Headlines:
- Trump once again promises US pull out from Syria
- Ongoing Conflict between Pakistan and India has not spared even its Diplomats
- Russia Expels 59 Diplomats from 23 Countries
- Spread of Wahhabism was Done at Request of West During Cold War: Saudi Crown Prince
- With Trump’s Help, Egypt Holds a Farcical Election
- Nuclear Security Worries Drive Latest US Penalties on Pakistan
Trump once again promises US pull out from Syria
US President Donald Trump has again promised to remove American troops from Syria, in accordance with popular sentiment in US domestic public opinion which is strongly against America’s military interventions and wars abroad but in contradiction to the wishes of the Capitalist elite. Trump’s isolationist stance conflicts with the American political establishment, which works for American global dominance, and will not submit on this even to its own president. As noted by the Washington Post:
President Donald Trump’s unscripted remark this week about pulling out of Syria “very soon,” while at odds with his own policy, was not a one-off: For weeks, top advisers have been fretting about an overly hasty withdrawal as the president has increasingly told them privately he wants out, U.S. officials said.
Only two months ago, Trump’s aides thought they’d persuaded him that the U.S. needed to keep its presence in Syria open-ended — not only because the Islamic State group has yet to be entirely defeated, but also because the resulting power vacuum could be filled by other extremist groups or by Iran. Trump signed off on major speech in January in which Secretary of State Rex Tillerson laid out the new strategy and declared “it is vital for the United States to remain engaged in Syria.”
But by mid-February, Trump was telling his top aides in meetings that as soon as victory can be declared against IS, he wanted American troops out of Syria, said the officials. Alarm bells went off at the State Department and the Pentagon, where officials have been planning for a gradual, methodical shift from a military-led operation to a diplomatic mission to start rebuilding basic infrastructure like roads and sewers in the war-wracked country.
In one sign that Trump is serious about reversing course and withdrawing from Syria, the White House this week put on hold some $200 million in US funding for stabilization projects in Syria, officials said. The money, to have been spent by the State Department for infrastructure projects like power, water and roads, had been announced by outgoing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at an aid conference last month in Kuwait.
The officials said the hold, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is not necessarily permanent and will be discussed at senior-level inter-agency meetings next week.
America’s role in Syria has been much underplayed in the media. In reality it is America that controls the entire battlefield in Syria, and it is America that controls the puppet regime of Bashar al-Assad. However, realising the steep danger presented by the revolution in Syria, and cognisant of its military failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, America chose not to enter Syria directly but to use its agents such as Iran and Turkey, and attract Russia to enter the field in protection of its vital Tartus naval base in Syria. It is America that is supervising the distribution of Syria amongst these different agents, and it is America that allows Turkey to enter Afrin but not the Kurdish area, and Assad to expel the people of Ghouta, in a form of ideological cleansing, but does not allow Assad’s forces to enter eastern Syria, which it wants to reserve for its own forces.
The American people have yet to realise that America never pulls out of any region once it has entered it. This is the reason that America has close to one thousand military bases around the world. It is expected that the US military will retain a permanent military presence in Syria, just as it has elsewhere.
Ongoing Conflict between Pakistan and India has not spared even its Diplomats
Recent months have seen aggressive cross-border attacks by India on Pakistan soil, which numbered 170 just in the month of January. The excessive friction between the two countries extended to treatment of each other’s diplomatic staff, though they pledged yesterday to at least desist from this expression of conflict. According to the Dawn:
Pakistan and India on Friday agreed to address complaints of harassment of diplomats in accordance with the bilaterally agreed 1992 ‘Code of Conduct’ on treatment of diplomatic and consular staff in each other’s country.
The agreement was announced through a statement simultaneously issued by the Foreign Office and the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.
The statement reads: “India and Pakistan have mutually agreed to resolve matters related to the treatment of diplomats and diplomatic premises, in line with the 1992 ‘Code of Conduct’ for treatment of diplomatic/consular personnel in India and Pakistan.”
The discussions between the two countries had begun after Pakistan recalled its High Commissioner Sohail Mahmood for consultations following a spike in incidents of harassment of Pakistani diplomats in Delhi. India, meanwhile, too had been complaining about the treatment of its diplomats in Islamabad.
