Erdogan shows democratic transition in Turkey is impossible

[Baghial]

There is no longer any doubt that Recep Tayyip Erdogan is an autocrat and an Islamist. He seeks to monopolize power, accumulate wealth for his immediate family, and change the principles upon which Turkish society operates. Turkey, however, like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, maintains a strange romanticism among many of the diplomats who served there. The hospitality in each country is legendary, and each offers golden parachutes to former ambassadors in terms of lobbying or business opportunities, consultancies, or open doors to fundraising for those entering the university, think tank, or nonprofit realm. The result is vocal informal lobbies of those sympathetic to these national narratives within the U.S. policy debate.


Turkey’s behavior has, for decades, been inexcusable: support for al Qaeda affiliates and the Islamic State, ethnic cleansing against the Kurds in Syria and, more recently, the bombardment of Kurdish villages in Iraq hampering resettlement efforts for those displaced by the Islamic State, theft of natural resources from Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone, sanctions-busting with Iran, increased defense links with Russia, anti-American incitement, and a full-scale war on freedom of press and thought. Still, a small Turkey cabal within the State Department and some fellow travelers outside continue to apologize for Turkish behavior. They offer three main lines of argument.

The first is that the United States has not been sensitive to Turkey’s security concerns, especially with regard to the Pentagon’s partnership with Syrian Kurds. That, of course, puts the cart before the horse because the U.S. only partnered with Syrian Kurds when Turkey’s double-game became apparent.

The second accepts that Erdogan is a problem, but believes that the U.S.-Turkey relationship is too important to lose and hope that Turkey can return to the status quo ante after Erdogan’s death. This ignores the tremendous transformation Erdogan has engineered. After 17 years in power, 30 million Turks have been educated under the Turkish dictator, and nearly everyone serving in the military owes his or her career to the Turkish leader.

The third group will grasp upon any hope that Turkey’s democracy will reboot and the opposition can ultimately unseat or at least constrain Erdoğan. This group got new hope when, in June 2019, the main opposition Republican People’s Party beat out Erdogan’s party in both Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey’s two largest cities.

The problem with such wishful thinking is that it assumes Erdogan will play fair, although there is nothing in his character or record to believe he will abandon his corruption, nepotism, arrogance, his 1,100-room palace, or his religious agenda just because Turks do not agree with him or wish to hold him to account for Turkey’s failing economy.

A case in point occurred last weekend. Turkey’s press freedom has plummeted over Erdogan’s tenure. One of only two television stations that still sometimes opposes Erdogan and the ruling party twice ran afoul of Erdogan in the past week for the mildest of criticisms. In the first instance, a Republican People’s Party parliamentarian was invited as a guest and criticized the government. That an opposition parliamentarian would voice disapproval of the ruling party is a normal occurrence in any democracy. The host nodded her head, something that anchors and interviewers do all the time to signal that they were listening.

This outraged the thin-skinned Erdogan, however. The government canceled several programs and imposed a monetary penalty.

On another program, the Istanbul provincial Republican People’s Party leader was the guest. She quipped that soon the ruling party would be leaving power. It was overstated and wishful thinking, but Erdogan is unable to accept the idea that all Turks do not adore him. The penalty for “voicing an undemocratic prediction against the will of the people"? Suspension and a penalty of 5% of the channel’s monthly income.

Optimists may hope that Erdogan’s defeat in Istanbul last year signals that Turks can reclaim their country and that democracy can still check Erdogan’s desire to rule for life and perhaps turn the reins of power over to his son or son-in-law. But the lesson Erdogan appears to have taken is not that he must listen to the people, but rather, he must punish Istanbul and become more ruthless in weeding out political opposition, real or imagined.

Source: https://www.aei.org/op-eds/erdogan-shows-democratic-transition-in-turkey-is-impossible/

 

[-blitzkrieg-]

link to the article or GTFO.

There is no longer any doubt that Recep Tayyip Erdogan is an autocrat and an Islamist. He seeks to monopolize power, accumulate wealth for his immediate family, and change the principles upon which Turkish society operates. Turkey, however, like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, maintains a strange romanticism among many of the diplomats who served there. The hospitality in each country is legendary, and each offers golden parachutes to former ambassadors in terms of lobbying or business opportunities, consultancies, or open doors to fundraising for those entering the university, think tank, or nonprofit realm. The result is vocal informal lobbies of those sympathetic to these national narratives within the U.S. policy debate.


Turkey’s behavior has, for decades, been inexcusable: support for al Qaeda affiliates and the Islamic State, ethnic cleansing against the Kurds in Syria and, more recently, the bombardment of Kurdish villages in Iraq hampering resettlement efforts for those displaced by the Islamic State, theft of natural resources from Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone, sanctions-busting with Iran, increased defense links with Russia, anti-American incitement, and a full-scale war on freedom of press and thought. Still, a small Turkey cabal within the State Department and some fellow travelers outside continue to apologize for Turkish behavior. They offer three main lines of argument.

The first is that the United States has not been sensitive to Turkey’s security concerns, especially with regard to the Pentagon’s partnership with Syrian Kurds. That, of course, puts the cart before the horse because the U.S. only partnered with Syrian Kurds when Turkey’s double-game became apparent.

The second accepts that Erdogan is a problem, but believes that the U.S.-Turkey relationship is too important to lose and hope that Turkey can return to the status quo ante after Erdogan’s death. This ignores the tremendous transformation Erdogan has engineered. After 17 years in power, 30 million Turks have been educated under the Turkish dictator, and nearly everyone serving in the military owes his or her career to the Turkish leader.

The third group will grasp upon any hope that Turkey’s democracy will reboot and the opposition can ultimately unseat or at least constrain Erdoğan. This group got new hope when, in June 2019, the main opposition Republican People’s Party beat out Erdogan’s party in both Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey’s two largest cities.

