Monday, September 29, 2014
Friday, September 26, 2014
Saudi Nightmare: What If ISIS Plans For Eid In Mecca
Saudi
Nightmare: What If ISIS Plans For Eid In Mecca
Saeed Naqvi
In President Barack Obama’s initial list
of the coalition against the Islamist State (ISIS) are Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
UAE, Bahrain and Jordan. Others are being cajoled, tempted, lured but are not
quite there.
India too was sounded. Mercifully, the
Prime Minister is embarked on a mission of economic diplomacy. He will tip toe
out of this one.
The frenetic hurry with which air
attacks were launched on IS positions in Iraq and Syria, would seem to suggest extraordinary
anxiety.
To everyone’s surprise, Syria approved
the strike. Clearly, a deal had been cut under the table. Would the Saudis have
been privy to this understanding?
The danger in their hugely revised
estimate is not coming from Iran. In fact Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al
Faisal met Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on the margins of the UN
General Assembly.
After the Zarif-Faisal meeting,
President Hasan Rouhani congratulated King Abdullah in a message on the
kingdom’s 84th national day.
The speed with which the IS had taken
Mosul and threatened Baghdad, alarmed the world. By contrast the Shia Houthi’s
swift takeover of Sanaa, the capital of Yemen from Abd Mansur Hadi has evoked little
response.
In a brilliant maneuver, they did not
stage a coup but arrived at a power sharing arrangement with the regime. They now
have the potential of becoming a Hezbullah-like force in Yemen.
Surprising that Riyadh has not pointed
fingers at Iran. In the past, this has been the continuous refrain from Saudi
Arabia: that Iran dabbles in Yemen. Not a word this time.
In 1980 when the US, Saudi Arabia and
Pakistan set a hatchery for Jehadists in Afghanistan to help eject the Soviets
from that country, the hard line interior minister of Saudi Arabia, the late
Prince Nayef set up training camps for true-blue all Arab Mujahideen in Yemen also
to fight Soviet influence in Aden. It is these who mutated into Al Qaeda in
Arabian Peninsula. These forces were in the care of Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, a half
brother of the earlier dictator, Abdullah Saleh.
When the Houthis entered Sanaa without
resistance, it was Ahmar, a one-time Saudi favourite, who fled and found refuge
in Qatar.
In normal times, Saudis would have been
at Iran’s throat. Instead they have been kissing Javad Zarif on both his cheeks
at the UN.
Something strange is happening. Saudis
are swallowing their pride, making up with enemies, towards what end? Are they
preparing themselves for an existential battle against the ISIS?
Let me explain why this could be an
existential battle. In November, 1979, Juhayman bin Uteybi, a retired corporal
in the Saudi National Guard, was identified as the chief leader of the siege of
Mecca which shook the foundations of the Saudi regime. Earlier that year the
Ayatullahs had come to power in Teheran. The siege and its aftermath were brutally
suppressed and attention instead was directed towards Shia mischief from Iran.
The Iranian revolution, removal of
triple distilled Sunni Taleban from Afghanistan, rise of Shia power in Iraq
after Saddam Hussain’s fall, Hezbullah victory in 2006, failure to have Bashar
al Assad’s Alawi visage knocked down, Iran’s conversations with the West on the
nuclear issue, and now Shia Houthis in the news, occupying Sanaa. Shia
encirclement of Saudi Arabia is complete. This should be the existential crisis
for Saudi Arabia. But Riyadh is drumming up its GCC cousins as a coalition of
the willing against ISIS.
In 2010 Recep Tayyip Erdogan was chummy
with Bashar al Assad. He sought accommodation with Assad for the Akhwan ul
Muslimeen or Muslim Brotherhood in the Syrian power structure. In other words,
there were a sizable number of Brothers in Syria. In Turkey, ofcourse, Erdogan
and all his cohorts were Brothers behind the screen of Ataturk’s secular
constitution.
Qatar too, a patron of the Brothers, had
its irons in the Syrian fire. The Amir leapfrogged into Gaza to promise them
the moon. Again, the Brothers axis. All of this was most disconcerting for the
Saudis.
In the standoff between President Mohamed
Morsi, a Brother to boot, and Gen. Abdel Fattah el Sisi, the US initially
hesitated. The Saudis turned up with $8 billion to keep Egypt’s powerful Muslim
Brotherhood out of power.
