The fanatical religious extremists in Pakistan felt deeply humiliated by this pronouncement of the court and threatened to launch a countrywide protest against the verdict. They threatened to disrupt law and order and paralyze the government, charging that Islam was being undermined in Pakistan. At the front of these protests was Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, the offshoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba – an extremist Sunni Hanafi organization that has taken upon itself the genocidal mission of decimating the Shi’a community of Pakistan.

Upon realizing the gravity of the situation, Prime Minister Imran Khan felt the compulsion of addressing the nation through a hurried broadcast.  He spoke what any rationalist and sensible politician and leader would speak. He was polite and persuasive, appealing for respect for the judiciary and the need to maintain peace. He even said that the country was passing through severe financial crisis and is not capable of bearing further strain on its economy. He asked how Pakistan could be run when there are calls for the army to revolt; when there is demand to kill the concerned judges of the Supreme Court; and when there is the cry that the Army Chief is not a Muslim. However, the sting was in the tail: he said it was the duty of the state to protect the life and property of citizens.

Apart from the threats and intimidation flowing rapidly from the extremist groups, there was urgency for Imran Khan to make his hurried broadcast. He was scheduled to leave for Beijing the same night and he did not like that his maiden official visit to China should get spoiled. Nevertheless, his apprehensions did not fail him.

The mayhem let loose by the fundamentalists has forced the government to deploy high-level security at the Pakistan Supreme Court and for its judges. The lawyer who was pleading the case of the defendant has left Pakistan owing to threats to his life. Important government installations have been brought under a security umbrella. And the government has surrendered to fundamentalist pressure and agreed to revisit the matter.

Pakistan’s malaise is rooted in history. The country was created on the assumption that the Muslim community in India was entirely a separate and a superior entity having nothing in common with the indigenous communities of India. Actually, this type of thinking goes into the history of Islam and the Pakistan movement leadership was unable to move beyond the original Islamic cultural parameters and walk into the arena of modernity.

The history of Islam’s opposition to and clash with secularism is an old one. Interestingly, in Arabic language, despite the richness of its lexicon, there is no equivalent word for “secularism.” Secularism, in its political and social sense, has been borrowed from European thinkers and after the Reformation of A.D 1688, secularism became a meaningful term in the political history of Europe. However, it made no impact on Muslim societies in the East because they were still struggling under the rule of autocrats either in the form of monarchs or powerful satraps.

We used to say that in Pakistan the real power rests with the Army. But the Asia Bibi case has exploded that myth, and now we find that real power in that country rests with the religious extremist organizations, which have exhorted the army to rise in revolt against the state.

Pakistan has frequently been warned that the Frankenstein of religious fundamentalism will one day take on the State, including the army. That day has come. It is the Pakistan army that patronized and supported fundamentalism. It is the State of Pakistan that financed and patronized thousands of madrassahs which have churned out hundreds of thousands of fundamentalists-terrorists, who have been working for the destruction of peace in the country and its neighbors – India and Afghanistan in particular. They had tried their tactics in Xinjiang with Uyghur at one time but had to eat humble pie when Beijing issued a stern warning and banished Islamist propaganda in her autonomous province.

This fire will not be doused with the surrender of the Imran Khan government to the fundamentalists. Its embers are smoldering and can ignite a great fire sooner than later. The army has a large number of recruits from the madrassahs, where they have been brainwashed and radicalized. The exhortations of religious extremist leadership will not go unnoticed by the lower echelons of the Pakistan army keeping in mind the milieu from which they have arisen.  At the same time, the Army will also have to recollect that in the past, Imran Khan has been highly critical of the United States and the Pakistan army while conducting his election campaign in Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa. He is riding the tiger but will he dismount without being bruised and mauled? That is the question.

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the authors are theirs alone and don’t reflect the official position of Geopoliticalmonitor.com or any other institution.

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From the vast deserts of Central Asia, the new Great Game seems to be shifting to the warm waters of the Indian Ocean, the premier commercial waterway of international trade. The actors are not the old imperial powers aspiring for empires but shrewd traders seeking large markets for their merchandise and accompanying political clout. They act not in isolation but in collaboration without losing sight of their respective national interests.

China, USA, Russia, India, Iran, Central Asian Republics, Afghanistan and Pakistan are the conspicuous actors of this new game. Actually, regional states in the Central and South Asia desire to forge new bilateral and multilateral relationship outside abandoning the model of the days of Great Game.

Their convergence on a new relationship built along economic parameters is bolstered by modern technology and advanced entrepreneurship.

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Have the four meetings of NSS since 2009 achieved the objective? It is a moot question. Radioactive materials in numerous countries are still vulnerable. International nuclear security architecture continues to be fragmented and predominantly based on nonbinding measures. And the NSS has not left behind a successor.

Russia’s refusal to participate in Washington Summit dealt a blow to the success of NSS because she has the largest stock of weapons-usable materials in the world.

Concerns about the security of nuclear holdings apply to various countries, ranging from Pakistan, where terrorist groups are highly active, to the United States, who’s Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee – home to large stocks of HEU – was infiltrated in 2012 by a group of activists.  Keeping away North Korea and Iran from the NSS puts the very concept of the summit into controversy.

Without true multilateral initiatives, success in battling nuclear terror may remain elusive. Initiatives like the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism and the G-8 Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations, European Union, and Interpol all have significant role to play.

Are the big nuclear powers really willing to make a breakthrough and secure the world against the threat of nuclear weapons falling in wrong hands? The summit did not propose concrete steps towards this objective.

Biden estimated the illicit Saudi resource transfer to jihadis at “hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of weapons.”

Pakistan, the unstable nuclear power in South Asia, is vulnerable to nuclear pilferage. That notwithstanding,  the U.S. has sold eight nuclear-capable F-16 Fighters to her on the plea of strengthening her thrust to quell terror and insurgency in her north. In the past, Pakistan has used American gifted weapons against India. It is the United States’ indirect recognition of Pakistan legitimizing use of the nuclear option. Put simply, the decision grossly contradicts the spirit of the NSS.

No less ambivalent is China. For the second time, China vetoed India’s demand of UN listing Azhar, the perpetrator of Mumbai carnage, and his organization JeM, as international terrorists. The timing of the veto is significant – when the NSS had just concluded the session. This is despite China claiming to be faced with the Uyghur “terrorists” in the eastern province of Xingjian.

Obviously, nuclear powers are dovetailing their nuclear capability to national interests. In an interview with the press in Washington, Adviser Sartaj Aziz made no bones that since Pakistan could not match India’s conventional war machine, it had to rely on nuclear option. He said in answer to a question as to what was the necessity of acquiring small tactical nuclear bomb technology from China. It grossly contradicts the entire NSS exercise.

The G-20 Turkey meeting did not react to Modi’s passionate appeal for a global effort to combat contemporary terrorism. His was a lone passionate appeal; the rest of them had other views.

From Washington, Modi headed to the autocratic monarchical state of Saudi Arabia with a twofold agenda: elicit anti-terror commitment from the Saudi king and talk trade. Saudi King Salman did condemn terrorism and denounced using religion for the sustenance of jihad. Who are the takers of the King’s token rhetoric on terror? The Western press didn’t take not of what was banner news for Indian media.

Expecting Saudi monarch to stand against terrorism is to ask the wolf abandon its nature. But Modi isn’t a politician of turbid imagination. Global terrorism — nuclear or non-nuclear— sans Saudi complicity is zero. Let me explain why.

