Category Archives: ARTICLES

Troubling Prospects In Afghanistan

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Published in the Hindu on July 8, 2021

Last week, on Friday, USA handed over the Bagram airbase to the Afghan authorities, marking a symbolic end to its military presence, as US forces complete their withdrawal well ahead of the September 11 deadline, announced by American President Joe Biden on April 14. A familiar air of uncertainty surrounds Kabul as the Afghans ponder over the future of their land, ravaged by conflict for nearly 50 years. Afghanistan’s immediate neighbours are now faced with a new challenge – how to persuade the Taliban against overplaying their military hand?

A costly misadventure

Could anyone have predicted when the US commenced its military intervention in Afghanistan in October 2001 that it would get embroiled in an endless war for 20 years and to exit safely, it would have to negotiate with the Taliban, the same entity that it went in to punish?

It has been a costly lesson. The war effort has cost $ 980 billion, over 2400 US soldiers (plus 1144 allied troops) and 3800 private military contractors have lost their lives. It also spent $143 billion on reconstruction; about $90 billion went for the Afghan army, police and other security forces, $36 billion for governance and economic development activities (the rest of the international community contributed an equivalent amount) and the balance on counter-narcotics and humanitarian relief works.

Yet, the real price has been paid by the Afghans. The 20-year war has claimed the lives of nearly 50000 Afghan civilians and nearly 70000 Afghan security forces (a majority during last seven years); add to it another 60000 Afghan Taliban, and the scale of the Afghan human loss becomes evident.

There have been gains too. In 2001, there were 900000 boys in school. Today, eight million children attend school and one-third are girls. Literacy is up from 12% in 2002 to 35%; life expectancy from 40 to 63 years. Urbanisation is 26% and 70% of the population watch TV. From 320 miles of paved roads in 2002, today tarred roads cover 10000 miles. Infant mortality rates are down from 20% by over half. With a median age of 18.5 years, a majority of Afghans have grown up in a post-Taliban era. Today, they bear the brunt of 130 daily Taliban/IS-Khorasan (IS-K) attacks, the highest since the US ended combat operations in end-2014. Tomorrow, even these limited gains are at risk.

Taliban gains legitimacy

For US President George Bush, the objective was “to build a stable, strong, effectively governed Afghanistan that won’t degenerate into chaos”. As US shifted from counter-terrorism to counter-insurgency, shades of Vietnam began to emerge. To Hamid Karzai’s credit, he saw the writing on the wall when he protested about the night-raids and warned the Americans “to either take the fight to the safe havens and sanctuaries across the Durand Line or make peace with the Taliban” but it only soured his relations with the US.

Eventually, US President Barack Obama diluted the objective to “preventing Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for global terrorism”. He oversaw a successful operation to eliminate Osama bin Laden in 2011, implemented an unsuccessful military surge concluding with an end to combat operations in end-2014 and Taliban opened the Doha office in 2013.  

US President Donald Trump saw himself as a deal-maker and in 2018, initiated direct negotiations with the Taliban. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad (US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation) began by setting out four elements – a ceasefire, cutting ties with Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, intra-Afghan peace talks, and, a withdrawal of all foreign military forces, declaring that “nothing is agreed till everything is agreed”. Within months, Taliban had whittled down the US demands till it got what it wanted – a withdrawal timeline not linked to the other factors. In addition, Taliban managed to get the US to push the Kabul government to releasing over 5000 Taliban cadres in custody. In short, the US ended up legitimising the Taliban at the expense of the government in Kabul that they had worked to create and support.

US President Joe Biden was no stranger to the Afghan dossier. He was convinced that US had to exit from its quagmire of “forever wars”. US may have decided that it had no military options but Taliban are still pushing ahead militarily.

