The West has tried to isolate Russia internationally, defeat it militarily and, through an array of draconian sanctions, cause its economic collapse. It has met none of these objectives.

Russia’s connections with China have deepened strategically. India has preserved its strategic ties with Moscow despite Western pressure. Russian relations with several African countries also have a new momentum. Moscow is strongly present in the West Asia region and has a close relationship with key Arab countries. Its partnership with some Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries is gaining steam, too.

BRICS’s expansion

The expansion of BRICS in 2023 with Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia had already signaled that major countries in the Global South had a very different perspective on Russia than the West did. It sees Russia as a friendly country, not an adversary. That almost 40 countries have shown interest in joining BRICS, a forum in which Moscow plays a key role, signifies that Russia is an attractive partner to them.

The Global South seeks a reformed international system that would reflect the shifts in power equations away from the West, both economic and political, that have occurred over the years. These countries want more attention to be paid to their concerns and priorities.

The West’s hypocritical double standards regarding its “values-based” policies, its military interventions, its use of various means to bring about regime changes, its use of sanctions as a policy tool, its weaponization of the United States dollar and the US’s global financial system have increasingly pushed non-Western countries to hedge themselves against Western pressures by joining forums such as BRICS. If Russia earlier looked westwards, the West has turned its back on Russia. Now Russia is much more focused on its Eurasian identity and is looking eastwards.

Non-Western countries cannot opt out of the existing international system or create one of their own. What they hope to do is to change the balance of power within the existing system and reform it to ensure more equality and equity in its functioning. The Global South countries, which also have close relations with the West, are being attracted to join BRICS or associate with it in order to increase their political, economic and security options.

The fact that 24 world leaders attended the Kazan summit, including those of five founding members and the four new permanent members, show that the West’s already failing efforts to isolate Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, have been strongly rebuffed.

More members may bring complications

With so much interest in BRICS in the Global South, the question of expanding its membership and the criteria to do that pose difficulties. BRICS is a consensus-based forum. With the expansion, building a consensus on issues would become more difficult. That would affect the operation and credibility of the forum.

The meeting of the BRICS Foreign Ministers in June 2024 at Nizhny Novgorod in Russia, also attended by the four new members, could not issue a joint communiqué because of differences on certain points.

Putin has himself publicly recognized the downside to any further expansion. He noted that the existing members have worked together for years and know how the forum functions. The process of absorbing the new members into the methods and spirit of the forum will be the immediate focus, not its expansion.

The decision, therefore, has been not to broaden the BRICS membership for the moment but to enlarge its base by accepting new countries as partners. Developing a consensus within BRICS on which countries should be admitted as partners was presumably not an easy exercise; all the BRICS members, old and new, had effective veto rights. It had to be ensured that no member country was particularly advantaged by the choice of partners and that the final list reflected a balance between the preferences of the forum’s members.

A wide spread

The Kazan summit saw the acceptance of 13 new BRICS partners: Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. It is significant that four members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are also among these.

Algeria, much to its disappointment, could not become a member when BRICS expanded last year. It has now obtained partner status. Two key Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan) have become partners, too. Other Central Asian countries could obviously not be included as that would have weighed too much in favor of Russia’s interests. Already, the inclusion of Belarus is a clear Russian preference. The geographical spread of the new partner countries is noteworthy.

Russia’s obvious preference for Turkey was also accommodated given the latter’s geopolitical importance for Russia, even though giving partner status to a NATO country might not fit into any normal criteria for deciding BRICS partnerships. Should NATO get a foothold in BRICS? From the Russian point of view, this would be a welcome political development in NATO’s eastern flank. The US, which sees BRICS as an organization created to rival the West in the global system, would be obviously perturbed by Turkey’s decision.

Why Pakistan was kept away

It would seem that China has not exercised its own special geopolitical preferences too visibly. If it were interested in Pakistan’s inclusion, as it could well have been — it had linked India’s Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) membership with that of Pakistan — it would have run into India’s strong opposition. In September 2024, while visiting Pakistan, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk supported its inclusion in BRICS but stated that such a decision would have to be based on a consensus. India clearly scotched any move to reach out to Pakistan, to the point that Pakistan seemingly was not invited to the summit.

India had reservations about Turkey becoming a partner because of its anti-Indian positions on Kashmir in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Ultimately, India did not stand in the way of Turkey becoming a BRICS partner.

The last BRICS summit approved the membership of Saudi Arabia, but it has not formally conveyed its acceptance. It was represented at the Kazan summit by its foreign minister. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud received US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Riyadh while the summit was being held in Kazan, which tells its own story.

Do not overestimate BRICS’s pace

The importance of BRICS’s expanded partnerships across Asia, Africa and Latin America should not be underestimated. It shows dissatisfaction with the current international system. Non-western countries want an end to the West’s hegemony. They suffer from the West’s self-centered, arbitrary policies. They see strengthened multilateralism reflected in multipolarity as the key to change.

At the same time, the pace at which BRICS can bring about this change should not be exaggerated. The goals of BRICS in forging alternatives to the dollar-dominated financial system are not easy to achieve. Within the BRICS countries, there are rivalries and divisions. Their political systems differ. Some are deeply anti-West. Others have friendly ties with the West even when they seek more space for themselves in a West-dominated global system. There are large economic disparities within the group. The policies of some both help and hurt the interests of the Global South.

When all is said and done, BRICS’s expansion, with all its challenges, is a vehicle for a much-needed re-balancing within the global system — something India also seeks.

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The West’s Efforts to Isolate Russia Are Failing appeared first on Fair Observer.

Blinken accused these media outlets of spreading “Russian government propaganda and disinformation,” of engaging in “covert influence activities aimed at undermining American elections and democracies” and of functioning as a “de facto arm of Russia’s intelligence apparatus.” To dispel the impression that these new bans are motivated by domestic political calculations, he tried to project Russian media as a global problem. He alleged that the outlets meddle in the sovereign affairs of nations in coordination with Russian intelligence services — that their goal is to manipulate elections not only in the US, but worldwide.

It is difficult for outsiders to believe that “Russian disinformation” can so easily influence US elections. US democracy has strong roots and cannot be destabilized by foreign propaganda; surely it is not so fragile.

In democracies, elections are won or lost on a multitude of issues: national and local issues, the electorate’s understanding of the contending parties and individuals’ positions, the media’s influence, the electorate’s political awareness, the voters’ perception regarding how the candidates’ platforms could affect their own well-being and so on. The final results often are not known until the actual voting takes place.

So the idea that foreign actors could manipulate elections in India, the world’s oldest democracy, seems far-fetched.