The pact that binds Saudi monarchy to Abdul Wahhab in Diriyah in 1744 laid down that Wahhabis would aid the king in exchange for imposition of Wahhabism as the official form of Islam. Jointly they initiated jihad against Muslims in Arabia who refused to adopt the old Salafi ways as re-prescribed by Wahhab and upheld by King Saud, who was presented as Allah’s chosen monarch to whom all Muslims had to pledge baya, or absolute allegiance.

Between 1744 and 1818, Wahhabi preachers and fighters embedded their tenets and institutions into Arabian society. Wahhabism served Saud’s descendants in the ruling family as a bulwark against Arab nationalist rivals like Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, who were turning to the Soviets during the 1960s and 1970s. Faced with the rise of secularism and fueled by oil money, King Faisal ibn Abdulaziz al-Saud (1964–75) decided on the propaganda of Wahhabism, which proclaims the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as the sole rightful defender of Islam.

With Soviets making inroads into Afghanistan in 1979, the House of Saud projected itself as the global defender of Muslims. The Saudis desire to weaponize Islamist ideology came as windfall to the U.S. and anti-Soviet West. The Saudis spent $4 billion per year on mosques, madrassas, preachers, students, and textbooks to spread the Wahhabi creed over the next decades. Thousands of Muslim centers sprang up along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, training not scholars but jihadis equipped with Wahhabi ideology and American weapons. The U.S. would not care for the consequences of arming jihadis. Al-Qaeda affiliates spread across the Middle East, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and South Asia. Success against the Soviets in Afghanistan meant divine confirmation of jihad as necessary for Islam’s global ascendance. Wahhabism in turn emerged as the “indispensable ideology.”

According to the Saudi monarchy’s official websites, Wahhabi charities and royal trusts spent millions of dollars recruiting students to more than 1,500 mosques, 210 Muslim centers, 202 Islamic colleges, and 2,000 madrassas and on staffing those institutions with nearly 4,000 preachers and missionaries in non-Muslim nations in central, southern, and southeast Asia, as well as in Africa, Europe, and North America. Adherents to Wahhabism used Saudi control of four-fifths of all Islamic publishing houses around the world to spread their fighting words into faraway places.

Freedom House, a Washington-based NGO reported 80 percent of the 1,200 mosques in the U.S. were constructed after 2001, mostly with Saudi financing. Hundreds of Saudi government publications filled with intolerance toward Christians, Jews, and other Americans, were disseminated across the country by 2006. By 2013, 75 percent of North American Islamic centers relied on Wahhabi preachers who promote anti-Western ideas.

Since 2011, 100 to 150 new mosques were under construction across France with Saudi funding. Saudi and Qatari Wahhabi charities controlled 60 percent of mosques in Italy by 2009. In Kazakhstan, the Mecca-based Muslim World League, long associated with disseminating Wahhabism, is funding construction of mosques. The intelligence service of India estimates more than $244 million has been spent by Saudi Wahhabis during the past decade to set up 40 new mosques and four new madrassas and take over hundreds of others across the subcontinent, from Kashmir in the north to Maharashtra in the west and Kerala in the south.

According to US Vice President Joe Biden, the Saudi actions were initially directed by Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Kingdom’s former ambassador to Washington and ex–intelligence chief, who had warned prior to 9/11, that “the time is not far off, in the Middle East when it will be literally, ‘God help the Shias.’ More than a billion Sunnis have simply had enough of them.”

Biden estimated the illicit Saudi resource transfer to jihadis at “hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of weapons.” In addition to ideology and training, for instance, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is reported to have provided $20,000 in cash directly to the Paris terrorists. Radicals from no fewer than 18 nations all over the globe have joined the Islamic Caliphate army. More than 11,000 Wahhabi-radicalized foreigners had joined the Syrian jihad by September 2014, with French and British citizens predominating recruits from Europe.

Intelligence sources concur that Salman served as the royal family’s main fundraiser for jihadis in Afghanistan during the 1980s and in the Balkans during the 1990s. He also served as the main conduit between the Saudi state bureaucracy and extremist clerics in the Wahhabi clerical establishment, in addition to directing the Saudi High Commission for Relief of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which has been linked by NATO to al-Qaeda and other jihad organizations. More recently, after ascending the throne, Salman presented the 2015 King Faisal International Prize for Service to Islam to an Indian Muslim televangelist infamous for describing the 9/11 attacks as “an inside job” led by President George W. Bush.

Not surprisingly, one of Salman’s first official acts as monarch was to dismiss two influential officials who had opposed Wahhabi clergymen. He appointed the anti-democratic Muhammad bin Nayef as both crown prince and as interior minister, an office that controls the internal and external intelligence agencies. Nayef focuses on suppressing internal terrorism while turning a blind eye to its export abroad.

King Salman’s Operation Decisive Storm, ostensibly a 10-country Sunni offensive against Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen on the Kingdom’s southern border, reinforces Sunni autocrats irrespective of negative consequences.

The purpose of scripting this detail about Saudi monarchy is to pose a question to the Indian policy planners. Are they hoping that against the backdrop of this deep and extensive involvement of the Saudi monarchy in jihadi terror, that token rhetoric of King Salman of Saudi Arabia as stated in the joint statement with Prime Minister Modi to be taken seriously? Can they name any world leader who is as seriously and sincerely committed to fighting terror as Modi is? India has to fight jihadi terror all alone and mind you, unless each India citizen girds up his loin to fight the deadly threat, this war cannot be won.

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the authors are theirs alone and don’t reflect any official position of Geopoliticalmonitor.com.

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Objective analyses of Modi’s visits abroad reveal his penchant for reassessing India’s regional and global relationships with a view of infusing new vitality in the tenets of our foreign policy. His first visit to Middle East region was not to Israel as observers would have anticipated but to Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

When Modi’s visit to Abu Dhabi hit the headlines of major newspapers in the region, Pakistani leading English daily Dawn termed it as “wake up call for Pakistan.”

India and Saudi Arabia have been exchanging visits of top level dignitaries in the past. However, new vitality was infused into their relations when King Abdullah visited India in January 2006 and was the Guest of Honour at our Republic Day celebrations.

India gives importance to friendly relations with the Saudi Kingdom. It is our largest supplier of oil. Nearly 2.8 million Indian workers are based in that country and make substantial remittances of foreign exchange back home. Yet this is not only a one-way traffic; Saudis are conscious of the large scope of investment India is capable of offering as well.

Lately, the Saudi-American relationship has met with a short and unusual spell of hibernation.  After adhering to its foreign policy for too long, a period verging on stagnation, the Saudis ensconced themselves with a shift and adoption of ‘Look East Policy.’ One important reason for this shift was that the U.S. was no more in need of Saudi oil, which also meant a reorientation of Saudi-US relations.

At the same time, India and China are new and alluring customers of Saudi hydrocarbon reserves for more than one reason. Both are oil hungry, both are fast-growing economies and both are home to vast populations with a rapidly burgeoning middle class. All this is sufficient temptation for the Saudi corporate business houses to focus on India.

Riyadh is looking for a new business partnership, not an alliance. The US-Saudi alliance has weathered the vagaries of history and their pattern of alliance is resting on a solid foundation that will not get dislodged by the surge of new exigencies or opportunities.