From less than a fifth, today, over a third of Afghanistan’s over 400 districts are under Taliban control. The day after the exit from Bagram, 13 districts, in Badakshan, Takhar, Paktia and Kandahar fell to the Taliban, adding to the fifty that have fallen since May. In many cases, the locals manning the security posts and checkpoints have just surrendered. From villages and towns, there is already a move towards the cities. Intra-Afghan talks in Doha have been in limbo for months.

Questions about the future

Gen Austin Miller, the US commander in Afghanistan, indicated in a recent press conference, “Civil war is certainly a path that can be visualised if it continues on this trajectory”. Dr Abdullah Abdullah, Chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation warned on June 30, “Today, the survival, security and unity of Afghanistan is in danger…”

Ironically, the most vocal critics of US overstaying in Afghanistan and hinting that US would never leave are the ones now blaming the US for a hasty and irresponsible withdrawal.

In coming months, as uncertainties mount, there will be increasing Taliban presence in the countryside as the Kabul government concentrates on ensuring security in urban areas and of the road networks. Taliban military strategy has been to target districts that enable them to surround provincial capitals. The clutch in the northeast including Badakshan, Takhar, Kunduz and Baghlan enable them to control the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border and the Wakhan corridor that links to China. In the east, they exert control in Ghazni, Zabul and Paktia while Haqqani network is active in Khost and Paktika, and IS-K in Nangarhar, Kunar and Laghman. Further south, Taliban control large parts of Kandahar, Helmand and Farah (bordering Iran).

As the reality of the US withdrawal takes hold, how events unfold by end-2021 depends on three factors. First, have the Taliban changed their ideological colours? The US in recent years, and Pakistan for much longer, have been pushing this line but Taliban leadership have given no clues about it. Related to this is the question of Taliban unity. Distances have grown between the Quetta shura, the Doha negotiators and the fighters who want to guard their individual preserves. This works as long as everyone is pursuing the military option but when it comes to power sharing, who calls the shots? Or does it lead to no power sharing?

Second, can the Kabul regime present a unified front? If the leaders in Kabul and the government continue sniping at each other, it will adversely impact the integrity of the chain of command of the Afghan security forces. If opportunistic leaders are tempted to strike their own deals with the Taliban, it will only hasten the collapse and even Western funding will dry up.

The Pakistan factor

Finally, is Pakistan still seeking strategic depth in Afghanistan or has it realised that a Taliban-dominated Kabul will be a magnet for its own home-grown extremists as well as those from the neighbourhood? Can they persuade the Taliban that its legitimacy will be at risk unless it shares power? Pakistan’s influence will weaken once the Rehbari Shura decides to move back from Quetta to Afghanistan.

History tells us that in Afghanistan, there have only been winners and losers, seldom any lasting compromises.

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Theocracy and Polls: The Iran Way

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Published in the Hindustan Times on June 24, 2021

Last Friday, Iran elected its eighth president since the 1979 Islamic revolution that ended the Pahlavi dynasty. As expected, Ebrahim Raisi, the chief of the judiciary since 2019, is set to take over from President Hassan Rouhani on August 3. Given Iran’s complex governance structure of a theocracy with partial elective democracy, the elections are pre-determined, though sometimes surprisingly competitive. This time, a low turnout of less than 50% after extending the voting deadline, showed that even by Iranian standards, the non-contest failed to generate interest.

Iran’s governance structure

At the top of Iran’s governance structure is the supreme leader, currently 82-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in power since Ayatollah Khomeini’s death in 1989. He is the commander-in-chief of all armed forces and security services, appoints the heads of radio and TV networks and judiciary, and half the 12 member Guardian Council (GC). The GC members need parliamentary approval and in turn, vet candidatures for all elected positions – 290-member parliament, 88-member Assembly of Experts and the President. In addition, GC also examines all legislation to ensure its conformity with Sharia. In case of differences, matter is referred to the 45-member Expediency Council, chosen by the supreme leader. The principal task of the Experts’ Assembly is to approve the new supreme leader.