It is said that over 50 incidents of harassment of Pakistani diplomats and their families took place between March 7 and 23. It turned ugly when the children of Pakistani diplomats while on way to their schools were stopped and harassed.”
Again it is America that lurks behind this conflict, inciting India as a further means of pressure on Pakistan to make greater sacrifices in support of the American occupation of Afghanistan. A secondary American objective is to coerce Pakistan into normalising relations with India, so that India can concentrate more fully on confronting China.
Russia Expels 59 Diplomats from 23 Countries
Russia has responded to the West’s diplomatic assault by announcing its own expulsions; according to Reuters:
Russia expelled 59 diplomats from 23 countries on Friday and said it reserved the right to take action against four other nations in a worsening standoff with the West over the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in Britain.
Russia said it was responding to what it called the baseless demands for scores of its own diplomats to leave a slew of mostly Western countries that have joined London and Washington in censuring Moscow over the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.
A day earlier, Moscow ordered the expulsion of 60 U.S. diplomats and the closing of the U.S. consulate in St Petersburg, Russia’s second city, in retaliation for the biggest ejection of diplomats since the Cold War.
Preparations appeared to be under way on Friday to close the St Petersburg mission down, with a removals truck making repeated journeys to and from the consulate which took delivery of a large pizza order for its staff.
Britain’s purpose in all this has been to repeat its strategy prior to World War II, which was to drive continental Europe, and particularly Germany, against the Soviet Union. America has been aligned with Britain in this policy.
The UK and the US view the world in terms of conflict and balance of power so they are always seeking to drive other countries against each other, in order to maintain their own superiority. Hence they constantly seek out opportunities to increase conflict, instead of trying to reduce conflict in the world. With Allah’s permission, the world will soon witness the return of the righteous Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate) State on the method of the Prophet ﷺ that will establish a very different approach to international affairs, and return the entire world to peace, justice and prosperity, as was seen during the millennium that the Khilafah State previously remained the world’s sole superpower.
Spread of Wahhabism was Done at Request of West During Cold War: Saudi Crown Prince
In a recent interview with the American daily, The Washington Post, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) revealed that Riyadh had spread Wahhabi ideology, at the request of its Western allies to counter the influence of the Soviet Union (USSR) in Muslim countries, during the Cold War. The powerful heir to the Saudi throne made the statement during a 75-minute interview with the Washington Post, on March 22, on the sidelines of his first diplomatic visit to the United States since being named crown prince. According to bin Salman, the Saudi-funded spread of Wahhabi ideology began in the second half of the twentieth century after Saudi Arabia’s Western allies urged the country to invest in mosques and madrassas overseas during the Cold War, to help counter the influence of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. “Our allies demanded that we use our resources to accomplish this task,” Bin Salman said. The Crown prince also admitted that successive Saudi governments have gone astray, and now “we have to get it all back.” “Funding now comes largely from Saudi-based foundations,” he said, rather than from the government. Wahhabism is an Islamic doctrine and religious movement, named after its founder, an eighteenth-century preacher, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. The movement has long been variously described as an ultraconservative and austere faith, in addition of being a source of global terrorism. In an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” broadcast last Sunday, the crown prince discussed a myriad of topics including his reform efforts at home, lambasting rigid doctrines that have long governed Saudi Arabia in response to the Iranian revolution in 1979, after which Saudi Arabia wanted to “copy the Iranian model.” “Saudi Arabia was not like this before ’79. Saudi Arabia and the entire region went through a revival after ’79. … All we’re doing is going back to what we were: a moderate Islam that is open to all religions and to the world and to all traditions and people,” Bin Salman said. “I believe Islam is sensible, Islam is simple, and people are trying to hijack it,” he told the Washington Post. The Saudi crown prince, has previously vowed to return the country to “moderate Islam” and asked for global support to transform the hardline kingdom into an open society that empowers citizens and draws investors. [Source: Morocco World News]
After admitting Saudi’s role in helping the West to counter Soviet expansions, will the crown prince also admit that the current drive to secularize Saudi society is at the behest of the West.