The point is that Saudi Arabia’s India option is not America centric. Neither India nor China is nursing any ambition of replacing the United States in the Gulf. On that count, there is no scope of any misunderstanding at any level when visits of top leadership of India and Saudi Arabia are undertaken. Objective assessment shows that neither China nor India has any covert intention of replacing the U.S. in the Gulf.

Nevertheless, observers will not cease unraveling the political dimensions of Modi’s Saudi visit. Two regional countries, Pakistan and Iran, come into focus. In the context of Pakistan, we have noted that ahead of Modi’s visit to Riyadh, Saudi foreign minister Adel-al-Jubair, during his visit to Pakistan said, “Saudi relations with Pakistan do not come at the expense of India.” It obviously meant that Saudi-Pak relations remain in place and would not be affected by India extending a hand of friendship to the Saudis.

There are no two opinions on very close and solid relations between Riyadh and Islamabad. Pakistan is an important ally of the Saudis and the Pakistani military is the trusted bodyguard of the Saudi monarchy. Saudis have financed Pakistan’s nuclear program and Pakistan bemused itself calling it an ‘Islamic nuclear bomb.’

However, more recent developments are noticeable.  When Islamabad declined to be part of 34-Islamic nations security coalition proposed by Riyadh, Saudi Foreign Minister al Jubair and Deputy Crown Prince and Defence Minister Mohammad bin Salman visited Pakistan at short interval.  By declining to commit troops in Yemen in April 2015, Pakistan caused ripples in her relations with the Kingdom.

Maybe Modi could cash on this opportunity. If, like in Abu Dhabi, Modi is able to make the Saudis agree to a joint communiqué that condemns states using religion to sponsor terrorist activities at home and abroad, it would be a big step forward in commonality of thinking between India and Saudi Arabia in the context of countering international terror.

The position of Iran in the context of Indo-Saudi relations is different from the position of Pakistan. Iran, really, does not stand in the way of India and Saudi Arabia invigorating their mutual relationship, particularly in the realm of trade and commerce. India has good relations with Iran. She is well aware of the nature of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. In framing the nature or relationship, Saudis, like any other country, give priority to their national interests.

India is not a small country that the Saudis would think of pressuring to downgrade her relations with Iran. India has vital strategic interest in a friendly Iran notwithstanding Iran meeting part of our hydrocarbon energy requirements.

India has vital strategic interest in restoring peace in war-torn Afghanistan and Iran has a significant role in that process. Iran has provided a corridor to India via Chah Bahar sea port for conducting trade with Central Asian region. After sanctions were lifted from Iran in the aftermath of signing the nuclear treaty, Teheran announced massive investment to the tune of 7 billion dollars in India and India is a vital partner in the development of infrastructure in Iran.

In view of this ground reality, Riyadh will have no justification to think of pressuring India for a shift in her Iran policy. And if she does, India will flatly refuse it. Modi is not the man to whom Saudis can sell blackmail.

This said India and the Saudis have also common interest in other vital areas. Both are pitted against the onslaughts of jihadis directly or indirectly. The two countries have lately developed cooperation in sharing intelligence about terrorists and their activities. In June 2012, the Saudis deported to India one Abu Jundal, a suspect terrorist linked to the 26/11 Mumbai attack.

Lastly, but more importantly, the Islamic State has emerged as common enemy to both countries. The Saudi monarchy is a major target of ISIS, and ISIS moles in India are alluring Indian Muslim youth to join the jihadis.

Modi’s impending visit to Saudi Arabia will essentially concentrate on two objectives. One is to find ways and means of strengthening joint anti-terrorism plans and programs and the second is to open vistas of trade and commerce between the two countries with large space for private enterprise. Strengthening Indo-Saudi relations will also have an impact on the future course of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation which comprises 53 Islamic States.

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the authors are theirs alone and don’t reflect any official position of Geopoliticalmonitor.com.

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She said,” Brussels is the hotbed of jihadis in Europe.”

During the past year, terrorist attacks have occurred in many places, including Paris, Turkey, San Bernardino, Israel, Toronto, Ivory Coast, Pathankot, and more recently Belgium. These attacks were not isolated.

They are rooted in a dangerous, violent, and sick ideology. Perceptive commentators have highlighted the dangers of political Islam/Islamism, stemming from one of three ideological sources: the Muslim Brotherhood, Wahhabi/Salafism, and Khomeinism to lesser and limited extent.

Terrorist attacks, owned by ISIS, at an airport and Metro station in Brussels on Tuesday have left 34 dead and 270 injured. Actually, radical Islamist jihadis have declared war on the West. Their language is simple: we will find you and kill you wherever and whenever we can.

Jihadis have pinpointed the West to be Dar al Harb (land of war), a concept that allows them to justify killing anyone on this land. – from the USA across to Canada, the UK and Europe.

One of the smallest countries in Western Europe, Belgium, has become Europe’s biggest per capita source of jihadists fighting in Syria and Iraq. According to data provided by Belgian Interior Minister Mr. Jan Jambon in the third week of February, 451 Belgian citizens have been identified as jihadists. Of these, 269 are on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq; 6 are believed currently to be on their way to the war zone; 117 have returned to Belgium; and 59 have attempted to leave but were stopped at the border.

According to Minister Jambon, 197 of the jihadists are from Brussels: 112 are in Syria while 59 have returned to Belgium. Another 195 jihadists are from Flanders: 133 are in Syria while 36 have returned.

Belgium is the EU’s leading supplier of jihadists to the Islamic State per capita: around 40 jihadists per million inhabitants, compared to Denmark (27), Sweden (19), France (18), Austria (17), Finland (13); Norway (12), UK (9.5), Germany (7.5) and Spain (2).

The Muslim population of Belgium is expected to reach 700,000 in 2016, or around 6.2% of the overall population, according to figures extrapolated from a recent study by the Pew Research Center. In percentage terms, Belgium has one of the highest Muslim populations in Western Europe.

In metropolitan Brussels — where roughly half of Belgium’s Muslims currently live — the Muslim population has reached 300,000, or roughly 25%. This makes Brussels one of the most Islamic cities in Europe.

Approximately 100,000 Muslims live in the Brussels district of Molenbeek, which has emerged as the center of Belgian jihadism.

The Rise of Salafism

Growing numbers of Belgian Muslims live in marginal districts — isolated ghettos where poverty, unemployment, and crime are rampant. In Molenbeek, the unemployment rate hovers around 40%. Radical imams aggressively canvass the area in search of shiftless youths to wage jihad against the West. As in other European countries, many Muslims in Belgium are embracing Salafism — a radical form of Islam — and its call to wage violent jihad against all nonbelievers for the sake of Allah.

The aim of Salafism is to recreate a pure form of Islam in the modern era. A recent German intelligence report defined Salafism as a “political ideology, the followers of which view Islam not only as a religion but also a legal framework which regulates all areas of life: from the state’s role in organizing relations between people, to the private life of the individual.”

The report added: “Salafism rejects the democratic principles of separation of state and religion, popular sovereignty, religious and sexual self-determination, gender equality and the fundamental right to physical integrity.”

Although Salafists make up only a small fraction of Europe’s burgeoning Muslim community, authorities are increasingly worried that many of those attracted to Salafi ideology are impressionable young Muslims who may be receptive to calls for violence in the name of Islam.