While the supreme leader is there for life (or till he chooses to retire), the president is limited to two 4-year terms, defining where the balance of power rests between them. Speculation that a new supreme leader is likely to be appointed in coming years made this election critical as Khamenei has to ensure a smooth transition while ensuring preservation of his legacy.

Raisi, a hardliner, owes much of his career progression to the supreme leader and is also seen as a potential successor to the supreme leader. Incidentally, Khamenei too was president from 1981-89 and shortly before Khomeini died, he anointed Khamenei as his successor.

Consolidation by conservatives

Born in 1960, Raisi was a theology student in the holy city of Qom and joined the anti-Shah movement as a teenager. After the Islamic revolution, he embarked on a legal career as prosecutor and during the 1980s, moved to Tehran. Following the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, thousands of political prisoners (declared anti-national and supporters of Saddam Hussein), were sentenced to death by a four-member committee that included Raisi. Later he was deputy chief of the judiciary (2004-14) and the prosecutor-general. In 2017, he was runner-up when Rouhani won his second term in a 73 percent turnout, and appointed judiciary chief later. In 2019, both US and EU imposed sanctions on Raisi on account of his human rights record, for 1980s executions and lethal crackdowns on anti-government protestors, in 2009 and 2019.

Raisi’s victory was clear on 25 May when the GC disqualified strong contenders such as the former speaker Ali Larijani and current vice-president Ishaq Jahangiri, setting the stage for him. Many civil society leaders launched calls for a boycott that reduced the turnout to below 49%, and a record 3.7 million votes cast were blank and void. As an Iranian explained, “How do you pick an orange when all that is on offer are five bananas”? Conservatives already enjoy over two-thirds majority in parliament after the 2020 election.

Setting the stage

Rouhani’s eight-year tenure has been dominated by the nuclear issue and relations with the US. Talks began in 2013 but it was Rouhani’s moderate credentials together with Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s diplomatic skills that enabled progress. Secret talks with the US in Oman proved invaluable and in July 2015, the nuclear deal (JCPOA) was concluded between Iran and P5+1 (US, Russia, China, UK, France, Germany and the EU). Iran accepted certain constraints on its nuclear programme, especially the uranium enrichment activities, in return for sanctions relief.

Iran’s economy, hurting under the sanctions registered a 12% growth in 2016 only to start shrinking after Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018 and adopted a policy of ‘maximum pressure’ to coerce Iran back to the negotiating table. Iran responded with a policy of ‘maximum resistance’.  The economy has been in recession for three years now, amid rising unemployment and inflation running at 40%. Since 2019, Iran began to step up certain nuclear activities, while emphasising that its actions were reversible if sanctions relief was restored, balancing hardliners at home while putting pressure on the EU.

With Joe Biden in the White House, prospects for reviving JCPOA improved. Six rounds of talks in Vienna registered limited progress. However, Rouhani’s hands were tied. Khamenei clearly wanted that a deal, even partial, only be concluded after the elections, in remaining six weeks of his tenure. Rouhani will be responsible for any shortcomings while any relief credit will accrue to Raisi.

Given the situation, the US has played along but the hard negotiation begins now. US will only offer partial relief in return for some Iranian roll-back, holding back to engage the new regime in Tehran. With hardliners now dominant, US expects that internal bickering will end.

Meanwhile, talks last month between Saudis and Iranians in Iraq have raised hopes of movement on Yemen. A change of guard in Israel may provide breathing space in Lebanon and Gaza. The sands in West Asia may be shifting, though ever so slightly.

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NPT’s Midlife Crisis

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Published in The Korea Times on June 16, 2021

In March 2020, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) turned fifty. The tenth Review Conference (RevCon), originally scheduled for April and May, was postponed to January 2021 and is now tentatively planned for August 2021.

