Tuesday, April 30, 2024

Business Recorder Column April 30, 2024

Rent a party

 

Rashed Rahman

 

Of late, the chorus of voices demanding ‘dialogue’ has grown to a virtual crescendo. This is understandable at one level given the serious political, economic and social crises Pakistan is confronted with. However, what is adding to the already existing massive confusion is the disparate and often contradictory meanings such voices attach to the demand for a dialogue. Take for example, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI), whose cult hero Imran Khan languishes in jail. Different leaders and spokesmen of the party have taken to issuing statements morning, noon and night on ‘dialogue’, but in such contradictory fashion as to leave not just the general public, but arguably even their own ranks reeling in confusion. One position of PTI leaders/spokespeople is that the party is not willing to talk to its rival political parties in power, only to the establishment, i.e. the military and Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). Another leaves open the possibility of talking to the political parties in power, but only after Imran Khan is released and the PTI’s stolen mandate in the February 8, 2024 elections is restored to it. Contradictory as the PTI voices are (and I have refrained from boring readers with all the nuances expressed), the authors of these weighty statements seem to have forgotten the old adage: it takes two hands to clap. The establishment has retained a pregnant silence on the issue, interpreted by and large as a message that it is not interested in engaging with the PTI or Imran Khan. The government from time to time, in order not to appear obdurate in its triumph with the help of the establishment, pays lip service to dialogue as the necessary foundation for steering the country out of the woods, but given its perch on top of the power pyramid, and the attitude of the establishment described above, not to mention the PTI and Imran Khan’s inability to resist the mantra of ‘no talks with thieves and robbers’, leaves it at that.

There is no doubt that the country’s troubles, particularly the economy, desperately need some modicum of civilised debate to present to the world at large as well as the IMF and other international financial institutions crucial to our habitual temporary bailout the picture not of a polarised, divided country steeped in uncertainty, but a functioning system (whether democratic or not) with which business can be conducted. The present scenario is the precise opposite of this critical requirement.

The game in motion is not new. Since the very dawn of Pakistan, political manipulation by vested interests, powerful state institutions (particularly the military and bureaucracy) and their satraps has defined the country’s political trajectory. Unwilling to accede to the Bengali majority in a united Pakistan, the military landed itself and us in a quagmire ending in the loss of half the country with a majority of the population. Not content with that trauma, the military-bureaucratic oligarchy bequeathed to us by British colonialism continued merrily to manoeuvre the polity in favour of its hold on power, whether direct or indirect. The latter by now has been honed to a fine craft, defined by a political culture of collaboration by the political class with the establishment. This ‘rent a party’ paradigm works in circular fashion, with today’s favourite party tomorrow’s pariah and vice versa.

Currently, this description can be applied unhesitatingly and without bias to the existing mainstream political class without exception. The flavour of the month may be the apex of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) government that came to power in 2022 by unseating Imran Khan through a no-confidence motion, but it too has been on the receiving end of the establishment’s will and preferences. Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s Jamiat-e-Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) has been ‘dumped’. Incensed by this treatment of the former head of the PDM, the Maulana at first flirted with the opposition headed by the PTI, but soon got miffed at the treatment the latter offered him publicly. Today, he is breathing fire to topple a government from which he has been excluded through the manipulation of the elections.

The Maulana is in good company. Balochistan’s two main nationalist parties, Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) and the National Party (NP) have been marginalised even in their traditional strongholds just like the Maulana. It should not then have come as a surprise if the leaders of these two parties, Akhtar Mengal and Dr Abdul Malik, railed against the treatment meted out to them by the real powers that be at the Asma Jahangir Conference in Lahore the other day.

The PTI’s strategy post-May 9, 2023 has been marked by even more confusion than usual. Some sceptics rely on this to assert that the party is unlikely to be let off the hook. However, in politics, nothing can be ruled out. First and foremost, the PTI may be hoping that with a change in command of the military (still two years away), their fortunes may turn. But not if the practice of extensions is trotted out again, which would mean the change in command would not arrive for five years at least, coinciding, as it happens, with the end of this government’s tenure. That much seems pretty obvious, but if the country’s crises, particularly the economy, do not recover from the slough of despond in which they are thrashing about, the establishment itself may feel compelled to address the conflicted political paralysis in favour of a compromise solution that burnishes the image of the country and opens the gate to recovery.

