Friday, July 31, 2009

Pakistan: Vicious Competition of Terror Groups

The vicious competition of one-upmanship between terrorist groups in Pakistan has manifested in attacks such as that on the Sri Lankan Cricket team in Lahore on 3 March. While the presence of a multitude of non state actors as the Al Qaeda and Taliban and terrorist groups as the Lashkar e Taiyyaba, Jaish e Muhammad and Lashkar e Jhangvi et al has been now accepted even by the Pakistani state, the new trend of these groups competing with each other to create mayhem is most dangerous. Lack of capacity and will of the Pakistan Army and the police is only creating space for this deadly competition of evil.

The terror attacks in Lahore were just waiting to happen and the manner in which the terrorists have got away indicates the high level of acceptance of the presence of armed men in the community which has been very aptly captured by closed circuit televisions in Lahore. That none even felt it appropriate to report these escapees seemed to indicate the level of fear as well as deniability in the country. Pakistani denial of existence of a terrorist threat is now reaching alarming proportions and therefore this is likely to lead to more control over hither to fore unaffected areas of Punjab and Sindh by terrorist groups and militants in the days ahead.

The political crisis has only added fuel to the militants agenda and has provided them an opportunity to target the Sri Lankan cricketers who had been given most inadequate security cover without any sanitization of route, control of timings of move and so on. This was thus a huge security black hole which has been exploited by the terrorist groups. It is unlikely that the establishment would be able to get down to investigating the same, for there appears to be a lack of will as well as capability to do so. Thus even after almost a week has passed no revelations have been made expect for some perfunctory announcements by the Security Adviser Mr Rehman Malik who seems to feel that his only task is to provide information to the media.

That the Swat Shariah deal is already defunct with more and more killings and kidnappings of security forces is evident,. This is likely to fail in the days ahead. What the Pakistani government needs is declaring a, “war on terror” howsoever unpalatable that phrase may be there are simply no other options.

The key question now of stability in Pakistan is that of will of the army, Pakistan’s option of last resort to control the situation in Swat, FATA and other areas wracked by violence over the past few years. The Army since 2001 has been trying to control the situation in this area and in the 8th year of the same, it is evident that it is not in a position to establish effective control despite very large deployment from time to time. This is because of a fuzzy strategy of using fire power, guns and helicopter ships, peace deals with militants who do not surrender arms but only make the army leave the territory for their use and non establishment of a security grid in vacated areas.

Many renowned analysts in Pakistan as Ayaz Amir have said that, “Nothing coming from the army suggests it has any idea of how to retrieve this situation and that a Pakistani Petraeus has yet to emerge in our local killing fields”. This lack of leadership is affecting the operations as nobody knows who is in command and the Army Chief by making short trips to the areas is not able to restore the situation. The Army in FATA and Swat has obviously lost the initiative and is now on the defensive through out the country.

The problems of Pakistan are not only related to presence of the Taliban but also a large number of militant groups in Balochistan and the sectarian groups as the Lashkar e Jhangvi in other parts of the country who engage in Shia-Sunni violence. Of late however there is a realisation that these groups cannot be encouraged and therefore there is some concern but not much effective action on the ground by the Army and the para military to control the menace. While the Pakistan Army and the police may have ensured that the Eastern regions of Punjab and the parts of Sindh are not taken over by the Taliban there are a number of groups which are feared to be making their presence felt in this region with Karachi having seen large scale infiltration of terrorists.

On the other hand there are many Baloch groups which are still active despite the government call for amnesty. The large number of foreigners kidnapped would indicate the level of influence that these groups have. While the Chinese engineer has been released, others including Iranian and Afghan diplomats apart from the UNHCR representative remain in custody. It appears that the Chinese have been successful in getting their way with Pakistan, especially with President Zardari scheduled to visit Beijing shortly. This could have been achieved only through an exchange of terrorists. With the Army unlikely to involve itself fully in internal security, the Taliban will make deep inroads in Pakistan in the months ahead. The space in Punjab and Sindh in the meanwhile will be thrown open to disparate terrorist groups who have now been encouraged by the success of 3/3 in Lahore.

Indo US Relations Under Obama Administration

President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are due to meet on 2 April. This would be the first conversation between the two leaders as despite having spoken to over 20 heads of states, President Obama did not lift the telephone to make a call to New Delhi. Now having charted out major policy decisions on financial recovery and the Afghan-Pakistan imbroglio, he should be free to look at building partnerships between democracies.

The period of Republican Administration under George W Bush could be regarded as a golden era for Indo US relations which culminated in the 123 Agreement (Agreement for Cooperation Concerning Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy) on 10 October 2008. With President Barack Obama, there are a number of apprehensions. President Obama’s focus on the Afghan-Pak imbroglio with India’s sensitivity to cross border terrorism and Kashmir, the global economic crisis with America in recession and curtailment of outsourcing are some of the issues constricting engagement. On the other hand India’s relative political and economic stability, professional armed forces and counter insurgency experience can be leveraged with the US Administration in the wake of the global financial crisis, industrial slow down, global and international security concerns particularly in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Indian Ocean.

During the Republican Administration, President George W Bush, was personally focused on improving relationship with India. As the complexities in Iraq and Afghanistan grew over the years with the Administration coming for censure at home and abroad, Bush required India as a success story. The United States was also dependent on India for shaping its policy in South Asia thereby developing a strategic understanding in many spheres. With the coming of the Obama Administration there are considerable reservations in India and it is felt that the, “golden era” of Indo US relations may come to an end.

President Obama’s interest in India per se is low. It should be noted that the "killer amendments" on the nuclear deal were proposed by Obama himself. The Administration including Secretary of State Ms Hillary Clinton has shown more interest in relations with China with the hope that it will provide the financial stimulus for an economic recovery. However China may not be able to deliver as per US expectations and therefore President Obama would have to look towards India though this may not happen in the near future.

On progressing the nuclear deal with the United States there are some reservations on reprocessing and so on for which India would have to wait for greater clarity in US policies. As India has signed agreements with France and Russia, a delay would result in denying American firms a major share in India’s nuclear energy pie. Here the American corporate lobby should be encouraged to exercise influence on the US government to expedite relevant nuclear agreements in mutual interest

In the field of disarmament, given President Obama’s interest in non proliferation, greater impetus to issues as Fissile Material Cut Off Treaty [FMCT] and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty [CTBT] could be expected. India has to examine the proposals on FMCT and CTBT carefully to ensure that these are universal and non-discriminatory. China will also have to stop the support being provided to Pakistan in the nuclear field to facilitate progress on non proliferation.

On the Kashmir issue, the Obama Administration has been convinced that it may not be fruitful to intervene, so hopefully this is not revived. The successful free and fair Assembly elections in 2008 indicate that the back of militancy has been broken through a comprehensive policy by India therefore mediation in Kashmir has become irrelevant.

India’s economic leverage with the US is important in some respects, because of the size and growth trajectory of our economy. However, our influence may be constrained by the fact that sovereign funds based in the Middle East and China have large shareholdings in American corporations in strategic sectors including the financial segment. The US is likely to go slow on outsourcing, international free trade and economic integration with the World. We can significantly contribute to the core programmes outlined by the Obama Administration to include energy, health care reforms and education. We have a number of leverages in this sector which can be effectively utilized.

In the overall context of our foreign policy, it was visualized that this opportunity to reframe our engagement with the United States should also be used to balance our relations with Russia, the European Union, Japan and China, while holding no illusions that strategically China's policies will remain one of "containment" of India. [Based on proceedings edited by the author of an Expert Group Round Table in New Delhi on the subject on 27 February. Participants included some of India’s foremost foreign policy, diplomacy and defence experts.]

Naxal Terror: India’s Forgotten War

Damanjodi is a remote corner of Southern Orissa in India. A few days back an intense battle in India’s forgotten war against Naxalism was fought there by a few ill trained, poorly equipped but brave and stout hearted policemen who rescued the lives of over 150 miners. This frontline came into the limelight when 200 Naxals struck on 9 April a week before general elections in the country targeting the largest bauxite mines in Asia. Beyond the glare of television cameras, valiant policemen of the Central Industrial Security Force fought a long battle to ward off the Naxals who had come looking for a truck full of explosives.

They lost 10 of the bravest comrades, but were ignored by national and international media and received none of the accolades reserved for the National Security Guards post Mumbai 26/11. While in no way detracting from the valuable contribution made by the National Security Guards, India’s leaders, civil society and the media need to question their conscience for virtually ignoring this attack on the state by the Naxals.

Damanjodi is the very anti thesis of the Gateway of India and the Taj Mahal hotel where Pakistan borne terrorists struck on 26 November 2008. But the bauxite mines are very much Indian Territory so were over 150 mine workers held hostage by the Naxals, yet the Indian state failed to respond equitably.

Political parties busy in inane dialogues of “jhappi and papi”, weak and strong Prime Ministers, choose to ignore this assault while the citizens were looking forward to television sojourns for the forthcoming Indian Premier League cricket series, ironically being held in South Africa. The media chose to overlook Damanjodi as if it was happening somewhere remote in Antarctica. There was no television coverage of the event, no photographs in front page of newspapers not even obituaries to our brave policemen.

Naxals were quick to notice this public disinterest. Thus they stuck on the polling day on 16 April. There were over 20 deaths in the violence that followed and despite the heavy polling appeared to be out of sync with the overall smooth conduct of Phase 1 of general elections in the country. Naxal affected states had a polling average varying from 40 to 60 percent despite the violence, this led to commentators touting it as a successful conduct forgetting that there were so many lives lost in the bargain, which sadly, the Indian public and the media does not seem to care.