Blinken’s alliance and goals

Blinken asserts that RT “possess[es] cyber capabilities” for “covert” operations around the world. He says that the network uses oblivious US citizens to spread “Kremlin-produced content” and attitudes to the public. He elaborated, stating that Russia utilizes similar strategies “around the world.” One example is how the Russian capital of Moscow allegedly runs the online platform African Stream across social media. Blinken says that this platform claims to give a voice to Africans everywhere, but “in reality, the only voice it gives is to Kremlin propagandists.”

As a counter, Blinken states that the US is building a “more resilient global information system, where objective facts are elevated and deceptive messages gain less traction.” He adds that the US is going to promote campaigns that protect the freedom of the press — ones that strengthen the populace’s media literacy, to help people “better distinguish fact from fiction.” The US is coordinating with other governments via the State Department Global Engagement Center in an effort to quash information manipulation.

Blinken announced that the US is partnering with the United Kingdom and Canada to combat “Russian weaponization of disinformation.” In his words, the three nations are beginning a “joint diplomatic campaign to rally allies and partners around the world” to join them in addressing this Russian threat. Further, he instructed US diplomats everywhere to share their acquired evidence of RT’s capabilities and targeting strategies. While each government will decide how it responds to this, the US advises its allies to treat “RT’s activities as they do other intelligence activities by Russia within their borders.”

Blinken claims that the US “respects and champions freedom of expression, even when it comes to media outlets that wittingly spread government propaganda.” He says the nation will keep protecting media freedom around the globe. However, the US will not watch idly while actors like RT conduct hidden operations to support Russia’s diabolical schemes. The US, he adds, will aggressively combat subversive Russian ploys, namely those of “invading sovereign nations, fomenting coups, weaponizing corruption, carrying out assassinations, meddling in elections, and unjustly detaining foreign nationals.”

US hypocrisy and Western narrative control

To put it lightly, many of Blinken’s claims are highly debatable. Worse, they contradict the US’s own policies and actions on the global level.

The US treats freedom of expression as a core value and considers dissent to be an intrinsic part of democracy. In this case, however, the nation is sanctioning Russian media and placing legal curbs against its own citizens who appear on RT to criticize US policy on the respective Ukraine and Gaza conflicts. So the Biden administration is violating its own declared values. As a further blow to freedom of speech, the social media company Meta, undoubtedly pressured, has also barred Russian media on its platforms, including the outlet Sputnik and the aforementioned RT. 

This US double standard is not surprising. When non-Western nations place curbs on their own media or suppress dissent, the US quickly condemns it as a breach of democracy — even when their goal is to thwart rioting and violence. Yet the US does not seem to recognize the contradiction between its sanctions against RT, which violate the principle of freedom of expression, and limited restrictions that foreign countries implement to domestically curb social unrest, which it routinely condemns.

The West largely controls the flow of information globally. It can create and control narratives at the international level. Its power to disseminate distorted narratives about foreign nations makes those nations feel vulnerable. In fact, as far back as the 1970s, the developing world tried and failed to promote a new international information order — the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) — to fix this vulnerability.

Today, some major non-Western countries are trying to break into this quasi-monopoly on global information flows, but are handicapped. The West has several advantages: Its native language, English, is the language of international trade and business. Its print media and news agencies have long exercised global domination. The US also controls the social media space with its audiences worldwide. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a 2024 interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson that Russia could try to promote its own narratives, but this would require an enormous, risky investment. Since this space is dominated by the West, Putin is uncertain that such an effort would yield success.

People widely believe that the CIA is connected to the US mainstream, social media and Hollywood. Allegedly, it gets work from journalists abroad. The capacity of the National Security Agency to intercept communications worldwide, including illegal tapping of communications of enemies and allies alike, is well-established.

It is widely accepted that the US media, its democracy promotion organizations and its intelligence agencies promote regime change in foreign countries. A recent op-ed in the Financial Times by Bill Burns and Richard Moore — the heads of the US’s CIA and the UK’s MI6, respectively — publicly displayed their role in policy-making in the Ukraine conflict, for instance.

Largest democracy vs dominant democracy

India knows all about the US’s hypocrisy when it comes to suppressing free speech. The nation has protested the nation’s interference in its internal affairs.

In India’s case, Russian media has not interfered in the functioning of our democracy or our elections. We have not been victims of Russian propaganda or disinformation. Russian media has limited access to the Indian media space, while the Western media, especially that of the US and UK, dominates the dissemination of international news in it.

Even if some European countries also allege that Moscow interferes in their elections, there is no evidence that Russian media linked to Russian intelligence seeks to manipulate the outcome of elections “worldwide.” It is certainly not the case with India, whose colossal democracy would surely be affected if Russian meddling were as prominent as other nations say.

The US and the rest of the West continue to dominate the global information system, which India has experienced at its own cost. Western journals and broadcasting networks like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Economist, Le Monde, Foreign Affairs, BBC, France 24 and DW are politically oriented against the Indian government. They, alongside human rights organizations and groups that promote democracy and religious freedoms, spread distorted information about Indian developments. Even official US State Department reports do this.

India would therefore have questions about the US’s efforts to build “a more resilient global information system, where objective facts are elevated and deceptive messages gain less traction.” The US missions in India are tutoring local journalists on “fact-checking” — this fact-checking presumably comes with a bias for the US’s claims about India.

It would be ironic if the UK and Canada raised issues about Russian media with India. These two nations harbor people whom India considers terrorists; those who question India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, attack our missions and threaten to kill our leaders and diplomats, among other things. India has no such problem with Russia.

It is not likely that the US would raise the issue of RT’s operations in India directly with the Ministry of External Affairs. They would already know what India’s response would be. This is not a bilateral issue between the US and India and should not be treated as such. The Global South will almost certainly be largely unresponsive as well.

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Reasons Why India Doesn’t Buy the US’s Underhanded Free Speech appeared first on Fair Observer.

The West has progressively raised its involvement by supplying long-range artillery, advanced air defense systems, tanks and air-launched cruise missiles, as well as sea-based weaponry, to hit Russian targets. Satellite intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) has been provided to Ukraine for more accurate strikes.

Western escalation is brewing

The New York Times has revealed, somewhat surprisingly, that the CIA has been “financing” and “partly equipping” several underground bunkers near the Russian border. Their goal is to gather vital information on defenses and equipment, as well as assist the Ukrainian military in directing fire. Despite strong warnings from Russia, the Dutch have announced their decision to supply 18 F-16 aircraft to Ukraine.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told Radio Free Europe that Ukraine’s right to self-defense includes attacking legitimate Russian military targets outside Ukraine. Elsewhere, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz revealed that UK and French special forces are on the ground in Ukraine to operate the advanced equipment supplied to Kyiv.