The problem with such wishful thinking is that it assumes Erdogan will play fair, although there is nothing in his character or record to believe he will abandon his corruption, nepotism, arrogance, his 1,100-room palace, or his religious agenda just because Turks do not agree with him or wish to hold him to account for Turkey’s failing economy.

A case in point occurred last weekend. Turkey’s press freedom has plummeted over Erdogan’s tenure. One of only two television stations that still sometimes opposes Erdogan and the ruling party twice ran afoul of Erdogan in the past week for the mildest of criticisms. In the first instance, a Republican People’s Party parliamentarian was invited as a guest and criticized the government. That an opposition parliamentarian would voice disapproval of the ruling party is a normal occurrence in any democracy. The host nodded her head, something that anchors and interviewers do all the time to signal that they were listening.

This outraged the thin-skinned Erdogan, however. The government canceled several programs and imposed a monetary penalty.

On another program, the Istanbul provincial Republican People’s Party leader was the guest. She quipped that soon the ruling party would be leaving power. It was overstated and wishful thinking, but Erdogan is unable to accept the idea that all Turks do not adore him. The penalty for “voicing an undemocratic prediction against the will of the people"? Suspension and a penalty of 5% of the channel’s monthly income.

Optimists may hope that Erdogan’s defeat in Istanbul last year signals that Turks can reclaim their country and that democracy can still check Erdogan’s desire to rule for life and perhaps turn the reins of power over to his son or son-in-law. But the lesson Erdogan appears to have taken is not that he must listen to the people, but rather, he must punish Istanbul and become more ruthless in weeding out political opposition, real or imagined.

your dost Michael Rubin wrote it right thats why you are trying to hide his a$$..beta share his articles on Pakistan as well and recieve our compliments..

 

[Baghial]

link to the article or GTFO.



your dost Michael Rubin wrote it right thats why you are trying to hide his a$$..beta share his articles on Pakistan as well and recieve our compliments..

YES ,Michael Rubin WROTE IT, SHOWER COMPLIMENTS PLS.





Michael Rubin
@mrubin1971
·
18h

“Erdogan shows democratic transition in Turkey is impossible” (my latest in ⁦
@dcexaminer
⁩) #Turkey #PressFreedom ⁦
@AEIfdp
⁩ #Erdogan



Erdogan shows democratic transition in Turkey is impossible
There is no longer any doubt that Recep Tayyip Erdogan is an autocrat and an Islamist. He seeks to monopolize power, accumulate wealth for his immediate family, and change the principles upon which...
washingtonexaminer.com

 

[-blitzkrieg-]

filth who try to deceive people here should be taken care of..




How China Is Humiliating Pakistan

Pakistan sees itself as a major regional power but recent events show that Beijing considers Pakistan little more than a subordinate colony to be exploited but not heard.

by Michael Rubin

Inside Pakistan, India is an obsession. Communal violence surrounding the 1947 partition of India claimed up to two million lives. India and Pakistan subsequently fought three wars: In 1965, when India retaliated for Pakistani efforts to infiltrate forces into Jammu and Kashmir, in 1971 against the backdrop of the Bangladeshi War of Independence, and again in 1999, when Indian forces pushed back against a Pakistani offensive in Kargil, along the line-of-control. As the late Princeton historian Bernard Lewis pointed out, if scholars embraced the same definition of “refugee” that the United Nations applies to Palestinians who have been displaced by Israel, then South Asia would be home to more than two hundred million refugees. Tensions remain evident across the country. In 2000, in Peshawar, a mockup of a Pakistani nuclear missile stood in the midst of a traffic circle with the slogan “I’d love to enter India” written underneath it. In the Pakistani capital of Islamabad today, giant billboard clocks mark the time since India imposed a curfew on Kashmir.


There is no shortage of anti-Indian animus within Pakistan but in recent months it has been China which has humiliated Pakistan in a manner which India never could. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the long-time leader of the All-India Muslim League and the founding father of Pakistan, conceived the new country as a land for the Muslims. Because Pakistan based its legitimacy more on religion than on ethnicity, it really is the first Islamic state of the modern era.


Pakistanis have historically been at the forefront of advocacy and action against the oppression of Muslims, real or imagined. This is what guided Pakistan to oppose Soviet designs on Afghanistan. Pakistan is among the most anti-Israel and anti-Semitic countries on earth. The Pakistani press regularly covers the plight of Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya Muslims. Pakistani charities work in Chechnya. There is no shortage of the terrorist groups Pakistan sponsors who target India and are motivated more by religion than nationalism. And, yet, when it comes to China’s incarceration of more than a million Uighur Muslims—solely because they are Muslim—Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan has been silent on one hand and on the other he has both defended China’s repression of its Muslims and persecuted for China the Uighurs in Pakistan.

Sister city twinning is a common diplomatic practice in order to advance tourism and ties between the world’s major cities. China and Pakistan have taken this to a new level with provincial twining. Recently, Pakistan’s mission in Beijing gave a draft memorandum of understanding to the Chinese foreign ministry in order to establish sister province relations between Xinjiang and Gilgit-Baltistan. Not only, therefore, is Khan cowed by Chinese pressure to the point that he must turn a blind eye to the greatest repression of Muslims in the twenty-first century but he now seeks to honor the Chinese province that is at the epicenter of Chinese anti-Muslim repression. Even if Khan is motivated by the implied threat to treat the people of the disputed Gilgit-Baltistan region like China treats the Xinjiang, that does not paper over the implied endorsement of Beijing’s Islamophobic leadership.