With Trump’s Help, Egypt Holds a Farcical Election
For Egypt’s democracy and human-rights activists, Trump is something far different: an enabler of repression who has embraced Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi as he carries out the most repressive crackdown in the country in decades. Three days after taking office, Trump phoned Sisi and effusively pledged his support for the authoritarian ruler. When Sisi visited Washington last spring, Trump warmly welcomed him to the White House, reversing an Obama Administration policy of declining to meet the former general because of his government’s sweeping human-rights abuses. Five years ago, Sisi seized power and jailed the country’s democratically elected President in a popularly backed military coup that led to the massacre of thousands of supporters of the now banned Muslim Brotherhood. Under Sisi, the government has arrested at least sixty thousand people, handed down hundreds of preliminary death sentences, and tried thousands of civilians in military courts, according to human-rights groups. Torture, including beatings, electric shocks, stress positions, and sometimes rape, has been systematically employed. After a pair of church bombings by the Islamic State killed forty-seven people last April, Sisi declared a nationwide state of emergency that gave the government sweeping powers to arrest people, seize assets, and censor the media. Trump has made no mention of the repression, called Sisi a “fantastic guy,” and even complimented the Egyptian leader on his shoes. Sisi, in turn, has praised Trump for being “a unique personality that is capable of doing the impossible.” Trump’s embrace of Sisi is not unusual: he has praised authoritarian leaders around the world, but his backing of autocratic regimes is perhaps nowhere more visible than in Egypt. This week, Egyptians went to the polls in a three-day Presidential election that observers described as a farce. Sisi ran against one obscure opponent, Moussa Mostafa Moussa, who is a Sisi supporter himself. Three former high-ranking military leaders who had announced that they would challenge Sisi were arrested or forced out of the race. The President then proclaimed his disappointment that other “distinguished people” were not challenging him. “We are not ready, isn’t it a shame,” Sisi said on national television. On Thursday, state media announced preliminary results showing that ninety-two per cent of Egyptians had voted for Sisi’s reelection. Low turnout, estimated to be at around forty per cent, fuelled speculation about the breadth of popular support for Sisi, who has centralized power in a small circle of generals and security chiefs. “Over the three days of voting, the regime struggled to drum up sufficient interest in voting for a variety of reasons,” Elissa Miller, a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council, wrote on Wednesday. “Among them is the reality that Sisi has failed to deliver on a number of promises made over the last four years of his presidency.” Trump Administration officials, meanwhile, praised the vote. The American Embassy in Cairo tweeted, on Monday, “as Americans we are very impressed by the enthusiasm and patriotism of Egyptian voters.” [Source: The New Yorker]
Propping up dictators is business as usual for America. After the removal Morsi, the US has returned to supporting Sisi’s strong-arm tactics to oppress the Egyptian masses and safeguard American interests.
Nuclear Security Worries Drive Latest US Penalties on Pakistan
The Commerce Department this week sanctioned seven Pakistani companies for alleged links to nuclear trade. Their place on an “Entity List” requires them to obtain special licenses to do business with the U.S. This move follows other U.S. penalties against Pakistan, including a successful push to put Pakistan on a “gray list” of countries not doing enough to stem terrorist financing and a freeze on all U.S. security assistance to Pakistan. But Commerce’s action should not be seen as part of the existing campaign to pressure Pakistan to crack down harder on terrorists. Commerce’s move does underscore Washington’s concerns about Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation record — even as nuclear watchdog groups cite improvements in Pakistan’s nuclear security. This was not a Pakistan-specific move — Washington also sanctioned 15 Sudanese companies — and the seven sanctioned Pakistani firms are not exactly corporate powerhouses. Penalizing them won’t produce damaging economic consequences for Pakistan. Yet these concerns recall the saga of AQ Khan, a senior Pakistani nuclear scientist — and father of the country’s atomic bomb — who admitted to sharing nuclear secrets with North Korea and Iran in the 1980s and 1990s. Pakistan is seeking membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group — a prestigious, 46-member club that seeks to reduce nuclear proliferation by tightly managing nuclear trade. Likely concerned about Pakistan’s joining the NSG, Washington may now have dealt a major blow to its membership prospects. [Source: Arab News]
The US is again using nuclear proliferation as an excuse to punish Pakistan. However, no one is punishing Washington for proliferating nuclear technology to India? Such double standards expose America’s duplicity on nuclear weapons, disarmament and nuclear proliferation.