Scholz seems opposed to the supply of long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine. If these warheads are used for strikes inside Russia, it may draw Germany into direct conflict with Moscow. However, the leaked exchanges between German officers suggest a huge disconnect within the German establishment. They seemingly discussed the efficacy of using Taurus missiles to target the Crimean Bridge and ammunition dumps to its north. They also deliberated about how to launch these strikes without directly involving the German government, suggesting that the missile’s manufacturer, MBDA Deutschland GmbH, could act as a front.

Another potential step could seriously exacerbate the situation. On February 26, at a summit of 20 European leaders in Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron aired the possibility of putting European troops on the ground in Ukraine. This disregards Russian warnings that such a move could trigger a direct war between NATO and Russia.

The US, Germany, the UK, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, among others, have ruled out the possibility of sending their troops to fight in Ukraine. Macron, however, believes that the people decrying this idea today are the same ones who decried the supply of tanks, aircraft or long-range missiles to Ukraine two years ago. In the face of rebuffs and political opposition at home, Macron insists that what he said was fully contemplated and that the intention is to put Putin in a “strategic dilemma.” He did not explain what that could be or why it would be only one-way.

Ukrainian support and Baltic aggression

The thought behind the proposals to increase EU military support for Ukraine is that European countries must take more responsibility for their own security. This is especially true considering the possibility of Donald Trump being re-elected as US president in November. He warned Europeans that if they do not ramp up their defense spending, rather than relying on the US for security, he will leave them to fend for themselves against unstated Russian threats. EU members are now increasing their defense budgets even when their economies are under pressure. Germany and the UK are facing a recession and social unrest is spreading in several European countries, as indicated by widespread protests from farmers.

France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, Italy, Denmark and Canada have signed bilateral security agreements with Ukraine. What these precisely entail is not clear. However, it seems the objectives are to give assurances of support to Ukraine, should there be a change in the US administration; to give Kyiv confidence that despite flagging public support for the conflict in European societies, aid will continue and to signal to Russia that the EU’s investment in the conflict will continue regardless of Ukrainian losses and the war of attrition favoring Moscow. There is also a hint that Ukraine’s entry into NATO may not be imminent. Kyiv needs assurance that individual European countries are willing to commit themselves to Ukraine’s defense.

The Baltic states are the most vociferous in pushing for a confrontation with Russia, both within the EU and in international conferences. Many countries of the Global South believe that the Russo-Ukrainian War is a European affair. This has adverse consequences for them economically because of the disruptions it is causing in food, fertilizer and energy supplies. The Europeans argue this conflict goes beyond their continent and involves the international community as a whole, claiming that it violates the UN Charter, international law and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states. This is not a convincing argument; European nations are themselves guilty of such transgressions, and there is no guarantee that this will not continue in the future.

Russia has not attacked the Baltic states, which are members of NATO and have the bloc’s troops stationed on their soil. These countries are hardly central to international geopolitics, have a combined population of only six million and have negligible military strength. Given their deep grievances against Soviet rule, their desire to drive an increasingly dangerous conflict in Europe, along with Poland, Finland and Sweden, is concerning to non-Western countries.

Russia may not escalate its warfare

The argument that Russia will attack other countries if it defeats Ukraine is fictitious. Putin has been in power for 24 years now, NATO has expanded five times and the bloc’s troops and US missiles are stationed close to Russia’s borders. Russia has only aggressively responded to Georgia and Ukraine. In both cases, Putin warned that Russia would take action if these two countries were drawn into NATO.

Putin’s repeated declarations that Russia has no intention of attacking any European country are being dismissed, as they do not fit the narrative of Moscow’s threat to Europe. Why Russia would enter into a conflict with NATO is not explained. As for Russia’s imperial ambitions, it has refrained from tightening control in erstwhile Soviet territories in Central Asia. Armenia is the most recent example.

The other argument Europeans champion — that a Russian victory over Ukraine will embolden China to intervene militarily in Taiwan — is equally trumped up. The Taiwan issue long predates that of Ukraine. China will judge the rapport between Taiwan, the US and its regional allies, then make its decision based on that. Washington has committed itself to the “One China” policy, though it is against the use of force by Beijing to conquer Taiwan. China also has to take into account that the US is its biggest trading partner.

The prevailing belief among European nations is that, considering Russia’s past reactions to the West’s incremental support for Ukraine, Moscow is unlikely to escalate militarily. Even if the West continues to do so by supplying Ukraine with additional weapons to potentially damage mainland Russia, they likely will not exacerbate the conflict. This may explain why Europeans are undeterred by Russia’s formidable nuclear arsenal. But this could be a serious misjudgment, potentially leading the West to drag the world into a nuclear nightmare.

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The West Risks a Disastrous Nuclear World Conflict With Russia appeared first on Fair Observer.

India-Canada relations have reached a nadir. On October 20, Canada withdrew 41 diplomats and their families from India. This came after the Indian government threatened to revoke diplomatic immunity for Canadian diplomats. India’s action came after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claimed that there were “credible allegations” that India was behind the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in suburban Vancouver. Trudeau made this claim in the Canadian parliament, triggering off an international furor.

Nijjar was a naturalized Canadian citizen who immigrated from India in 1997. He first arrived in Canada on a fraudulent passport and his citizenship application was rejected many times. His attempt to claim citizenship through marriage failed because Canadian ‘immigration officials considered it a marriage of convenience.’ After ten years of reapplying repeatedly, Nijjar became a Canadian citizen in 2007.

Nijjar was an outspoken advocate for the creation of Khalistan, an independent state for Sikhs to be carved out of Indian territory. Sikh extremists waged a bloody insurgency in the 1980s demanding Khalistan. Two of them killed Indira Gandhi, the then prime minister of India, in 1984. In 1987, a research paper by the CIA concluded that Sikh extremists posed “a long-term terrorist threat” that would prove impossible for India to stamp out. It also went on to say:

“Sikh extremists will continue to rely on violence—in particular, assassination—as their principal tactic for gaining a Sikh state.”

In Indian eyes, Nijjar was a Sikh extremist. In 2020, India designated Nijjar as a terrorist, and, two years later, India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) accused him of plotting to kill a Hindu priest in Punjab. Even before Canada granted Nijjar citizenship, the Interpol had issued a Red Notice against him. The Interpol defines a Red Notice as “a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action.”