The NPT is often described as the cornerstone of the global nuclear order. It is among the most widely adhered to global treaties. All countries except four (India, Israel, and Pakistan never joined, and North Korea withdrew in 2003) are parties to the NPT. Despite its enviable record, a sense of disquiet and uncertainty surround the RevCon and its future.

Any global order needs two enabling conditions: a convergence of interests among the present major powers to define a shared objective and an ability to package and present it to the world as a global public good. The conditions for nuclear order and the NPT were no exception.

In 1963, only four countries (the United States, France, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom) had tested a nuclear device when U.S. President John F. Kennedy sounded the alarm that by 1975 there could be as many as twenty countries with nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union shared similar concerns. This convergence of interests between the two Cold War adversaries enabled the NPT negotiations.

To make nuclear order attractive as a global public good, it was packaged as a three-legged stool: nonproliferation, obliging those without nuclear weapons to never acquire them and accept full-scope safeguards; disarmament, requiring the five countries with nuclear weapons (the United States, China, France, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom) to negotiate the reduction and eventual elimination of their nuclear weapons; and peaceful use of nuclear energy, guaranteeing non–nuclear weapons states full access to peaceful applications of nuclear science and technology.

Since the NPT was concluded, only the four countries outside the NPT have acquired nuclear weapons, bringing the total number of nuclear weapons states to nine, far fewer than Kennedy feared in 1963.

Among the oft-cited successes of the NPT is the dramatic reduction in the number of nuclear weapons from a peak of over 70,000 warheads in early 1980s to around 14,000 at present, with the United States and Russia accounting for over 12,500 of them. However, these reductions were a result of bilateral negotiations between the United States and Russia, reflecting the state of their relations. No negotiations have ever been held within the NPT framework. In fact, during the first fifteen years of the NPT, the U.S. and Soviet arsenals increased from below 40,000 to over 65,000, making it clear that the nuclear disarmament leg of the NPT was being ignored as the United States and Soviet Union embarked on a nuclear arms race.

Some claim that the NPT helped strengthen the taboo against nuclear weapons. However, a closer examination of recently declassified papers indicates that since 1970, there have been over a dozen instances where the United States and Soviet Union came close to initiating a nuclear exchange, many of which were based on system errors or misperceptions about the intentions of the other.

Today, the nuclear taboo is being challenged as major nuclear powers undertake research and development (R&D) for more usable low-yield nuclear weapons. Ballistic missile defense, hypersonic systems that carry both conventional and nuclear payloads, and growing offensive cyber capabilities further blur the line between conventional and nuclear weapons.

The NPT has reached the limits of its success as far as the proliferation objective is concerned. Further, its packaging as a balanced three-legged stool stands exposed as a wobbly, one-legged stool, for the NPT delegitimized proliferation but not nuclear weapons.

The clearest reflection of this growing frustration among the non–nuclear weapons states party to the NPT was the humanitarian initiative spearheaded by a coalition of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society to negotiate a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) was concluded in 2017 and entered into force in January 2021, making it the only multilateral nuclear treaty to emerge since the NPT fifty years ago. Each of the TPNW’s eighty-six signatories and fifty-four ratifying states are members of the NPT in good standing.

For the first time, an NPT RevCon will take place with a new, unignorable divide between states that rely on nuclear weapons (or nuclear-armed allies) for their security and states that believe nuclear weapons are a threat to global security and accept that the NPT cannot be the route to nuclear disarmament.

However, the five nuclear weapons states party to the NPT are convinced that the TPNW undermines the NPT even though the TPNW’s 140 signatories and ratifiers provide legitimacy.

Other divisive political challenges for the RevCon include Iran and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which was unilaterally discarded by the Donald Trump administration; a push by non–nuclear weapons states for substantive reductions in nuclear arsenals; lack of progress on the 1995 initiative for the Middle East as a zone free of all weapons of mass destruction; a U.S. push for universal adherence to the International Atomic Energy Agency Additional Protocol; and North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, among others.