The Case of Sharia4Belgium

Before the rise of the Islamic State, the best-known Salafist group in Belgium was Sharia4Belgium, which played an important role in radicalizing Belgian Muslims.

Sharia4Belgium was outlawed in February 2015, when its leader, Fouad Belkacem, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. A partial archive of the group’s former website, Sharia4Belgium issues an invitation to all Belgians to convert to Islam and submit to Sharia law or face the consequences.

The text states: “It is now 86 years since the fall of the Islamic Caliphate. The tyranny and corruption in this country [Belgium] has prevailed……  As in the past we [Muslims] have saved Europe from the dark ages, we now plan to do the same. Now we have the right solution for all crises and this is the observance of the divine law, namely Sharia. We call to implement Sharia in Belgium. Sharia is the perfect system for humanity. In 1,300 years of the Islamic state we knew only order, welfare, and the protection of all human rights. We know that Spain, France, and Switzerland knew their best times under Sharia. In these 1,300 years, 120 women were raped against 120 women now raped a day in Europe. There were barely 60 robberies recorded in 1,300 years. As a result, we invite the royal family, parliament, all the aristocracy and every Belgian resident to submit to the light of Islam. Save yourself and your children of the painful punishment of the hereafter and grant yourself eternal life in paradise.”

Belgians Divided

This apart, Belgium being a fragmented artificial state makes terror gain ground with each passing day. In November 2015, the New York Times carried a scathing analysis of Belgian incompetence. It emerged that a month before the Paris attacks Molenbeek Mayor Ms. Schepmans received a list with the names and addresses of 80 jihadists living in her district. The list included two brothers who would later take part in the November 13 attacks in Paris.

According to the Times, Schepmans said: “What was I supposed to do about them? It is not my job to track possible terrorists. That is the responsibility of the federal police.” The Times continued: “The federal police service, for its part, reports to the interior minister, Jan Jambon, a Flemish nationalist, who has doubts about whether Belgium — divided among French, Dutch and German speakers — should even exist as a single state.”

European jihadists have been exploiting the so-called Schengen Agreement, which allows for passport-free travel throughout most of the European Union It has allowed jihadists posing as migrants to enter Europe through Greece and make their way to northern Europe virtually undetected. “The government must also close our national borders. The European Union’s Schengen zone, where no border controls are allowed, is a catastrophe. The Belgian-Moroccan Salah Abdeslam, the mastermind of last November’s bloodbath in Paris, traveled freely from Belgium to the Netherlands on multiple occasions last year,” said Dutch politician Geert Wilders in an interview with Breitbart London.

Such is the diffidence among Belgian authorities that following a terrorist attack on two Canadian military officers in Toronto on March 14, the media initially did not wish to publish the words spoken by the attacker: “Allah made me do it.” Following Sunday’s bombings in Brussels, the media immediately brought in “experts” to analyze the motives of the attackers. A commentator rightly said,” There is nothing left to analyze. It is simple: It is a war against us.”

Links to ISIS

ISIS’s long arm reaches through the entirety of Europe. On February 26, Safia, a 15-year-old German girl of Moroccan descent stabbed and seriously wounded a police officer in Hanover, Germany. The newspaper, Die Welt, reported that Safia had been part of the local Salafist scene since 2008. She had appeared in Islamist propaganda videos alongside Pierre Vogel, a convert to Islam and one of the best-known Salafist preachers in Germany.

On February 4, German police arrested four members of an ISIS cell allegedly planning jihadist attacks in Berlin. In coordinated raids, more than 450 police searched homes and businesses linked to the cell in Berlin, Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. The ringleader — a 35-year-old Algerian who was staying at a refugee shelter with his wife and two children in Attendorn — arrived in Germany towards the end of 2015. Posing as an asylum seeker from Syria, the Algerian, identified as Farid A., had received military training with the Islamic State in Syria.

In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Maaßen, German intelligence boss warned: “Salafists want to establish an Islamic state in Germany.” On February 16, more than 200 German police raided the homes of 44 Salafists in the northern city state of Bremen. The Interior Minister of Bremen, Ulrich Mäurer, said he had ordered the closure of the Islamic Association of Bremen (Islamischen Fördervereins Bremen) for the alleged recruiting of jihadists for the Islamic State: “It is rather apocalyptic that we have people living in the middle of our city who are prepared, from one day to the next, to participate massively in the terror of the Islamic State.”

Targeting Europe

In a February 19 interview with the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, the head of Europol, Rob Wainwright, said that up to 5,000 European jihadists have returned to the continent after obtaining combat experience on the battlefields of the Middle East. He added that further jihadist attacks in Europe were to be expected.

“Europe is now facing the greatest terrorist threat in more than ten years. We expect that ISIS or other Islamist groups will carry out an attack somewhere in Europe, with the aim of achieving high losses among the civilian population”.

Hans-Georg Maaßen, the spy chief, warned that Germany is not an island: “We have to assume that we will become the target of jihadist attacks, and we need to be prepared.”

In a dispatch with Paris dateline, the Associated Press wrote on March 23 that the Islamic State group has trained at least 400 fighters to target Europe in deadly waves of attacks, deploying interlocking terror cells like the ones that struck Brussels and Paris with orders to choose the time, place and method for maximum carnage.

The officials, including European and Iraqi intelligence officials and a French lawmaker who follows the jihadi networks, described camps in Syria, Iraq and possibly Libya where attackers are trained to attack the West. Before being killed in a police raid, the ringleader of the Nov. 13 Paris attacks claimed to have entered Europe in a multinational group of 90 fighters, who scattered “more or less everywhere.”

French Senator Nathalie Goulet, co-head of a commission tracking jihadi networks, has estimated that between 400 and 600 Islamic State fighters are trained specifically for external attacks. According to the officials, including Goulet, some 5,000 Europeans have gone to Syria.

Fighters in the units are trained in battleground strategies, explosives, and surveillance techniques and counter surveillance, the security official said. The difference is that in 2014, some of these ISIS fighters were only being given a couple weeks of training. Now the strategy has changed. Special units have been set up. The training is longer. And the objective appears to no longer be killing as many people as possible but rather to have as many terror operations as possible, so the enemy is forced to spend more money or more in manpower. It’s more about the rhythm of terror operations now.

A senior Iraqi intelligence official who was not authorized to speak publicly said people from the cell that carried out the Paris attacks are scattered across Germany, Britain, Italy, Denmark and Sweden. Recently, a new group crossed in from Turkey, the official said.

A commentator was asked why the European Union is not demanding the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the largest international organization of 53 Islamic member states after the UN, to play its role in curbing jihadist terror. His cryptic comment was that there was no need for Islamic Caliphate because OIC itself is the Islamic Caliphate.

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the authors are theirs alone and don’t reflect any official position of Geopoliticalmonitor.com.

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The fourth and perhaps final meeting of the NSS, to which India and Pakistan have also been invited, is to be held in Washington at the end of March. President Putin of Russia has declined to participate.

India and Pakistan, two nuclear countries in South Asia, count fairly well in the deliberations and in the decision likely to come out of the final round of talks.

In a news briefing in Washington in October 2015, Pakistan Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhury disclosed for the first time that his country had made low-yield tactical nuclear weapons “for use in the event of a sudden attack by its larger neighbor.”

Two days later, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met with President Obama. Reports suggest that they talked about Pakistan’s nuclear program, Afghanistan, and militant groups such as the Haqqani network and Lashkar-e-Tayyiba – both banned organizations in the U.S.