Canada’s dodgy record on backing Sikh terrorists

Much history lies behind India’s strong reaction to Canadian accusations. India has long held that Canada has provided refuge to Sikh terrorists. The memory of Air India (AI) flight 182 still lives strong for the country. On June 23, 1985, Sikh terrorists blew up this flight to India, which exploded off the Irish coast. All 329 people on board died and only 131 bodies were retrieved from the sea.

While AI 182 was still in the air, another explosion at Tokyo’s Narita airport killed two Japanese baggage handlers. If it had exploded over the Pacific, another plane would have disappeared, leading to hundreds more deaths.

Canadian authorities arrested Talwinder Singh Parmar, the leader of an extremist group called Babbar Khalsa that is now banned in Canada and India and Inderjit Singh Reyat, an electrician, on various weapons, explosives and conspiracy charges. Both were acquitted of all charges. Pierre Trudeau, Trudeau’s father, refused to extradite them as prime minister.

It is now clear that Canadian authorities did not do enough to prevent these attacks. They also bungled the investigation. After much public pressure, the Canadian government set up a public inquiry in 2006 headed by a former Supreme Court judge. In 2010, this inquiry concluded that a “cascading series of errors” had led to the “largest mass murder in Canadian history.”

Trudeau has carried on his father’s policy of not extraditing terrorists to India. Over the years, Canada has become home to Sikh extremists who want to dismember the Indian state. Almost a year ago, these extremists organized the Khalistan Referendum. Extremist Sikhs in Canada voted for the secession of the state of Punjab from India. This 2022 referendum posed a simple question: “Should India governed Punjab be an Independent Country?” Trudeau has remained deaf to Indian concerns and protests, claiming that free speech in Canada includes even the dismemberment of India, hate speech and promotion of terrorism. He conveniently forgets that every country, including liberal Canada, puts reasonable restrictions on freedoms, which are never absolute.

Trudeau and the Anglosphere have an ax to grind

It is utterly unclear as to who killed Nijjar. Sikh terrorists have now split into many cults, many of them with violent gangs. Often, they raise money for Sikh independence to fund their lavish lifestyles. Musicians have joined these cults, glamorizing violence and propagating hedonism. Many glorify gun culture and terrorism. A rival gang could have killed Nijjar. So could have an intelligence agency in a false flag operation to discredit India after a successful G20 summit.

Hence, it is surprising that Trudeau is making such a big deal about a citizen who arrived in Canada on a false passport after committing crimes in India. Irritatingly, Trudeau is mobilizing the Anglosphere against India. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan waded into the controversy, promising that India would not get any special exemption for its actions. Australia’s intelligence chief has also supported Trudeau’s accusations on Nijjar’s murder.

The Anglosphere has formed the “Five Eyes,” a multilateral intelligence-sharing network of over 20 different agencies of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. The Five Eyes includes both surveillance-based and signals intelligence. The Anglosphere seems to be alluding there is proof of Indian involvement but, so far, has been unwilling or unable to offer any evidence.

More importantly, the actions of the Anglosphere reek of hypocrisy. Let us assume for a moment that India killed Nijjar even though this is a preposterously untrue assumption. Nijjar was a terrorist conspiring to kill Indian citizens and dismember the Indian state. The Anglosphere killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in Iraq, terrorist Saudi Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and thousands in drone strikes around the world. Trudeau, Sullivan & Co do not have the privilege of outrage over so-called Indian actions, especially when they lack any evidence.

The Anglosphere is reflexively slipping into old colonial habits in condemning India. This condemnation might have ulterior motives. The Anglosphere is unhappy about Indian leadership of the Global South, which has come at the cost of these Western English-speaking countries. India has led the G20 successfully and admitted the African Union into the organization. The Anglosphere failed to get a condemnation of Russia at the G20 summit at Delhi. Tarnishing India’s reputation is in the interest of the Five Eyes because they might be seeking leverage for the Anglosphere.

Why is Trudeau recklessly undermining India-Canada relations?

Trudeau has a history of poor judgment, especially in foreign policy. Unlike Henry Kissinger or Deng Xiaoping, he is ideological, not realistic. In 2018, he accused Saudi Arabia of human rights violations and demanded the release of imprisoned activists. This led to a breakdown in Saudi-Canada relations, which were only restored this year.

To understand Trudeau’s actions, we have to understand his ideology. He is the head of the Liberal Party of Canada, which the Conservative opposition has accused of a “radical woke agenda.” In September, retired lieutenant général Michel Maisonneuve and his wife argued that Trudeau’s woke agenda was destroying Canada.

According to this agenda, India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is a Hindu fascist political force that oppresses minorities. Trudeau sees himself as standing up to dark rightwing forces threatening democracy. He has a white savior complex, which motivates him to take on the BJP. The left-leaning press in the Anglosphere fills the wind in his sails, enabling Trudeau to position himself against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In the gray world of foreign policy and international relations, this Manichean goodie versus baddie pantomime is childlike, immature and destructive.

Trudeau’s woke ideology sees Canada as a liberal democracy that stands for Western values such as democracy, minority rights and freedom of speech. Therefore, Sikhs who form 2.1% of the Canadian population — a higher percentage than in India — have the right to argue for dismemberment of the Indian state. This extreme ideology also gives extremist Sikhs the right to support and conduct violence and terrorism for the secession of Punjab from India.

Trudeau’s ideological absolutism on this extreme version of Canadian version liberalism has led to terrible consequences for the country. As The Guardian details, “Canada has a dark history with Nazis,” who took advantage of lax immigration laws to come into the country. Sikh extremists and terrorists did the same. Note that Sikhs form 57.69% of the population of Punjab and the vast majority of them do not want to secede from India. Despite forming just 1.7% of the Indian population, Sikhs occupy the highest offices of the state, achieve great success in business and are revered cultural figures. Manmohan Singh, an erudite Sikh economist, was prime minister from 2004 to 2014.

Ideology is not the only reason for Trudeau’s reckless Russian roulette with India- Canada relations. Like other parliamentary democracies, the Canadian prime minister has to command a majority in the lower house of the parliament. Out of the 338 seats in the House of Commons, Trudeau’s Liberals have 158. This is short of the required majority of 170. Trudeau is in power thanks to the New Democratic Party (NDP), which has 25 seats.

Jagmeet Singh, a charismatic and dapper Sikh, is the leader of the NDP. He has long supported the creation of Khalistan. Last year, he supported Sikh peoples’ right to seek independence and the Khalistan Referendum. It is Singh’s consistent support for Khalistan that led the Sikh-led Manmohan Singh government to deny him a visa to India in 2014.

