Re: Terrorist Islamic Republic of Pakistan (TSP): 15 Jan 201

[RajeshA]

By passing strictures against Mushy, the Pak judiciary is putting the kabila guards back into the barracks. We are seeing a Yeltsin moment.

But isn't Pak judiciary Shariah adalats with fancy British wigs on? Paki Lawyers and Judges are all Islamists. Isn't that how it is supposed to be - the Ghazis listen to the Ulema?

[ramana]

Among all the green seems to be be agreement to send the jihadi fistulas back to the caves.
Lets see how this pans out.

[RamaY]

M J Akbar at the same JNU gathering as Tarek Fatah above.

[ramana]

If we step back and look at history, we see that political Islam took a strident tone with the defeat of Turkic power in the Islamist world. In 1680s Ottomon Turkey got defeated at Vienna and went into terminal decline eventually leading to the demise after World War I. In India the Mughals also known as Chagatai Turks, went into decline after the debilitating Mughal wars with Marathas in Deccan. This decline led to a resurgence of re-Arabisation of Islam which is very extremist in outlook being very literalist in outlook.

The problem the world faces is to stop the reversion of political Islam in order to halt the terrorist surge from the Islamic political world.


On way is to have the KSA, de-Wahabize themselves and declare the Wahabis and Deobandis as Kharjites and make them irrelevant. Or need an external force like the Mongols who killed and destroyed the Assasins and ended the scourge.

[ramana]

X-Post....
Modern brain research shows there are three layers of the brain: reptilian, middle and neocortex and reflect evolution. The reptilian brain is the one that provides the auto responses and the neocortex all the pleasant high thinking that allows human society to develop and prosper.

I strongly think Islam is fashioned for the reptilian brain and reinforces the auto responses of hostility.

So while the outside world communicates to the Islamic world from the neo-cortex (Aman ki Asha, grand gestures, Shimla pact etc.) the Islamist world responds with the reptilian brain (beheading, terrorist attacks, perfidy, hostility at all forums).

So the crux of the problem is how to communicate with the reptilian brain meme that dominates Islamist thinking?

[Lalmohan]

ramana - the political response to military defeat in islam is to embrace 'wahabbism' or whatever it is called in that period - it begins from the mongol times and persists to this day; as a means of rebuilding strength (through piety and hardship). historically when they have been affluent - they have eased off on the jihad pedal, but in modern times, that is not the case. wahabism is funded lavishly by petrodollares

[ramana]

Again the modern malaise of Islamism as a political dogma is a modern construct post Ottomon Caliphate. Its engineered by the UK and propped up by US. However blowback is effecting them too.
Yeah after the Mongol sack of Baghdad a whole slew of Arab scholars like Al Ghazali came and reaffirmed the need to stick to the orthodox version of Islam. Meanwhile poltical Islam floundered from the Fatimids of Egypt to the Ottomons of Istanbul. And colonialism swept them away to the dustbin.


Do try to think about the neuroscience aspects of Islam I posted above.

[Lalmohan]

i buy that

[Prem]

X-Post....
So the crux of the problem is how to communicate with the reptilian brain meme that dominates Islamist thinking?

Simple solution to the Simple Pakoblam,Why Communicate, just remove it.Finish it from the root/neck. .

[ramana]

Even that is communication. Albiet violent communications.

[ramana]

A few years ago I suggested promoting Urdu in Davnagari script as it is mostly Hindusthani with imported Persian and Turkish words. There was paraoxysm of impotent fury in the blogs and nether world of lurkers at that time.
Wonder what the brain model of Islam will do!

[ramana]

Newsinsight op-ed about the election of Badmash to be the next PM

http://www.newsinsight.net/Stayhome.aspx#page=page-1

Stay home
This is not the time to bhangra with Pakistan.
By N.V. Subramanian (15 May 2013)

New Delhi: How many times have we been told of great things happening in Pakistan only to have hopes shattered? Manmohan Singh and the mainstream Indian media may go gaga over the return of Nawaz Sharif to power, but this writer has serious reservations of significant improvement of relations between India and Pakistan. After the initial pappi-jhappi of the two Punjabi heads of government on either side of the border, it will be back to fraught relations on account of terrorism, Kashmir and flare-ups on the Line of Control with or without the accompanying beheadings by bloodthirsty Pakistani troops. A gushing Indian editor-commentator sought to belittle the tragedy of the beheading of an Indian soldier some months ago which led to the suspension of normal relations. Belittle he can, because it was not his vacuous head.

The perennial spoiler of India-Pakistan peace is a third party called the Pakistan military which is dominated by the land forces lead by a majority of Punjabi officers. Nawaz Sharief comes from Punjab like the bulk of the officer corps but there is a turf war between the two sides in which the winner can never be an elected Pakistan government, however legitimate it is. Nawaz Sharief is compromised by the fact of owing his rise to the late Islamist dictator Zia-ul-Haq as a counter to the Bhutto family and his cosy ties with the terrorist groups that attack India in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere. Besides the army and the militants, the judiciary is a powerful counter-force to the elected government, and Nawaz Sharief simply cannot function by antagonizing all three sections. Compromising with the judiciary is not possible because from the judiciary’s side there is nothing to compromise. So the only compromises open are those with the military and the militants. There is the fourth factor of the United States and Nawaz Sharief has to do a powerful balancing act with it too. Asif Ali Zardari with all his faults was a natural balancer but Nawaz Sharief does not sound very accommodative. Big trouble is in store for him and the first casualty will be relations with India because no internal political gains are to be made by being friendly with it.