Quoting Pervez Hoodhbhoy, a nuclear physicist and independent security analyst based in Lahore, BBC reported in a news commentary on October 21, 2015: “The fact that Pakistan was making small tactical nuclear weapons was clear to the world from the day Pakistan started its missile program. It meant that Pakistan had developed low-yield nuclear warheads to be delivered by those missiles at short ranges in a battlefield having localized impact, unlike big bombs designed to destroy cities.”

Experts say that the 2011 testing of a nuclear-capable Nasr missile by Pakistan, with a 60 kilometers range, was an indication that Pakistan was building an arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons for use in a theater of war.

Hasan Askari Rizvi, a Lahore-based expert on defense and security issues, suspects that Pakistan may have designed even smaller nuclear weapons, capable of being shot from a specially-designed gun.

Objectively speaking, battlefield weapons could be more dangerous than larger weapons because in the event of a conflict, they will need to be spread out, deployed at multiple locations closer to the targets, and would need to be fired at short notice. BBC also made the cryptic remark that “evidently, Pakistan has acquired this technology from China and it is not possible to block that pipeline.”

The question is whether nuclear command and control procedures will always be adequately ensured for all the missile units deployed across the theatre?

In addition to this concern, should not Western powers and the U.S. in particular take note of the fact that Pakistan developed these weapons despite nuclear-related international sanctions in force since 1998, after it carried out its first nuclear test?

How then is the U.S. reacting to this situation in the context of NSS program? Let us put it succinctly. Speaking during a hearing on Pakistan convened by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, US Special Representative for Af-Pak, Richard Olson said that Obama administration shares the concerns of lawmakers particularly about the development of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. “We are concerned most by the pace and scope of Pakistan’s missile program, including its pursuit of nuclear systems,” he said.

Replying to a question from Congressman Brian Higgins, Olson said that the U.S. was concerned a conventional conflict in Southwest Asia could escalate to include nuclear weapons as well as the increased security challenges that accompany growing stockpiles. He said the U.S. had a very active dialogue at the highest levels with the Pakistanis in which US concerns were stated.

US official circles assert they have urged Pakistan to restrain her nuclear weapons and missile development, which might invite increased risk to nuclear safety, security, or strategic stability.

On this basis, US lawmakers have asked their government to be tough on Islamabad “as it does not seem to be sincere in improving ties with India and has accelerated the pace of arsenals’ production.”

According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Pakistan could have 350 nuclear warheads in the next decade, becoming the world’s third biggest nuclear power, outpacing India, France, China, and the UK.  Expressing himself forcefully on the subject, Higgins said, “We have to call them (Pakistan) out  on this double game they have been playing, not this year, not last year, not five years, but for the past 15 years…. Pakistan, let’s be truthful about this, plays a double game. They are our military partner, but they are the protector and the patron of our enemies. US aid to Pakistan, economic and military, has averaged $2 billion a year.”

Attendees of the Nuclear Security Summit, particularly the United States, must be aware that Pakistan with its 189 million population – many of them Islamic extremists – has nuclear weapons. To have Islamic extremists with nuclear weapons is a primary goal of al-Qaeda and it would be a major victory for them and the outgrowth of al-Qaeda namely the Islamic State, avers Higgins.

Covering the strategic dialogue between the high-powered Pakistani delegation led by Adviser for Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, with their American counterpart in Washington, the Webdesk reported on 9 March that “Sartaj Aziz insisted that Islamabad would not accept any unilateral curb on its program. Any reduction must also apply to India and it must address the conventional imbalance between the two countries.” He pointed out that Pakistan did not have the resources to match India’s ever-increasing arsenal of conventional weapons and was forced to depend on non-conventional means to defend it.” Another important statement which Aziz made on that day was that Pakistan was hosting some Taliban leaders…

It is clear that Pakistan has decided to use nuclear option in case of war with India and that it is not ruling out the possibility of hosting the Taliban for whatever purposes.

What then should be the foremost agenda of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington on 31 March? Obviously, it should be a detailed review of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal in the backdrop of how Islamabad tries to justify its relentless effort to increase its nuclear stockpile, including limited tactical nuclear weapon.

However, deeper study on the scenario throws up a contradiction in the words and practice of the U.S. The joint statement issued by Kerry and Sartaj after the conclusion of strategic dialogue belies the stated intentions of the U.S. The joint statement is a long eulogy on the “achievements” of Pakistan in meeting the challenge of the terrorists in the northern part of the country. John Kerry had full-throated praises and encomiums for the Pakistani Army fighting the “terrorists” in Pakistan’s north, but not a single word or hint about the terrorist engines on Pakistani soil working against India and Afghanistan. Proliferation of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and induction of tactical nuclear weapons in that arsenal did not figure in their joint statement.

Newsdesk of February 29, 2016 referred to a transcript released in Washington showing Secretary Kerry arguing in two congressional hearings that “the U.S. has been working really hard” to advance a rapprochement between Islamabad and India. In one statement he indirectly confirmed media reports that the U.S. was quietly encouraging the two prime ministers to hold bilateral talks.

How he looks at the stand-off between India and Pakistan, is reflected in his statement that Pakistan has deployed 150,000 to 180,000 troops along the Pak-Afghan border, and in case of a conflict with India Pakistan would have to redeploy the bulk of its forces on her eastern front. Thus what Kerry actually wants Pakistan to do is to fight against the Al Qaeda and Taliban outfits on her western front and keep the so-called non-state actors active on her eastern front against India.

The Webdesk of March 9 said that unlike it did with Iran, the U.S. does not want Pakistan to shut down its nuclear program. But it does want Islamabad to reduce the size of its arsenal.

During a testimony in the Senate where the bill against the sale of 8 F-16 to Pakistan was defeated by 71 to 24 votes, Secretary Kerry passionately defended the sale of Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, saying that the U.S. is committed to boosting Pakistan’s strategic capabilities in its war against terrorists.

In other words, Kerry means to say that only the Taliban and Al Qaeda outfits who are fighting against Pakistan in KP region are the terrorists Pakistan should fight against and the scores of other terrorist groups in Pakistan are outside the pale of terrorism. The Mumbai attacks and the recent attack on Pathankot airbase are no terrorist activities for him.

The sale of the F-16s aside, the Obama administration in February 2015 asked Congress to provide more than $1 billion in aid to Pakistan, including a six-fold increase in foreign military financing. The budget proposal described Pakistan as a “strategically important nation” and the proposed US assistance “will strengthen its military in the fight against extremism [and] increase the safety of nuclear installations”

This lays bare the doublespeak of the U.S. on the much trumpeted Nuclear Security Summit, to which President Obama has invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to participate.

All this notwithstanding, BBC said in its commentary of 9 March that there are suggestions that the U.S. may offer Pakistan membership in the Nuclear Supplies Group, with legitimate access to available research and technology, in return for some curbs on fissile material production and its missile program. Sartaj Aziz already reacted this by saying that Pakistan will not accept any unilateral curbs unless same are applied to India.

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the authors are theirs alone and don’t reflect any official position of Geopoliticalmonitor.com.

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Instead of hurling volleys of accusation, New Delhi silently but carefully gathered crucial evidence, which implicates Jaish-e-Muhammad for hatching the conspiracy under close guidance of the ISI.