Given all these and countless other possibilities that this space does not allow to explicate, the only sane advice is, do not endanger yourself by holding your breath.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Tuesday, April 16, 2024

RPC Guest in Town Lecture Series

Research and Publication Centre (RPC) invites all friends to a talk in our Guest in Town Lecture Series by Abdul Khalique Junejo on "The Nationalist Movement of Sindh and Sindh-Punjab Relations".

Abdul Khalique Junejo has an association with G M Syed for 25 years (1970-1995). He is currently Chairman Jeay Sindh Mahaz, which stands for a sovereign, autonomous, prosperous Sindh. He is the author of 15 books in Sindhi, Urdu and English.

Abdul Khalique Junejo's Lecture will be held in the Research and Publication Centre (RPC), 2nd floor, 65 Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore (next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign showroom) on Saturday, April 20, 2024 at 3:30 pm. 

All friends are welcome. Tea will be served after the Lecture and Q & A session.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook). 

Business Recorder Column April 16, 2024

As written by me:

Iran-Israel Russian Roulette

 

Rashed Rahman

 

The expected has happened. After Israel’s strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1, 2024 killed seven personnel including three senior Iranian commanders, Tehran launched a 300-strong missile and drone attack on Israel. This is a first, Israel territory being attacked by an adversary state. Although Israel claims 99 percent of the missiles and drones were shot down, it has admitted an air base in southern Israel allegedly used to launch the Damascus strike suffered minor damage. To those exulting in Israel’s incredibly efficient Iron Dome anti-missile defence system, a word of caution. Iran’s response to the Damascus atrocity was a carefully calibrated retaliation to ensure its honour would be salvaged but not lead (hopefully) to an escalation of hostilities. This is borne out by subsequent statements from Tehran that it considered the tit-for-tat ended, warning nevertheless that if Israel chose to strike back at Iran, a more resounding slap awaits it.

Escalation of the unprecedented exchanges between Tehran and Tel Aviv is something the entire world, including Israel’s main supporter the US, is trying to avoid. Relying on the fact that Tehran conveyed its intentions to launch the attack on Israel 72 hours earlier to Washington through indirect means, and which allowed the US, UK, and shamefully, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to help Israel shoot down the missiles and drones, it seems obvious that Iran bowed to internal, regional and worldwide pressure to respond, but had no intention that this appropriate response should go any further. The fly in this ointment, as usual, is the aggressive Zionist state led by Benjamin Netanyahu and his extreme right government. They have already put their heads together to work out how to hit back at Tehran. This would be a piece with its original intention to hit the Iranian consulate in Damascus to trigger a wider war, in which Netanyahu hoped to drag in the US-led west. Washington has conveyed its ‘steer clear’ stance in any such scenario, but that still may not stop madman Netanyahu. However, perhaps we should take a step back and examine Netanyahu’s motives, which on reflection may not appear as crazy as at first glance.

Netanyahu and his reactionary government were caught with their pants down by the Hamas raid into Israel on October 7, 2023. Much has been made in the west and elsewhere of the ‘brutality’ visited on Israelis living and working in the kibbutzim near the breached Gaza border. However, some of the more sensational initial claims have not been found truthful, such as raping women and slaughtering children. What, you may ask, was Hamas up to, what did it hope to achieve, and how far has it succeeded, at what cost? First, some context. The Israeli state was preening for many years, having reduced the once reputable Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) to a perceived ‘sub-contractor’ of the Israeli state under the leadership of Yasser Arafat’s successor Mahmoud Abbas. The repeated intifadas of the occupied Palestinians having failed, the resulting ‘lull’ was taken advantage of by the US to float the so-called Abraham Accords to open the door to acceptance and recognition of Israel by surrounding and even relatively distant Arab states. Some of these johnnies such as the UAE have already moved in that direction, others such as Saudi Arabia were poised to proceed. If successful, this trend would have accorded Israel its triumph and encouraged its moves to deny Palestinian existence, let alone any (dead in the water) two-state solution. The Israeli settlements in the West Bank would have swamped whatever remains of the Palestinian inhabitants, Gaza would have remained the biggest open-air prison in the world under more or less direct Israeli rule. In other words, a complete and total annihilation of the Palestinian people, with the very real possibility of wiping them off the surface of the earth.