The Naxals thus succeeded in disturbing if not disrupting the election process in Central India, which also highlights amateurish security management with elections in all Naxal affected states planned in one go which had led to thinning out of security forces. Surprisingly the Election Commission members continued to defend this decision, possibly none of them have been to Dantewada, Bastar, Bijapur or Latehar all Naxal strongholds.

Clearly there was a case for multi phased elections as in Kashmir and the North East, but the Election Commission mandarins failed to appreciate the signals coming from the Naxal heartland. The key shortfall there is of well trained troops who can challenge rebels of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA).

On the other hand the security in the North East which went for elections was good because these are being held in two phases, thus in the first phase the critical areas other than the Brahmaputra Valley went to polls while the Valley which also has the state of Assam from where the Prime Minister of the country, Mr Manmohan Singh is a member of the Upper House the Rajya Sabha will vote in the second phase, which led to strengthening of the security grid.

The Naxals clearly took the police and para military forces in India by surprise. Their continued fight in the most under developed and remote parts of the country as Abujmadh has gone unnoticed apart from the occasional sympathy for loss of innocent lives of locals and policemen alike.

Even the large number of casualties caused during elections received scant attention thus highlighting lack of public support to the anti Naxal forces police and para military. There is a need to completely change this approach. Greater public concern would provide for the police and the paramilitary fighting the Naxals required wherewithal for combating the ills of militancy. While this has received financial approval its implementation has been tardy leading to large money allotted for modernization unspent.

The best government talent in the country is in the civil services including the police, the Indian Police Service. Yet the fate of the counter Naxal forces remains that of peripheral fighters. It is time they are given the centre stage for the war against Naxalism is as much our fight as theirs.

Al Qaeda, Taliban and the Military in Pakistan

Conflict between Rulers and Clerics in Islam
– Which way the Sunni terror monster turn!



"What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?"." Nonsense--" added Brzezinski when asked in 1997 "If Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today." Brzezinski was President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser.

"The United States has supported radical Islamic activism over the past six decades, sometimes overtly, sometimes covertly," and is thus "partly to blame for the emergence of Islamic terrorism as a world-wide phenomenon." Robert Drefuss

“The grip of conservative Islamism on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border is the legacy not just of George Bush, of course, but decades of US meddling in the region, and its sponsorship of the anti-Soviet mujahideen in the 1980s in particular. -- a byproduct of the systematically counter-productive nature of western policy across the wider region since 2001. After seven years of lawless invasion and occupation, the war on terror is everywhere in ruins.

“The limits of American military power have been laid bare in the killing fields of Iraq; Iran has been transformed into the pre-eminent regional power; --- a resurgent Taliban is leading an increasingly effective guerrilla war in Afghanistan; and far from crushing terror networks, the US and its allies have spread them to Pakistan--- Pakistan is being ripped apart by the fallout from the Afghan occupation. If the US escalates, the impact will be devastating-- The country now shows every sign of slipping out of the control of its dysfunctional civilian government - and even the military that has held it together for 60 years, “ Seumas Milne in The Guardian 5 March,2009.


Observations and Reactions to Growing Influence of Terror Groups in Pakistan


Writes Ahmed Rashid in his book ‘Descent into Chaos'; ” Afghanistan is once again staring down the abyss of state collapse, despite billions of dollars in aid, forty-five thousand Western troops, and the deaths of thousands of people. The Taliban have made a dramatic comeback.... The international community had an extended window of opportunity for several years to help the Afghan people—they failed to take advantage of it.

“Pakistan...has undergone a slower but equally bloody meltdown.... In 2007 there were 56 suicide bombings in Pakistan that killed 640 people, compared to just 6 bombings in the previous year....
In 2008, American power lies shattered.... US credibility lies in ruins.... Ultimately the strategies of the Bush administration have created a far bigger crisis in South and Central Asia than existed before 9/11.”

"There's blame at India, Afghanistan, Russia, basically everyone else," said Rashid, a well known expert on the region, "The government has its head in the sand. It's very bleak."

But there is little sense yet of a concerted effort to push back the Jihadis in Pakistan, who have exposed the fragility of the federation and resurrected fears that the country is heading towards break-up.

Maleeha Lodhi, a former senior Pakistan diplomat in London and Washington, said the pact (with Taliban in Swat) was a disaster in both local security and human rights angle with serious implications "First and foremost it represents a retreat from Jinnah's Pakistan," referring to the country's founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. "It is the very antithesis of [his] visions and ideals, the core of which were a modern, unified Muslim state, not one fragmented along obscurantist and sectarian lines." The deal, Lodhi added betrayed the people of Swat and could mark a turning point in Pakistan's struggle against extremism. "Rattled by more aggressive actions by militants, the political and security establishments caved in to the challenge ... The deal signaled weakness and bankruptcy on the part of the ruling elite that [has] chosen appeasement," she concluded.

A more surprising statement came from Maulana Fazlur Rahman, the leader of the pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party, who warned the national assembly: "If Taliban continue to move at this pace they will soon be knocking at the doors of Islamabad." (It is similar to the competition for power among various shades of extremist Sikh and Akali groups in Indian Punjab in 1980s)

"Everyone and his dog knows this is not a military trained for counterinsurgency," said Mosharraf Zaidi, a political analyst. "People have been waiting for Pakistan's 9/11 moment," Zaidi added. "But this isn't America." "You can't possibly think the rest of the country, particularly the urban areas, is going to fall like a house of cards," Zaidi said. "Ultimately I think the country will overcome this. But it's going to get worse first." (He certainly is an optimist!)

According to reports Jihadis once associated with the Harkat-e-Jihad-i-Islami and the Lashkar-e-Taiba - groups with strong roots to terror acts in Kashmir after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, stayed neutral, only joining the Taliban's fight against foreign forces in Afghanistan in 2004, helping with training and logistics. During the Pakistani military's operations in the tribal areas over the past few years, they kept out of the fight. In the current critical phase of the "war on terror", for the first time these militants are fully operational and are turning their attention to operations inside Pakistan. The top military brains at General Headquarters in Rawalpindi, the garrison city twinned with the capital Islamabad, are acutely aware of what these highly trained and dedicated militants are capable of: they cut their teeth in operations inside India and in Kashmir.

The point to be noted is that there appeared to be a tacit agreement that the US (and UK) would keep the Kashmir pot boiling (remember the recent uncouth statement in India by British Foreign Secretary David Miliband that to avoid terrorist attacks like 26/11 India must resolve the Kashmir issue. Such regular statements provide oxygen to terrorists’ cause and encourage them. It is as if India stated that terror attacks in north Ireland would cease if London gave in to the demands of Irish Republican Army)

In return the terror groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba have kept generally silent about the atrocities in Occupied Palestine and genocide in Gaza by Israelis with full US support and illegal invasion and brutal occupation of Iraq in which over a million Iraqis have died. So much for the solidarity between members of Islamic Ummah of Palestine, Iraq and disgruntled Kashmir elements being trained, equipped and financed by Pakistan for its own ends, when it is quite clear that Islamabad has no intention of agreeing to an independent Kashmir. Why go far? Just look at the terrible conditions in Pak occupied Kashmir ruled from the interior ministry of Pakistan.

Kashmiris are being exploited like the Kurds of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria in history by neighboring states and outside powers like Britain, Russia and now USA.

Steve Coll writes in Ghost Wars : “Every Pakistani general, liberal or religious, believed in the jihadists by 1999, not from personal Islamic conviction, in most cases, but because the jihadists had proved themselves over many years as the one force able to frighten, flummox, and bog down the Hindu-dominated Indian army. About a dozen Indian divisions had been tied up in Kashmir during the late 1990s to suppress a few thousand well-trained, paradise-seeking guerrillas. What more could Pakistan ask.”

About the Islamisation of Pakistan army specially ISI under Zia ul Haq, in the history of the Pakistani army, Shuja Nawaz, describes the "strange non-military atmosphere" in the ISI in the early 1990s at the end of the reign of one of the most overtly Islamist directors of the agency, the Zia-appointed Lieutenant General Javed Nasir. When his successor turned up to take over, he found that "the corridors were filled with bearded civilians in shalwar kameez," the pajama-like traditional dress, "many of them with their shalwar hitched up above the ankle, a signature practice of the [ultra-orthodox] Tablighi Jamaat to which Nasir belonged." He was shown a strong room that once had "currency stacked to the ceiling" but was now empty as adventurist ISI officers had taken "suitcases filled with cash" to the field, including to the newly independent Central Asian republics, ostensibly to set up safe houses and operations there in support of Islamic causes. There were no accounts or any receipts to these money transfers....Most officers were absent from their offices for extended periods, often away for "prayers."

“Before the partition of British India in 1947, Punjab was seen as a loyal colony of the British and their recruits fought against the Afghans. After partition, Punjabis were seen as usurpers who divided the Pashtun tribes in the name of a new country called Pakistan. To many Afghans, Punjabis are opportunists and while they claim to be Muslims, their culture is a blend of Hinduism and Sikhism,” So wrote Saleem Sahzad in Asia Times last November. (It is only the counterpart Punjabi speaking Hindus in India who express such touching faith in Pakistan’s democracy and indulge in border candle lighting .They also enjoy each others’ chicken tikka kebak and beer laced hospitality during not so secret channels of diplomacy during which they visit their ancestral homes. But it is the Washington pied piper who plays the tune.)

The author remembers an Afghan diplomat, related to the ruling dynasty and the Jihadis telling him that Punjabi Pakistanis were trying to teach Afghans how to fight when they had never fought themselves and were ruled mostly by outsiders. A Persian descent diplomat joked that after the heroic resistance of King Porus against Alexander of Macedonia, the area between Peshawar and Panipat remained porous for invaders to come in from north west and Sikh troops and British army to march through from east to west.