For the last fifty years, a substantive consensus outcome has been the criteria for a successful RevCon. Yet anticipating the difficulties of a consensus, the NPT supporters are suggesting that the definition of a successful outcome should be reconsidered.

However, such an approach is at best a temporary resolution. Any permanent resolution would lie in accepting the limitations of the NPT and seeking to join the TPNW proponents in a constructive dialogue. This needs imaginative approaches and a shift from the zero-sum model of negotiation to a win-win outcome, preserving the NPT while looking beyond it. A mindset change is necessary for the NPT to overcome its midlife crisis.

Rakesh Sood is a Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, India, and a member of the Asia-Pacific Leadership for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (APLN). This is an abridged version of the paper originally published for the Council on Foreign Relations’ Council of Councils Tenth Annual Conference. His article was published in cooperation with the APLN (www.apln.network).

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/opinion/2021/06/197_310524.html

The Long Shadow Of Political Turmoil In Nepal

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Published in The Hindu on 27th May, 2021

Nepali politics entered another phase of uncertainty last week. The country’s President, Bidya Devi Bhandari, dissolved the House of Representatives (lower house) late night on Friday, at the suggestion of Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli, in a partisan move that disregarded the Constitution. Fresh elections were announced for between 12 and 18 November. Announcing elections was just to ensure that Oli continues in office, controlling the state machinery, even as Nepal battles a second and deadlier COVID-19 wave.

Oli’s opportunistic politics

Mr. Oli came to power after the 2017 elections, the first undertaken in the federal republic of Nepal, established under the 2015 Constitution. He led his party, the CPN(UML) to an impressive tally of 121 seats and together with Maoist Centre’s 53, enjoyed a near absolute majority in the 275-strong House. In May 2018, the two allies merged to cement their alliance and created the Nepal Communist Party (NCP).

Relations with India saw positive movement. Delhi was willing to overcome its reservations about Mr. Oli’s anti-Indian nationalist tirades. Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Nepal in May 2018, shortly after Mr. Oli’s visit.

However, Oli’s autocratic tendencies soon began to surface. The power sharing arrangement worked out with former Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ started fraying. The original idea that both would take turns at being Prime Minister and run the NCP as co-chairs became irksome for Mr. Oli. While he weaned away the Maoists cabinet members, senior disgruntled UML leaders led by former Prime Ministers, Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhala Nath Khanal, gravitated towards Prachanda. Differences emerged in the open and a growing demand surfaced for honouring the ‘one person one post’ policy. Prachanda was willing to let Mr. Oli continue the full term as Prime Minister, provided he gave up his role as co-chair of the party. Mr. Oli decided otherwise.

Mr. Oli needed a distraction and by end-2019, found one in the Kalapani boundary issue. India issued new maps following the division of the State of Jammu and Kashmir Union Territories, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. While 98% of the India-Nepal boundary was demarcated, two areas, Susta and Kalapani had remained pending. Though the new Indian map did not affect the India-Nepal boundary in any material way, it was an opportunity for Mr. Oli to don his nationalist mantle. He expanded the Kalapani area dispute from one covering approximately 60 square kilometres on Nepal’s northwest tip with Uttarakhand and China by raising the demand for restoring an additional 335 sq kms. The boundaries were fixed in 1816 by the British, and India inherited the areas over which the British had exercised territorial control in 1947.

Domestic politics takes over

Caught up in the first COVID-19 wave, India kept deferring bilateral talks, perhaps not realising the domestic political pressures on Mr. Oli. In May 2020 when Defence Minister Raj Nath Singh inaugurated the 75 km road through Kalapani that linked to the Kailash-Mansarovar pilgrimage route, Mr. Oli upped the ante by whipping up nationalist sentiment, getting a new map of Nepal endorsed by the House and adopting a constitutional amendment to sanctify Nepal’s new territory. While this did not alter the situation on the ground, it cramped the prospects of any dialogue with India. It was a short reprieve and Mr. Oli’s political troubles soon returned to haunt him.