The Saudi’s puritanical school of
Wahabism belongs to the Hanbali school of Jurisprudence. So do the Brothers.
The founder of Egypt’s powerful Muslim Brotherhood, Hasan al-Banna, was the son
of a Hanbali Imam.
In the crisscross of fundamentalist
traffic in Syria injected from the outside, there is a strong contingent of Brothers,
those whose ancestors laid siege to Mecca in 1979. Their mission was to keep
the faith pure. Saudi rulers, in their perception, have since deviated from
Wahabi piety. Other than the Muslim Brotherhood, there are kindred spirits from
other Sunni schools under the ISIS umbrella. Frustrated Baathists are too in
this grouping as Born-Again Sunnis.
Suddenly, the regime in Riyadh found
itself under pressure to revert to its “pure” Wahabism. The Economist reports
that many more beheadings have been done in recent weeks by way of capital
punishment presumably to keep pace with ISIS’s televised beheading spree, a
Christian group too came under the police gaze for simply practicing their
faith. That ISIS in tolerance again.
Eid-ul Zuha is on October 6. Attribute
it to their black humour, but Arab diplomats not in the Saudi camp, have been floating
a story: Abu Bakr al Baghdadi may like to celebrate Eid in Mecca. I had written
three weeks ago that a Caliphate cannot be a Caliphate without Mecca.
Ofcourse the US is powerful enough to
prevent an outcome that will shake its two principal allies in the region –
Saudi Arabia and Israel. But the People versus Potentates balance will have to
reset.
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Friday, September 19, 2014
Why BJP Lost? No Anti Gandhi Anger to Harvest
Why
BJP Lost? No Anti Gandhi Anger to Harvest
Saeed Naqvi
Recent by-election reverses for the BJP
are early intimations of mortality for the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duet. As a
senior BJP leader whispered: “They must come down to earth.” In other words, a
degree of realism may now be introduced into the proceedings.
The May Parliamentary elections were
peculiar in some ways. The outcome was expected and yet the scale of the BJP
victory was something of a shock.
What magic potion was administered to
all senior leaders of the BJP (except Arun Jaitley and Rajnath Singh) at the
Goa conclave of the party in June 2013, remains a mystery to this day. They first
threw a fit at Modi’s candidature but were soon miraculously tamed.
Began one of the world’s most
comprehensive 24X7 media campaigns to market a Prime Minister. The campaign was
sustained at a frenetic pitch for a full year. With his unbelievable reserves
of energy, Modi kept pace.
Did this advertizing Blitz alone
overwhelm the electorate? There were other reasons.
The campaign for Modi gathered force in
geometrical progression because of the electorate’s profound disgust with the incumbent
Congress, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and, above all, the Gandhi family.
Natwar Singh has in his memoirs
corrected a story circulated by the coterie around Sonia Gandhi that she
refused the Prime Ministership after the 2004 elections because of an “inner voice”.
According to Natwar it was Rahul Gandhi who stopped his mother from accepting
the job.
After the assassinations of Indira
Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, it was understandable that both, Rahul and Priyanka
Gandhi should stop their mother from taking any risks.
What was annoying, however, was the
pretense the family maintained about Rahul Gandhi as the future Prime Minister.
He was simply not interested.
If the Gandhi siblings were anxious not
to expose their mother to any peril, would Sonia Gandhi allow her son to take such
a risk? Neither Sonia Gandhi nor Rahul ever clarified that the Congress Vice
President would ever be a Prime Ministerial candidate. And yet they would not
encourage an alternative leadership to evolve. Exasperated Congressmen
privately seethed with rage.
In 1985, a year after Indira Gandhi’s
assassination, Mikhail Gorbachev emerged as the reformist leader of the Soviet
Union. After Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to Moscow and Gorbachev’s return visit to New
Delhi, T.N. Kaul, Ambassador to Moscow, floated an idea that both Rahul and
Priyanka, teenagers then, would be safer in Moscow while the Punjab insurgency
lasted.
The point is that the entire Gandhi
family had very understandable concerns about personal security after Indira
Gandhi’s murder. This turned to paranoia after Rajiv’s murder in 1991.
It
would have made perfect sense for the family to concern themselves with
Congress party affairs, and promote an alternative leadership for electoral
politics.