US Reaction


“The Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists," US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told the US Congress. Richard Holbrooke, Barack Obama's special representative, admitted last week in an interview that more attention was now focused on Pakistan than on the war in Afghanistan.

“We’re certainly moving closer to the tipping point” where Pakistan could be overtaken by the extremists according to Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Some analysts suggest Islamabad is waiting for the Jihadis to over-reach – when it is clear to the public that they cannot be trusted or reasoned with, Islamabad will send the army to crush them. But others detect a lack of political will, and perhaps, a failure of nerve in confronting groups created by Pak Army and ISI, that have served Pakistan's plans well in the past in Afghanistan and against India and Kashmir.


Historical Background and Parallels


Of the oldest of the three revealed religions, Judaism’s only state since ancient times, Israel, founded on leftist tenets has since morphed into a rule by Zionist-Military oligarchy. Christians after centuries of warfare in Europe managed to create secular polities which are still underpinned if not haunted by sectional religious ideologies. In the last of ‘the Book’ based polity Islam, the lines between the Mir and the Pir, the temporal ruler and spiritual ruler still remain blurred, contested and changing.

After the 1979 revolution in Iran, Shias created the ideal but mythical office of Imam in the person of Ruhoallah Khomeini. The status of the Imam was evolved into the doctrines of intercession and infallibility, i.e., of the faqih/mutjahid. But the Iranians have since found that a system based on the concepts of 7th century AD was inadequate to confront and solve the problems of 21st century. Nevertheless, like the first Imam Ali, Iran is ruled by the supreme religious leader, Ali Khameini, who incidentally is Azeri Turk. The cement keeping Iran united now is its common heritage and Islam. In Syria the ruling Shia Alewite elite, 12% of the population has been staunchly secular under the Assads since four decades. In Lebanon the Hezbollah, which coordinates with some secular strands, combines in Hassan Nasrallah, the powers of both a military and spiritual leader. To understand the evolving situation around Pakistan and Afghanistan we might look at some what similar situations in Islamic history.

Prophet Mohammad was both the religious leader and military commander. But the Arab Caliphs lost out on power by 10th century to the Turkish slaves from central Asia who formed the core of their fighting forces. The Turks raised the minor title of Sultan to a high rank who literally became a protector of the Caliph, left with only spiritual powers. Even this role was seized by the Ottoman Sultans ruling from Istanbul.

After the defeat of Byzantines near lake Van in 11th century, the Seljuk hordes established a Rumi Calphate at Konya in the centre of modern day Turkey. But they had to brutally suppress religious leaders’ rebellions many times .To keep out the energetic soldiers and freelance militias instigated by fanatic religious leaders, Konya sent them out as Ghazis to harass neighboring Christian Byzantine territories. Out of these freebooters emerged a small band led by Ertugrul, whose small principality was expanded by his son Osman (Othman) and descendents into Europe right up to the gates of Vienna and along South Mediterranean up to Morocco and east up to Iran border and Oman on the Indian ocean.


Rise and Fall of Janissaries in Ottoman Empire


As Iran became a barrier to recruitment of non-Muslim Turks from central Asia, a practice which the Arabs had followed, the Ottoman emperors, who succeeded the Seljuk Turks in Anatolia as Turkey was then known, finally conquered the Byzantine empire and made Constantinople, its capital, their own Istanbul. They then started recruiting Christian young boys mostly from Balkans but even from Anatolia for its armed forces and top civil service cadre known as ‘Devshirme’.

Beginning with the forced recruitment from Christian prisoners taken as booty after the battle, the system progressively developed into a privileged and influential warrior force that converted young Christian boys to Islam and instructed them in the Turkish martial arts. Unlike feudal levies Janissaries owed loyalty to the Sultan only. Regimented training and strong moral codes transformed the Janissaries into more than an impressive military force, a political entity of such unchecked power (shades of ISI) that they unwittingly contributed to the very downfall of the empire itself. The Janissaries were an important factor in the military expansion of the Ottoman Empire ranging from the 1453 capture of Constantinople to the battles against the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.

The next couple of centuries saw the growth of the power of the Ottomans, but a succession of uprisings by Janissaries resulted in more power flowing into their hands. The first Janissary revolt occurred in 1449 and served as a model for many later revolts, each of which brought them more power and pelf. The Janissaries reached such an enviable state of influence by the late 1600s that the Ottoman bureaucracy was effectively held hostage to their whims and demands. A mutiny led to change in the policy of the politicians. Eventually, the Janissaries started to engage in successful coups to topple even a Sultan who was not receptive to their specific desires. They put their own self-interests first and placed obstacles in the path of modernizing the army.

In 1807, the Janissaries revolted against Sultan Selim III, and replaced him with Mahmud II . Mahmud II finally decided that the Janissaries had to be decimated in order to preserve the empire. In the summer of 1826, when the Janissaries staged another uprising, the rest of the army and the people were ranged against them. The Janissary force finally faced either death or retreat and exile. The survivors were banished and their wealth taken over by the state.

Like the Konya Sultante the Pakistanis under its religious President Zia-ul-haq with financial support from US led West and Saudi Arabia and other Muslim states trained and sent Jihadis and militants aka modern day Ghazis into Afghanistan in 1980s, who forced the Soviets exit from Afghanistan. Eventually the Communist edifice under mined by Slav nationalism and Orthodox Christianity collapsed by the beginning of 1990s.


Would Pakistan Succeed in Destroying the Taliban!


A conglomerate of various militias, free booters, religious fanatics, nationalists and tribal chieftains classified as Al Qaeda, Taliban, Pakistani Taliban etc are somewhat like the Janissaries of the Ottoman empire, their most effective fighting force which terrorized European Christians and helped extend the Ottoman empire into Europe. But soon instead of terrorizing the enemies of the Ottomans, they threatened the Sultans. Finally the Janissaries had to be destroyed. Would Pakistan be able to do the same i.e. destroy the Taliban.

The tensions between the ruler, the clerics and religious warriors i.e. Mirs and Pirs have still not been separated in Islamic world .It is in reverse gear even in modern Turkey, the only secular Muslim nation, with the ascendancy of the ruling religious AK Party with billions of Saudi investment in Turkey and direct gifts to the party. Support of Saudi finances to Madarsas and mosques remains the major obstacle in the modernization of education and Islamic societies.



Democracy in Pakistan


Throughout the Cold War, the so-called democracy in Pakistan was basically a Western media myth to put its ally on a par with India. Utterances by Pakistan prime ministers against India made good copy in Western media. Barring perhaps Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (1972-77), after the military had been totally discredited in 1971 following the liberation of Bangladesh, the Pakistan armed forces have been de jure or de facto rulers of the country. In the 11 years between General Zia's death in 1988 and Musharraf's takeover, Benazir Bhutto and Sharif were eased in and out of power whenever they tried to interfere with the military's autonomy, or their control of nuclear arms, or the policy on Kashmir and foreign affairs. Constantly squabbling the politicians nevertheless amassed huge fortunes by corrupt means. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif had the opportunity and political support to lay the foundations for democracy, but instead they chose despotic ways to steamroller the institutions that provided the checks and balances in the state. In spite of dire situation in Pakistan, Zardari, assassinated Benazir’s spouse, who became President by hoodwinking Nawaz Sharif, instead of jointly stabilizing the political and security situation in Pakistan, continue to play petty political games. This highlights the inability of Pakistani political elite to accept the give and take of a democratic system and administration.

For all the good copy that Benazir provided the Western media, she was perhaps one of the most incompetent administrators in Pakistan's history, with her husband, "Mr. 10 percent" Ali Zardari, making it worse. She played a seminal role in 1996 in promoting the stranglehold in Pakistan of the Jamaat-i-Islami and fundamentalist groups, now threatening Pakistan (and Afghanistan.) These groups have umbilical relationship with ISI, with many friendly elements deeply entrenched in ISI and the Pakistan armed forces and the establishment. Tacitly approved by the US and with support from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, Pakistan created the Taliban to provide 'stability and security’ in Afghanistan in 1990s so that US oil giant UNOCAL could lay pipelines from Central Asia to South Asia and beyond. The Taliban cadre is composed of madarsa pupils, mostly orphans of 3 decades of violence in Afghanistan and children of poor people. Somewhat like the forced ‘orphan’ Janissaries.


Pakistan Polity


In any case, unlike India, Pakistan began with weak grassroots political organizations, with the British-era civil servants strengthening the bureaucracy's control over the polity and decision-making. Subsequently, the bureaucracy called for the military's help, but soon the tail was wagging the dog. In the first seven years of Pakistan's existence, nine provincial governments were dismissed. From 1951 to 1958 there was only one army commander in chief, two governor generals, but seven prime ministers.

While the politicians had wanted to further strengthen relations with the British, the erstwhile rulers, General Ayub Khan – encouraged by Washington – formed closer cooperation with the Pentagon. And in 1958 General Ayub Khan took over power, beginning the military’s stranglehold on Pakistan. A mere colonel at partition in 1947, with experience mostly of staff jobs, Ayub Khan became a general after only four years. Later, he promoted himself to field marshal. He eased out officers who did not fit into the Anglo-Saxon scheme of using Pakistan's strategic position against the evolving Cold War confrontation with the communist block.