The evidence which India has presented to Nawaz Sharif and also to Washington is irrefutable. In his telephone conversation with Modi, Nawaz Sharif assured him that his government would take prompt and decisive action against the terrorists.

Earlier, a spokesman from the Pakistan foreign office condemned the terrorist attack on the Pathankot air base. The Pakistan Foreign Ministry also issued an unusual statement late in the evening that it would “follow up” on the leads provided to it regarding the Pathankot attackers.

This reflects a conspicuous change in Pakistan’s traditional reaction to the allegations New Delhi has been bringing to her doorsteps – and by this I mean the tradition of deniability.

Hours after Nawaz Sharif’s assurance that action would be taken, US State Department spokesman John Kirby came out with an unusually strong statement saying, “the US expects Pakistan will take action against the perpetrators of the terror attack on the IAF base in Pathankot. The government of Pakistan has spoken very powerfully to this and it’s certainly our expectation that they’ll treat this exactly the way they’ve said they would.” Apparently the U.S. is convinced of the Pak factor.

Describing terrorism as a “shared challenge” in South Asia, the U.S. also asked all countries in the region to work together to disrupt and dismantle terrorist networks and bring justice to the perpetrators of the Pathankot terrorist attack: “We urge all the countries in the region to work together to disrupt and dismantle terrorist networks and to bring justice to the perpetrators of this particular attack.”

“We have been clear with the highest levels of the government of Pakistan that it must continue to target all militant groups,” Kirby said. “The government of Pakistan has said publicly and privately that it’s not going to discriminate among terrorist groups as part of its counter-terrorism operation.”

This is a statement pregnant with more meaning than what meets the eye. It asks for Pakistan’s reiteration of the commitment made to meet the terrorist challenge, as she herself is also its victim.

The statement categorically holds Pakistani terrorists responsible for masterminding the attack, and hence demands action be taken against the “perpetrators of terror attacks.”

The U.S. is clear who the “perpetrators” of terror are and where they draw strength from. The question is this: Has Nawaz Sharif the strength to bring the perpetrators to book when he knows that they are the creation of the ISI and the army?  Should we take United States’ prompting of Nawaz Sharif to take action to mean that the U.S. would lend outright support to any action he takes?

If yes, it will bode ill for Pakistan Army. The army will be left with two options. Either it must submit to the democratically elected government’s policy or it must repeat Musharraf’s prescription of 1999.

The point is that the U.S. recognizes that Pakistan is committed to working with other countries to meet the challenge of terrorism and disrupt and dismantle terrorist networks. The inference is that now is the time for Pakistan to dismantle the terrorist structures within its own country. India would certainly lend assistance in that venture.

The structures obliquely referred to are the jihadi organizations – LeT, JM, TTP and many others – most of whom receive outright patronage from the Pakistan Army and the ISI. Therefore, the prompting in no ambiguous words is that Islamabad take on these outfits and uproot them lock, stock and barrel.

Under growing pressure from the U.S., the ISI played its traditional card. The United Jihad Council headed by a terrorist of Kashmir origin came out with a statement accepting responsibility for the attack. This, in the eyes of the ISI, is to deflect the pressure from the aforementioned jihadi organizations already banned and to divert the attention to Kashmir’s so-called freedom fighters’ organization.

It will be noted that this confession by the UJC came only after the last terrorist holed up in a building on the Pathankot air base was gunned down. That is four days after the attack was launched. Why did the UJC wait for four days? The reason is simple: It had the strong apprehension that Indian security forces were delaying the combing up operation with the specific purpose of capturing at least one or two of the terrorists alive. If that had happened, UJC would not have claimed responsibility. It did so afterwards thinking that it would succeed in throwing dust into the eyes of the world.

But that notwithstanding, convincing and irrefutable evidence has been provided to the U.S. that the albatross is around the neck of Pakistan. Kirby mentioned more than once that Pakistan had clarified that it did not discriminate between good and bad terrorists. That is an indirect way of saying that those claiming to be the “freedom fighters” (as in Kashmir) cannot be discriminated from terrorists because the UJC has owned responsibility for the Pathankot terrorist attack. It is now for the separatist leadership in Kashmir to relocate themselves politically.

Two more contextual points need to be taken into consideration. One is an article published in the Daily Beast by Bruce Riedel, who worked in the National Security Council of the White House and was among the few present at the Bill Clinton-Nawaz Sharif meeting in 1999 during the Kargil war. Without mincing words, he writes, “The attack is designed to prevent any detente between India and Pakistan after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surprise Christmas Day visit to Pakistan.” He goes on to say that the attacks in Pathankot and on the Indian Consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan was the handiwork of Pakistani terror group Jaish-e-Muhammad, which the ISI created 15 years ago.”

Riedel, a former CIA officer, goes on to state that the ISI is under the generals’ command and is composed of army officers, so the spies are controlled by the Pakistani army, which justifies its large budget and nuclear weapons program by citing the Indian menace.

“Any diminution in tensions with India might risk the army’s lock on its control of Pakistan’s national security policy. The army continues to distinguish between ‘good’ terrorists like JEM and LET and ‘bad’ terrorists like the Pakistani Taliban, despite decades of lectures from American leaders,” he said, adding that the Pakistan Army has long distrusted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who has advocated a detente with India since the 1990s.

In final analysis, circumstances are changing rapidly in Pakistan, and the elected government is coming into direct confrontation with the GHQ. Islamabad seems to be trying to assert the uni-polarity of power in Pakistan, an option which GHQ will never allow. On what strength it has issued this challenge to the army, we cannot say. The two capitals agreeing not to allow the Pathankot attack disrupt impending foreign secretary meeting is a slap on the face of the Pakistan Army. The inference is simple. If Nawaz has the green signal from Washington, the army has to eat its humble pie; if not, then he is riding a tiger.

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the authors are theirs alone and don’t reflect any official position of Geopoliticalmonitor.com.

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Some have called the visit “sudden”; yet it doesn’t seem to be sudden.  High-level visits, even if for a couple of hours only, are neither sudden nor unscheduled. And of course, the nature of the mission demanded secrecy.

Bitter and entrenched acrimony has bedeviled relations between the two countries for the last seven decades. A quick change of heart seems somewhat unrealistic. Nevertheless, human ingenuity has no limits. Wonders happen in the affairs of nations: the Berlin Wall was demolished, the Soviet Union imploded, the Irish problem was resolved, and more recently Iran-US relations have come back online after a long hiatus.

The real source of the Indo-Pak logjam is Pakistan’s army, which, in turn, is a beneficiary of the Pentagon’s patronage and material support. Patronizing Pak Army serves two broad purposes of Pentagon: (a) it is a bulwark against Russia’s lengthening shadow over the Central and South Asian region, and (b) it secures the Saudi monarchy against internal and external threats, Iran in particular, right or wrong.

Pakistan army has its own well laid out agenda as well.  It has somehow convinced the Pentagon that its anti-terror policy is flexible and region-specific. We can substantiate this viewpoint: The US closed its eye to Pakistan clandestinely building a nuclear arsenal. But it destroyed Saddam and his Iraq for the alleged possession of a nuclear bomb, which never was there in the first place.

In the United States’ calculus, the ‘military-dominated’ elected government in Pakistan is not really distasteful to her people. That appears to be a contradiction in terms to foreigners but not to locals.