Given this context and trend, Hamas planned its brilliant tactical move of October 7, 2023, in which a lightning raid into Israeli kibbutzim near the Gaza border was carried out by first disabling the Israeli electronic eyes and ears installed on the border fence, and, before the Netanyahu government or famed Israeli Defence Force (IDF) could react, retreat with Israeli hostages back into Gaza. Since then, despite partial exchanges of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails during short lived pauses in the genocidal slaughter in Gaza, Netanyahu’s status has been blown out of the water. To save his political skin therefore, he has insisted on continuing the Gaza slaughter of helpless Palestinian civilians and come under pressure from the families of the still held hostages demanding an end to the Gaza war and safe return of their loved ones, not to mention vast portions of Israeli opinion castigating him for a monumental blunder of being caught with his pants down on October 7, 2023.

Netanyahu is fighting for his political survival, hence his obstinacy in continuing the Gaza slaughter, knowing when and if the war stops, he is a goner. Of course the cost of his political ambition to remain in power is being paid by the Palestinians, mostly in Gaza, but increasingly also in the West Bank. Israel has never been as isolated in the world as it is today. Its actions from hereon may be likened to the dying throes of a desperate regime, quite possibly in the long run, the Zionist state itself. Ne’er a moment too soon, one might add.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com


As printed by the paper:


Iran-Israel Russian Roulette

 

Rashed Rahman

 

The expected has happened. After Israel’s strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1, 2024 killed seven personnel including three senior Iranian commanders, Tehran launched a 300-strong missile and drone attack on Israel. This is a first, Israel territory being attacked by an adversary state. Although Israel claims 99 percent of the missiles and drones were shot down, it has admitted an air base in southern Israel allegedly used to launch the Damascus strike suffered minor damage. To those exulting in Israel’s incredibly efficient Iron Dome anti-missile defence system, a word of caution. Iran’s response to the Damascus atrocity was a carefully calibrated retaliation to ensure its honour would be salvaged but not lead (hopefully) to an escalation of hostilities. This is borne out by subsequent statements from Tehran that it considered the tit-for-tat ended, warning nevertheless that if Israel chose to strike back at Iran, a more resounding slap awaits it.

Escalation of the unprecedented exchanges between Tehran and Tel Aviv is something the entire world, including Israel’s main supporter the US, is trying to avoid. Relying on the fact that Tehran conveyed its intentions to launch the attack on Israel 72 hours earlier to Washington through indirect means, and which allowed the US, UK, and shamefully, Jordan to help Israel shoot down the missiles and drones, it seems obvious that Iran bowed to internal, regional and worldwide pressure to respond, but had no intention that this appropriate response should go any further. The fly in this ointment, as usual, is the aggressive Zionist state led by Benjamin Netanyahu and his extreme right government. They have already put their heads together to work out how to hit back at Tehran. This would be a piece with its original intention to hit the Iranian consulate in Damascus to trigger a wider war, in which Netanyahu hoped to drag in the US-led west. Washington has conveyed its ‘steer clear’ stance in any such scenario, but that still may not stop madman Netanyahu. However, perhaps we should take a step back and examine Netanyahu’s motives, which on reflection may not appear as crazy as at first glance.