General Zia ul-Haq was a cunning schemer, veritably a mullah in uniform with delusions of spreading Islam in central Asia with Islamabad as the fulcrum. While posted in Amman, Zia helped plan the military operations, which expelled Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization from Jordan in the 1970s. But he is more remembered for having prayed at all the mosques of Amman, if not in the whole of Jordan. He seduced the north Indian media with lavish praise and chicken and tikka kebabs meals. While planning Operation Topaz, which fueled insurgency in Kashmir in 1989, he hoodwinked Indians with his goodwill visits to promote cricket. His Islamization of the country made the situation for women and minorities untenable, while the judicial killing of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977 turned General Zia into a pariah. But the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan made him a US darling, restoring and strengthening the Pakistan military's links with the Pentagon. This made the Pakistani military and the ISI's hold pervasive, omnipotent, omniscient and ominous in Pakistan.

This defense alliance, the seeds of which were planted by Ayub Khan, and the symbiotic relationship between the ISI and the CIA midwifed under General Zia, cannot be dismantled or disentangled. Now it is like a marriage gone sour with Washington wanting Islamabad to toe its orders including Pak military killing Jihadis /terrorists, its own children, who against Soviet troops in 1980s were hailed as Ghazis. Pakistan ISI and military, the real rulers of Pakistan have based their power on anti-India policy. Their policy of over-reach and control of Afghanistan is both for strategic depth and to erode the existential reality of the Durand line. But the non-acceptance of the Durand line by Pushtoons makes the very concept of Pakistan’s territorial integrity a nightmare.


Washington; Pakistan's External Constituency

It is an accepted truism that three As; Allah, Army and America form the most important pillars of the state of Pakistan. China is equally vital for Pakistan’s survival based on Beijing’s strategic objectives of tying India down and looking for a new energy ‘silk route ‘ for western China’s access to the Gulf by land and strategic outflanking of India via Gwadur port in Baluchistan .

Following the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Afghanistan and subsequent collapse of USSR, a triumphant Washington left the monster of Islamic fundamentalism intact in Afghanistan and Pakistan, partly because US administrations with corporate personnel have short term annual balance sheets objectives.They let the Jihadis to fester even leaving with them Stinger missiles. In any case the Jihadis would only create problems in Russia and its near abroad, China’s Xinjiang province and India. Who cares! America’s ’s rulers began dreaming of a New American Century with Washington as the New Rome of 3rd Millennia with plans to control world’s energy and other resources and strategic spaces.

At a time when Indian economy started perking up after 1991 and US corporate interests looked at India for investment and for laying pipe lines to transfer energy from central Asia to India and beyond to Japan, Pakistani leaders complained of neglect by its ally which had used Pakistan like a French letter to enter Afghanistan and then discarded it.


The Al Qaeda World View


Throughout its colonial era to protect its interests the British encouraged Islam and its extremist strains to divide and browbeat national and socialist movements in Asia, Middle East and elsewhere. London encouraged and helped Jinnah in his dream of Pakistan, so that a weak Pakistan in alliance would keep the Russians away from the oil wells in the Gulf region dominated by the Europeans. This policy was appropriated by the new leading western power USA after WWII. Thus the creation of the monster of Islamic fundamentalism was a natural Western gambit to tire out and unravel USSR. Supporting the Jihad in Afghanistan was a Faustian pact between the Christian Crusaders led by America and Muslim Wahibis/Salafis.

After the Soviet Union collapse, the Islamic fanatics, believing they had defeated the super power USSR, put into operation their plans against US led Christian Satans. It included firstly to expel US troops from the sacred soil of Arabia, then remove non Salafi rulers from Muslim Ummah such as in Egypt and others, even Saudi Arabia and liberate Muslims from non-Muslim yoke in India and finally create Islamic Caliphates ruled by religious tenets as perceived by them e.g. Taliban rule in Afghanistan up to 2001 and in Swat now. This Jihad against USA began with attacks on US diplomatic missions in east Africa, inside USA and finally culminated in the 9/11 stunning attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, symbols of US economic and military might.

We will not go into the suspicions that US organized 9/11 or let it happen. But Washington now went in to implement Neo-con driven agenda of making US the hyper power brooking no resistance. It first bombed Afghanistan to acquire bases there and in nearby Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan ostensibly for its war on Taliban and Al Qaeda, but to occupy Russia’s strategic underbelly. Still driven by hubris and backed by Tony Blair’s UK, USA then invaded Iraq against the UN charter and the wishes of majority of its members on the basis of allegations which appeared even then to be cooked up to any intelligent observer. But Washington needed Islamabad to protect itself from a backlash of its earlier Afghan policies of creating the monster of terrorism and acquire bases in Pakistan and support from an unwilling ally in Islamabad. US threatened to bomb Pakistan to middle ages if Islamabad did not comply with its firman, written and publicly aired by Pakistan ruler Gen Parvez Musharraf as also narrated in his autobiography. (By 2006 Gen Musharraf knew his rule was to end and as per US custom, a new proxy ruler would be installed in Islamabad and after Benazir’s assassination her widower Asaf Ali Zardari took over.)

After 11 September, Washington also desperately wanted to stop Pakistan's nuclear bombs or material from falling into Jihadi hands. US spokesmen have stated from time to time that Pak nukes are in safe custody. But according to one version, Gen Musharraf, realized that the nukes were Pakistan’s crown jewels, a leverage against Indian conventional military superiority and a handle to threaten and blackmail one and all. It was the only positive outcome of Islamabad being exploited for West’s war in Afghanistan which resulted in the spread of narcotics use and Kalashnikov culture in Pakistan. It is said that parts of the nuke systems were removed to Chitral near the Chinese border and if threatened, Chinese troops across the border would move in and take them away. Who knows the truth!


Military in Politics in Pakistan and Turkey


Military has been a major force both in Pakistan and Turkey. I have kept an eye on Turkey since 40 years, with ten years spent in Ankara in two diplomatic tenures. An Indian diplomat has to live with and understand Pakistan, an anti-India profession created by the perfidious Albion. Situated east and west of Iran, now in opposition to the policies of yesterday’s declining hyper power USA, Pakistan and Turkey, Washington’s non-NATO and NATO allies respectively, are undergoing fundamental changes which would have ramifications not only for the region but alter the world’s political and strategic calculus. Specially in Pakistan. If Turkey is situated at the crossroads of a Europe, Central Asia, Middle East and Africa, and influenced by the cross currents, then Pakistan connects South Asia to Central Asia and Middle East, and central Asia and China to the energy rich Middle East in the Gulf waters.

Unlike civilian controlled armed forces in conventional democracies, in both these countries the military’s role is embedded in the polity with dominance in decision making. In Turkey the military under the leadership of Kemal Ataturk, first fought a dogged war to protect the nation against Western led invasion and occupation after the collapse of the Ottoman empire and then helped create a secular republic after abolishing the office of the Sultan and the Caliphate in 1923.


Musharraf’s Turkish Connection and Ataturk as a Model


At his very first press conference soon after taking over in October,1999 as Pakistan's chief executive, General Musharraf spotted some journalists from Turkey. Speaking in fluent Turkish, Musharraf told them that he was a great admirer of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic and its first president. "As a model, Kemal Ataturk did a great deal for Turkey. I have his biography. We will see what I can do for Pakistan. " Not only is he more at home with Turkish than Pakistan's national language, Urdu, Musharraf also admires Turkey's generals and the country's political model, having spent his most impressionable school years in early 1950s in Ankara, where his father was posted as a junior diplomat. Ataturk's legend of forging a new, vibrant, modern and secular Turkey out of the ashes of the decaying deadwood of the Ottoman Empire left an indelible mark on young Pervez, as evidenced by his remarks above and his subsequent actions as the leader of Pakistan.

However, following his statements lauding Ataturk, the Jamaat-i-Islami, the largest of Pakistan's religious parties, immediately expressed its opposition to the secular ideology of Kemalism. As a result, Musharraf then also highlighted the aborted vision for Pakistan of Qaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the country's founding father and its first leader after independence in 1947.

At best Musharraf can be said to have succeeded in emulating his publicly undeclared model Gen Evren and that too not that well. There are some similarities with Ataturk. Delhi-born Musharraf's family comes from east Uttar Pradesh (India). Blue-eyed Ataturk was born in Salonika (Greece) and his family came from Macedonia. Ataturk was able to rally the world war-weary Turks, whose land had been occupied by foreigners. At first he battled the Ottoman Sultan's forces sent to kill him and then vanquished friend turned foe rebel Ethem and his ragtag Green army, which had helped fight off invading Greeks who had almost reached Ankara. This was something like the various jihadi forces and foot-loose groups that Musharraf faced. However, Ataturk ruthlessly crushed religious revolts led by feudal Kurdish tribal chiefs and others. And to fulfill his destiny, he even got rid of his earlier nationalist comrades, who were in favor of continuing with the Caliphate.

Musharraf, too, succeeded in sidelining many unreliable generals but not completely. Despite his belief in his avowed destiny, his proclaimed good luck in escaping many mishaps, he did not show the boldness and ruthlessness of Ataturk. September 11 and December 13, provided him with a golden opportunity to go the whole hog in the fight against the virus of fundamentalism and usher a new era in Pakistan on the lines of Ataturk’s reforms. He would have got unstinted support from US led West, India and others.

Ataturk had boldly and ruthlessly carried out westernizing and modernizing reforms against religious obscurantism and dogma and forged the remnants of the Ottoman Empire with a 99 percent Muslim population into a secular republic in the 1920s. But he had kept his external ambitions in check, he did not claim former Ottoman provinces lost in World War I, and had concentrated on building a new Turkey from the bottom up.

Musharraf, a child of his times, had to step down, after September 11, from the fundamentalist tiger he was riding and had helped nurture. But he was not fully in command on the home front, with attempts to assassinate him and suicide bombers having a run of the country. (They are now only 100 kms away from Islamabad). He did tighten up from time to time, with some arrests of ranking Al-Qaeda members and others to please USA. But Musharraf's childhood Ataturk-inspired dream was not realized. Perhaps he is not ruthless enough, determined and single minded like Ataturk.