How does Pak Army rationalize its extra-constitutional supremacy in running the affairs of the country?  Kashmir comes handy. Any elected or officially installed government in Islamabad attempting to make even the slightest deviation from the army’s patent Kashmir policy is shown the exit door. Ali Muhammad Bogra, Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif and others stand testimony to this reality.

This is why resolution of the Kashmir imbroglio defied even the sharpest of minds of Z.A. Bhutto and Sardar Swaran Singh.

The crucial question arising from Modi’s puzzling move is this: If Nawaz Sharif has decided to walk an extra mile with Modi, has he taken his army chief on board? If not, then he is riding a tiger. If yes, that speaks to the role of Pentagon.

Ordinarily, the army chief is answerable to his corps commanders and not either to the government or the parliament, let alone civil society. However, in the overall spectrum of regional strategies, Pak Army has to be on the same page as the Pentagon.

What actually transpired between Obama and Nawaz Sharif at the White House during latter’s October visit is not known to us. Nevertheless, in all probability it was germane to what followed next. Within two weeks, General Raheel made his appearance at the Pentagon. It must have been an unsavory decision for the Pentagon hawks.

The Obama administration has begun to feel that American lawmakers are somewhat skeptic about US’ handling of Afghan situation. They are concerned about the fall (and subsequent recapture) of Kunduz, the northeastern province of Afghanistan. Russia’s strafing of Daesh bases on one hand and ISIS attacks in Paris on the other, add to the complexity with which Obama administration is beset.

In response to the State Department’s demand, Nawaz Sharif would not hesitate to impose a ban on the Haqqani terrorist network – an armed group active against the US in Afghanistan – with bases in Quetta in Baluchistan. His problem is that the Haqqani group enjoys the patronage of ISI and Pak Army, which only the Pentagon can call a halt to.

Apart from this, the US intelligence sleuths talk a good deal about the danger of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, particularly the China-borrowed short-range localized nuclear bombs technology, as a major threat to peace in South and Central Asia as well as the oil-rich Gulf where the U.S. and developed countries have a significant stake.

General Raheel harped on the army’s old tune – the Kashmir issue. Linking Kashmir to Afghan and Taliban elements, General Raheel remained true to the army’s patent stand on Kashmir and the clue to the army’s enduring supremacy.

This is where the State Department and the Pentagon realized that the Indo-Pak logjam needed to ease bottlenecks in its defensive-offensive tactics in Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the Gulf region.

For Pak Army, a climb down is not that simple. It means overhauling regional strategy in a big way. But if that is what we try to infer from these Modi-Sharif antics, the army will demand its pound of flesh. Thus a deal between Islamabad government and GHQ becomes a corollary to the entire gamut of the Indo-Pak thaw.

General Raheel was given a red carpet reception in Washington. He was allowed to address two Congressional committees, met with Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Kerry besides top brass of US military. Apparently all this was done to convey to him US’ thankfulness for his role in fighting the jihadis in North Waziristan. However, behind all these sweet gestures was a terse message also. Home-made jihadis were to be demobilized. He has been promised the release of 300 million US dollars by way of support to Pak Army’s North Waziristan military operations, besides a hefty package of sophisticated military hardware. US planners are adepts at blowing hot and cold.

A State Department spokesman has welcomed Modi’s Lahore jaunt. So has Ban-ki Moon, UN Secretary General. There are a host of issues remaining between the two countries. A step-by-step approach to their solution is just common sense. However, Kashmir outstrips all of them. Any formula agreed upon by the two sides on Kashmir will obliquely take into consideration the ground situation in the state on both sides of the LoC.  Any redrawing of the dividing line is out of the question, but facilitating people to people interaction and an expansion of trade is possible. Once a final agreement is reached, re-organization of the state can be facilitated along with blunting the teeth of insurgency and separatism. From the Indian side, Pakistan has to address three main issues: dismantling terror structures, stopping infiltration and firing and shelling across the border, and bringing the Mumbai culprits to book. On the Pakistani side two issues are on their priority list: demilitarizing Siachin and guaranteeing the security of Pakistan’s border with India. Obviously, third-party intervention to break the logjam remains a well-guarded secret, though its role becomes more perceptible now than ever before.

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the authors are theirs alone and don’t reflect any official position of Geopoliticalmonitor.com.

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What the boycotting MPs are doing is illegal. They are paid by the taxpayer. The Parliament session is held through huge funding by taxpayers. The assurance given to the taxpayer is that his problems will be addressed, and if possible, solved at national level. There is also a sort of unwritten bond between the Parliament and the people who give it a shape through their vote, to utilize their money judiciously and in the interests of the country. Boycotting MPs are drawing from public exchequer to mar and terminate the sessions.

Holding Parliament at ransom is a betrayal of the trust of voters. It is almost criminal in the case of Congress because it is the oldest and the most historic political party that has steered this country through many political storms.

No patriotic Indian wants Congress to behave like musclemen or speak like a rude and uncouth rustic. Congress has had grace and dignity for so many decades under its stalwarts, the freedom fighters, and policy planners. They made India but never had thought that their own party men would strike at the roots of its freedom and democracy.

By its action in the Parliament and before the media, the Congress has degraded itself in the eyes of the people. It does not realize that it has become the most hated party in the country today by bullying and hoodwinking them.

What today’s Congress leadership has done is to array against the nation only to protect one dynasty just because it has had the privilege of ruling India for most of the time in post-independent era. It created moles and vested interests. It created henchmen and sycophants. It lionizes itself for paralyzing the parliament after brazenly looting the country to the heart’s content.

There is a case in the court of law against the Congress chief and her son Rahul, of alleged fraud in the case of the National Herald newspaper. It is a case under PIL. The proceedings are ongoing. The law is taking its course. The accused have been summoned to be present in the court in person. It is a normal procedure. If they accept that everybody is equal before the law, they should have no grudge for having been summoned to the court.

What does it mean to collect crowds outside the court and the Congress leaders addressing them accusing the prime minister of framing the Gandhis? It means they want to intimidate the court and influence judicial procedure. It means they do not believe in equality before the law. And what is very sordid is that the former prime minister of India joins the protesting ragtag outside the court and endorses crude allegations against the current prime minister made in public. The former prime minister has brought slur to the dignity of premiership of this country. He should be ashamed of this levity.

Sonia Gandhi went to see the president thrice in last one month or more. What for? Obviously to threaten him on moving impeachment motion in the Parliament if he does not see everything wrong in letting the majority government function normally. Does she want him to succumb to her haranguing?

Congress hatched one after another conspiracy to derail the government: Dadri murder, Karnataka murder, ghar wapsi canard, Sahitya Akademi award return, etc. It does so because it cannot digest BJP in the seat of power and Congress on the roadside. It means the Congress has no respect for the verdict of the people of India. How sad!

Congress’ struggle is of protecting the Gandhi family from being exposed for their theft of public money and various other acts of commission and omission. We fail to understand why the Congress leaders do so. Are they the beneficiaries of Gandhi-Nehru parivar or of the people who have been giving them trust and respect? If its slate is clean, Congress should not fear any inquiry or investigation. But by showing nervousness it naturally forces people to doubt its honesty and fairness.

Most of these Congress seniors, who are more vocal and enthusiastic in protecting dynastic interest of Gandhi-Nehru family are experienced domestic slaves turned into sycophants. The only merit with such people is that they are adepts in not allowing other aspirants to become bigger and more furtive slaves than they are.

The Congressites are against Modi not for anything else but for his drive to help people come out of a syndrome of slavish mentality. Slavery is the legacy affianced to us by the imperialists; masters have changed but servants are there and slavish mentality is there. Neo-imperialists are more fanatical than diehard imperialists.

India is in the middle of ideological conflict, the conflict between rising crescendo of Indian sanskriti and waning aura of pseudo imperialism.

What does Congress mean to convey by directing its units in major cities of India to come out on the streets demonstrating against the Modi government for calling the mother-son duo to be present in the court. Is it the harbinger of something big and grandiose that Congress wants to make in the country? What for stirring up the mass movement? If Congress thinks that its court case is the machination of Modi, then it means to say that the judiciary is not fair and impartial and works under the influence of the government. If that is true, it applies to six decade rule of the Congress in this country. Then we never had an impartial judiciary, not in the past, not in the present and not in future. Is that correct?

Congress accuses Subramnyam Swami of being the mask of PM Modi. Swami is a legal luminary and a patriot who has been carrying the cross for fighting corruption and falsehood of Congress for a long time. Neither the PM nor Swami is so peevish as to look for masks. Again, whose mask were people like Teesta Setelwad and police officer Bhat wearing when about a dozen cases were framed against the Chief Minister Modi during Congress regime and not a single case was proved.

There are saner elements among the Congress no doubt. But their voice is submerged under the cacophony of sycophants of inner circle of Congress High Command. As for the High Command, let me recall what the bard of Stratford-on-Avon said of Julius Caesar, “Caesar hates flattery being most flattered.” The only option now left for Congress is to descend from its imperialist heights and join the national mainstream: seek the people not the sycophants.

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the authors are theirs alone and don’t reflect any official position of Geopoliticalmonitor.com.

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Weeks after this visit, Pakistan Chief of Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif landed in the United States, reportedly on his own, but projected as on invitation; by whom, nobody knows. The red-carpet treatment given to him suggests that all details of the visit were pre-planned. The Pentagon was calling the shots.

The general met with nearly the entire administrative and military echelons of the US government. They included Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen Joseph Dunford, Army Chief of Staff Gen Mark Milley, and CIA Director John Brennan, besides other influential US lawmakers.

This is an impressive list of US VIPs. However, the projection given by Pakistani media, especially the Dawn newspaper, was one for domestic consumption.

General Raheel received accolades from almost all of them for his “sustained challenge” to the terrorists in North Waziristan. He met with two Congressional committees on intelligence and security.

Normally, no Army Chief of any country meets with these committees. In the case of Pakistan COAS, it is interesting.

The U.S. had two important areas to talk to General Raheel. One was what role Pakistan is expected to play in seeing peace returns in Afghanistan. For this purpose, the general was told to stop clandestine support for terrorist groups in Afghanistan, especially the Haqqani Network, which has the declared policy of fighting the Americans there. The second purpose is to probe how Pakistan could be roped into a nuclear deal so that she is admitted to the group of uranium suppliers.

The U.S. is uncomfortable with the news that Pakistan is developing short-range local nuclear bombs.

It has to be reminded that during his meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry, Nawaz Sharif handed over three dossiers highlighting evidence of India’s involvement in terrorist acts in Waziristan, Baluchistan, and Karachi. Thus in US-Pakistan talks about reconciliation in Afghanistan, Pakistan brings in the subject of India trying to make a foothold in Afghanistan, allegedly to the detriment of Pakistan’s national interests.

General Raheel is reported to have told his counterparts at the Pentagon that Pakistan’s expansion of its nuclear arsenal is India-centric and she would not take any chance with her security “as India was making her presence felt close to Pakistan border.”

Though we may not see many details out in the open following the general’s time in Washington, Sharif and senior US officials will go over the feasibility of the much-discussed “nuclear deal” for Pakistan. According to outlines of the deal reported by the New York Times and the Washington Post, the broad-stroke quid pro quo on offer from Washington is that Pakistan reign in and cap its nuclear arsenal (including all development of low-yield, short-range tactical nuclear weapons) in exchange for US-backed entry into the global community of normal nuclear states.

Pakistan’s government being what it is, a decision of this magnitude on the country’s nuclear weapons program cannot be made without the full backing and blessing of the country’s military. The Pakistani military certainly has good reason to see little benefit in such a deal and Washington may be mistrustful of Pakistan’s intent to comply, but these are issues that were certainly on the agenda during Sharif’s time in the United States.

Here comes in Kashmir issue, which Pakistan has linked to the entire gamut of regional security. Some recent happenings need to be noted. Escalation of LoC and IB firing and shelling in recent months has to be linked to Pakistan’s handing over of three dossiers to the US Secretary of State charging Indian intelligence interference in Waziristan, Baluchistan, and Karachi.

The one-hour-long secret meeting between Nawaz Sharif and Narendra Modi during the Kathmandu SAARC was never detected by the media. The role of Sajjan Jindal, Indian steel magnate, in bringing the two prime ministers to a secret meeting at his hotel suite in Kathmandu has only recently been told by journalist Burkha Dutt.

The blunt statement of former Kashmir Chief Minister Dr. Farooq Abdullah that what Pakistan keeps of J&K state is hers and what we keep is ours. And more recently the unexpected meeting between the security advisers of the two countries in Thailand has its significance. Pakistani envoy General Nasir had been tiptoeing in Delhi for quite some time without even the smallest fuss.

In his secret meeting with Narendra Modi, Nawaz Sharif made no secret of his domestic bagful of woes. Washington knows that Kashmir is handled by the army and not Pakistan’s democratic government.

To overcome this difficulty, General Raheel was advised by his Pentagon collaborators to undertake a trip to Washington and clarify his position. The clear message which he received from the Secretary of State Kerry was that he must positively cooperate in Afghan negotiations or lose 300 million dollar US aid for Pakistan’s war against the terrorists in Waziristan. A long list of sophisticated arms which Pakistan expects the US to supply her army is also on the anvil and now linked to the Afghan situation.

In the meanwhile, Obama has withdrawn his earlier statement of pulling out all American forces from Afghanistan. He is not withdrawing fully in view of critical situation in Afghanistan.

Nearer to home, NC as well as PDP leadership has been harping on Indo-Pak talks for the resolution of Kashmir issue. This is a double-edged weapon. On the one hand, it is to mollify the local terrorists and on the other it is to convey to both the countries that whatever is amicably decided by them has to be accepted by the Kashmiris.

In conclusion, if this strategy works according to American policy planners, Pakistan has to redraw her policy in Afghanistan, and in any case, liquidate the Haqqani Network immediately. In addition, General Raheel has to ask such terrorist outfits that are under the army’s patronizing wing to wind up their shops.

In this process, India may have to give up her claim on PoK. In such a situation, Modi will have a tough time with not only the Congress, which will oppose for opposition sake, but more importantly and dangerously with the right-wring extreme nationalists. It is also possible to balance the entire transaction with a large amount of autonomy for all the three regions of J&K with a right to ask for territorial reintegration.

If peace is what the U.S. wants in the region, and if Pakistan wants to come out wholesome from the very tenuous situation in which it is at present, then Islamabad must unload its baggage in Washington.

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the authors are theirs alone and don’t reflect any official position of Geopoliticalmonitor.com.

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