Instead, the family pretended to be
interested in the top job for Rahul without any inner conviction that Rahul was
upto it both, for want of ability and, ofcourse, for personal security
concerns.
This confusion at the top created by the
Gandhi family combined with the governance deficit of the Manmohan Singh
apparatus, to give Modi an unbridled electoral advantage.
Communal polarization as a vote
generator was identified fairly early, particularly in UP. In fact, after the
Faizabad riots over a year ago, Yogi Adityanath had given notice:
“UP ab Gujarat banega
Faizabad
shuruaat kare ga”
(UP will now be like Gujarat,
and Faizabad will the starting point)
Modi had thus far largely dwelt on a
development theme but the mega riot in Muzaffarnagar provided the Hindutva foot
soldiers with a communal torch to carry from constituency to constituency in UP
and beyond.
These, then, were the ingredients which
brought Modi to power – an unprecedented media campaign; universal disgust with
the Gandhi family; promise of development on the Gujarat model; carefully
choreographed communalism to polarize votes with Congress and Mulayam Singh cast
as “Muslim appeasers”; a clever system of splitting Muslim votes.
Each one of these ingredients were
missing in the recent by elections. For instance, there is no Muslim population
to polarize against in, say, Uttarakhand. There was no corporate backed media blitz.
The Congress, particularly the Gandhis, are now too diminished to work as a
“hated” foil. People feel they have been short changed with promises of “achche
din” which have receded. Nitish Kumar and Lalu Yadav combined in Bihar as did
Mulayam Singh Yadav with Mayawati, the latter by not contesting. And “Love
Jihad” simply did not look like a credible allegation against a battered and
bruised community.
Above all, the voter recoiled on
intemperate speech and rank bad manners on the part of Yogi Adityanath, Sakshi
Maharaj and their cohorts.
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Thursday, September 18, 2014
Friday, September 12, 2014
Obama’s Coalition: Willing To Wound And Yet Afraid To Strike
Obama’s
Coalition: Willing To Wound And Yet Afraid To Strike
Saeed Naqvi
As
soon as President Barack Obama on Wednesday announced his intention to lead a
Coalition of the Willing to “degrade and destroy” the ISIS, his core coalition
partners began to fidget and reach out for the exit door.
British
Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond said “UK will not be taking part in the air
strikes in Syria”. He said the Syrian issue had been debated threadbare in the
British Parliament. Policy enunciated in the House of Commons cannot be
upturned.
A
hand from across the Atlantic must have tweaked Prime Minister David Cameron’s
ears, because his spokesman said Britain had not ruled out anything.
German
Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier said: “We haven’t been asked nor will
we do it (airstrikes). We have to be honest with ourselves: we don’t yet have a
final blanket strategy which guarantees that we’ll be successful against ISIS
and similar groups.” Similar misgivings in other European capitals suggest they
would first like to size up the ISIS danger at home lest premature action
provokes an unacceptable backlash.
Turkey
has said “no” to any participation in the conflict and Jordan says it is
worried about Gaza.
Syria
has been succinct in its response. “Any foreign intervention in Syria would be
an act of aggression against the country unless it is approved by Damascus.”
But if asked, Syria would oblige.
Russia
says: “Airstrikes against Islamist militants in Syria without a UN Security
Council mandate will be an act of aggression.”
After
the US National Security adviser, Susan Rice’ visit, Beijing has been cautious.
It has endorsed coalitions against terrorism as a general principle.
The
only outright endorsement of Obama’s speech has come from Saudi Arabia and
Israel. And thereby hangs a tale.
Time
was when Arab statesmen considered it politically incorrect to be seen alongside
Israel. Saudis have pioneered a culture of open coalition with the Jewish
state. But even the Saudis can sustain this policy only upto a point. They have
serious domestic concerns.
There
are several reasons for Obama’s over ambitious declaration of intent. A key
reason has been Saudi anxiety. King Abdullah and his bevy of princes have been
quaking in their long robes ever since Abu Bakr al Baghdadi declared a
Caliphate and conquered large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria. By
reliable accounts, he has 30,000 men with the most sophisticated weapons,
armour, personal carriers, helicopters all left behind by externally financed,
then abandoned, mercenary Jehadis. As a result of chaos at Tripoli airport
there were fears that ISIS may have access to transport planes as well.
It
is common knowledge among West Asian observers that Paul Bremer, the first US
Representative in Baghdad, was overzealous in disbanding Saddam Hussains
Revolutionary Guards, secret police, armed forces and indeed, the Baath Party
structure. This entire lot reared in a culture of secrecy under Saddam Hussain,
proceeded to live below the radar waiting for the Shia Prime Minister Nouri al
Maliki to be sensitive to the Baathists. This lot were atheists when they were
in harness but they began to turn to the mosque in their bad days. After all,
even Saddam Hussain had “Allah” inscribed on the Iraqi flag only after
Operation Desert Storm. And that operation was launched from Saudi Arabia in
1992. The Saudis were the cheerleaders then.
Since
the occupation of Iraq in 2003, Islam as a tactic slowly transformed itself
into Islam – the faith native to Iraqis since pre Baath days. At the fall of
Saddam Hussain, who were the cheer leaders? The Saudis, ofcourse.
The
vacuum created by Saddam’s fall, was filled in by the Shia majority in the
South. Suddenly the world (and the Saudis) realized that Shias were a majority
in Iraq by a long margin. Earlier, after, the Taleban were ousted from Kabul in
2001, there was the usual wringing of hands. A Salafi-Wahabi bulwark against
Shia Iran had been removed.
The
Saudis began to beat their breast. “The Shia axis; the Shia axis.” So, every
extremist Sunni group was injected into Syria to topple the Super Alawi Bashar
al Assad even though the overriding concern was to break the Teheran, Damascus,
Hezbullah, Gaza chain. At one stage according to UN representative Lakhdar
Brahimi, there were 64 different groups in operation inside Syria, each more
unsavoury than the other. One ghastly fellow posted a video of him gouging out
the opponent’s liver for a macabre feast.
Well,
this lot has conflated with the Baathists in Iraq and some who may have
defected from the Syrian establishment. This powerful machine on the move is
giving Saudis nightmares. ISIS is a hotchpotch of Wahabis, Salafis, Muslim
Brotherhood wedded to an Islamized Baathist structure. This Caliphate has
become a rallying force for rampaging anti Americanism in the Muslim world.
Worry of worries, inside European countries too. For the Saudis the omens are
worse. A Caliphate is not a Caliphate without Mecca. Is the ISIS headed for
Mecca?
The
Syrian government would like to see the ISIS bombed, but the US cannot make a
sudden U-turn and incorporate Syria into the otherwise wobbly coalition. Saudis
will throw yet another fit.
Teheran,
like Baghdad and Damascus, would like the Sunni energy of ISIS to be exhausted
without being seen to be in the fight. It would not like to be seen externally
as a sectarian force. Inside Iran, proximity to the US, beyond the nuclear
deal, would alienate the powerful hardliners.
Teheran
would not like to upset the status quo in Riyadh. “An alternative to the
present regime may be more in the grip of the Wahabi clergy whose extremism is
boundless.” So, King Abdullah and co. are fine. Behind the scenes, Iran has
co-operated with the US and the Saudis in accepting Haider al Abadi as a
successor to the sectarian Nouri al Maliki.
Meanwhile,
Obama’s Congressmen face elections in November. A mega show has to be mounted
to take the cameras off the unspeakable mess in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria,
Iraq, Gaza etcetera etcetera..
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Saturday, September 6, 2014
Friday, September 5, 2014
Can Zawahiri Add To Communal Cauldron Already Full?
Can Zawahiri Add
To Communal Cauldron Already Full?
Saeed Naqvi
How
dangerous are Ayman al Zawahiri’s exhortations to Muslims on the sub continent?
There
is an expression in Hindi, “Soney pey suhaga”, suhaga being the powder which
makes gold shine. In a volatile social situation, where communal polarization
is an electoral requirement until key state elections are out of the way, the
Zawahiri slogan may have some short term advantages for the ruling party. It is
perverse to say so but that is the way it is.
In
the division of labour between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President
Amit Shah, Modi will be the assertive statesman, from New Delhi to the ends of
the world. That is the way he has managed to get himself projected.
The
media has not spotted the paradox. The man who came to power riding the crest
of the biggest media campaign in history has, after having come to power,
distanced himself from the media. He is establishing the rhythm: the media will
be available when he needs it.
In
this he is following the dictum of the genius who marketed the Beatles, Brian
Epstein, the first manager of the singing sensations. For better publicity,
Epstein kept the press at a distance. So far this approach has served Modi
well.
The
more onerous task has been left to Amit Shah, the party president. His job is
to keep pushing the frontiers of communalism, to create circles of Hindu
consolidation around the Muslim individuals, neighbourhoods, villages, markets,
fairs. This is not communalism for its own sake but more as an electoral asset,
from state to state, constituency to constituency.
At
this phase of the Hindu Rashtra project, the al Qaeda’s exhortations will help
Hindu consolidation that much more. In fact Amit Shah may well survey the scene
and proclaim with satisfaction: with such enemies, who needs friends?
With
the sort of defence being offered by the great secular, youth trio of Rahul
Gandhi, Akhilesh Yadav and Omar Abdullah, Amit Shah will score one field goal
after another.
Shrewdly
anticipating more defeats coming his way in the state elections, Rahul has
charged off to the security of Amethi, making cow eyes at TV cameras. Of all
the images he could pick to chastise the Prime Minister, he has settled for one
where Modi looked exceptionally good: competing with a Japanese drum beater.
Modi played the drums with great dexterity, like a Gujarati practiced in dandia
rasa. But Rahul thought he shouldn’t be doing this while food prices were high.
Just
that morning newspapers were full of stories about former Supreme Court Chief
Justice P. Sathasivan being made governor of Kerala without any cooling off
period, but Rahul was focused on the Japanese drums. Yogi Adityanath has not
only declared it a Hindu nation, but has unilaterally changed street names in
places like Gorakhpur. He announced these changes on TV. Does the Congress Vice
President have nothing to say?
Modi
in his very first speech in Parliament had the honesty to blame India’s many
debilities on the fact that it had been under “foreign rule for 1,200 years”. I
disagree with him but I respect him for having said something Congressmen
believe in but do not have the courage to say. They will try to please Muslims
privately but keep publicly mum on that issue. Does Rahul even understand the
nuances of the issue at hand? Front pages of newspapers have been carrying
photographs of men being given bucket baths in city squares as part of the
ritual preparatory to their return to the Hindu fold from Christianity. Love
Jehad is the flavour of the season. Any thoughts, Rahul?
Akhilesh
Yadav in Lucknow and Omar Abdullah, who rules Kashmir from his bungalow in New
Delhi, are a shade worse than Rahul. They have thrown in the towel for the next
round. The word to their partymen is: we are not coming back in the next round.
So help yourselves.
With
such an open field, does Amit Shah need more polarizing material from Zawahiri?
In the established custom of the Indian media, Zawahiri will be sourced to
Pakistan and some high decibel discussions will be mounted in which
masochistic, retired, Pakistani Generals will make guest appearances to be shouted
at. Is it a fix like World Heavyweight Wrestling?
Given
this state of play, chances are that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s mangoes will
be reciprocated with some Gujarati dhokalas only after the elections in Jammu
and Kashmir are over in January. Until then, communalism is an electoral
necessity and an opening with Pakistan is incompatible with this requirement.
Unless, ofcourse, Modi lives upto his reputation of being capable of surprises.
By
this time the nation may well have lived through its most intense phases of
communal tension. Amit Shah’s electoral needs will have been exhausted only by
February. There may be some relief then or there may not be depending how the
Hindu Rashtra project can be navigated alongside “sub ka saath, sub ka vikas”.
Desperate
Muslim youth may at that stage be in search for a rallying force, but I find it
difficult to believe that Zawahiri kind of Islam, extracted from Saudi
Wahabism, will have a burgeoning clientele in India. The danger will arise when
more muscular forces like the ISIS, with their mastery over the new media
technology begin reaching out to pockets of agitated Muslims on social
networks. That would be dangerous because the turmoil in West Asia is a regular
part of the Arab and Western media diet. They have some understanding of issues
from their different perspectives.
On
foreign affairs Indian audiences have no sources of information other than what
is doled out to them by outsiders. We have so far survived being frogs in the
well. But this time a huge tsunami may be drifting in our direction. For nation
not to have its feet on ground will be dangerous. Television channels must
mount informed discussions, along with the staple of shouting matches.
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