Some people say that Musharraf did make some attempts, including beginning a dialogue with India, which made considerable progress. Maybe there were just too many cards stacked against him external and internal. By 2006 he realized that his time was up so he wrote his biography and soon enough there was pressure from USA and internally, encouraged by outside powers for a change of regime in Pakistan. USA favored Benazir Bhutto, while another financier Saudi Arabia’s choice was Nawaz Sharif, but with luck with some maneuvering, the crown now sits on Zardari head.


Conclusion


The future of Pak-Af depends on how Afghanistan shapes up which has been divided since 1980s. The kingdom was created in the 19th century at the end of the Great Game as a buffer to keep the Russian and British empires from getting onto each others corns. In spite of many attempts, the British had failed to subdue the Afghan tribes and had got a bloody nose in the bargain.

Since then the two empires, the British in South Asia and the Russian/Soviet in central Asia have disappeared and divided.Thus the raison d’etre of the Kingdom remaining united has disappeared. The break up of Afghanistan composed of warring Pushtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras and others would create pressures on the already eroded Durand line, whose so called British enforced legality ended in 1993. Dominated by Punjabi speaking elite with leavening of Pushtuns, Pakistan has remained feudal in social makeup and has failed to create even a territory based national identity. The most dangerous possibility is a stand off and war between the Jihadis/terrorists and the Military with Punjabi-Pathan mix with the latter’s unity being unraveled, unraveling the state itself.

West may not mind the break up of Afghanistan and even of Pakistan if the new states are beholden to it and help neutralize the Chinese objectives of direct land access from west China via Pakistan to the Gulf. This explains Chinese investments in Baluchistan and its Gwadar port, next door to the Gulf of Hormuz, the Middle East energy exit point. However the likely economic collapse of UK and USA weakens their hand. Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and India would play more important role than the 2002 agreement in shaping what happens in Afghanistan. But finally it is the people of the lands who would be the deciders.

What happens in Afghanistan and Pakistan will have serious ramifications for India too. The current Indian dispensation remains too beholden to Washington and has not kept up with Moscow and annoyed Tehran. At the moment the political elite is engrossed in the election exercise to renew its license to go back to its selfish ways .The public remains glued to Indian Premier League telecasts from South Africa where it is being played since the League and the elections would have strained the security setup in India, so brutally exposed of its ineffectiveness by 26/11 rape of Mumbai.

India: Expanding Interests in Central Asia

India marked up its presence in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) dubbed as the Eastern NATO with attendance of the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh for the first time in the Summit held in Yekaterinburg Russia on 16 January. The SCO was founded in Shanghai on June 15, 2001 by six nations, Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India along with Pakistan, Iran, Mongolia is an observer.

At the last Summit in 2008 in Dushanbe, SCO had decided to lift involvement of Observer States to a qualitatively new level for the first time Observer States and Member States meeting together in both a restricted format and then in an expanded plenary. Thus Indian Prime Minister did not have any inhibitions in attending the summit. The Indian side highlighted the importance of the Summit for Observers to also participate in all the meetings - in the restricted meetings, in the regular meetings and in the delegation-level talks as well. Indian emphasis on participation of the Prime Minister personally had thus possibly paid dividend.

India sees SCO in terms of an extended neighborhood. In his opening remarks at the SCO Summit, the Prime Minister highlighted the factor of connectivity between the SCO and India. “We would like to cooperate in finding innovative means to strengthen people-to-people contacts, exchanges of businesspersons and scholars, and trade, investment and technology flows. We would welcome closer cooperation in the fields of energy and food security, and infrastructure development. The other issue was terrorism, extremist ideologies and illicit drug trafficking haunts our region”, said Dr Manmohan Singh.

India also sees linkages between the SCO and Afghanistan. Thus Dr Manmohan Singh congratulated the Russian Presidency of the SCO for organizing a successful conference on Afghanistan in March 2009. “India is committed to contributing to international efforts for the economic reconstruction of Afghanistan, and promoting stability in that country” were the Prime Minister’s remarks on the occasion.

Vladimir Radyuhin, a Russian commentator remarks on Indian participation in the current summit and compares it with that in previous years highlighting increase in level of the same thus, “It is for the first time that India will attend a SCO event at the highest level. After it joined the SCO as observer in 2005 India was twice represented at the organization's annual summits by the External Affairs Minister, twice by the Petroleum Minister and once by the Minister of State in Prime Minister’s Office. By contrast, other observers — Iran, Pakistan and Mongolia — sent Prime Ministers or Presidents to the meetings”.

India has been highlighting long term relationship with the SCO members based on civilisational, cultural and economic linkages. India’s principal goals in the SCO appears to be economic and counter-terrorism. The Foreign Secretary highlighted that there was a congruence in SCO members on Afghanistan, where, “the defeat of terrorism, of extremism; return of stability and economic growth and development” has become a key concern.

The Prime Minister highlighted that India’s desire to increase engagement with nations in the extended neighborhood. “There are issues which concern both of us, such as the fight against terrorism and extremism and cooperation in areas of energy security, infrastructure development, agriculture, transportation, science and technology and education”, Dr Manmohan Singh. Indian interests were also evident with a number of Central Asian states being key members of the SCO thus providing another forum for expansion of dialogue particularly with energy and uranium rich neighbors as Kazakhstan. Indian Prime Minister also had a discussion with the President of Tajikistan and is likely to visit the country shortly.

India however highlighted that it was not vying for membership of SCO. The Prime Minister indicated that this would depend on the member states. Speaking to the media on his way back from the Summit he remarked, “I believe it is for others. If they feel India will be useful as a member we would welcome it. But I am not lobbying for it”.

The SCO security agenda is also tilted towards counter-balancing the U.S. and NATO in Central Asia and growing security threats from Afghanistan. Thus Vladimir Radyuhin feels that India may be more amenable to participate in security events of the grouping in the years ahead. More over as SCO security chiefs at their meeting in Moscow called for the alliance’s summit in Yekaterinburg demand that Pakistan eliminate terrorist-training camps on its territory, this should be music to Indian ears overcoming fears of the Indian leadership towards such security alliances. Yet these are early days of a larger Indian role in SCO.

Given the dominating role played by China in the SCO, India may remain a hedging rather than an influential member of the SCO community for China would not like to provide space for its competitor in the Asian region in the future, a strong foothold in Central Asia. However Russia and the Central Asian states would like to use this rivalry to advantage to undermine growing Chinese influence in the region. How this plays out will largely depend on the manner in which India’s growth trajectory progresses. The SCO provides India a forum to mark up its presence in Central Asia, New Delhi must cease this opportunity and make good for bilateralism and multilateralism in diplomacy is the way ahead.

Iran Elections Expose Simmering Clerical Disharmony

The Iranian people have been under US led Western siege since 1979 when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini led Shia revolution ousted Shah Reza Pehelavi, US gendarme in the Middle East. The memories of 444 days of hostage taking of US embassy personnel in Tehran by the Iranian student revolutionaries and 1953 CIA and British MI6 organized coup which ousted Iran’s nationalist and popular Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq for his nationalization of British and other Western oil interests continue to color and bedevil the two sides perceptions and mistrust. According to a recent media report, Reza Pehelvi’s Queen Diba said that Washington, which had refused asylum to its ally the Shah were inclined to exchange him for the US hostages.

West, not wisely, perhaps saw in the recently concluded Presidential elections an opportunity to meddle, weaken and malign the regime in Tehran and if possible bring about a change. But it appears to be ill- timed and ill considered. Embarrassment to the ruling oligarchy in Tehran, yes. But a pro-West regime take over is most unlikely. Washington, stuck in the Iraqi quagmire, is pulling out and has little chance of success in mountainous and gritty Afghanistan either, a graveyard of empires in the past, in spite of US troops surge. Western capitalism is on fast decline.

Perhaps, the factions in ruling clerical –republican oligarchy thought that with US in a weakened position, it was time for jostling for power by unfreezing the internal political equations crystallized since 1979. On one side appears the supreme leader Ali Khamenei, President- elect Mahmoud Ahmedinejed, Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the Basiji militia and assortment of clerical groups. Mir Hossein Mousavi, the main challenger ‘s main backing comes from wily rich Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani clan and many in the clerical hierarchy while millions from the urban younger generation want change and more freedom. According to some reports another group under Parliament Speaker Alirajani, himself a son of an Ayatollah is emerging .

Perhaps the reported declining health of Ali Khamenei led the contenders for succession to use the opportunity of elections to stake their claims .Behind the demonstrations and public postures, perhaps haggling among the contenders as in a carpet bazzar might be proceeding. At his first major speech on Friday ,19 June, after the elections, Khamenei was conciliatory. While ruling out new elections firmly he praised the various faction leaders including Mousavi and Rafsanjani.

Members of Iran's influential National Security Council told the opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi on 28 June that his repeated demands for the annulment of the June 12 election results were "illogical and unethical." The council met with Moussavi along with former presidential candidates Mehdi Karrubi and Mohsen Rezaie, and former Iran President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who now chairs the Assembly of Experts.

After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iranians approved in a referendum a new constitution which combines elements of unelected religious leadership and democracy. In recent years, Iran's conservative body of appointed institutions have faced a challenge from reformist politicians directly elected by the people, but the supreme leader remains the final authority in the country.
The supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is the highest ranking political and religious authority in the country. He appoints the chiefs of posts such as the commanders of the armed forces, chief judges, prosecutors as well as six of the Islamic jurists who sit on the 12-member Guardian Council.