Trudeau is in trouble at home. The speaker of the Canadian House of Commons recently resigned “after he praised a Ukrainian veteran who fought for a Nazi military unit during World War II.” Trudeau needs the NDP’s support to stay in power. As any good politician, Jagmeet Singh is therefore extracting his pound of flesh. For sheer political survival, Trudeau has little option but to wave the Khalistan flag to stay on as prime minister.

What is the way forward?

India regards Canada as an important partner. Thousands of Indians study and live in Canada. The country has a good education system, a dynamic economy and fantastic healthcare. Indian and Canadian businesses are working closely on some of the world’s most pressing matters. India’s Reliance Industries and Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management will soon be manufacturing renewable energy and decarbonisation equipment in Australia. Brookfield and other Canadian funds have invested billions of dollars into the Indian economy.

Until recently, India and Canada were discussing a free trade agreement. On September 1, Trudeau’s government paused these talks. The way forward is to renew these talks, sign a trade agreement and deepen the economic relationship between two of the world’s leading democracies.

Trudeau is living on borrowed time. Even if his coalition government does not fall, he is likely to lose the 2025 elections. Till then, India will have to keep calm and carry on. Things have moved on from 1985 and India is a much greater power that has to stand up for its interests against Canada until Ottawa embarks on a more sensible India policy. If Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre becomes prime minister, he must control Khalistani terrorists on Canadian soil, improve ties with India and conclude the win-win India-Canada trade agreement as a top priority.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Justin Trudeau Is Now Playing a Risky Game With India appeared first on Fair Observer.

This year’s BRICS summit took place in South Africa from August 22–24. The most important outcome of the summit was the decision to expand the group. Six new members will join on January 1, 2024: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Argentina, Iran and Ethiopia. The original membership has just been doubled and this is a transformative outcome.

Originally, the RIC group was a response to the emergence of a unipolar world following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Then, the BRIC nations, four economically rising powers from three continents, shared an agenda. All four wanted to make the global order more democratic and equitable. When BRICS emerged, these powers wanted a greater role of developing countries in the new world order. At least three of the powers—India, Brazil and South Africa—sought to reform the postwar UN system, including its political and financial institutions. These emerging powers wanted to make the UN the centerpiece of a reinvigorated multilateralism.

End of the unipolar moment

This multilateral approach is becoming all the more important as the world exits its unipolar moment. Although the US remains the world’s leading political, military and economic power, it is no longer able to unilaterally dictate the rules of the international system. It failed to change the Middle Eastern balance of power in its favor by military intervention in the Iraq War or by indirect means during the Arab Spring. The disastrous end of its War on Terror, exemplified by the retreat from Afghanistan, has reduced its international primacy.

The US now sees the need to strengthen its alliances in Europe and Asia to retain its global preeminence. This includes the reinvigoration of NATO in Europe, as well as the alliances with Japan, South Korea and the Philippines in Asia.

The US is pulling the team together as new tensions—with potentially dire consequences for global peace and security—have pitted it against both Russia and China. It has succeeded in getting its European partners to throw their full support into a common effort against Russia and acknowledge that China is a systemic threat as well.

Furthermore, the US has used its financial power to the hilt to isolate Russia and cause its economic collapse. Washington has also openly subscribed to the idea of regime change in Russia, a peer nuclear power. It is not only Russia but also China that lies in American crosshairs. The US now sees China as its principal longer-term adversary and is taking aggressive steps to thwart China’s technological rise.

Tensions between great powers are straining the international system. Western sanctions on Russia have been draconian. In particular, the US has weaponized the dollar-based global financial system. The war in Ukraine has also had deeply disruptive effects on the supply of food, fertilizers and energy to developing countries. The equity of a global order based on rules set by the powerful is now in serious question. This order does not emanate from the collective will of the international community but is defined and determined by the West.

RIC, BRIC and then BRICS were all about multipolarity. These non-Western powers wanted a seat at the top table. Yet the dominant Western powers who champion human rights and democracy are not ready to cede control. In fact, the West imposes its agenda on these powers through championing supposedly “universal values” and does not want to give up its traditional hegemony. Naturally, the BRICS nations oppose this hegemony and want a redistribution of global power.

The West has been locked in a confrontation with Russia and China. Both these powers are responding by expanding BRICS. Hence, they have added six new members to the group. Some of them, like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Argentina have historic links with the US. Yet their joining BRICS demonstrates that they are willing to reduce their dependence on the West. These nations want a counterbalance to the US and seek a rebalancing of the global political and economic system, which does not have such punitive costs for transgression.

The inclusion of new members into the BRICS club is telling. Iran is already a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and close not only to China but also Russia. Iran has long been at loggerheads with the US and is subject to strong Western sanctions. Ethiopia is wracked by civil war and prolonged drought. Yet the country has made it to the club on the basis of its increasingly close relationship with China.

Clearly, the BRICS expansion sends a loud and clear signal. BRICS has welcomed powers that challenge the US and are close to China and Russia.

What were the criteria and what does BRICS expansion mean?

The entry of new members to the BRICS club raises a key question. What were the criteria?

Were they GDP size or growth prospects or population size or geographic location or regional influence or some combination of these factors? It turns out that, except for energy exporters Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the other new countries face serious economic problems. Egypt is the most populous Arab nation with the largest military in the region. Yet its economy is in an acute crisis. Argentina, the second-largest Latin American country, is in yet another economic crisis. Their addition does not exactly strengthen the BRICS club economically.

Importantly, no East or South Asian country joined the BRICS club. Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE lie in Asia but are part of the Middle East. Indonesia withdrew its candidacy at the last moment. It seems to be betting instead on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). BRICS is a geographically dispersed club while ASEAN is a cohesive organization with shared interests. External pressure by the US might also have played a role in Indonesia staying away from BRICS.

When it comes to African countries, Nigeria would have been a more credible addition than Ethiopia. However, the country did not apply for membership. Neither did Mexico. Algeria applied for membership but does not seem to have gotten in.

Clearly, the expansion of BRICS has been lopsided. Ethiopia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran are clustered together geographically. Only Argentina seems to stand out.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa declared: “We have tasked our Foreign Ministers to further develop the BRICS partner country model and a list of prospective partner countries and report by the next Summit.” Yet it is unclear what are the criteria for the expansion. It seems that new members have been admitted to the BRICS club on an ad hoc basis.

While expansion may boost multipolarity, it risks making the new BRICS+ club less cohesive. India and China have deep differences. Their militaries are in a standoff at the border. Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran are not exactly the best of friends. Brazil and Argentina are rivals.

