg). 

• The Feds brought down the world's biggest file-sharing website. (Foreign Policy)
• Educated terrorists and victimhood. (New IE)

And in the end...

Before bowling to (the visibly healthy) Mike Gatting in a test match, Aussie fast bowler Dennis Lille said, ”Hell Gatt, move out of the way... I can’t see the stumps”.

Sunday Reads

• Newslaundry, your fact-check on the PM's interview has been fact-checked. (OPIndia)
• The political resonance of the 'Game of Thrones'. (New Yorker)
• Bangladesh at crossroads. (BBC)
• Indian Muslim women fight to overturn Triple Talaq. (AlJazeera)

Check out this infographic on Job Interview Cautions here.

Sunday Reads

General Reads

• What happens in a university run by IS? (BBC)
• India cannot afford to lose the Chahabar test (New IE)

Controversial Read

• Like Ali, how many of our icons will take a punch for what they believe in? (Telegraph India)

et cetera

• Ramadan for non-Muslims: A etiquette guide (CNN)

Sunday Reads

• The Unbearable Lightness of America's War against the Islamic State. (Foreign Policy)

• Five Key Decisions Made at Paris. (Bloomberg) Also read Has History been made at COP21 (Paris Talks)?

• What proportion of a CEO's Success is down to luck? (Pieria)

Oscar Wilde claimed he could discuss any subject at any time prepared or not. A companion once took him up on this claim, asking that he discourse on the subject of “The Queen”. 

Responded Wilde: “The queen is not a subject.”

Sunday Reads

Sunday Anecdote: In 1898, young Albert Einstein applied for admission to the Munich Technical Institute and was turned down. The young man, the Institute declared, "showed no promise" as a student. By 1905, he had formulated his special theory of relativity.

• Is China really scared of horror films? (BBC)

• How Islamic State takes its terror to the Web. (Der Spiegel)

• AAP denying Delhi the Janlokpal bill they deserve. (ET)

• An ecological disaster. (Telegraph India)

The Explainer: What if Bashar Al-Assad Goes?

The Syrian civil war has killed at least 2.5 lakh people and displaced millions. The Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has dismissed any talk of giving up power. In fact, the Syrian President has dug in his heels and is prepared for the long haul.

There has been loud condemnation from the international community against Bashar’s atrocities against his countrymen. Efforts by the Unites States, EU and Israel to impose punishing sanctions against Bashar’s regime have been, on several occasions, stymied by Russia and China.

In the last week of September this year, Russia launched massive strikes against the Islamic State strongholds, thus bolstering its presence in West Asia and raising the stakes for a new power game (some analysts compare the ongoing tussle between the U.S. and Russia as the beginning of a new Cold War) in the region.

Russia has ignored the protestations of the U.S., the European Union, Turkey and Saudi Arabia in lending military and logistical support (fighter troops, combat aircraft, helicopters, and tanks) to the beleaguered regime of Bashar Al-Assad. Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, has vowed to back Bashar Al-Assad against what he called “terrorist aggression” of the Islamic State/Daesh.

The U.S. is deeply worried about the aggressive Russian military campaign against the Islamic State terror group; the U.S. fears that Washington may end up playing second fiddle to Moscow even as the Russians are raising the combat quotient of their military campaign against the Islamic State.

What if Bashar goes? 
There is great anxiety in the United States, EU, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Lebanon about the outcome of this conflict in Syria.

Will Bashar al-Assad end up like Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen? If yes, what will be the impact of such development?

If Bashar al-Assad is booted out of power (either by the U.S.-led forces or by the Islamic State terror group or by a combination of circumstances), then we should consider the impact of such ouster on:

·         the Islamic State, which will emerge as the biggest political force, with a stupendous capacity to terrorise the civilians and spread its tentacles in West Asia, including in the immediate neighbourhood;

·         Syrian domestic politics, which has no credible opposition except for an umbrella moderate rebel body which is beset with infighting among its various constituent parties;

·         neighbours like Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey;

·         dictators with absolute power in the wider Arab World (like King Hamad of Bahrain);

·         global economy, which might witness revival problems because of energy supply disruption and spike in oil prices in case the conflict takes on a regional shape;

·         rise of Islamists, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Ennahda party in Tunisia, and 

·         strategic realignment, especially with regard to the role of the United States in the wider Islamic World and West Asia.

I will discuss the ongoing tussle between Russia and Turkey in another piece.

Paris Attacks: Putin's Bond Movie-like Command Centre & Best Cartoon Response to IS

No post in the last 25 days due to travelling and an otherwise busy schedule. 

In the light of the deadly Paris attacks, I am sharing some four five interesting pieces:

• Putin's James Bond movie-like war command centre. (WaPo)
  
• Gurumurthy on the Paris Mastermind. (New IE) Hat tip: Mohan Ramiah.

• Saudi funds fan ultra-conservative Islam in India. (First Post)

• Wedded to the organisation - How IS changed everything for three young women. (Telegraph India)
• Why Abdelhamid Abaaoud wanted to die. (FP)

The best cartoon on the Paris attacks is one by Deb Milbrath, of the Cartoon Movement.