Ali Khamenei was selected by the Assembly of Experts in 1989.The Assembly is an 86-member chamber that monitors the highest religious leader's performance. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Khamenei's predecessor, was the inspiration and leader of the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overthrew of the Shah.

The elected president is subordinate to the appointed supreme leader and oversees economic policy and the management of national affairs. The president can sign agreements with foreign governments and approve ambassadorial appointments and, as such, is responsible for the functions of the executive. He selects the Council of Ministers which must be approved by parliament. He also chairs the Supreme National Security Council, which co-ordinates defense and security policy, although the supreme leader still has the final say on the running of the armed forces, defense and nuclear and foreign policy.

From the beginning, not all Iranians fully supported the revolution, its agenda and ham handed and many times its brutal implementation. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was a rallying point for all against the Shah ;the corroding corruption, the excesses of the Savak secret police and its backers, the CIA and USA, the hopes and aspirations of the youth for social justice, the masses suffering from inflation and sudden oil wealth driven inequities.

Khomeini provided that unflinching moral and spiritual bulwark against the Shah's armed-to-the-teeth military machine and his capacity to deny whatever concessions were demanded, and what was held out in the end as too little and too late. Many Iranians who opposed the hardliner clerics and their killjoy agenda were eliminated, forced to flee ( most of the them and their descendents are now active in Diaspora ) or went underground. Even in 1980, disenchanted, only one fourth of Iranians went to the parliamentary polls. Expectedly, many clerics, some even senior to Khomeini, like Shariatmadari, favored political parties and more freedoms. But by sheer force, the radical conservatives took over power, sometimes in spite of Khomeini.

A hubris driven, relentlessly arrogant , aggressive and hostile Washington rebuffed all attempts for cooperation by Iranian leaders like President Khatami, notably in 2003 and thus strengthened the position of conservative elements in the Iranian ruling elite. This factor was greatly responsible for Ahmedinejed’s victory in 2005 against Rafsanjani.

In the final analysis, what did the post-revolution period bring to the Iranians? Suffocating social curbs, little freedom and dwindling living standards in an oil-rich country. (Yes, Ahmedinejed did disburse oil revenues among poor in the country side) It was made worse by US policy of embargo and isolation, to teach Iranians a lesson for 1979. Now the opponents of President Ahmedinjed are making use of the 1979 tactics i.e. skillful use of Karbala - where Imam Hussein and his army and family fought and died for Islam - and other Shia imagery and caricaturing the ruling elite as the sultan or the caliph.

Unlike the picture painted by corporate western media ,while under duress of dress code and other restrictions ,the women in Iran are quite free and equal partners in economic and political life and fight for their rights. Once women demanding equal freedom as men even gate crashed into football stadium, where only men were let in to felicitate a returning Iranian team which had won abroad.

A Hindutva ideologue journalist Swapan Dasgupta was quite struck by what he saw in Iran in 1999. He said, ”Much more of a discovery was the remarkable extent to which the Iranian economy was powered by women. The sartorial restrictions — the ubiquitous head scarves and the occasional full chador — appeared as needless restrictions on personal freedom. However, it was remarkable that this insistence on modesty in a completely male-dominated establishment hadn’t succeeded in reducing women to complete subordination. In office after office, particularly in the private sector, it was clear that women were the driving force. “Our men are useless,” a woman graduate nominally attached to an embassy told me bluntly, “Without women this country would be in an even worse state. Maybe she was exaggerating but I suspect she was pointing to something that Iran-watchers have been slow to realize: the growing mismatch between the economic role of women and their role in the power structure” In many faculties in the universities more girls than boys are enrolled.

Yes, there is great yearning among young men and women, imbued with Western culture and values who want more freedoms like yuppie generation everywhere. They are perhaps being exploited in the fight between the ruling factions for demonstrating, encouraged and abetted from abroad by the Diaspora and western propaganda machines like BBC and CNN as well as the print media in the West , mostly corporate or government controlled. Unfortunately Indian media is a poor copycat of the west in this and other matters breathlessly recycling what BBC, CNN or Economist or New York Times gurgle.

A young bachelor Asian diplomat, who was posted from Tehran to Bucharest, full of good looking but pragmatic girls, could not establish personal intimate relationships. He had found no such difficulty in Iran’s capital Tehran, in spite of the moral police .The clever Iranians, who invented Takkyia, can find ways to go around obstacles. Finally the Asian diplomat called over his Iranian girl friend to Istanbul to spend some time together.

A big power in pre-colonial era, Iran remains a key player which ha , can and would influence events in the region. US led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have unwittingly strengthened Tehran’s power and reach. Washington first removed anti-Shia fanatic Sunni Taliban in the east in Afghanistan and then installed ironically a pro-Iran Shia dominated regime in Baghdad after the removal and lynching of Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein under its watch. Iran’s alliance with Syria, financial and other support to Shia Hezbollah which has deep roots in Lebanon and support for Hamas in Gaza, elected in 2006 in the freest elections in Palestine testify to Tehran’s influence in the region and are obstacles in Western plans to dominate the strategic space and energy resources in the Middle East.

The rise of Iran and its allies has been watched in dismay by Washington’s subservient Sunni Arab allies in the region, who normally do not hold elections or rig them, with not a squeak heard from the West .Many have sizable Shia populations. They are watching the current events in Iran in fear and awe .After Hezbollah had repulsed the so called ‘invincible’ Israeli commandoes in South Lebanon in the 2006 war ,Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Iran President Ahmedinejed became the top most popular leaders even among the Sunni Arab masses sending shivers down the spine of Sunni rulers in the region.

With a population nearing 70 million, just a fourth India's size in area and strategically located, Iran's reach to influence regional and world events remains as durable as ever. But Iranians, an ethnic mix, may not easily stand the test of territorial and linguistic loyalty. Only half speak Persian, a quarter, like Kurds etc, allied languages, the rest mostly Turkic Azeri. Iran has twice the number Azeri speakers as Azerbaijan. It has one fourth the number of Turkomens compared to Turkmenistan. Then there are Arabs and others, even Dravidian Brahui-speaking Balochis. Mousavi the challenger, like Ali Khamenei is Turkic -Azeri speaking. So religion , apart from its ancient civilization remains a major cementing factor in the nation state.

The Parthians, Achemenean and Sasanians of Persia had contested the Roman and Byzantine empires with Palestine, Syria and Iraq mostly under their sway. Iran remained strategically crucial even during the colonial era during the rivalry between Russian empire and the British empire, the latter ruled from India, before Washington supplanted London as the premier western imperial power after WW II.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Tehran has become even more crucial in the ongoing struggle between US led West and the East to gain control over former Soviet republics in the Caspian and central Asia and their resources. Revived under Vladimir Putin, Russia and China, a rising economic power house, realizing the implications of western strategic moves of replacing the rulers in the region with puppets through franchised street revolutions as in Serbia, Georgia , Ukraine and failed attempts closer home in Belarus, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have joined hands and strengthened the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), originally established to coordinate efforts against smuggling ,border problems and terrorism .It is now evolving into an organization to counter the eastward expanding NATO, which would like to put its soldiers right at the borders of Russia and China and surround them further.

Iran, with Observer status in SCO and keen to become a full member, is the keystone in the strategic calculus of the West-East confrontation in the Middle East, the Caspian and the central Asian region. Hence, somewhat ludicrous attempts for a regime change in Tehran by the West , which compares the demonstrations in Tehran with the 1979 revolution while hoping for a 1953 like shift. An impossible proposition by any stretch of imagination.


Ahmedinejed in Yekaterinburg for SCO summit


It was noteworthy that in spite of the massive demonstrations and tense situation at home, Ahmadinejed attended the SCO summit in the Siberian city of Yekaterinburg .

The "age of empires has ended" and the "international capitalist order is retreating," declared a beaming Ahmadinejed, speaking in Yekaterinburg before an audience that included the top leaders of member SCO countries Russia, China, and others and Observer countries leaders like Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari .

In a closed-door meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev , Ahmadinejed reportedly explained his position on the recently concluded elections. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Rybakov later told journalists that Iran's elections was an "internal affair," adding that "we welcome [Ahmedinejed] on Russian soil and see it as symbolic that he made his first visit to Russia. This allows hope for progress in bilateral affairs." Thus clear lines have been drawn in the West East confrontation.

US franchised revolutions in former Communist and Socialist countries

Like Macdonalds and other franchises , US and the West have developed a model for regime change via street revolutions to install puppet rulers. Let me quote from my article of 5 January , 2005 after elections in Ukraine UKRAINE: ANOTHER KEY STAGE IN EAST –WEST STRATEGIC BATTLE http://www.saag.org/papers13/paper1212.html


“West’s Franchised revolutions:

“Elections are a moment of triumph,” said USA Today. It added that “ the potential is clear: Ukraine's Orange Revolution was fueled by young voters in Kiev, who created Web sites and wrote rap songs to inspire voters. They ate at the McDonald's off Independence Square and lined up at Coca-Cola kiosks for drinks. The Orange Revolution is the latest in what appears to be a slow trend toward more democracy among the former Soviet republics and satellite states, including Georgia in 2003, Serbia in 2000 and years earlier in the Czech Republic and Poland.”

Yes, the same tactics were applied by the US triumphantly in Serbia in 2000 to topple Slobodan Milosevic. Michael Kozak, the US ambassador in Minsk, then sought to emulate the success in elections in Belarus against the authoritarian Alexander Lukashenko, but failed.