When Nawaz Sharief was last in office and his term cut short by the usual military coup, South Asia and particularly the Af-Pak region were a little less complicated. The 11 September incident and the resultant ouster of the Taliban government and the Al-Qaeda from Afghanistan were still to happen. The Federally Administered Tribal Areas were not the drone-scourged militant battle zones they have become. Terrorists hadn’t run over large parts of Pakistan as now. And Pakistan today is more comprehensively a failed state than when Nawaz Sharief was in charge. Apart from bringing his entrepreneurial spirit into the government, a quality Zardari appeared to possess but failed to impart, Nawaz Sharief isn’t in a position to do very much. The military, the militants and the judiciary have carved out and expanded their turfs, leaving little space and autonomy for the elected government. This is a huge anomaly but there is no corrective at hand. It is clear that the government, the military and the judiciary must unite to fight the terrorists who present the foremost existential threat to the Pakistan state. But such unity appears impossible. To the contrary, the military is linked with the militants against India, the judiciary with the military against the civilian government, the militants with sections of the executive and chunks of society, and so on. There is no light at the end of the tunnel.

Instead of rushing in to mend relations with Pakistan, India must stay aloof and watch the unfolding situation. The Afghanistan endgame is near and the Pakistan army and Inter-Services Intelligence will be active there to topple the Hamid Karzai government. The residual American troops may not permit this but will Nawaz Sharief stop this denouement from the Pakistan side if success is assured? That will be the real test of his democratic credentials and his will to take on the military establishment. Indeed, developments in Afghanistan will provide the cue for a serious Indian engagement of Pakistan. Peace with Pakistan cannot be at any cost. The notion of an “uninterrupted and uninterruptible” dialogue process with Pakistan is nonsense. There is absolutely no reason to resume the dialogue process just because friendly noises are made from the other side. Manmohan Singh should cage his nostalgia and sit at home. There is nothing to be gained by going to Pakistan now or anytime soon or inviting Nawaz Sharief over.

There is also the doubt about Badmash not being in the loop during Kargil perfidy in order to claim plausible deniablity. IOW he might not have been briefed overtly to ensure he can claim innocence if the plan fails. The chagrin is he claimed innocence, when the TSPA got whipped and thus left them without cover leading to the coup.

[SSridhar]

Which brings us back to the point that there is never a 'new way of looking at Pakistan'. There is only one way and that is 'do everything to eliminate this pox with the alarm and the urgency with which it needs to be removed'.

[ramana]

If British objective for creating TSP on either side of India as buffers in order to contain Communist Russia, as Caroe seems to imply then, fall of Soviet Russia would make TSP irrelevant?

[Agnimitra]

If British objective for creating TSP on either side of India as buffers in order to contain Communist Russia, as Caroe seems to imply then, fall of Soviet Russia would make TSP irrelevant?

How so? Russia still remains a powerful rival. E.g., Russia plus Iran are fighting NATO plus Saudi in Syria.

Pakistan is a wedge between India and Russia. E.g., if India eyes Tajikistan, it must do so with Russian acquiescence. Whereas the destabilizing counter-influence in Tajikistan are the Sunni Islamist jihadis.

[svinayak]

If British objective for creating TSP on either side of India as buffers in order to contain Communist Russia, as Caroe seems to imply then, fall of Soviet Russia would make TSP irrelevant?

How so? Russia still remains a powerful rival. E.g., Russia plus Iran are fighting NATO plus Saudi in Syria.

Pakistan is a wedge between India and Russia. E.g., if India eyes Tajikistan, it must do so with Russian acquiescence. Whereas the destabilizing counter-influence in Tajikistan are the Sunni Islamist jihadis.

TO deny Russian access to the warm waters of the Arabian sea and IOR has been the British objective for over 200 years.

Pakistan is still seen as the buffer. AK Pak is a new version.

India can make the af Pak irrelevant by building multiple transport corridor. Indian economy needs transport corridor and it is the Indian interest to have transport corridor

Iran corridor will bring geo political change since the end of British Empire.


Also unstable af Pak region will also create geo political pressure on the major powers and will create deny access to all major powers to Central asia. If the current situation continues for another 10-20 years it will change the region and global dynamics.

The Great game will continue since the geography will never change.

[SSridhar]

Apart from being the buffer against communism, there were three other important reasons for the creation of Pakistan. One was the protection of the 'wells of power' in the Middle East (their terminology), the other was to act as a re-fuelling and stop over point for long distance flights to the Far East and Australia, and the third was to be able to leverage the Mussalman world. Pakistan was encouraged to act as the de-facto leader of the Mussalman world which they attempted to do leading to derision, ridicule and cold-shouldering from the likes of Egypt and KSA. The strained relationship was not mended until the 1970s. The American President Franklin D Roosevelt is said to have told a British diplomat, “Persian oil is yours. We share the oil of Iraq and Kuwait. As for Saudi Arabian oil, it's ours.” Olaf Kirkpatrick Caroe told the Americans in the 1950s, when Great Britain handed over Pakistan to the US, that the operations in Mesopotamia (Iraq) in WW I and in Iran in WW II were made possible from bases in Imperial India and with the independence of India he suggested replacing Imperial India with Pakistan.

Today, with other options available, the above reasons have either become muted or even non-existent. Today, China has taken over the access to Arabian Sea through Pakistan from Imperial (and even Communist) Russia. In fact, there is no clear cut proof that Russia indeed was eyeing access to warm waters through Pakistan. It is as likely to be a canard to sustain some British and later Western strategies and myths as it was true. However, China's ambition is a reality unfolding in front of our very eyes. Thus, the 'buffer theory' has been quietly subverted from within by both Pakistan and China even if one assumes that Af-Pak is the new buffer. One does not know whose buffer it is, for whose sake and against whom.