Furthermore, the commitment of various countries to BRICS+ is far from solid. Under Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil had less commitment to BRICS than current president Lula da Silva. Tellingly, South Africa could not welcome Russian President Vladimir Putin because of its obligations to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Ramaphosa might wax lyrical about BRICS+, but his government is still constrained by Western-made law of The Hague-based ICC.

It remains to be seen how BRICS+ shapes up but it is clear that the addition of new members and prospects of further expansion are an indication of a growing, if inchoate, trend towards multipolarity.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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Kanwal Sibal prefers to treat the idea of multipolarity with nuance, suggesting that the term may not be the most accurate way of describing current trends. In its traditional geographical sense, it describes centers of power and influence. Today, the Euro-Atlantic region dominated by the US is clearly a pole, but its power and influence are waning. China is not yet a pole, whereas Russia stands as a troubled pole. India is a “potential pole.” The rest of the world is in a state of flux.

The key to understanding this geopolitical shift is economics. “There cannot be effective multipolarity,” the former foreign secretary tells us, “unless something is done eventually about the hegemony of the dollar.” This hegemonic control allows the US control over the global financial system. Dedollarization, which includes decoupling the petroleum trade from the dollar, has begun and is accelerating. Sibal notes that “the United States has done great damage to itself by using the financial weapon—the dollar weapon—in the manner which they have, because countries are going to draw lessons from this.” Though it will take time, the hegemony of the dollar is under serious threat.

To understand today’s trend we need to rethink the vocabulary we use. Is “multipolar” the right term? Sibal prefers an alternative term for what is now emerging. It is a “polycentric world.” The underlying fact, noted by all lucid observers, is that “power has shifted remarkably—both political and economic and even military power—from the West to the East.”

Sibal disagrees with John Mearsheimer’s argument that multipolarity implies anarchy. Instead, he insists that multipolarity must be cooperative rather than antagonistic. This implies quite simply applying the terms of the UN Charter and respecting the principle of indivisible security. 

The former foreign secretary posits that the world has the opportunity to evolve beyond the geopolitical philosophy of deterrence. That mindset has produced a new nuclear arms race across the globe. The US can and must transform an economy built around the logic of the military-industrial complex. Technology can be designed to make human life better rather than to achieve competitive advantage.

Sibal also examines the role of culture and how cultures influence social and political practices. American culture promotes competition and conceives of international relations as fundamentally adversarial. Since World War II, the US has dominated the world stage. It is now time for an Eastern and specifically Indian tradition that embraces diversity and tolerance to provide a model for rethinking international relations. Perhaps humanity may learn the value of accommodation instead of domination.

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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Last year, the World Food Programme (WFP) revealed that “828 million people are unsure of where their next meal is coming from.” This number was for 2021. Since then, this figure has increased. The Russia-Ukraine War has disrupted food and fertilizer production and exports, It has also disrupted supplies of natural gas and oil. So, prices of food, fertilizers and fuel have shot up. 

Many poor people simply cannot afford their daily bread, triggering a “seismic hunger crisis.” According to the WFP, a “record 349 million people across 79 countries are facing acute food insecurity – up from 287 million in 2021.” In fact, “more than 900,000 people worldwide are fighting to survive in famine-like conditions.”

India promised to utilize its G20 presidency “to give resonance to the voice of the global south” most affected by current disruptions. Accordingly, it organized the New Delhi “Voice of the Global South” summit in January  to “generate ideas from the developing world”  on addressing the serious challenges that have arisen over the last year.

What is G20 and what is the Global South?

The G20 website tells us that the Group of Twenty (G20) comprises 19 countries — Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Türkiye, the UK and the US  —  and the EU. The G20 as a whole comprises “around 85% of the global GDP, over 75% of the global trade, and about two-thirds of the world population.”

The Global South is a term used for the poorer parts of Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania. It was previously referred to as the Third World, which has come to be seen as pejorative. Northern regions such as Europe and North America along with their East Asian counterparts such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are more prosperous than southern ones. Having said that, Australia and New Zealand may lie in the southern hemisphere but are considered a part of the Global North.

There is a bit more to G20 and the Global South. The former has risen to prominence in the aftermath of two financial crises. In 1997, the Asian financial crisis caused carnage in the world’s biggest continent. From Thailand to South Korea, economies collapsed and, in some countries, according to the great Singaporean statesman Lee Kuan Yew, “the social fabric was torn apart.” This made finance ministers and central bank governors convene in 1999 to form the G20. The 2007-08 financial crisis gave an unexpected boost to the G20. Heads of state got together in the 2008 G20 summit, making it the “premier forum for international economic cooperation.”

The G20 Needs to Show Leadership to Fight COVID-19

Before the 2007-08 crisis, the world’s most advanced economies got together as the G7. This financial meltdown in the US and Europe increased Asia’s importance. Now, Washington, New York, London, Brussels and Berlin needed Asian economies to implement counter-recessionary policies. Most of all, they needed China. Today, the G20 demonstrates this gradual shift in the center of economic gravity to the East. Of the top five economies in the world, three — China, Japan and India — are in Asia. The other two are the US and Germany.

Unlike the clearly defined G20, the Global South is an amorphous entity. When this group of economies were first lumped together, they were a lot poorer. Today, some economies in the Global South rival many in the West for size and complexity. India is one of those economies. India forms both part of the G20 and in the Global South. On the one hand, it is the fifth largest economy in the world with fast-improving infrastructure, a thriving IT sector, a sophisticated pharmaceutical industry and a rapidly growing economy. On the other hand, India’s per capita income was $2,256.6 in 2021 according to the World Bank. Clearly, India is the bridge between the G20 and the Global South.

Bloomberg posits that India could emerge as the global economy’s next powerhouse. India’s strong economic growth and the relative slowdown of many aging G7 economies would make the G20 more relevant. It would play a bigger role in world economic affairs and India could emerge as one of G20’s natural leaders. The Global South would also look to India for leadership just as it did in 1947 when India threw off British colonial yoke and inaugurated the great age of Asian and African independence.

Inclusive Growth for Global South 

The Voice of Global South Summit has taken place at a time when headlines about a global recession abound. The World Bank’s Global Economic Prospects published in January talks of growth slowing “to its third-weakest pace in nearly three decades, overshadowed only by the 2009 and 2020 global recessions.” In this scenario, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has found India to be “a relative bright spot in the world economy.” Even as the Chinese economy is slowing down, top analysts like Martin Wolf of The Financial Times estimate India “should be the fastest growing large economy in the world over the next couple of decades.”

Indian Equities, Global Markets: What Is the Story?