Netanyahu and his reactionary government were caught with their pants down by the Hamas raid into Israel on October 7, 2023. Much has been made in the west and elsewhere of the ‘brutality’ visited on Israelis living and working in the kibbutzim near the breached Gaza border. However, some of the more sensational initial claims have not been found truthful, such as raping women and slaughtering children. What, you may ask, was Hamas up to, what did it hope to achieve, and how far has it succeeded, at what cost? First, some context. The Israeli state was preening for many years, having reduced the once reputable Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) to a perceived ‘sub-contractor’ of the Israeli state under the leadership of Yasser Arafat’s successor Mahmoud Abbas. The repeated intifadas of the occupied Palestinians having failed, the resulting ‘lull’ was taken advantage of by the US to float the so-called Abraham Accords to open the door to acceptance and recognition of Israel by surrounding and even relatively distant Arab states. Some of these johnnies such as the UAE have already moved in that direction, others such as Saudi Arabia were poised to proceed. If successful, this trend would have accorded Israel its triumph and encouraged its moves to deny Palestinian existence, let alone any (dead in the water) two-state solution. The Israeli settlements in the West Bank would have swamped whatever remains of the Palestinian inhabitants, Gaza would have remained the biggest open-air prison in the world under more or less direct Israeli rule. In other words, a complete and total annihilation of the Palestinian people, with the very real possibility of wiping them off the surface of the earth.

Given this context and trend, Hamas planned its brilliant tactical move of October 7, 2023, in which a lightning raid into Israeli kibbutzim near the Gaza border was carried out by first disabling the Israeli electronic eyes and ears installed on the border fence, and, before the Netanyahu government or famed Israeli Defence Force (IDF) could react, retreat with Israeli hostages back into Gaza. Since then, despite partial exchanges of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails during short lived pauses in the genocidal slaughter in Gaza, Netanyahu’s status has been blown out of the water. To save his political skin therefore, he has insisted on continuing the Gaza slaughter of helpless Palestinian civilians and come under pressure from the families of the still held hostages demanding an end to the Gaza war and safe return of their loved ones, not to mention vast portions of Israeli opinion castigating him for a monumental blunder of being caught with his pants down on October 7, 2023.

Netanyahu is fighting for his political survival, hence his obstinacy in continuing the Gaza slaughter, knowing when and if the war stops, he is a goner. Of course the cost of his political ambition to remain in power is being paid by the Palestinians, mostly in Gaza, but increasingly also in the West Bank. Israel has never been as isolated in the world as it is today. Its actions from hereon may be likened to the dying throes of a desperate regime, quite possibly in the long run, the Zionist state itself. Ne’er a moment too soon, one might add.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Wednesday, April 3, 2024

The April 2024 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

The April 2024 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:

1. Rashed Rahman: Revolutions in the Third world today.

2. Rafi Pervaiz Bhatti: The Muslim Identity in India – IV: The Ascendency of Liberal, Mystic, Ascetic Islam.

3. Changez Ali: The 21st century proletariat.

4. Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur: The Rise of Baloch Nationalism and Resistance – VIII: The Frontier Corps (FC) and ground reality.

5. Fayyaz Baqir: My life and struggle – II: The years of resistance.

6. Ashraf Jehangir Qazi: Shab Khoon (Night Assault).

7. Fayyaz Baqir: Elections and Democratic Politics in Pakistan.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)


Tuesday, April 2, 2024

Business Recorder Column April 2, 2024

‘Frosty’ exchanges

 

Rashed Rahman

 

Perhaps it is appropriate that these lines are being written on April Fool’s Day. What lends this credence is the exchange of letters between US President Joe Biden and Pakistan’s Prime Minister (PM) Shahbaz Sharif. Before we get to the content and tone of this exchange, it would be well to remember that things have been frosty in the relationship between Washington and Islamabad for more than two decades. This is because, after 9/11, the US used muscle bound pressure on Pakistan to align with Washington’s declaration of the ‘War on Terror’ and help its intent to invade Afghanistan in search of Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of 9/11, in the process to punish the Taliban regime of Mulla Omar for hosting bin Laden and refusing to hand him over to the US. Pakistan’s help and support for the Afghan war was critical since the landlocked country could only, for both geographical and geopolitical reasons, be accessed through Pakistan. Thus Pakistan, then ruled by military dictator Pervez Musharraf, provided an air and land corridor for the US to invade Afghanistan and subsequently keep its troops in that country supplied. In return, Pakistan was provided money for ‘services rendered’. However, neither Washington’s heavy pressure nor its money could dissuade the Pakistani military under Musharraf from playing a double game, supporting at one and the same time the US’s campaign (targeting exclusively al Qaeda) and the Taliban’s resistance, the latter through the provision of safe havens inside Pakistan and logistical and other support.