The new Great Game is 'access to resources' and not 'access to [merely] warm waters'. As far as we are concerned, such a change of reason does not bring us any comfort. We are threatened by a slew of actors from the US to China with Pakistan in between.

[svinayak]

Today, with other options available, the above reasons have either become muted or even non-existent. Today, China has taken over the access to Arabian Sea through Pakistan from Imperial (and even Communist) Russia. In fact, there is no clear cut proof that Russia indeed was eyeing access to warm waters through Pakistan. It is as likely to be a canard to sustain some British and later Western strategies and myths as it was true. However, China's ambition is a reality unfolding in front of our very eyes. Thus, the 'buffer theory' has been quietly subverted from within by both Pakistan and China even if one assumes that Af-Pak is the new buffer. One does not know whose buffer it is, for whose sake and against whom.

The new Great Game is 'access to resources' and not 'access to [merely] warm waters'. As far as we are concerned, such a change of reason does not bring us any comfort. We are threatened by a slew of actors from the US to China with Pakistan in between.

Good post
In the modern world it is about the transport corridor and Oil corridor. Countries which control it will control the geo politics in the region.
China is a new creation in the last 60 years but Russia has been trying to reach these regions for over 200 years.

China and its plan with TSP is interesting but nothing is guaranteed.

[Anand K]

Russians didn't have much to gain by getting warm water access through TSP..... their main centers of production were far away (the closets one being Chelyabinsk and the odd factories in CAR pockets). Also back then the CAR region was put on the backburner w.r.t the development of infrastructure and exploitation of strategic resources. Iran is another matter though..... Remember all those Tom Clancy trash about Russia trying to take over Iran by attempting to misdirect the West with a token action in Germany....and President Holy Father Jack Ryan saving the day?

China has a lot to gain by getting an Islamic Rentier State strip of land down to the Arabian sea.... and the US has a lot to gain by preventing that from happening.

[svinayak]

History of Central asia says like this.

Russian expansion into Central Asia (19th century) [edit]
The Russians also expanded south, first with the transformation of the Ukrainian steppe into an agricultural heartland, and subsequently onto the fringe of the Kazakh steppes, beginning with the foundation of the fortress of Orenburg. The slow Russian conquest of the heart of Central Asia began in the early 19th century, although Peter the Great had sent a failed expedition under Prince Bekovitch-Cherkassky against Khiva as early as the 1720s.

By the 1800s, the locals could do little to resist the Russian advance, although the Kazakhs of the Great Horde under Kenesary Kasimov rose in rebellion from 1837 - 46. Until the 1870s, for the most part, Russian interference was minimal, leaving native ways of life intact and local government structures in place. With the conquest of Turkestan after 1865 and the consequent securing of the frontier, the Russians gradually expropriated large parts of the steppe and gave these lands to Russian farmers, who began to arrive in large numbers. This process was initially limited to the northern fringes of the steppe and it was only in the 1890s that significant numbers of Russians began to settle farther south, especially in Zhetysu (Semirechye).

After the fall of Tashkent to General Cherniaev in 1865, Khodjend, Djizak, and Samarkand fell to the Russians in quick succession over the next three years as the Khanate of Kokand and the Emirate of Bukhara were repeatedly defeated. In 1867 the Governor-Generalship of Russian Turkestan was established under General Konstantin Petrovich Von Kaufman, with its headquarters at Tashkent. In 1881-85 the Transcaspian region was annexed in the course of a campaign led by Generals Mikhail Annenkov and Mikhail Skobelev, and Ashkhabad (from Persia), Merv and Pendjeh (from Afghanistan) all came under Russian control.
Russian expansion was halted in 1887 when Russia and Great Britain delineated the northern border of Afghanistan. Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva remained quasi-independent, but were essentially protectorates along the lines of the Princely States of British India. Although the conquest was prompted by almost purely military concerns, in the 1870s and 1880s Turkestan came to play a reasonably important economic role within the Russian Empire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... century.29

The British conquest of India and Afghanistan was completed when the Russian reached Tibet.

[ramana]

News Insight replies to Maleeha Lodi's ravings
http://www.newsinsight.net/Nawazversust ... age=page-1

Nawaz versus the army

India’s “cold start” doctrine is a smart way to counter Pakistani terrorism.

By N.V. Subramanian (29 May 2013)

New Delhi: The Pakistan military establishment has begun to put the squeeze on Nawaz Sharief as he prepares to take over as prime minister in a few days. Through a sharp but basically specious newspaper piece penned by the former Pakistan envoy to the United States and the UK, Maleeha Lodhi, the military has given notice to Sharief apropos his plan to resume the peace process with India initiated by him and the former Indian prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee.

{Also note the killing of Wali-ur-Rehman Mehsud by US drone strike which has stopped the Badmash TTP peace talks dead in the water. Its rumored to be a sell out by TSPA.}

Lodhi has articulated pungent objections to a speech of Shyam Saran, India’s former foreign secretary and chairman of the National Security Advisory Board, delivered last month concerning Pakistan’s tactical nuclear weapons and this country’s response to it. Pakistan’s military has cleared the way for a tactical nuclear weapons’ strike against any Indian “cold start” invasion. Shyam Saran said that in the event of such a strike, India would launch a “massive nuclear retaliation”. Lodhi has questioned the key premises of Saran’s argument to portray India as the country with aggressive intentions, a slant that would put Nawaz Sharief in a tight spot with the military about his Indian peace plans.