There is more to India than the growth story. Prashant Singhal of Ernst & Young argues that digital infrastructure rollout will transform India. Already, India has put into place Aadhaar, the world’s largest biometric identification system. The government has opened bank accounts for millions and transferred benefits directly to them. The RuPay financial services and payment service system is far more efficient than Mastercard, Visa or any other Western system. It could emerge as a model for many countries in the Global South seeking alternatives to expensive western intermediaries.

India’s response to COVID-19 has emerged as a model for many countries in the Global South. The country was able to develop and manufacture vaccines at scale. As is now recorded in many journals, “India rolled out the world’s largest COVID-19 vaccination drive across 3,006 vaccine centers in all its states and union territories.” This 2021 mass vaccination turned out to be a resounding success. Every citizen’s vaccination was uploaded in a national database that could be accessed easily through an app instead of the primitive reliance on paper in the far more prosperous US. Notably, India’s national vaccination cost a fraction of its American counterpart and had far greater adoption rates.

Through its “Vaccine Maitri” initiative, India supplied “more than 282 million vaccine doses of vaccines to 101 countries and two UN entities.” India also supplied Afghanistan with vaccines despite the Taliban’s hostile attitude to the country. It also sent tens of thousands of tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan, averting famine and a humanitarian disaster in the region. Such generosity has given India a leadership position in the Global South.

Corruption, Debt and the Crisis of Global Capitalism

The New Delhi summit sought to build upon India’s soft power by stressing South-South Cooperation. The idea underlying this initiative is simple. Poorer countries have a lot to learn from each other whether it is traditional medicine and healthcare systems or vocational training and financial inclusion. A Pavlovian aping of the Global North is unwise, expensive and, at times, even counterproductive. More interaction and greater cohesion among the countries of the Global South is the need of the hour.

India: Connecting Glue in Multipolar World

As retired CIA officer Glenn Carle has said repeatedly, India is a fast-rising global power. What many forget is how India is deeply interconnected with all major powers and key global institutions. India’s biggest economic partner is the US. China, its northern neighbor and strategic rival, is India’s second biggest economic partner. India has a good relationship with EU powers, especially France. Post-Brexit UK and India have concluded six rounds of negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

India has also been deepening its relationships in the Indo-Pacific. The India-Australia FTA came into force on December 22, 2022. The Japan-India relationship has deepened in recent years. Under the leadership of the late Shinzo Abe, Japan developed a special relationship with India. During Abe’s second stint as prime minister from 2012 to 2020, Japan accounted for over 10% of India’s foreign direct investment (FDI). In the coming years, the India-Japan relationship is set to become much stronger.

In a deeply divided world, India has worked hard to engage with different sides. As is now clear, the Russia-Ukraine War has caused tremendous tension to the global system. The US, the EU and NATO support Ukraine against Russia. They have pressured India to fall in line with their position. India has repeatedly called for peace but refused to take sides. New Delhi has sent aid to Ukraine even as it maintains its historic ties with Moscow and buys discounted Russian oil to avert runaway inflation at home.

India participates in multiple international organizations. Few know about India’s loyal service to the UN. Since 1948, more than 200,000 Indians have served in 49 of the 71 UN peacekeeping missions. India is also a part of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), a grouping of four countries — Japan, India, Australia and the US — with an interest in a “free and open Indo-Pacific.” Even as it is a member of the Quad, India is also a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). In fact, India has recently invited Pakistan’s foreign minister to a SCO summit. 

India has navigated its relationships in the tricky Middle East quite skilfully as well. Over the past few years, it has improved relations with Gulf powers such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). India has also managed to keep its relations with Iran on an even keel. At the same time, India has improved its relationship with Israel. India is now a part of I2U2, a new partnership between India, Israel, the UAE and the US.

The upshot of all the above relationships is simple: India is integral to making our inextricably interconnected, intertwined multipolar world work.

[Kanwal Sibal is the former foreign secretary of India. Vikram Sood is the former chief of India’s foreign intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing. Both are noted policy wonks, formidable intellectuals and prolific writers.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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Nine gunmen traveled from Karachi to Mumbai by boat to unleash mayhem over the course of three days. They attacked multiple locations, killing 164 people and wounding more than 300. Iconic locations such as the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel next to the Gateway of India, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (earlier known as Victoria Terminus) and the Leopold Cafe were hit. The attacks paralyzed the city, triggered mass panic and caused the collapse of India’s booming stock market.

Cat-and-Mouse Game

India absorbed the monstrous nature of the Mumbai attacks and resumed direct political dialogue with Pakistan in July 2009. India even agreed to make a major political concession: It delinked the dialogue from the issue of terrorism in the hope that the two countries could have a free, frank and uninterrupted conversation. Pakistan treated this as a political victory at India’s expense. Instead of initiating a process of normalizing ties with India, Pakistan continued with its policy of supporting jihadi groups dedicated to launching terror attacks in neighboring countries.

India’s policy was based on the assumption that Pakistan would realize the internal cost of nurturing jihadi groups on its soil. Like Frankenstein, terrorists have turned on Pakistan itself. In 2013, an explosion killed at least 45 people in a Shia district of Karachi, and the 2014 Peshawar school massacre led to 150 deaths, of which at least 134 were students. These are just two of the many such incidents that have been taking place in Pakistan over the past decade.

Yet Pakistani support for terror as an instrument of state policy has continued. India has thus reverted to its position of putting terrorism at the center of any India-Pakistan dialogue. Pakistan refuses to accept India’s position. Instead, it wants dialogue on Kashmir and uses terror as a tactic to wage war against India for this territory.

Pakistan-sponsored attacks against India have continued unabated. Most recently, on November 20, four suspected terrorists belonging to Jaish-e-Mohammad, a jihadist group headquartered in Pakistan, waged a three-hour-long gun battle with the police on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway. They had entered India to disrupt local elections in Kashmir. Reportedly, they were planning a spectacular attack to commemorate the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

India-Pakistan relations continue to be in a stalemate on the issue of terrorism. In a cat-and-mouse game, Pakistan promotes terrorist attacks while India prevents them. Since 2019, one thing has changed. After the 2019 Pulwama attack that killed 40 paramilitary personnel, India conducted airstrikes on Pakistani territory. For the first time since the 1971 war, India crossed the line of control, the de facto India-Pakistan border in Jammu and Kashmir. The airstrikes demonstrated that India is no longer deterred by Pakistan’s nuclear capability. If Pakistan instigates a major terrorist attack on Indian soil, New Delhi has shown to be willing to take limited military action in retaliation.