This double game helped the Afghan Taliban maintain their guerrilla resistance to the US occupation for 20 years and finally paved the way for their victory and the ignominious retreat of the US from Afghanistan. In between, US intelligence surmised that Osama bin Laden, whom they had been unable to capture in the early days of the invasion in the Tora Bora mountains in eastern Afghanistan, was holed up in a compound in Abbottabad, a stone’s throw from the military’s Kakul Academy. When then President Barack Obama decided to approve a US Navy Seals operation in May 2011 inside Pakistan to capture or take out bin Laden, the outcome of the raid was that bin Laden was killed while offering armed resistance, with his face blown off, making it difficult to identify him. However, the Seals confirmed his identity from the length of the body and his ears. The body was then taken away in the Seals’ helicopters and dumped far out at sea so to prevent any burial site becoming a bin Laden shrine to his followers (cf. Mumtaz Qadri). Obviously, the discovery of bin Laden in near proximity to Pakistan’s ‘West Point’ did not endear the country to Washington. In fact there were reams of speculation and suspicion about the role of Pakistan’s military and intelligence services in hiding bin Laden inside Pakistan for 10 years. Although the US celebrated its ‘revenge’ on bin Laden for 9/11, this was one of the few successes it could boast of in this war. The rest, including the Ashraf Ghani regime and the much vaunted Afghan National Army (ANA) created, trained and armed by the US, disappeared like a puff of dust before the triumphal entry of the Taliban into Kabul and the chaotic departure of the US, leaving many of its collaborators behind to face the tender mercies of the Taliban.

Washington obviously harboured a great deal of resentment and anger at Pakistan for its ‘betrayal’ in Afghanistan. I had predicted in a write up in these columns after the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan in 2021 that our relationship with the US would henceforth be extremely rocky, since empires have long memories and they do not forgive or forget. I predicted then that the US did not have to do more than use its hold over the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to make life difficult for Pakistan. That, at least, has come to pass and is continuing even as we speak. Washington, in the aftermath of its humiliation in Afghanistan, decided to at the very least keep Pakistan at arm’s length from here on. This explains why President Biden never contacted Imran Khan while he was PM, never congratulated Shahbaz Sharif when he became PM in 2022, and even in this letter now received, has made no mention of congratulations to Shahbaz Sharif for being elected PM again (albeit in a controversial polling exercise). Shahbaz too has chosen to reply in diplomatese, focusing on harmless, peripheral areas of mutual cooperation while the herd of elephants in the room is blithely ignored.

The question then arises, why this ‘frosty’ exchange now? The main factor is Washington’s continuing concern about a terrorist threat to it and its allies emanating from Taliban ruled Afghanistan. The second is the Pentagon’s desire, reiterated after COAS General Asim Munir’s visit to the US, to maintain its strategic relationship with the Pakistani military with the latter the best bet for policing the region in the interests of the US and the west. The third reason is the growing concern in Washington that too much distance from Islamabad could thrust Pakistan even further into China’s embrace. So, despite the victory in the Cold War ending in the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern European socialism and the inescapable necessity for remaining socialist countries such as Vietnam, the Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea) and Cuba to tack with the prevailing wind and make compromises with capitalism for the sake of survival, the Pentagon still envisages a continuation of its long standing ‘independent’ relationship with Pakistan’s GHQ (independent of whoever is in power in Washington or Islamabad). Of course even the Pentagon cannot prevail in the halls of power in Washington to reopen the free lunch box Pakistan has been used to since the early 1950s. Therefore while a minimal relationship will remain between the US and Pakistani militaries, it is unlikely to reap for the latter the goodies it is used to receiving in the past. To sum up, what remains of the US-Pakistan relationship now is a minimum engagement (with an eye on security contingencies) for the foreseeable future, minimum support through the IMF and other international financial institutions to prevent an economic meltdown (something that promises to make the debt trap we are clearly in arguably worse), peripheral engagement in do-goodie areas that are hardly strategic (e.g. health, education, etc.), and straining to keep Pakistan as far away as possible from the Chinese embrace. Not a very tasty menu of maybes.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com