The “cold start” doctrine arose from the ruins of Operation Parakram when the Indian military realized the absolute necessity for a quick and decisive strike against Pakistan following a terrorist attack. The background was supplied by the 13 December 2001 Pakistani terrorist attack on India’s Parliament House. The doctrine fundamentally sought to compress the timeframe for full mobilization and involved modifying age-old deployment philosophies. It would also limit the scope for international intervention with Indian war objectives achieved in record timelines. As a country with little strategic depth, Pakistan was alarmed, and returned with the decision for tactical nuclear weapons’ deployment.

Maleeha Lodhi and other Pakistani diplomats and analysts like to pause at the narrative here without throwing light on the reasons for India’s “cold start” doctrine. Pakistan has been waging limited war and sponsoring terrorist attacks against India under a nuclear overhang. The outrageous attack on India’s Parliament was followed by equal and bloodier strikes on several Indian cities, religious places, commercial districts and educational institutions, culminating in the Bombay carnage of 26 November 2008. Pakistan’s deterrent prevented an Indian conventional attack despite the clear involvement of the Pakistan military in the terrorism. And with Pakistan’s threat of tactical nuclear weapons’ retaliation against an Indian conventional attack, the nuclear threshold was dramatically lowered. Pakistan, in other words, was thumbing its nose at India, daring it to cease its terrorism and nuclear blackmail.

The blunder on the Indian side was not to own the military’s “cold start” doctrine. Once Pakistan’s tactical nuclear weapons’ deployment plans became known to the Indian political establishment, there was furious backpedalling. The government denied “cold start” and the military was press-ganged to confirm the denial. But the Pakistan military would have none of it. It trotted out the standard military axiom that it had to prepare on the basis of India’s capability and not its intentions which could change overnight. When Pakistan seemed to get the upper hand on deterrent strategizing, Indian analysts came up with a simple counter. In response to a Pakistan tactical nuclear attack, India should authorize “massive nuclear retaliation”. This is roughly what Shyam Saran said. He said he spoke on a personal basis but he is too much an establishment man to fool anyone. Besides his leadership of the National Security Advisory Board is a dead giveaway.

Maleeha Lodhi in a signed piece in the Jung newspaper says Shyam Saran’s formulation provokes deterrent instability between India and Pakistan and that both countries must go for nuclear restraint, conventional weapons’ parity and talks to settle the core disputes. This is a typical Pakistani style of ending everything with the Kashmir issue. Lodhi also says Pakistan has anxieties about the Indo-US nuclear deal that frees domestic uranium for more bombs, India’s missile defence capability, and the growing conventional weapons’ clout of this country. But she does not squarely deal with the issue of Pakistani terrorism which is at the root of India-Pakistan tensions. Her line is to ignore this and to marshal arguments coming straight from the Pakistan army headquarters. People like Maleeha Lodhi are bad news for Nawaz Sharief.

But her strident criticism of Shyam Saran also reveals India has a strategy that can be reasonably successful against the terrorist state of Pakistan. There is essentially no difference between a tactical and an overwhelming strategic nuclear response. One begets the other. India has finally recognized this and told Pakistan so. Following on Saran’s speech, India must officially embrace his articulation. It must also own “cold start” because it has generated a response that cannot be reversed. The moral of all this is that India must be transparent about its conventional and nuclear military doctrines. Transparency leads to stability. The enemy must be well-informed what terrible things to expect for harming India.

Meanwhile, Nawaz Sharief will find that the road to peace with India is blocked by the Pakistan military which has among its cheerleaders charming provocateurs like Maleeha Lodhi.

Shyam Saran has not articulated anything new. He has restated and reminded the world that the Indian MND was always to retaliate massively (in Indian terms) to any breakdown of the nuclear threshold anywhere on Indians.


BTW more than ten years ago I said similar things. Read my Quo Vadis piece in BRM still there.

[ramana]

TSP is a complex issue.The BRF goal is to provide a simple vignette of the different facets.

[Prem]

Simple Problem, Simple Solution:Peace in South Asia will rise only from the ashes of Pakistan .
Consensus for implementing this solution have remained pending for over 6 Decades.

[Paul]

Key is for the Indian establishment to publicly own "Cold Start" and the massive reposite doctrine......NS is no innocent damsel in distress, India does need to ensure that it gets a proper Quid pro quo for the 1000MW power.

Thankfully with elections next year, we should not see any more Sharm-el-Sheikh repeats for now.

[ramana]

Muslim Civil Wars Stem from a Crisis of Civilization

by David P. Goldman
PJ Media
June 5, 2013

http://www.meforum.org/3526/muslim-civil-wars


Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum (where I am associate fellow) replies this morning to Bret Stephens' June 3rd Wall Street Journal column, "The Muslim Civil War: Standing by while the Sunnis and Shiites fight it out invites disaster." The Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, when the Reagan administration quietly encouraged the two sides to fight themselves to bloody exhaustion, did America no good, Stephens argues:

In short, a long intra-Islamic war left nobody safer, wealthier or wiser. Nor did it leave the West morally untainted. The U.S. embraced Saddam Hussein as a counterweight to Iran, and later tried to ply Iran with secret arms in exchange for the release of hostages. Patrolling the Strait of Hormuz, the USS Vincennes mistakenly shot down an Iranian jetliner over the Gulf, killing 290 civilians. Inaction only provides moral safe harbor when there's no possibility of action.

Today, he adds, there comes "the whispered suggestion: If one branch of Islam wants to be at war with another branch for a few years — or decades — so much the better for the non-Islamic world. Mass civilian casualties in Aleppo or Homs is their tragedy, not ours. It does not implicate us morally. And it probably benefits us strategically, not least by redirecting jihadist energies away from the West." This is not a good thing for the West, but a bad thing, he concludes. Pipes and Stephens are both friends of mine, and both have a point (although I come down on Pipes' side of the argument). It might be helpful to expand the context of the discussion.