President Bhandari has been Mr. Oli’s close comrade since she entered active politics after the untimely demise of her husband Madan Bhandari, a charismatic UML leader, in a car accident in 1993. Mr. Oli was her political mentor and backed her elevation as President. She reciprocated by ignoring constitutional propriety and approving dubious ordinances including amending the Constitutional Council Act that enabled Mr. Oli to pack constitutional positions with his loyalists.

Amid rumours that Prachanda and Mr. Nepal were planning to move a no-confidence-motion against him after he had studiously ignored the meetings and decisions of party’s Secretariat and the Standing Committee, Mr. Oli got President Bhandari to approve dissolution of the House on December 20, paving the way for elections in April-May. The President’s decision was uniformly criticised as unconstitutional as the NCP enjoyed a near-absolute majority.

India decided to steer clear of the mess, calling it an ‘internal matter’ while the Chinese Ambassador continued to actively push for a rapprochement between the NCP factions. A five-judge constitutional bench of the Supreme Court unanimously called for a restoration of the House on February 23 strengthening the Prachanda-Nepal faction but on March 7, delivered a bombshell by overturning the UML-Maoist merger of May 2018, against which an appeal had been pending for two years.

Mr. Oli took over the reins of the old CPN(UML), reviving prior structures but now excluding Mr. Nepal and his supporters. Some were served suspension notices. The Nepal faction was reduced to a minority; under the law, a split in the party requires a 40% of both the parliamentary party and the central committee. Prachanda, heading the Maoist Centre with 49 members since four had joined hands with Mr. Oli, needed new allies to wage his battles.

Though Mr. Oli had lost majority in the House as Maoist Centre was no longer supporting him, he challenged the opposition to file a no-confidence-motion, certain that the Maoists, Nepali Congress (NC) and the Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP) would fail to reach an agreement on a new Prime Minister. He was proven right but overtaken by hubris, he took another gamble. He called for a trust vote on 10 May that he lost as 28 UML dissident members were absent and half the JSP voted against him while the other half abstained.

Presidential improprieties

The opposition again failed to present an alternative. In a questionable decision, Mr. Oli was sworn in by President Bhandari on 14 May as Prime Minister under Article 76(3) that permits the leader of the largest party to be sworn in and given thirty days to demonstrate majority. Within a week, Mr. Oli announced that he would not seek another vote of confidence. Without resigning, however, he advised the President to explore other options. Within a day, as rumours gained ground that NC leader Sher Bahadur Deuba had managed to gather support from 149 members, including 49 Maoists, 26 UML dissidents and 12 from the JSP, Mr. Oli rushed to the President and gave her a list of 153 supporters that included all 121 UML and 32 JSP members, including UML dissidents and JSP members who voted against him on May 10. Without bothering to verify, President Bhandari dissolved the House and announced fresh elections, justifying that the rival claims exceeded the strength of the House.

Since 2008 when a new Constituent Assembly was elected to prepare a constitution for a federal republic, Nepal has seen three NC Prime Ministers (G. P. Koirala, Sushil Koirala and Deuba), two Maoist Prime Ministers (Prachanda twice and Baburam Bhattarai), three UML Prime MinisterMs (Nepal, Khanal and Oli sworn in thrice) and a Chief Justice as caretaker PM in 2013. None has damaged the constitution and the political fabric of Nepal as much as Mr. Oli, together with an obliging Ms. Bhandari. Opposition leaders have challenged the House dissolution in the Supreme Court but its outcome is uncertain. Meanwhile a raging COVID-19 puts a question mark on the election. In case an election is held, Mr. Oli will campaign on a nationalist anti-Indian platform.

It is clear that political uncertainty will continue. India has traditionally supported constitutionalism and multi-party democracy in Nepal. At this juncture, it needs to remain actively engaged with all the political actors, and equally importantly, avoid being perceived as partisan.

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