There have been many write ups in The Guardian, Globalsearch and other websites which have documented western agencies’ support to Ukraine President Yushchenko. According to New Statesman Yushchenko was supported covertly by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Freedom House and George Soros' Open Society Institute, the very entities, which had helped oust Shevardnadze last year. The NED has four affiliate institutes: The International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), and the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS). They” provide technical assistance to aspiring democrats worldwide."

“In Ukraine, the NED and its constituent organizations funded Yushchenko's party Nasha Ukraina (Our Ukraine), as well as the Kiev Press Club. Freedom House, along with “The Independent Republican Institute (IRI) “ were involved in assessing the "fairness of elections and their results". IRI had its staff in "poll watching" in 9 districts, and local staff in all 25 districts. "There are professionals outside election monitors from bodies such as the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, but the Ukrainian poll, like its predecessors, also featured thousands of local election monitors trained and paid by western groups. ... They also organised exit polls which gave Yushchenko an 11-point lead and set the agenda for much of what has followed."

“Of course, western media and governments are committed to the "Freedom of the Press". They organize exit polls and then feed disinformation into the Western news chain, create and fund "pro-Western", "pro-reform" student groups, who then organize mass displays of civil disobedience. (Read Traynor, in Guardian) “In the Ukraine, the Pora Youth movement ("Its Time") funded by the Soros Open Society Institute is part of that process with more than 10,000 activists. Supported by the Freedom of Choice Coalition of Ukrainian NGOs, Pora is modeled on Serbia's Otpor and Georgia's Kmara. The Freedom of Choice Coalition acts as an Umbrella organization. It is directly supported by the US and British embassies in Kiev as well as by Germany, through the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (a foundation linked to the ruling Social Democrats).

“The exit polls are important because they help seize the initiative in the propaganda war with the regime, invariably appearing first, receiving wide media coverage and putting the onus on the attacked regime to respond. And how to react when the incumbent regime tries to steal a lost election. The advice was to stay calm and cool but organize mass displays of civil disobedience, which must remain peaceful but could invite violent suppression. [Mousavi declared his victory even before the polls were complete]

”The US has now adapted and perfected the latest communication techniques to apply to post-Soviet states to bring about desirable changes. "Instruments of democracy" are used to topple unpopular dictators or unfriendly regimes, once a successor candidate friendly to the West has been groomed. The Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored Third World uprisings of the Cold War days to remove prime minister Mohammed Mossadaq of Iran, who had nationalized its oil resources, and of Salvador Allende of Chile, which brought US favorite General Augusto Pinochet to power, a man whose crimes are still being catalogued and looked into, are now passé. “ [US President Obama in his address to Muslims in Cairo recently admitted Washington’s role in ousting Mossadaq]


Election results and facts and figures


The interior minister, Sadeq Mahsouli, declared an overwhelming victory of 62.63% to Mir Hussain Mousavi's 33.75%.The turnout was a record 85 percent of Iran's 46.2 million eligible voters. Two other candidates received only a fraction of the vote. In 2005 Ahmedinjed had won only in second the round but by almost the same margin against Rafsanjani who is the main backer of Mousavi , apart from bleeding hearts in USA and Europe promoting democracy in Iraq in Middle East and elsewhere. Allowed two terms only all presidents have won twice so far . Even Western media agreed that the President was very popular in the rural areas where people benefited from his policies. If Mousavi’s rally was attended by 100,000 Iranians in uptown Tehran aka South Delhi then Ahmadinjad’s rally attracted 600,000 people in down south Tehran aka East Delhi Trilokpuri and Patpatganj poor areas .But the latter was not covered by Western media .

After the results ,Ali Khamenei urged all Iranians "including yesterday's competitors" to support the re-elected president. He described the count as a "real celebration", praised the high turnout of 85% and called for calm. "Enemies may want to spoil the sweetness of this event... with some kind of ill-intentioned provocations," said Ali Khamenei.

Commented a western paper .”There were, of course, some important constituencies that took satisfaction from the outcome. Domestically, Mr. Ahmadinejad appealed to the fears of the more pious and poor who found change unsettling. This included those alarmed by the days of political street carnival preceding the election and those (not just men) put off by Mr. Moussavi’s attention to the traditional, second-class role of women in this paternalistic quasi-theocracy.

“They were joined by the civil servants, police officers and paramilitary troops, and the pensioners who all enjoyed the incumbent’s oil-financed generosity to his base, by those who relished his name-naming attack on corruption and by those who took some pride in his defiance of the West, however ham-handed.

“Outside Iran, the result was comforting to hawks in Israel and some Western capitals who feared that a more congenial president of Iran would cause the rest of the world to let down its guard against a country galloping toward nuclear weapons capability. Moussavi, while promising a more conciliatory foreign policy, did not disavow the country’s nuclear-processing project, which Iran insists is for civilian ends alone. { John Kerry , head of US Senate foreign affairs committee and presidential loser in 2004 admitted that Iran had the right to enrich Uranium for power generation under NPT}

“Among downcast Iranian journalists and academics, the chatter focused on why the interlocking collective leadership of clerics, military officers and politicians, without whose acquiescence little important happens in Iran, decided to stick with Mr. Ahmadinejad. Did they panic at the unexpected passion for change that arose in the closing weeks of the Moussavi campaign? Did Mr. Moussavi go too far in his promises of women’s rights, civil freedom and a more conciliatory approach to the West? Or was the surge an illusion after all, the product of wishful thinking?

But soon all hell broke loose specially abroad ; in USA in right wing circles and Neo-Cons ,Europe encouraged by the defiant stand taken by Mousavi , no doubt cheered by his supporters at home . Almost echoing the steps laid out for a US franchised street revolutions ,even before the close of the voting Mousavi declared victory .He warned of "tyranny" and protested that the result was rigged . "The result of such performance by some officials will jeopardise the pillars of the Islamic Republic and will establish tyranny," he added.


Propaganda abroad and demonstrations in Iran


According to Mehdi Yahyanejad, manager of a Farsi-language news site based in Los Angeles, “Twitter’s impact inside Iran is zero..here, there is lots of buzz, but once you look . . . you see most of it are Americans tweeting among themselves.” The Alexa rankings confirm that Twitter’s penetration in Iran is nearly 0%.

[In a blog entry, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone cited Iran as a reason for delaying "a critical network upgrade" .The maintenance, as originally scheduled, would have disrupted Twitter service in Tehran The State Department's request to postpone upgrading contrasts with comments from President Obama that the United States would not get involved in the matter.]

Western media led by BBC and European leaders went ballistic about the so called ‘stolen election’, basing reports mostly on twitters. Unfortunately such western disinformation is lapped up by lazy and enslaved Indian media barring some exceptions. Indian media led by The Indian Express treat York Times columnist Thomas Friedman like a media icon. Friedman seized on the Mousavi campaign's green color scheme and declared the movement "Iran's Green Revolution to end its theocracy".

Among other things , he had said ,’This war [in Iraq] is the most important liberal, revolutionary U.S. democracy-building project since the Marshall Plan. ... it is one of the noblest things this country has ever attempted abroad." —New York Times 30 November 2003. More than a million Iraqis have been killed since the invasion and brutal occupation , creating more than a million widows , 4 million orphans , 4 million refugees and destroying the country for generations .There is little coverage of this in western or Indian media .Every other day dozens of people are being killed in Iraq , more than 200 this week ,but western media has instead gone in overdrive over 17 Iranians killed in street revolutions , encouraged and inspired by the west.

Wrote Seumas Milne in the Guardian of 18 June --“ the western media, whose cameras focus so lovingly on Tehran's gilded youth and for whom Ahmadinejad is nothing but a Holocaust-denying fanatic. The other Ahmadinejad, who is seen to stand up for the country's independence, expose elite corruption on TV and use Iran's oil wealth to boost the incomes of the poor majority, is largely invisible abroad.

“While Mousavi promised market reforms and privatization, more personal freedom and better relations with the west, the president increased pensions and public sector wages and handed out cheap loans. So it's hardly surprising that Ahmadinejad should have a solid base among the working class, the religious, small town and rural poor – or that he might have achieved a similar majority to that of his first election in 2005. That's what one of the few genuinely independent polls (the US-based Ballen-Doherty survey) predicted last month, when the Times reported Ahmadinejad was "expected to win".

“But such details have got lost as the pressure has built in Tehran for a "green revolution" amid unsubstantiated claims that the election was stolen. The strongest evidence appears to be some surprising regional results and the speed of the official announcement, triggered by Mousavi's declaration that he was the winner before the polls closed. But most official figures don't look so ­implausible – Mousavi won Tehran, for instance, by 2.2m votes to 1.8m – and it's hard to believe that rigging alone could account for the 11 million-vote gap between the main contenders.”
Voting Fraud!

Writing in ‘Counterpunch” of 22 June , Esam Al-Amin said that much of the allegations of election fraud have been just that: unsubstantiated accusations. No one has yet been able to provide a solid shred of evidence of wide scale fraud that would have garnered eleven million votes for one candidate over his opponent. More than thirty pre-election polls were conducted in Iran since President Ahmadinejed and his main opponent, Mousavi, announced their candidacies in early March 2009. The polls varied widely between the two opponents, but if one were to average their results, Ahmadinejed would still come out on top.

Officially, President Ahmadinejed received 24.5 million votes to Mousavi’s 13.2 million votes, or 62.6 per cent to 33.8 per cent of the total votes, respectively. In fact, this result mirrored the 2005 elections when Ahmadinejad received 61.7 per cent to former President Hashemi Rafsanjani’s 35.9 per cent in the runoff elections. Two other minor candidates, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohsen Rezaee, received the rest of the votes in this election.