I agree with Stephens that it is a bad thing. It not only a bad thing: it is a horrifying thing. The moral impact on the West of unrestrained slaughter and numberless atrocities flooding YouTube for years to come is incalculable, as I wrote in a May 20 essay, "Syria's Madness and Ours." If Syria looks bad, wait until Pakistan breaks down. The relevant questions, though, are 1) why are Sunnis and Shi'ites slaughtering each other in Syria at this particular moment in history, and 2) what (if anything) can we do about it?

Part of the answer to the first question is that Syria (like Egypt) as presently constituted simply is not viable as a country. Iraq might be viable, because it has enough oil to subsidize a largely uneducated, pre-modern population. As an economist and risk analyst (I ran Credit Strategy for Credit Suisse and all fixed income research for Bank of America), I do not believe that there is any way to stabilize either country. In the medium term, Turkey will lose national viability as well. I outlined some of the reasons for this view in my 2011 book How Civilizations Die (and why Islam is Dying, Too).

Globalization ruins countries. It has done so for centuries. Tinpot dictatorships that keep their people in poverty the better to maintain political control will break down at some point. Mexico broke down during the 1970s and 1980s; the Mexican currency collapsed, the savings of the middle class were wiped out, and the economy shut down. In 1982 I wrote an evaluation of the Mexican economy for Norman Bailey, then director of plans at the National Security Council and special assistant to President Reagan. I saw a crash coming, and no way to to prevent it.

Three things prevented Mexico from dissolving into civil war (as it did during the teens of the past century at the cost of a million lives, or one out of seven Mexicans). One was the ability of Mexicans to migrate to the United States, which absorbed perhaps a fifth of the Mexican population. The second was the emergence of the drug cartels as an alternative source of employment for up to half a million people, and generating between $18 and $39 billion of annual profits. And the third is the fact that Mexico produces its own food most years. When the currencies of the Latin American banana republics collapsed, there was always enough food to maintain minimum caloric consumption. Not so in Egypt, which imports half its food and is flat broke. Egypt and Syria are banana republics but without the bananas (Daniel Pipes assures me that Egypt does grow bananas, and he personally has eaten them, but they are not grown in sufficient quantity to meet the country's caloric deficit). Turkey was the supposed Muslim model for democracy and prosperity under moderate Islam. That idea, which I disputed for years, has gotten tarnished during the past week.

Israeli analysts have understood this from the outset. Two years ago (in an essay entitled "Israel the winner in the Arab revolts") I quoted an Israeli study of the collapse of Syrian agriculture preceding the civil war:

Syria will prove impossible to stabilize, for reasons sketched in my March 29 essay, and explained in more detail by economist Paul Rivlin [3] in a note released the same day by Tel Aviv University's Moshe Dayan Center, entitled "Behind the Tensions in Syria: The Socio-Economic Dimension."

Quoted at length in the Arab press, Rivlin's report went unmentioned in the Western media – a gauge of how poorly the Western elite understands the core issues. Clinton has been ridiculed for calling Assad a "reformer" (in fact, she said that some members of congress think he's a reformer). Rivlin explains Syria's president is a reformer, at least in economic policy. The trouble is that Syrian society is too fragile to absorb reforms without intolerable pain for the 30% of Syrians below the official poverty line of US$1.60 a day. As Rivlin explains: "Syrian agriculture is suffering from the country's move to a so-called 'social market economy' and the introduction of a new subsidy regime in compliance with international trade agreements, including the Association Agreement with the European Union (which Syria has still not ratified). The previous agricultural policy was highly interventionist, ensuring (at great cost) the country's food security and providing the population with cheap access to food items. It is now being replaced with a more liberal one that has harsh consequences for farmers and peasants, who account for about 20% of the country's GDP [gross domestic product] and its workforce."

Syria's farm sector, Rivlin adds, was further weakened by four years of drought: "Small-scale farmers have been the worst affected; many have not been able to grow enough food or earn enough money to feed their families. As a result, tens of thousands have left the northeast and now inhabit informal settlements or camps close to Damascus."

Assad abolished fuel subsidies and freed market prices, Rivlin adds. "In early 2008, fuel subsidies were abolished and, as a result, the price of diesel fuel tripled overnight. Consequently, during the year the price of basic foodstuffs rose sharply and was further exasperated by the drought." Against that background, Syrian food prices jumped by 30% in late February, Syrian bloggers reported after the regime's attempt to hold prices down provoked hoarding.

The rise in global food prices hit Syrian society like a tsunami, exposing the regime's incapacity to modernize a backward, corrupt and fractured country. Like Egypt, Syria cannot get there from here. Rivlin doubts that the regime will fracture. He concludes, "Urban elites have been appeased by economic liberalization, and they now fear a revolution that would bring to power a new political class based on the rural poor, or simply push Syria into chaos. The alliance of the Sunni business community and the Alawite-dominated security forces forms the basis of the regime and, as sections of the population rebel, it has everything to fight for."

We tend to forget that the first stirrings of globalization during the Age of Navigation ruined Latin America, Asia, India, and China. That was the premise of my first "Spengler" essay at Asia Times Online on January 27, 2000:

Item: After the conquest of the New World, Spain's entire capture of precious metals went to India and China to pay for luxury cloth and spices. That did for approximately 90 percent of the indigenous pre-Colombian population.

Item: The African slave trade instituted by the Portuguese and later the British first produced sugar in Brazil and the Caribbean, to be turned into cheap intoxicants for the European market. Tobacco was a second absorber of slave labor. Cotton became important much later. Production of these vices did for a third of the West African population.

Item: In order to sell cheap cotton cloth to India, the East India Company arranged for Indians to grow opium and for Chinese to buy it. All the silver mined in Latin America, which two centuries earlier had passed to China to pay for silks, found its way back to Europe to pay for opium. That did for untold millions of Indians and Chinese.

The loss of life was frightful. The Taiping Rebellion of 1850 to 1864 in the wake of the Qing Dynasty's humiliation by the British claimed 20 million lives, most of them civilians. Millions starved in Bengal when manufactured cotton replaced the local handwoven cloth.

If we had some bagels, we could have bagels and lox, if we had some lox. Syria doesn't have enough oil to survive in the region. It doesn't even have enough water, as the New York Times' Thomas Friedman noticed last month, two years after Israeli analysts published the story in depth:

"The drought did not cause Syria's civil war," said the Syrian economist Samir Aita, but, he added, the failure of the government to respond to the drought played a huge role in fueling the uprising. What happened, Aita explained, was that after Assad took over in 2000 he opened up the regulated agricultural sector in Syria for big farmers, many of them government cronies, to buy up land and drill as much water as they wanted, eventually severely diminishing the water table. This began driving small farmers off the land into towns, where they had to scrounge for work.

Because of the population explosion that started here in the 1980s and 1990s thanks to better health care, those leaving the countryside came with huge families and settled in towns around cities like Aleppo. Some of those small towns swelled from 2,000 people to 400,000 in a decade or so. The government failed to provide proper schools, jobs or services for this youth bulge, which hit its teens and 20s right when the revolution erupted.

Then, between 2006 and 2011, some 60 percent of Syria's land mass was ravaged by the drought and, with the water table already too low and river irrigation shrunken, it wiped out the livelihoods of 800,000 Syrian farmers and herders, the United Nations reported. "Half the population in Syria between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers left the land" for urban areas during the last decade, said Aita. And with Assad doing nothing to help the drought refugees, a lot of very simple farmers and their kids got politicized. "State and government was invented in this part of the world, in ancient Mesopotamia, precisely to manage irrigation and crop growing," said Aita, "and Assad failed in that basic task."

If we had a Syrian elite dedicated to modernization, free markets, and opportunity, we could have an economic recovery in Syria. But the country is locked into suppurating backwardness precisely because the dominant culture holds back individual initiative and enterprise. The longstanding hatreds among Sunnis and Shi'ites, and Kurds and Druze and Arabs, turn into a fight to the death as the ground shrinks beneath them. The pre-modern culture demands proofs of group loyalty in the form of atrocities which bind the combatants to an all-or-nothing outcome. The Sunni rebels appear quite as enthusiastic in their perpetration of atrocities as does the disgusting Assad government.

What are we supposed to do in the face of such horrors? I am against putting American boots on the ground. As I wrote in the cited May 20 essay, "Westerners cannot deal with this kind of warfare. The United States does not have and cannot train soldiers capable of intervening in the Syrian civil war. Short of raising a foreign legion on the French colonial model, America should keep its military personnel at a distance from a war fought with the instruments of horror."

The most urgent thing to do, in my judgment, is to eliminate the malignant influence of Iran, which is treating Syria like a satrapy and sending tens of thousands of fighters as well as material aid to the Assad regime. Attacking Iran would widen the conflict, but ultimately make it controllable. No sane American should want Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. As Admiral James Stavridis told the New York Times today, "If you can move 10 tons of cocaine into the U.S. in a small, semi-submersible vessel, how hard do you think it would be to move a weapon of mass destruction?"

Ultimately, partition of Syria (and other Middle Eastern countries) on the model of the former Yugoslavia probably will be the outcome of the crisis. There are lots of things to keep diplomats busy for the next generation. But the terrible fact remains that it is not in our power to prevent the decline of a civilization embracing over a billion people, and to prevent some aspects of that decline from turning ugly beyond description. Among the many things we might do, there is one thing we must do: limit the damage to ourselves and our allies.

David P. Goldman is an associate fellow at the Middle East Forum, and the author of How Civilizations Die (and Why Islam Is Dying, Too) and the essay collection It's Not the End of the World, It's Just the End of You.

Amit, RajeshA, Agnimitra can we apply similar concepts to TSP and Afghanistan? The Pak Economic Watch thread assumes importance if we can suppress our desires to show down others and concentrate on the matter at hand.

[RajeshA]

ramana garu,

It is clear that if Syria with its 23 million people is exploding into violence on account of food scarcity and higher prices, as well besides the usual Shia-Sunni celebrations, then even if we do 1 Arab TFTA = 10 Paki SDRE TFTAs, then in Pakistan too the situation would be similar some day.

Even though Pakistan has the Indus and receives substantial rains, the situation can be pushed into the Syrian template and the process accelerated. That can be done by providing two suction forces on the food-grain, leaving little for the Pakis.

1. Giving Afghanistan the capacity to buy much of the Pakistani produce, by giving Afghans counterfeit Pakistani currency notes, something similar to the Counterfeit Currency War they wage on us. Currency War from us
2. Secondly India can become a major importer of Pakistani agricultural produce. Doing Business with Pakistanis

I had proposed a solution in a series of posts

- Managing Chaos and the Dharmic Inkspots
- Breaking the Islamist Hold: The Neo-Khalistan Movement

[Klaus]

X-Post....
Modern brain research shows there are three layers of the brain: reptilian, middle and neocortex and reflect evolution. The reptilian brain is the one that provides the auto responses and the neocortex all the pleasant high thinking that allows human society to develop and prosper.