The coronavirus abandonment of Pakistani students in Wuhan further humiliates Pakistan. Almost every other country—including India—has evacuated its citizens from the coronavirus epicenter. While Imran Khan spends a great deal on himself, his foreign travel, and the military, he has left Pakistan’s public health infrastructure a shamble. Khan knows that corruption and disorganization mean that medical quarantine will not work in Pakistan, which is why he seeks to keep those potentially infected abroad. China, meanwhile, cares little for the Pakistanis who remain within its territory. To be Pakistani in the age of Imran Khan means to suffer in silence at the back of the line.

Pakistan’s anti-Americanism greased its turn toward China. China, meanwhile, built for Pakistan highways and a port. Pakistan allowed itself to believe that it had become the crown jewel of China’s belt-and-road policy. Now, reality should set in: Rather than preserve Pakistan’s independence and dignity by playing Beijing and Washington off-each other, successive Pakistani governments have fallen so far under China’s grasp that Pakistan is powerless to stand up for its citizens—let alone Muslims. Pakistan sees itself as a major regional power but recent events show that Beijing considers Pakistan little more than a subordinate colony to be exploited but not heard.

Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, where he researches Arab politics, the Gulf Cooperation Council, Iran, Iraq, the Kurds, terrorism, and Turkey. He concurrently teaches classes on terrorism for the FBI and on security, politics, religion, and history for U.S. and NATO military units.

Pakistan's Kashmir hypocrisy
by Michael Rubin
| August 22, 2019 12:17 PM
revoked Article 370 of the Indian constitution which protected Kashmir’s special status and tightened the Indian central government’s grip over the Muslim-majority region.


Pakistan has roundly and repeatedly condemned India’s move on Kashmir. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said that Pakistan would “teach India a lesson,” and promised to “fight until the end.” Put aside the fact that India likely never would have changed the status quo had it not been for decades of overt Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Terrorism is a tactic the states use to achieve aims at a relatively low cost. In this case, the Pakistani gamble backfired, and Khan, as well as Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, have no one but themselves to blame. Lost in the Pakistani criticism of India’s actions, however, is recognition of Pakistan’s own hypocrisy. For four and a half decades before India revoked Article 370, Pakistan stripped both Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir (as Pakistan calls the portion it occupies) of their special status.

The root of the Kashmir question rests in the 1947 partition of India. The princely state’s leaders chose to join India, a move supported by the region’s Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and many of its Muslims. Other Kashmiri Muslims, however, wanted to join Pakistan. Still others would have preferred outright independence, although this was not an option offered. The nascent Pakistani state responded by invading — first with irregular Pashtun tribesmen and then more formally with the Pakistani army, eventually occupying about 30% of the region. A UN ceasefire established a line-of-control solidifying Kashmir’s division and UN Security Council Resolution 47 called for a referendum to resolve the dispute. That referendum never happened and, despite multiple pledges to resolve the problem diplomatically, successive Pakistani governments sponsored terrorist groups to strike into India and twice, in 1965 and 1999, unsuccessfully started wars after seeking military to alter the line-of-control.

Pakistan gained control of Gilgit-Baltistan, previously called the Northern Areas and part of Jammu & Kashmir in October 1947, after the new Pakistani government infiltrated irregulars into the region.

Just as Pakistan partisans today say Kashmir’s inclusion in India is illegitimate because, it claims, the Kashmiri people never accepted Maharaja Hari Singh’s decision to join India, most of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan opposed British Major W. A. Brown’s decision to have Gilgit-Baltistan join Pakistan. Pakistan completed the evisceration of Gilgit’s popular will in the then-secret Karachi Agreement of Apr. 28, 1949, wherein the Azad Kashmir government ceded complete defense and foreign affairs control over Gilgit-Baltistan to Pakistan, a move never approved by the population of Gilgit-Baltistan. The International Crisis Group — generally no friend to India and other democracies — confirmed the persisting unpopularity of the Karachi Agreement and Pakistani rule in the region.

Pakistani occupation of Gilgit-Baltistan appears illegal, even under Pakistani law. In 1992, the Azad Kashmir High Court ordered the Azad Kashmir government to assume control of Gilgit-Baltistan since it found that Gilgit-Baltistan was part of Jammu and Kashmir. Article 257 of the Pakistani constitution, meanwhile, confirmed that Jammu and Kashmir is a disputed territory which does not belong to Pakistan.

The hypocrisy continues: In 1974, Pakistan abrogated the State Subject Rule in Gilgit-Baltistan as part of the process Islamabad initiated to change demography by transferring Sunni Muslims into what had been a predominantly Shiite-dominated region. While politics hamper accurate censuses, in 1948, the Gilgit-Baltistan region was at least 85% Shiite and Ismaili Shiite; after the 1974 State Subject Rule abrogation, the region is only 50% Shiite.

The Pakistani government has in recent years sought to blunt criticism of what, in effect, is its colonial attitude toward Gilgit-Baltistan. The 2009 Gilgit-Baltistan Self-Governance Order, for example, feigned local empowerment, but real decision-making ability remains with the appointed governor rather than the chief minister or elected assembly. Likewise, while the Gilgit Baltistan Order of 2018 in theory transferred powers to the Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly, vested extraordinary powers remain with the Prime Minister of Pakistan who retains final say on all legislation and regional policies.

There can be a real and legitimate debate about Kashmir with regard to human rights and economic opportunity. The Indian government and Indian security forces are not without flaws and problems. Kashmiris themselves may debate the revocation of Article 370. What is certain, however, is first that Pakistan’s own actions and attempts at unilateralism likely forced India’s hand. Pakistani support for terrorism not only inside Kashmir but also throughout India lost Islamabad the moral high ground decades ago which is why, despite President Trump’s ego-stroking of Khan during the Pakistani leader’s recent visit, U.S.-Pakistani ties remained strained and most American officials consider Pakistan more an adversary than an ally. More seriously, however, Pakistan has little authority to complain about India’s decision to change Kashmir’s status given that Pakistan itself created the precedent when Pakistan undermined Gilgit-Baltistan autonomy and self-governance.