An Increasingly Extremist Society

Even as Pakistan continues to promote terrorism across the border, its society has become increasingly extremist. In 2012, the German news agency Deutsche Welle analyzed the rise in extremism in Pakistani society. Many see cultural plurality as un-Islamic. Arabization is on the rise. Numerous jihadist and terrorist organizations operate freely in the country. This trend taking place in a nuclear state is and should be a matter of great international concern.

Pakistan now exports terror not only to India and Afghanistan, but also to other countries. As per the European Foundation for South Asian Studies, there is an “unholy alliance” between Pakistan’s army and terrorism. Islamic extremists from Pakistan or of Pakistani origin have been involved in many terrorist attacks in other countries. In September, the main suspect for a knife attack outside the former Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was of Pakistani origin.

Most recently, street protests have erupted in Pakistan against French President Emmanuel Macron after he claimed that Islam is in crisis following the beheading of schoolteacher Samuel Paty, killed by a Chechen refugee disgruntled over Paty’s discussion of the controversial Charlie Hebdo cartoons during a civic education class. Protesters burned a defaced image of Macron and the French flag outside the French consulate in Karachi. Many sought the expulsion of the French ambassador and demanded that Pakistan break off diplomatic ties with France.

Pakistan has taken great umbrage at Macron’s actions to curb Islamic extremism. Pakistani leaders object to France’s insistence that Muslim leaders agree to a “charter of republican values,” reject political Islam and foreign interference. Shireen Mazari, Pakistan’s human rights minister, tweeted: “Macron is doing to Muslims what the Nazis did to the Jews — Muslim children will get ID numbers (other children won’t) just as Jews were forced to wear the yellow star on their clothing for identification.” After French protestations, she withdrew her comments, but the damage was done.

In October, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global terror financing watchdog, put Pakistan on its grey list for its failure to “effectively crackdown on means of financing terror activities.” The FATF found “strategic deficiencies in [Pakistan’s] regimes to counter money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing.”

To improve its international image, Pakistan has taken some judicial action against the masterminds of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Hafiz Saeed, one of the founders of Lashkar-e-Taiba and the leader of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, two notorious jihadist organizations, has been convicted on charges of terror financing. As Pakistan’s leading English newspaper Dawn observed, the conviction came “as Pakistan tries to avoid punitive blacklisting” by FATF. Given Pakistan’s incestuous relationship with the likes of Saeed, he might get off lightly after an appeal once Pakistan has escaped censure from the FATF.

The big international concern is that the Pakistani establishment continues to aid and abet terrorism. There has been no fundamental change in either policy or actions. In fact, Islamabad’s ratcheting up of its rhetoric on Macron is alarming because it is accompanied by “rising religious intolerance at home.”

Nelson’s Eye

Despite the fact that six Americans were killed in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the US has been relatively soft on Pakistan. For decades, Islamabad was a Cold War ally. The US and Saudi Arabia funded the Afghan mujahedeen against the Soviet Union through Pakistan. These led to close ties between the American and Pakistani establishments. Of late, these ties have been weakening and Washington has been inching closer to New Delhi.

In the most recent joint statement, India and the US have called “for concerted action against all terrorist networks, including al-Qaeda, ISIS/Daesh, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.” They have also asked “Pakistan to take immediate, sustained and irreversible action to ensure that no territory under its control is used for terrorist attacks, and to expeditiously bring to justice the perpetrators and planners of all such attacks, including 26/11 Mumbai, Uri, and Pathankot.”

While this statement might give diplomatic satisfaction to India, it is important to remember that Saeed was able to freely address public rallies in Pakistan despite the US putting a bounty of $10 million on his head. The US could not, or did not, put Pakistan on the mat for failure to act against the Haqqani Network, responsible for inflicting casualties on US soldiers in Afghanistan.

The US has imposed the most draconian sanctions on Iran and has not spared a powerful nuclear state like Russia. Yet it has hesitated to impose serious sanctions on Pakistan, giving, unconvincingly, its nuclear status as one of the excuses. The limited military and economic sanctions the US has imposed on Pakistan are neutralized by Islamabad’s ever-increasing economic and military links with China. In any case, despite the FATF proceedings against Pakistan, the country has obtained yet another bailout from the International Monetary Fund.

The US has turned Nelson’s eye on Pakistan’s promotion of terror because it needs the country’s assistance to retreat from Afghanistan. The war on terror has not quite succeeded. Like the UK and the Soviet Union, the US is worn out after nearly two decades on the ground in Afghanistan. It needs to save face and avoid the impression of total defeat. It is willing to negotiate with the Taliban even as the armed group continues to commit horrific acts of terror against innocent Afghans. A report by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction showed a 50% increase in attacks over the past three months alone, with the UN estimating that some 6,000 civilians have died in the violence in the first nine months of 2020.

India’s Unique Vulnerability to Terror

As the US makes peace with the Taliban, India’s problems with Pakistan-sponsored terror are likely to grow. Even Russia has opened a “channel to the Taliban,” a historic sworn enemy. The Taliban leadership is demonstrating diplomatic savvy by negotiating their way back to power. This leadership might appear relatively urbane, but the Taliban rank and file continue to be fanatics. They now believe they have defeated two superpowers thanks to their faith in Islam.

Once the Taliban win power, they will impose their obscurantist ideology. This will embolden extremists in Pakistan. Lest we forget, an Indian plane hijacked by terrorists landed in Kandahar in 1999. India released terrorists to bring back hostages. One of the terrorists was Masood Azhar. He went on to start Jaish-e-Muhammad, responsible for the deaths of hundreds over the years. Azhar is to India what Osama bin Laden was to the US. He got his initial training in Afghanistan, and many more like him are likely to receive similar training once the Taliban are firmly back in the saddle.

While the Taliban might not engage in direct terrorism against the US, India would be fair game. Pakistan would promote Taliban efforts, and China would ignore, if not abet, them. For a decade, China opposed resolutions in the United Nations Security Council to designate Azhar as an international terrorist, leading Michael Kugelman, a noted South Asia analyst, to call him “China’s favorite terrorist.” China has become a loyal ally of Pakistan and lauds Islamabad’s fight against international terrorism even as its junior ally stays deafeningly silent on the treatment of the Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang. As India and China clash, an increase in terror attacks on Indian soil would serve Chinese interests. Pakistan and the Taliban are likely to oblige.

Attacks across Europe and elsewhere demonstrate that India is not alone in facing the scourge of terrorism. As we mark the 12^th anniversary of the Mumbai attacks, India’s 1996 proposal for a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism is more relevant than ever. The world needs to increase security, boost peace and safeguard the lives of innocents.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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