I strongly think Islam is fashioned for the reptilian brain and reinforces the auto responses of hostility.

So while the outside world communicates to the Islamic world from the neo-cortex (Aman ki Asha, grand gestures, Shimla pact etc.) the Islamist world responds with the reptilian brain (beheading, terrorist attacks, perfidy, hostility at all forums).

So the crux of the problem is how to communicate with the reptilian brain meme that dominates Islamist thinking?

The hypothesis is more suited for evolution of languages and crafting of a socio-political environment from where an ideology like Islam can take off, using the pre-existing environment as foundations. Trying to fit Islam with a finite history into the timespan of human evolution (therefore the human brain's evolution) would create logical gaps in sociological analysis. This is why there is a recourse taken to attacking linguistic family groupings and specific socio-political environments.

In light of this, the tussle between Arabic on one side and Syrian-Aramaic-Hebrew/Berber languages on the other should be studied. Perhaps even Indian family language exports had a role to play in enriching the Syrain Aramaic-Hebrew group. The present WANA crisis is also a continuation of the same, albeit colored with modernism and tech.

[ramana]

Klaus, Valid points if I said Islam is evolved on human evolution time scale.

I did not say that. I said modern research shows that humans have three types of brains in them:reptilian, middle and neocortex. Each of them has a specific function. The reptilian brains governs the survival response while the neocortex has the higher problem solving etc

My hypothesis is that Islam is tailored to soothe the reptilian brain for all the Koranic injunctions and hadiths etc all reinforce the basal instincts of humans. And thus appeals to those in lower social strata and in prisons as its a raging fever in US prisons.


Education is the basis for law and order and progress of society.


As for the Sunni-Shia tussle I did make a post in the Understanding Islamic Society thread and reproduce that here.

The Shia stream could be getting its inspiration for dynastic leadership from the ancient Judaic priest kings from Exodus instructions to form a "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation".

The Sunni stream got its inspiration initially from merit, but evolved to dynastic succession nominated by the shura eventually of one, the Caliph.

If you are a Bible familiar its from Exodus (19:6).

The dichotomy between kingdom of priests and holy nation is racking the Ibrahamic religion states.

[RajeshA]

ramana garu,

It is these days accepted among many Bible researchers that the Exodus itself is mostly manufactured story by King Josiah to establish his claims.

[sanjaykumar]

That is like stating that the pea was a manufactured detail in the brothers Grimms' narratives.

[ramana]

RajeshA, Fabrication or not its the memory of it that drives it.

[RajeshA]

RajeshA, Fabrication or not its the memory of it that drives it.

Of course. That it is a fabrication is mainly an academic issue.

[ramana]

Then what is the point of bringing it up?

Muslims think they are the final seal of Ibrahim. My point is that the schism is due to the dichotomy of the " kingdom of priests and holy nation".
This is what created pre-Roman Christianity from Judaism also.

Birth among "the chosen" vs believe in "the saviour."

[Klaus]

My hypothesis is that Islam is tailored to soothe the reptilian brain for all the Koranic injunctions and hadiths etc all reinforce the basal instincts of humans. And thus appeals to those in lower social strata and in prisons as its a raging fever in US prisons.

Ramana ji, I was pointing out that certain sociologists would argue then that Islam would not have been the first such value system in either recorded or pre-recorded history. They would then make a counter which would then deviate and cleverly conceal the aspects of Islam which are uniquely unprecedented and persistent when compared to the earlier, mostly pagan memes, all the while placing the blame and burden of guilt squarely on the door of older ME cults.

IMO, there is less of a chance of this happening with an "assault" on language families as there is always the element of doubt within linguists and their surefootedness, especially within a nebulous fora like interdisciplinary neuroscience. Its a bit like playing ice-hockey in a below-optimal setting. One could then add Islam within the extended socio-political argument of the time after the primary battle has been won. JMTP's only.

Concur with Exodus (19:6) and the dichotomy situation.

[ramana]

Somehow I think that the Nanga Parbat massacre was done by LET, that is if we really want to pin the blame on a group.

TTP is the establishment's favourite whipping boy. The pakis have been alleging for ages that the TTP are american stooges - they are under the influence of the YYY axis.

One can't help noticing that any uncomfortable incident (uncomfortable for the Paki-pindi establishment) ends up being pinned on the TTP.

Whereas, the LET is the ISI's blue eyed child, same Pakjab family ties - same villages / one brother in the army, other in the LET - kinda relationship. They have trained the LET cadres in all sorts of infiltration methods - Sea: Ajmal Kasab and the mumbai attackers, High altitude: all the J&K infiltrators, the bulk of whom are LET.

BTW, this thing about there being groups is very mayavi

At the cadre level, there is blurring of the lines between all these Pakjabi groups. The sectarian groups like the LEJ; or the LET etc all draw cadres for various missions from the same cesspool. One Jihadi might be working for LET and might do a tour in J&K - if he survives, and is still young, the LET might send him to Afghanistan. Later that guy might be killing Shias with the LEJ etc.

Often there is no actual single group - The commander might have worked for several organizations. He gets tasked by the ISI for a mission and is asked to pick up a team from the cesspool.

The bottom line is, that all these groups and individuals are eventually answerable to and controlled, trained, protected by the Pakistani state / Establishment / ISI. The commanders have handlers who are ISI / Pakistani army officers and JCOs.

This business of trying to find which group did this is futile. The only terrorist group which is ultimately responsible is the ISI and the Pakistani Army.

[Agnimitra]

Whereas, the LET is the ISI's blue eyed child, same Pakjab family ties - same villages / one brother in the army, other in the LET - kinda relationship. They have trained the LET cadres in all sorts of infiltration methods - Sea: Ajmal Kasab and the mumbai attackers, High altitude: all the J&K infiltrators, the bulk of whom are LET.

BTW, this thing about there being groups is very mayavi

At the cadre level, there is blurring of the lines between all these Pakjabi groups. The sectarian groups like the LEJ; or the LET etc all draw cadres for various missions from the same cesspool. One Jihadi might be working for LET and might do a tour in J&K - if he survives, and is still young, the LET might send him to Afghanistan. Later that guy might be killing Shias with the LEJ etc.

Often there is no actual single group - The commander might have worked for several organizations. He gets tasked by the ISI for a mission and is asked to pick up a team from the cesspool.

The bottom line is, that all these groups and individuals are eventually answerable to and controlled, trained, protected by the Pakistani state / Establishment / ISI. The commanders have handlers who are ISI / Pakistani army officers and JCOs.

This business of trying to find which group did this is futile. The only terrorist group which is ultimately responsible is the ISI and the Pakistani Army.

Very true.

Rumour currently has it that just a few days back the JI has proposed to create (yet) another "army" that will fight shoulder-to-shoulder with the Pak Army. Not certain against whom, this time, but is targeted against the western front and Baluchistan, looks like. But this sort of proposal is not new. In 1971 also the JI had raise al-Shams and al-Badr forces that fought alongside Razakars in East Pakistan. In fact, they contributed disproportionately to the atrocities visited upon the civilian Bengalis there, and we should thank them for comlpetely alienating the populace (in case there was any favorable sentiment left at all). However, we can thank them for that today only because the IA moved in and helped create BD. Minus such responsible and decisive action, these non-state-actors can be very, very ruthless and effective. Come 2014, the Af-Pak scenario is very different from BD in 1971.

[ramana]

X-post...

quote="Anujan"After good haqqani got kicked out he has been writing articles like this -- NYTimes op-ed.

Unlike most states or political groups, the Taliban aren’t amenable to a pragmatic deal. They are a movement with an extreme ideology and will not compromise easily on their deeply held beliefs.
-----------

This applies equally to Pakistan and its precursor, the Muslim League. The Muslim league was unreasonable and it was unreasonable because it had an agenda and knew it could get there by just being unreasonable because the others then go a few extra miles to propitiate. It is not enough being just unreasonable; one has to also back it up with violence. That is exactly what Muslim League did as well. The message is simple: Pander my unreasonableness or else . . . The same traits were then carried over into that illegal and artificial construct called Pakistan. Every Pakistani ruler has followed the same approach to India for the last 66 years. The Taliban, by their fierce salafi ideological moorings, can only be expected to be irreconcilable, impractical and adamant. They also back it up with extraordinary violence. They have a supporter in Pakistan with similar approach. There is no way one can instill any sense in both of them. The trouble with the 3½ Friends of Democratic Pakistan is that Pakistan is for the most part not unreasonable in dealings with them. So, they think that there should really be something why Pakistan should be so antagonistic with India alone and then begin to justify the Pakistani actions. They cut the leg to fit the shoe. This will never stop.

Also the Muslim League knew it had the backing of the British in their venture to cut the leg to fit the shoe.

Even now its the 3.5 friends who embolden the TSP in its intransigence.

Just think a failing country, lowest in any index of national rankings, and surviving on dole from KSA and USA and military equipment from PRC and economic aid from Japan has grand delusions of creating a modern Islamic empire in Central Asia and India.

Both Mullah Omar and Badmash have the same plan.

- First thing India should do is wean Japan away from this giving aids to TSP, using Japan's complusions wrt China.

- Further by helping Iran and Syria stand/survive, make KSA do some navel gazing.

- And by promoting the integrity of Afghanistan keep the TSP unbalanced on their western borders.

Both UK and US have economic woes which are papered over with Quantitiative Easing bubbles and will eventually burst. PRC will create their own yuan trading regime to insulate itself.

All are passive steps and don't need military commitments.

- But above all dont become a new Gungadin to West.

[SSridhar]

Ramana, above all these, India must conclude that Pakistan will not change however much India concedes; that Pakistan's sole aim is to destroy India; that inimical forces continue to prop up Pakistan with the aim of containing or damaging or both of India and they will do so eternally; that India is already bleeding heavily with the mere existence of this manufactured country; that the more this unnatural construct persists, the more India will be harmed; that there is therefore no option left for India other than to eliminate this incarnation of evil.

Once this determination is made, the rest will be easy.

[ramana]

Current ruling group is the problem as it still has to keep the bargain with the interlocutors in UK.
The wayout is to elect another dispensation and move on.

[svinayak]

Also the Muslim League knew it had the backing of the British in their venture to cut the leg to fit the shoe.

Even now its the 3.5 friends who embolden the TSP in its intransigence.

Just think a failing country, lowest in any index of national rankings, and surviving on dole from KSA and USA and military equipment from PRC and economic aid from Japan has grand delusions of creating a modern Islamic empire in Central Asia and India.

Both Mullah Omar and Badmash have the same plan.

- First thing India should do is wean Japan away from this giving aids to TSP, using Japan's complusions wrt China.

- Further by helping Iran and Syria stand/survive, make KSA do some navel gazing.

- And by promoting the integrity of Afghanistan keep the TSP unbalanced on their western borders.

Both UK and US have economic woes which are papered over with Quantitiative Easing bubbles and will eventually burst. PRC will create their own yuan trading regime to insulate itself.

All are passive steps and don't need military commitments.

- But above all dont become a new Gungadin to West.

India has a unique opportunity to wean away aid from TSP