Michael Rubin (@Mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Pentagon official.

Winning in Afghanistan Requires Taking the Fight to Pakistan

The stability of Afghanistan—and the denial of its territory to terrorist groups—requires a good-faith Pakistani agreement to cease backing extremists, and after nearly two decades, this means, coercing Pakistan.

by Michael Rubin

U.S. Special Envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad was in Washington, DC last week to brief Capitol Hill on his ongoing talks with the Taliban. The senators were unimpressed, and with reason. There any many flaws in Khalilzad’s plan: It revives the pre-9/11 formula of legitimizing Taliban rule in exchange for a Taliban pledge to close terror camps; it undercuts the legitimacy of the elected Afghan government; and it discounts the Taliban’s long history of insincere diplomacy and fleeting commitments. The biggest problem with Khalilzad’s approach, however, is it ignores a simple fact: There can be no peace in Afghanistan so long as Pakistan chooses to undercut Afghan stability and support extremism. The missing piece to the Khalilzad strategy, therefore, is how to bring Pakistan to heel.


Why Pakistan Supports Radicalism


Pakistan has been a problem for decades. While a Cold War ally, the distrust toward the United States among ordinary Pakistanis and the country’s elite is pronounced. Pakistani officials understand that the Truman administration only allied with Pakistan after India spurned the United States. Pakistani officials have also convinced themselves that Washington betrayed their country in both 1965 and 1971 when the United States did not come to Pakistan’s rescue during its wars with India. From Pakistan’s perspective, India was the aggressor and the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) obliged the United States to enter the conflict. From the U.S. perspective, however, Pakistan initiated the fight, the United States was therefore not obliged and, regardless, U.S. forces were busy in Southeast Asia.

The 1971 secession of Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) shook Pakistan to its core. After all, Pakistan was meant to be an Islamic state, but Bengali succession showed both how potent ethnic nationalism was, and how it posed an existential threat to the country. It was then that the Pakistani military broadly and the Inter-Services Intelligence specifically concluded that Pakistani security depended upon the spread of radical Islamism so that religion could trump ethnicity as the primary identity across the country.

This impacted Afghanistan for the simple reason that Pakistani authorities fear a strong, stable Afghanistan could become a magnet for Pakistan’s own Pashtun minority. After the Soviet invasion, Pakistan channeled aid exclusively to more religious rather than nationalist Afghan groups empowering the “Peshawar Seven” Mujahedin over a far broader array of anti-Soviet opposition. The United States had little choice but to go along since delivering aid to Afghanistan was even more dependent upon Pakistan than it is now (given that Iran was in the throes of revolution and Central Asian states were still under Soviet domination).

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Pakistan supported first Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (an Islamist, ethnic Pashtun, and sociopath) long after the United States abandoned him and then Pakistan co-opted the Taliban (whom the United States never supported, despite conventional wisdom to the contrary). While the George W. Bush administration pushed Hamid Karzai to power in the hope that he could tie Afghanistan’s myriad strands together, the Pakistani government from the start supported the Taliban as a hedge against Afghan stability and security. Regardless of what Pakistani diplomats and political officials might have said, the ISI continued to support the Taliban and more radical groups operating in Afghanistan and, more broadly, against the United States.

How to Solve the Pakistan Problem

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So what to do? Neither President Donald Trump nor, for that matter, the American electorate wants to stay in Afghanistan into perpetuity, at a cost of more than $30 billion per year. That, however, does not make negotiating a bad deal or a thinly veiled surrender wise. The United States is in Afghanistan for a reason—to prevent its territory from being used by Al Qaeda or like-minded groups to strike at the United States. To abandon Afghanistan to a force that cooperates fist-in-glove with Al Qaeda simply negates the sacrifice already made. Nor are Britain’s Irish Republican Army negotiations and Good Friday accords a useful analogy for the Afghanistan peace process for the simple fact that Northern Ireland never bordered a country like Pakistan.

If the Afghan peace process is to succeed, then the United States must bring the full weight of leverage to bear on Pakistan in order to win a cessation of Pakistani support for the Taliban. Despite decades of tension, and occasional sanctions mostly applied over the nuclear issue, the United States has many options in its diplomatic arsenal as yet unused in its quest to compel Pakistan to reduce support to the Taliban or to raise the cost of defiance.

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First, Pakistan might be put on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) blacklist given its extensive ties to terror groups. Simply put, there is no reason why Pakistan should receive a pass for diplomatic convenience, especially when it has shown a consistent unwillingness to act with good will.

Second, in 2004, the George W. Bush administration designated Pakistan “a Major Non-NATO Ally.” This move provided Islamabad with benefits in both defense purchasing and cooperation and was also a mark of confidence in Pakistan. Rescinding such designation would accordingly signal a lack of confidence.


Third, Pakistan continues, with U.S. support, to receive International Monetary Fund and World Bank loans to help resolve its balance-of-payments problems, most recently negotiating a $6 billion IMF loan. Given the amount Pakistan spends on militancy support, the future U.S. position should be to oppose all such loans or at least make them contingent on an end to any assistance to the Taliban. Consider that to be the Pakistan equivalent of the Taylor Force Act.

It may be unwise to target the entirety of Pakistan for what, in reality, are the actions of a handful of specific military officers and ISI veterans well known to the United States. These individuals—and terror-supporting politicians—might be individually designated, much as Iranian Qods Force head Qassem Soleimani is.

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The Trump administration might also privately threaten Pakistan with a State Sponsor of Terrorism designation which, by any objective measure it deserves. Public declaration of intent or even consideration would rock Pakistani markets.

Finally, in its counterterrorism fight in Afghanistan, U.S. forces have yet to strike at Afghan Taliban bases in Pakistan. While the U.S. military has violated Pakistani territory—for example, in the mission to kill Osama bin Laden whom Pakistani authorities were hiding—it has never taken the Afghanistan fight into Pakistan. It may be time to do so, if only to signal to Pakistan the costs of providing safe haven to the Taliban and also to signal to Islamabad that Pakistan will not be immune from terror camp targeting as U.S. counterterrorism strategy in Afghanistan shifts from occupation to an over-the-horizon posture. Pakistan may be a nuclear power, but this is a move which India has used to great effect to demonstrate the consequences of Pakistani terror support.

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Not everything must be coercion, however. Afghanistan’s stability depends on its ability to grow its economy, but Pakistan’s refusal to enable Afghanistan to export its produce overland to India undercuts Afghanistan’s economy and pushes Afghanistan into greater cooperation with Iran. Perhaps, then, the incentive for more positive Pakistani behavior would be an agreement to trade Afghan access to India in exchange to Pakistani access through Afghanistan to Central Asia. South Asia is one of the least economically integrated regions on earth. For the sake of peace, it is important to rectify this.

Teetering on the Brink of Failure

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President Donald Trump and National Security Advisor John Bolton have prided themselves on extricating themselves from treaties and agreements which constrain and do not benefit the United States. Both criticized President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry for accepting a bad deal over no deal with Iran. It is ironic, then, that Trump and Khalilzad seem to be pushing forward with a deal that would make the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) look loophole-proof.

At the same time, remaining in Afghanistan in perpetuity is unwise both militarily and economically. Diplomacy plays a role, but it cannot work if it blinds policymakers to reality: Pakistan is not an ally and should not be treated as one. Had it not been for Pakistani policy, Afghanistan would likely be far more stable today. The stability of Afghanistan—and the denial of its territory to terrorist groups—requires a good-faith Pakistani agreement to cease backing extremists, and after nearly two decades, this means, coercing Pakistan rather than asking nicely. Certainly, there are risks to this approach. The United States must be concerned about pushing Pakistan into China’s camp, for example, but the reality is Pakistan’s move toward China has occurred regardless of U.S. action, not because of it. Therefore, that should be a brake on coercion now. Absent any strategy to bring Pakistan in line, it is important that Trump and Bolton call the Khalilzad process what it is: window dressing on surrender and an invitation to further terrorism against the American homeland.

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Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Image: Reuters.

Pakistan Is Showing U.S. Enemies How to Defeat America

Simply put, the U.S. willingness to accept a flawed ‘peace’ deal with the Taliban has convinced Taliban sponsors within Pakistan’s military and all-powerful intelligence service not only that Washington is weak and its concerns not worthy of serious attention, but also that Pakistan can gratuitously humiliate the United States as Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan pivots the country further into China’s orbit.

by Michael Rubin

In 1985, when Hezbollah kidnapped four Russian diplomats in Beirut, killing one, Moscow’s retaliation was swift. Different versions of the story exist, but they all have one thing in common: A Hezbollah commander began receiving body parts of a close relative through the mail. Hezbollah released the remaining hostages and never took another Russian.


Hezbollah may not have liked the Soviets, but they quickly learned that they could not mess with Russians. Contrast that with Pakistan today. On April 2, a Pakistani court voided a murder conviction of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh who kidnapped and then videotaped his slaughter of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.


Welcome to the world after the U.S.-Taliban realm, negotiated by U.S. Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad. Simply put, the U.S. willingness to accept a flawed ‘peace’ deal with the Taliban has convinced Taliban sponsors within Pakistan’s military and all-powerful intelligence service not only that Washington is weak and its concerns not worthy of serious attention, but also that Pakistan can gratuitously humiliate the United States as Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan pivots the country further into China’s orbit.

Khalilzad is now zero for two in high stakes diplomacy. It was Khalilzad, after all, who negotiated the 2003 Geneva deal with now-Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in which the U.S. government accepted the Iranian pledge not to infiltrate militias and forces into Iraq--which clearly they did not follow. Already, it appears the Taliban were no more sincere. The Taliban reject the very legitimacy of the elected Afghan government, and so their refusal to recognize its negotiating team should not surprise. Taliban attacks have continued unabated. The evidence exposing Pakistan’s support for the Taliban and its covert relationship with Al Qaeda remains overwhelming. Not only did Al Qaeda founder Usama Bin Laden find shelter in a townhome to Pakistan’s primary military academy, but U.S. forces killed the leader of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent during a raid on a Taliban compound.

President Donald Trump may feel he has fulfilled a promise to end America’s longest war, but it would be a mistake for the administration to believe its own spin, because no one else does. Al Qaeda has lauded the Taliban’s “great victory” and a “humiliating defeat” for the United States. "Even if we don't say that the U.S. is defeated in Afghanistan, it is an open secret now that they are defeated," Anas Haqqani, son of the Haqqani network’s founder, told the press. Pakistani religious officials broadcast how America was “begging for peace and escape.”

What happens in Afghanistan doesn’t stay in Afghanistan, however: That was the lesson of the pre-9/11 era, and it is even more true today. Trump has warned Iranian-backed militias in Iraq not to attack American interests but why should they listen? Even if the United States launches the occasional airstrike or even kills top Iranian commanders like Qassem Soleimani, the Taliban deal show that the United States will ultimately ignore state-sponsors of terror and maintain the fiction that deals struck with their proxies matter. Revolutionary Guardsmen inside Iranian territory can rest assured first that the Trump administration will not hold them to account for the actions of Iranian-backed militias just as they have not meaningfully held any Pakistan generals responsible for the Taliban. The Iranian-backed proxies, for their part, understand if they simply continue or even escalate their attacks, the United States will eventually retreat. It worked in Beirut during the Reagan administration, and it worked in Basra, so why shouldn’t it work for Baghdad?

Nor is the problem just the Middle East. Russia and China look at recent U.S. fecklessness and conclude that U.S. diplomacy need not be respected. In Syria, Vladimir Putin played poker with the Obama administration and somehow managed to beat a royal flush with a pair of twos. Just as Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev calculated that Jimmy Carter’s 1979 abandonment of the Shah of Iran and impotence as revolutionaries seized American hostages meant that he could invade Afghanistan with impunity, so too might Putin conclude that U.S. weakness means he could act against Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, or ethnic-Russian regions of Kazakhstan without fear of consequence. Taiwan, too, must look at recent Trump moves on Afghanistan and recognize that the White House would not lift a finger to defend it when push comes to shove.

Ceasing “endless wars” might be the slogan of the day, but how wars end matter. Progressives and liberals say that diplomacy should be the strategy of first resort. They are right. But when the United States loses credibility on the battlefield and adversaries concluded that Washington neither has the will nor the way, they will run roughshod over American interests. Pakistan’s release of Pearl’s killer is only the beginning.



Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). You can follow him on Twitter: @mrubin1971.

 

[Baghial]

filth who try to deceive people here should be taken care of..




How China Is Humiliating Pakistan

Pakistan sees itself as a major regional power but recent events show that Beijing considers Pakistan little more than a subordinate colony to be exploited but not heard.

by Michael Rubin

Inside Pakistan, India is an obsession. Communal violence surrounding the 1947 partition of India claimed up to two million lives. India and Pakistan subsequently fought three wars: In 1965, when India retaliated for Pakistani efforts to infiltrate forces into Jammu and Kashmir, in 1971 against the backdrop of the Bangladeshi War of Independence, and again in 1999, when Indian forces pushed back against a Pakistani offensive in Kargil, along the line-of-control. As the late Princeton historian Bernard Lewis pointed out, if scholars embraced the same definition of “refugee” that the United Nations applies to Palestinians who have been displaced by Israel, then South Asia would be home to more than two hundred million refugees. Tensions remain evident across the country. In 2000, in Peshawar, a mockup of a Pakistani nuclear missile stood in the midst of a traffic circle with the slogan “I’d love to enter India” written underneath it. In the Pakistani capital of Islamabad today, giant billboard clocks mark the time since India imposed a curfew on Kashmir.


There is no shortage of anti-Indian animus within Pakistan but in recent months it has been China which has humiliated Pakistan in a manner which India never could. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the long-time leader of the All-India Muslim League and the founding father of Pakistan, conceived the new country as a land for the Muslims. Because Pakistan based its legitimacy more on religion than on ethnicity, it really is the first Islamic state of the modern era.


Pakistanis have historically been at the forefront of advocacy and action against the oppression of Muslims, real or imagined. This is what guided Pakistan to oppose Soviet designs on Afghanistan. Pakistan is among the most anti-Israel and anti-Semitic countries on earth. The Pakistani press regularly covers the plight of Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya Muslims. Pakistani charities work in Chechnya. There is no shortage of the terrorist groups Pakistan sponsors who target India and are motivated more by religion than nationalism. And, yet, when it comes to China’s incarceration of more than a million Uighur Muslims—solely because they are Muslim—Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan has been silent on one hand and on the other he has both defended China’s repression of its Muslims and persecuted for China the Uighurs in Pakistan.

Sister city twinning is a common diplomatic practice in order to advance tourism and ties between the world’s major cities. China and Pakistan have taken this to a new level with provincial twining. Recently, Pakistan’s mission in Beijing gave a draft memorandum of understanding to the Chinese foreign ministry in order to establish sister province relations between Xinjiang and Gilgit-Baltistan. Not only, therefore, is Khan cowed by Chinese pressure to the point that he must turn a blind eye to the greatest repression of Muslims in the twenty-first century but he now seeks to honor the Chinese province that is at the epicenter of Chinese anti-Muslim repression. Even if Khan is motivated by the implied threat to treat the people of the disputed Gilgit-Baltistan region like China treats the Xinjiang, that does not paper over the implied endorsement of Beijing’s Islamophobic leadership.

The coronavirus abandonment of Pakistani students in Wuhan further humiliates Pakistan. Almost every other country—including India—has evacuated its citizens from the coronavirus epicenter. While Imran Khan spends a great deal on himself, his foreign travel, and the military, he has left Pakistan’s public health infrastructure a shamble. Khan knows that corruption and disorganization mean that medical quarantine will not work in Pakistan, which is why he seeks to keep those potentially infected abroad. China, meanwhile, cares little for the Pakistanis who remain within its territory. To be Pakistani in the age of Imran Khan means to suffer in silence at the back of the line.

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Pakistan’s anti-Americanism greased its turn toward China. China, meanwhile, built for Pakistan highways and a port. Pakistan allowed itself to believe that it had become the crown jewel of China’s belt-and-road policy. Now, reality should set in: Rather than preserve Pakistan’s independence and dignity by playing Beijing and Washington off-each other, successive Pakistani governments have fallen so far under China’s grasp that Pakistan is powerless to stand up for its citizens—let alone Muslims. Pakistan sees itself as a major regional power but recent events show that Beijing considers Pakistan little more than a subordinate colony to be exploited but not heard.

Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, where he researches Arab politics, the Gulf Cooperation Council, Iran, Iraq, the Kurds, terrorism, and Turkey. He concurrently teaches classes on terrorism for the FBI and on security, politics, religion, and history for U.S. and NATO military units.

Pakistan's Kashmir hypocrisy
by Michael Rubin
| August 22, 2019 12:17 PM
revoked Article 370 of the Indian constitution which protected Kashmir’s special status and tightened the Indian central government’s grip over the Muslim-majority region.


Pakistan has roundly and repeatedly condemned India’s move on Kashmir. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said that Pakistan would “teach India a lesson,” and promised to “fight until the end.” Put aside the fact that India likely never would have changed the status quo had it not been for decades of overt Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Terrorism is a tactic the states use to achieve aims at a relatively low cost. In this case, the Pakistani gamble backfired, and Khan, as well as Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, have no one but themselves to blame. Lost in the Pakistani criticism of India’s actions, however, is recognition of Pakistan’s own hypocrisy. For four and a half decades before India revoked Article 370, Pakistan stripped both Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir (as Pakistan calls the portion it occupies) of their special status.

The root of the Kashmir question rests in the 1947 partition of India. The princely state’s leaders chose to join India, a move supported by the region’s Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and many of its Muslims. Other Kashmiri Muslims, however, wanted to join Pakistan. Still others would have preferred outright independence, although this was not an option offered. The nascent Pakistani state responded by invading — first with irregular Pashtun tribesmen and then more formally with the Pakistani army, eventually occupying about 30% of the region. A UN ceasefire established a line-of-control solidifying Kashmir’s division and UN Security Council Resolution 47 called for a referendum to resolve the dispute. That referendum never happened and, despite multiple pledges to resolve the problem diplomatically, successive Pakistani governments sponsored terrorist groups to strike into India and twice, in 1965 and 1999, unsuccessfully started wars after seeking military to alter the line-of-control.

Pakistan gained control of Gilgit-Baltistan, previously called the Northern Areas and part of Jammu & Kashmir in October 1947, after the new Pakistani government infiltrated irregulars into the region.

Just as Pakistan partisans today say Kashmir’s inclusion in India is illegitimate because, it claims, the Kashmiri people never accepted Maharaja Hari Singh’s decision to join India, most of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan opposed British Major W. A. Brown’s decision to have Gilgit-Baltistan join Pakistan. Pakistan completed the evisceration of Gilgit’s popular will in the then-secret Karachi Agreement of Apr. 28, 1949, wherein the Azad Kashmir government ceded complete defense and foreign affairs control over Gilgit-Baltistan to Pakistan, a move never approved by the population of Gilgit-Baltistan. The International Crisis Group — generally no friend to India and other democracies — confirmed the persisting unpopularity of the Karachi Agreement and Pakistani rule in the region.

Pakistani occupation of Gilgit-Baltistan appears illegal, even under Pakistani law. In 1992, the Azad Kashmir High Court ordered the Azad Kashmir government to assume control of Gilgit-Baltistan since it found that Gilgit-Baltistan was part of Jammu and Kashmir. Article 257 of the Pakistani constitution, meanwhile, confirmed that Jammu and Kashmir is a disputed territory which does not belong to Pakistan.

The hypocrisy continues: In 1974, Pakistan abrogated the State Subject Rule in Gilgit-Baltistan as part of the process Islamabad initiated to change demography by transferring Sunni Muslims into what had been a predominantly Shiite-dominated region. While politics hamper accurate censuses, in 1948, the Gilgit-Baltistan region was at least 85% Shiite and Ismaili Shiite; after the 1974 State Subject Rule abrogation, the region is only 50% Shiite.

The Pakistani government has in recent years sought to blunt criticism of what, in effect, is its colonial attitude toward Gilgit-Baltistan. The 2009 Gilgit-Baltistan Self-Governance Order, for example, feigned local empowerment, but real decision-making ability remains with the appointed governor rather than the chief minister or elected assembly. Likewise, while the Gilgit Baltistan Order of 2018 in theory transferred powers to the Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly, vested extraordinary powers remain with the Prime Minister of Pakistan who retains final say on all legislation and regional policies.

There can be a real and legitimate debate about Kashmir with regard to human rights and economic opportunity. The Indian government and Indian security forces are not without flaws and problems. Kashmiris themselves may debate the revocation of Article 370. What is certain, however, is first that Pakistan’s own actions and attempts at unilateralism likely forced India’s hand. Pakistani support for terrorism not only inside Kashmir but also throughout India lost Islamabad the moral high ground decades ago which is why, despite President Trump’s ego-stroking of Khan during the Pakistani leader’s recent visit, U.S.-Pakistani ties remained strained and most American officials consider Pakistan more an adversary than an ally. More seriously, however, Pakistan has little authority to complain about India’s decision to change Kashmir’s status given that Pakistan itself created the precedent when Pakistan undermined Gilgit-Baltistan autonomy and self-governance.

Michael Rubin (@Mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Pentagon official.

deceive people ?

ITS OPINION OF THE WRITER NOT MINE,

 

[damm1t]

This S.O.B says that Turkey;

1. Support for al Qaeda affiliates and the Islamic State,
2. Ethnic cleansing against the Kurds in Syria and
3. The bombardment of Kurdish villages in Iraq
4. Hampering resettlement efforts for those displaced by the Islamic State,
5. Theft of natural resources from Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone,
6. Sanctions-busting with Iran,
7. Increased defense links with Russia,
8. Anti-American incitement,
9. A full-scale war on freedom of press and thought.

So if you act against American benefits, you are a DICTATOR, UNDEMOCRATIC, AUTHORITARIAN, GENOCIDER, SITH LORD, SATAN...

We know this story. We saw it many times. We just laugh at it.

 

[-blitzkrieg-]

deceive people ?

ITS OPINION OF THE WRITER NOT MINE,

 

[Yankee-stani]

Michael Rubin you gotta be kidding me and I despise Erdogan Rubin is a neo con kosher shrill but I think once Erdogan time is up Turks will vote in a ultranationalist or pseudo-leftist

 

[xenon54 out]

This S.O.B says that Turkey;

1. Support for al Qaeda affiliates and the Islamic State,
2. Ethnic cleansing against the Kurds in Syria and
3. The bombardment of Kurdish villages in Iraq
4. Hampering resettlement efforts for those displaced by the Islamic State,
5. Theft of natural resources from Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone,
6. Sanctions-busting with Iran,
7. Increased defense links with Russia,
8. Anti-American incitement,
9. A full-scale war on freedom of press and thought.

So if you act against American benefits, you are a DICTATOR, UNDEMOCRATIC, AUTHORITARIAN, GENOCIDER, SITH LORD, SATAN...

We know this story. We saw it many times. We just laugh at it.

Neo-Con propaganda...

 

[Yongpeng Sun-Tastaufen]

To be fair there is no democracy anymore in any middle eastern country.

 

[T-123456]

There is no longer any doubt that Recep Tayyip Erdogan is an autocrat and an Islamist. He seeks to monopolize power, accumulate wealth for his immediate family, and change the principles upon which Turkish society operates. Turkey, however, like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, maintains a strange romanticism among many of the diplomats who served there. The hospitality in each country is legendary, and each offers golden parachutes to former ambassadors in terms of lobbying or business opportunities, consultancies, or open doors to fundraising for those entering the university, think tank, or nonprofit realm. The result is vocal informal lobbies of those sympathetic to these national narratives within the U.S. policy debate.


Turkey’s behavior has, for decades, been inexcusable: support for al Qaeda affiliates and the Islamic State, ethnic cleansing against the Kurds in Syria and, more recently, the bombardment of Kurdish villages in Iraq hampering resettlement efforts for those displaced by the Islamic State, theft of natural resources from Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone, sanctions-busting with Iran, increased defense links with Russia, anti-American incitement, and a full-scale war on freedom of press and thought. Still, a small Turkey cabal within the State Department and some fellow travelers outside continue to apologize for Turkish behavior. They offer three main lines of argument.

The first is that the United States has not been sensitive to Turkey’s security concerns, especially with regard to the Pentagon’s partnership with Syrian Kurds. That, of course, puts the cart before the horse because the U.S. only partnered with Syrian Kurds when Turkey’s double-game became apparent.

The second accepts that Erdogan is a problem, but believes that the U.S.-Turkey relationship is too important to lose and hope that Turkey can return to the status quo ante after Erdogan’s death. This ignores the tremendous transformation Erdogan has engineered. After 17 years in power, 30 million Turks have been educated under the Turkish dictator, and nearly everyone serving in the military owes his or her career to the Turkish leader.

The third group will grasp upon any hope that Turkey’s democracy will reboot and the opposition can ultimately unseat or at least constrain Erdoğan. This group got new hope when, in June 2019, the main opposition Republican People’s Party beat out Erdogan’s party in both Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey’s two largest cities.

The problem with such wishful thinking is that it assumes Erdogan will play fair, although there is nothing in his character or record to believe he will abandon his corruption, nepotism, arrogance, his 1,100-room palace, or his religious agenda just because Turks do not agree with him or wish to hold him to account for Turkey’s failing economy.

A case in point occurred last weekend. Turkey’s press freedom has plummeted over Erdogan’s tenure. One of only two television stations that still sometimes opposes Erdogan and the ruling party twice ran afoul of Erdogan in the past week for the mildest of criticisms. In the first instance, a Republican People’s Party parliamentarian was invited as a guest and criticized the government. That an opposition parliamentarian would voice disapproval of the ruling party is a normal occurrence in any democracy. The host nodded her head, something that anchors and interviewers do all the time to signal that they were listening.

This outraged the thin-skinned Erdogan, however. The government canceled several programs and imposed a monetary penalty.

On another program, the Istanbul provincial Republican People’s Party leader was the guest. She quipped that soon the ruling party would be leaving power. It was overstated and wishful thinking, but Erdogan is unable to accept the idea that all Turks do not adore him. The penalty for “voicing an undemocratic prediction against the will of the people"? Suspension and a penalty of 5% of the channel’s monthly income.

Optimists may hope that Erdogan’s defeat in Istanbul last year signals that Turks can reclaim their country and that democracy can still check Erdogan’s desire to rule for life and perhaps turn the reins of power over to his son or son-in-law. But the lesson Erdogan appears to have taken is not that he must listen to the people, but rather, he must punish Istanbul and become more ruthless in weeding out political opposition, real or imagined.

Source: https://www.aei.org/op-eds/erdogan-shows-democratic-transition-in-turkey-is-impossible/

You must be the Joker.
Wake up,this is Istanbul not Gotham city.

 

[Baghial]

You must be the Joker.
Wake up,this is Istanbul not Gotham city.

who said its not istanbul? KSA

 

[Foinikas]

This S.O.B says that Turkey;

1. Support for al Qaeda affiliates and the Islamic State,
2. Ethnic cleansing against the Kurds in Syria and
3. The bombardment of Kurdish villages in Iraq
4. Hampering resettlement efforts for those displaced by the Islamic State,
5. Theft of natural resources from Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone,
6. Sanctions-busting with Iran,
7. Increased defense links with Russia,
8. Anti-American incitement,
9. A full-scale war on freedom of press and thought.

I don't know the writer,I didn't even read the article and I don't care,but all that the above is true. Maybe 4 and 6 are not exactly like this,but all the rest is true.