There were a total of 45,713 ballot boxes that were set up in cities, towns and villages across Iran. With 39.2 million ballots cast, there were less than 860 ballots per box. Unlike other countries where voters can cast their ballots on several candidates and issues in a single election, Iranian voters had only one choice to consider: their presidential candidate. Why would it take more than an hour or two to count 860 ballots per poll? After the count, the results were then reported electronically to the Ministry of the Interior in Tehran. So the charge that the results were announced too quickly does not hold good. As for the charge that more than 50 polling stations had more than 100 % voters registered. But according to Iranian law voters can vote any where which workers away from place of registration would do.

Moreover, while Ahmadinejad belongs to an active political party that has already won several elections since 2003, Mousavi is an independent candidate who emerged on the political scene just three months ago, after a 20-year hiatus. It was clear during the campaign that Ahmadinejad had a nationwide campaign operation. He made over sixty campaign trips throughout Iran in less than twelve weeks, while his opponent campaigned only in the major cities, and lacked a sophisticated campaign apparatus.


Right to protest


To the whole world it was clear in 2000 that the US Presidential election was publicly stolen with Florida governor Jeff Bush, George Bush’s brother stopping counting of votes which were predominantly in Democrat party areas. US Supreme Court for an all time black stain on its record allowed that election to be stolen. And would have US allowed the kind of statements and interference that the West is now indulging in.

Western leaders led by US President Obama have praised the bravery of protesters in Iran in the face of "outrageous" violence. This is really rich .At the drop of a hat British police raid homes of suspected Muslims, who in the absence of any proof are then released. As for the demands of Western leaders in USA, UK and Europe that Iranians be allowed freedom to protest, Prof Juan Cole of the university of Michigan who has generally supported the western viewpoint and the demonstrators said in his blog, "Moreover, very unfortunately, US politicians are no longer in a position to lecture other countries about their human rights. The kind of unlicensed, city-wide demonstrations being held in Tehran last week would not be allowed to be held in the United States.

Senator John McCain led the charge against Obama for not having sufficiently intervened in Iran. At the Republican National Committee convention in St. Paul, 250 protesters were arrested shortly before John McCain took the podium. Most were innocent activists and even journalists. Amy Goodman and her staff were assaulted. In New York in 2004, 'protest zones' were assigned, and 1800 protesters were arrested, who have now been awarded civil damages by the courts. Spontaneous, city-wide demonstrations outside designated 'protest zones' would be illegal in New York City, apparently. In fact, the Republican National Committee has undertaken to pay for the cost of any lawsuits by wronged protesters, which many observers fear will make the police more aggressive, since they will know that their municipal authorities will not have to pay for civil damages.

The number of demonstrators arrested in Tehran on Saturday is estimated at 550 or so, which is less than those arrested by the NYPD for protesting Bush policies in 2004.


US interference

President Obama said the United States "is not at all interfering in Iran's affairs," rejecting charges of meddling that were renewed by Iranian President Ahmadinejad. Asked how the democracy promotion initiatives square with the president's statement, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said, "Let's be clear: The United States does not fund any movement, faction or political party in Iran. We support … universal principles of human rights, freedom of speech, and rule of law. "State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said, "Respecting Iran's sovereignty does not mean our silence on issues of fundamental rights and freedoms, such as the right to peacefully protest." [Some cheek]

USA’s National Endowment for Democracy has been active in Iran, granting hundreds of thousands of dollars to Iranian groups. From 2005 to 2007, NED gave $345,000 to the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation (ABF). The group claims “no political affiliation” on its website, but is named for the founder of the National Movement of the Iranian Resistance (NAMIR), an opposition group to the clerical regime founded in 1980. According to the group’s website, Boroumand was murdered by agents of the Iranian government in Paris, France, in 1991. The website is registered to the Boroumand Foundation, listed at Suite 357, 3220 N ST., NW, Washington, D.C

Another recipient of NED grants is the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), which received $25,000 in 2002, $64,000 in 2005, and $107,000 in 2006. The 2002 grant was to carry out a “media training workshop” to train participants representing various civic groups in public relations. The 2005 money was given in part to “strengthen the capacity of civic organizations in Iran”, including by advising Iranian groups on “foreign donor relations.” The 2006 grant was similarly designed to “foster cooperation between Iranian NGOs and the international civil society community and to strengthen the institutional capacity of NGOs in Iran.

Former Pakistan Military Chief Gen Aslam Beg told Radio Pashto that according to irrefutable evidence US granted US$ 400 million to anti-Iran organization.

There is no debate over the fact that a CIA covert destabilization campaign inside Iran has been going on for two years. US Military, intelligence, and congressional sources say a secret war is being vamped to bring down the current Iranian leadership. This involves funding anti-government terrorist groups inside Iran, such as Jundullah and the MEK/MKO.

While president Obama was quick to deny interference ,arch imperialists like Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski have hinted that US interests are currently operating to advance their own agendas with regards to Iran and the Middle East.

Brent Scowcroft the United States National Security Advisor told Josh Rushing, the host of Al Jazeera’s programme Fault Lines, that aiding the protesters in Iran would provoke a more intense crackdown by the government in Tehran and that the Revolutionary Guard, the militias, and so on, and the police, are completely unified. “Isn’t it naive to think that the US doesn’t have some kind of intelligence operatives on the ground in Iran?” asked Al Jazeera’s Rushing. “Of course we do.” Scowcroft replied.

In any case US is not too well prepared "[The revolution] was 30 years ago," said ambassador Nick Burns, a former senior State Department official "We have a whole generation of foreign service officers who didn't learn Farsi." Apart from some diplomatic contacts with Iran on matters such as Afghanistan - before 2003 when Bush placed Iran in the "axis of evil" - and later Iraq, those contacts were uncommon and narrow in scope. "I was the point person on Iran from 2005 to 2008, and I never once met an Iranian official," said Burns. The resulting knowledge deficit has haunted attempts at easing relations.

Brooking Institution fellow Suzanne Maloney said that reliable information about elite wrangling was at a minimum because those with knowledge and a stake in the process were unlikely to get on "international phone lines" or the Internet to distribute the information around the globe.

Asieh Mir, an Iranian who formerly worked in government and civil society there and who now is a fellow at the US Institute of Peace (USIP), says that the battle being waged in Iran is between two factions within the regime. Even Mousavi's faction, she says, seeks a "workable democracy for Iran that holds to Islamic values" and does not necessarily want to install a democracy in the Western sense.

Iranian-American journalist and author Hooman Majd, one of the best-connected Western journalists in Iran, rejects the neo-conservative mantras as an example of ignorance about Iran and an inability to get over the Bush goal of regime change. "The neo-cons know nothing about Iran, nothing about the culture of Iran," Majd told Salon.com. "They have no interest in understanding Iran, in speaking to any Iranian other than Iranian exiles who support the idea of invasions - I'll call them Iranian Chalabis," a reference to now-disgraced neo-conservative darling Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi, who reportedly provided some of the bad intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs and was slated for a prominent post-invasion role in Iraq.


British interference

Tehran has singled out US poodle Britain for interference "Great Britain has plotted against the presidential election for more than two years," Manouchehr Mottaki, the foreign minister, told diplomats in Tehran. "We witnessed an influx of people [from Britain] before the election. Elements linked to the British secret service were flying in in droves."

Iran’s interior minister, Sadeq Mahsouli also accused Western intelligence of backing the riots in Iran. He claimed that U.S., U.K., and Israeli interests are behind the unrest. “Britain, America and the Zionist regime (Israel) were behind the recent unrest in Tehran,” the Interior Minister was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars News Agency. Many of the rioters were in contact with America, CIA and the MKO and are being fed by their financial resources,” he said

London’s offices of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), one of the fiercest opponents of the Tehran regime, has been accused by Iran of planting a bomb at a Tehran petrol station and sending a suicide bomber to the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The NCRI, officially based in Paris might have links with British intelligence since it is affiliated to the People's Mujahedeen of Iran, a proscribed organization that remains on terrorism watch list

One of the longest running sores in bilateral ties is Tehran's allegations of MI6 backing for the Ahwaz League, a group that fights for the independence of the Arab province of Khuzestan, in south-east Iran. British agents were quite active there when the British were based in Basra.
A website, run by the British Ahwazi Friendship Society, says "Ahwaz City is in turmoil with 'many, many dead' at the hands of police and the Bassiji, supported by the Lebanese Hizbollah, according to numerous independent eye-witness accounts,"


Conclusion

Says Kahveji , a well informed journalist ;” The results of the election show that Mousavi had the support of 14 million people. This is a grassroots movement for change in Iran. Among this 14 million people, prominent intellectuals, writers, artists, university students, professors and educated and young urbanites are distinguishable. Crushing the protests equates to suppressing a large section of society, leaving people with utmost rage and deep resentment towards the system.

“The reality unobserved by the Western media is that today's crisis is not about people against a totalitarian regime. Rather, it is a struggle between two factions of society. One faction is seeking a dramatic liberalization of society, while the other advocates strict adherence to religious principles. This is an extraordinarily unique situation. This is tradition against modernity.

”The battle between the two was fierce and merciless during the shah's time before his ouster in 1979. It was the root cause of the revolution, and has continued to stay that way to the present, and will extend into the foreseeable future.”

If anything Ahmedinejed’s ’s re-election indicates the diminishing of the influence of the Clerics , since his election four years ago heralded coming into power of a pure revolutionary risen from the ranks without the powerful clerical connections most other members in the oligarchy boast of .While protests are likely to continue , there is not going to be any fresh election .How ever , Ahmedinejed should look into the claustrophobic environment that suffocates the young and upwardly mobile. He should take into account aspirations of the younger generation in the cities like Tehran , who form the middle class and are vital part in the process of economic development , which Iran badly needs.

K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies.