"History is ruled
by an inexorable determinism in which the free choice of major
historical figures plays a minimal role"
– Leo Tolstoy
When I went back to Ankara
in late 1992 to head the Indian Embassy, many of my friends from the
Turkish Foreign Office from my 1969-73 tenure as First Secretary, were
going out as ambassadors to newly independent states in Central Asia and
the Baltic, following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Looking at the
creation of so many new missions, a cheeky young Turkish diplomat in the
Foreign Ministry said rather mischievously than hopefully, that only if
United States of America broke up into 50 independent states, could he
ever hope to head like them a Turkish Embassy, in north America. Turkish
diplomats trace their traditions and archives to six centuries of
Ottoman rule over an empire from which more than two dozen nations have
emerged.
But the wish of the young diplomat is not going to be fulfilled any time
soon, if ever. But still—
An editorial titled 'Collapse of U.S. economy ' in Belleville
Intelligencer of 27 Feb, 2008 confirms, by now generally accepted ill
health of US economy. Harry Koza in the Globe and Mail recently quoted
Bernard Connelly, the global strategist at Banque AIG in London, that
the likelihood of a Great Depression is growing by the day. Martin Wolf
of U.K.'s Financial Times cited Dr. Nouriel Roubini of the New York
University's Stern School of Business, who outlines how the losses of
the American financial system will grow to more than $1 trillion, an
amount equal to all the assets of all American banks.
The next domino to fall
will be credit card defaults, and after that... who knows? There are so
many exotic funds out there, with trillions of dollars in paper - or
rather computer-screen money - all carrying assorted acronyms, and all
about to disintegrate into nothingness. Over the next couple of years,
scores of banks that have thrived on these devices, based on quickly
disappearing equities, will fail.
The most frightening
forecast so far comes from the Global Europe Anticipation Bulletin (GEAB),
"The end of the third quarter of 2008 (thus late September, a mere seven
months from now) will be marked by a new tipping point in the unfolding
of the global systemic crisis.
"At that time indeed, the
cumulated impact of the various sequences of the crisis will reach its
maximum strength and affect decisively the very heart of the systems
concerned, on the front line of which (is) the United States, epicenter
of the current crisis.
"In the United States, this new tipping point will translate into - get
this - a collapse of the real economy, (the) final socio-economic stage
of the serial bursting of the housing and financial bubbles and of the
pursuance of the U.S. dollar fall. The collapse of U.S. real economy
means the virtual freeze of the American economic machinery: private and
public bankruptcies in large numbers, companies and public services
closing down."
"We are not experiencing a
"remake" of the 1929 crisis nor a repetition of the 1970s oil crises or
1987 stock market crisis. What we will have, instead, is truly a global
momentous threat - a true turning point affecting the entire planet and
questioning the very foundations of the international system upon which
the world was organized in the last decades."
After the end of the cold war in the wake of the two World Wars ,the
decline of western hegemony over the East and South during the last few
centuries, first exercised by rapacious and brutal European colonialists
and then from Washington, is now likely to morph into a fall because of
the new forces unleashed by the US led invasions of Afghanistan and
Iraq. The two debt financed wars have brought US economy close to a
recession (Indian economy including the realty sector would also be
affected, Indian officials and media still remain oblivious if not
dishonest in spite of the fall in Indian Sensex). Forces and changes
have been set into motion which will completely alter the existing
international financial and strategic structures and result in a new
dynamics. Unless of course the irresponsible leadership of USA, still
with colossal powers of destruction at its command or say a reckless
Israel, bomb Iran and hurl the world towards a rapid general warfare
between Israel & West vs Muslim nations and masses, leading to even a
nuclear holocaust and Armageddon. Verily, it would then be the last
Crusade vs Jihad !
Contrary to the self proclaimed congratulatory triumphalism of
neo-liberals after the collapse of Communism and Socialism in end 1980s,
celebrated from house tops by the so called philosophers, think tanks
and analysts with delusions of permanent world domination of Western
financiers and corporate houses based on dubious theories of 'the End of
History 'or 'the Clash of Civilizations' and even claims of Washington-
the new Rome with absolute control planned in the 'Project for American
Century ' by arrogant and historically ignorant Straussian neo-cons and
their supporters; the religious, economic, scientific and historic
forces and currents unleashed during the last few centuries are
coalescing towards a major East-West conflagration, which will bring
about results quite opposite to those dreamed up in Washington, London
and Paris.
The importance of petroleum in warfare and economy had become obvious
even before the Second World War. By 1940s, the British who dominated
the Middle East and still ruled over India, realizing the importance of
oil and the strategic importance of Middle East as lifeline to India,
had created military alliances with most of the countries of the Middle
East including Iran to protect oil wells from the Soviet Union. The
British created a weak and dependent Pakistan as a bulwark against any
USSR overture into the Gulf. After the Second WW, USA was formally
anointed the leader of the Western Christian nations although after the
end of the First WW the financial power centre had started shifting
towards the Wall Street from the City of London, but the latter still
has great leverage for manipulation.
From 1950s onwards, USSR made inroads into many Arab states led by
secular, and nationalist leaders like Gamal Nasser of Egypt. West used
religion and conservative and hereditary rulers to counter the
egalitarian waves of socialism sweeping the Middle East, Asia and
Africa. The battle lines for influence and control between the West and
USSR (and China) saw many ups and downs. An epochal change occurred when
Iran was lost in 1979 and US ally the Shahenshah was overthrown by
Khomeini led Shia revolution, threatening the Sheikhdoms and Kingdoms in
the region. Western world and its frightened allies in the region, taken
aback, encouraged and helped financially and militarily Saddam Hussein
to douse the leaping flames from the volcano of Shia revolution with its
belief in martyrdom. Iran and Iraq lost over a million young men; the
1980s Iraq –Iran war only protected the vested interests of the West and
its allies in the region.
From the Middle East, Western strategic lever to manipulate and control
the region and its resources extended into South Asia through an axis
between the USA, Saud dynasty, obscurantist Wahabi clerics and Pakistan
military. This axis along with support from other Muslim countries and
even China fathered, nurtured, trained and financed with arms and
billions of dollars, the present monster of militants and Jihadis to
battle and force out the Soviet forces from Afghanistan. The nurseries
of terrorism were left behind intact which morphed into Al Qaeda and
Talibans, the latter with full support from Pakistan and the Gulf's Arab
rulers and US acquiescence, which wanted a 'stable' Afghanistan for its
Multinationals' pipelines to carry energy from central to South Asia and
beyond. That project remains unfulfilled.
For his cooperation, Pakistan President Gen Zia-ul-Haq was suitably
rewarded with money and military aid which emboldened Islamabad to carry
out an invasion in Kargil in India. With abundance of arms, Pakistan
acquired a Kalashnikov culture of violence while increased opium
production in Afghanistan, with Pakistan as an exit route left millions
of it citizens addicted to the drug. Gen Zia Islamized Pak polity and
completed nuclear bomb program with acquiescence and even support form
the West.
But Al Qaeda chief Osama Ben Laden, chosen for the Jihad in Afghanistan
by the Saudi rulers nurtured dreams of taking over Muslim states gone
astray and conquer other peoples too. The victims were India and newly
independent central Asian states like Tajikistan Kyrgyzstan and
Uzbekistan and Arab states which had supported and sent volunteers to
fight in Afghanistan.
In its strategy to defeat the Christian West and the Crusaders in the
Middle East, even on the sacred soil of Arabia after the 1991 US led war
on Iraq, Al Qaeda first attacked US missions in East Africa. But the
stunning events of 9/11 showed up the fundamental contradictions in the
US-Saudi –Pak axis, with 14 of the 19 hijackers being of Saudi origin,
led by an Egyptian and Al Qaeda's octopus like tentacles deeply embedded
in Pak military, ISI and the establishment.
The hyper power USA then mounted an invasion of Afghanistan, the
objective being to control the region and extending into central Asia
with its resources. But the strains and stresses in the Crusader-Jihadi
axis became even more acute after the US led illegal invasion of Iraq in
March, 2003, angering and pitting Muslim masses all over the world
against USA, UK and other western nations in the backdrop of continued
illegal occupation and encroachments on Palestinian land by Israel since
1967 and daily killings of Palestinians telecast on channels like Al
Jazeera and others.
This is acutely true in US-Saudi relations with the latter being the
leading Sunni Muslim state, protecting the holy Islamic shrines in Mecca
and Medina and blessed with vast oil resources. With increasing public
support for Al Qaeda inside the Kingdom, Riyadh is now in a quandary.
Its power and prestige have been eroded as a result of its rival Shia
power Iran's strengthened position in Iraq and the region, just the
opposite of what Washington had foolishly hoped for. President George
Bush did not even know the difference between Shia and Sunni Islam and
Ahmet Chalebi, a wily Iraqi, exiled after the 1958 overthrow of the
Hashemite dynasty, had sold to the willing in the Pentagon the charade
that US troops would be welcomed with flowers by the Iraqis. No body
ever cared to read the history of Iraq or the region.
US invasion and occupation has divided Iraq into at least three parts,
Shia, Sunni and Kurdish; it now appears difficult to hold them together.
Apart from exposing the hollow claims of the US success of its 'Surge '
and stability in Iraq, the current fighting between the puppet
government Iraqi troops and Mahdi army, the Moqtada –as Sadr militia,
specially in Basra and Baghdad is "a result of an attempt to impose
Colombian-style democracy on the unstable country. Iraqi PM Maliki's
goal, shared by the like-minded allies among the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish
parties that dominate his administration, and with U.S. approval and air
support, is to kill off the opposition and then hold a vote." Moqtda is
fighting to retain control for provincial elections in October, as "the
winners of those elections will determine the future of the Iraqi state.
Control of the country's oil wealth, and how its treasure will be
developed, will also be significantly influenced by the outcome of the
elections."
Washington which had
coerced President Gen Pervez Musharraf after 9/11, under threat to bomb
Pakistan back to stone ages (some ally?), to align Islamabad in its so
called 'War on terror' wanted Pakistan to destroy Al Qaeda, Pushtun
Talibans and Muslim Jihadis in Pakistan and Afghanistan, with whom Saudi
Arabia, Pak Army, ISI and the establishment have umbilical connections
since their holy Jihad against atheist Soviet Union in Afghanistan
during 1980s. (Israel now wants PLO to destroy Tehran aligned Hamas-originally
incubated by Mossad to counter Al Fattah.)
US has lost the war on the
ground in Iraq and NATO is in disarray in Afghanistan. At the end of
'Operation Iraqi freedom ' transmuted into a 'war on terror', really the
mother of all battles for oil, raw materials and strategic space in
west, south and central Asia, the frontiers in the Middle East and even
Pakistan are likely to be redrawn, but not by the West but by the
movements, militias and peoples of the region. Say by Shias in south
Iraq and Pushtuns in Pak-Afghanistan border who might obliterate the
Durand Line officially, to begin with. But West has invested too much in
the region and its prosperity depends on it. It is unlikely to give in
or give up without a bloody fight.
The Kingdom of Afghanistan was accepted as a defacto buffer state by the
British and Russian empires at the end of 'the Great Game' in Central
Asia in 19th century. By the end of the 20th century, the British and
Russian empires in Asia had vanished and many new states have emerged
out of them. Thus the very raison d'etre of that buffer state no longer
holds good. The Afghan territory is under control of different armed
groups, foreign and local, with Washington installed President Hamid
Karzai, with US mercenaries as his bodyguards, barely controlling the
city of Kabul. Look at new states sprung from former Russian and British
empires now, at Europe after the two world wars and at the end of the
Cold War. State and national boundaries are always waxing and waning,
some times changing drastically. So what is new if Pakistan breaks
apart. Little effort has been made by its leaders since 1947 to even
develop a territory based nationalism. China would not escape further
problems in Tibet and may be even in Xinjiang.
Following the collapse of
the Soviet Union, USA went about methodically in dismantling Russia and
its near abroad and succeeded, with ample help from a naive Gorbachev
and an often drunk or drugged Boris Yeltsin. The 9/11 assaults on US
symbols of power was exploited by the Bush administration to spread its
tentacles to Afghanistan and beyond in central Asia. For USA the Cold
War never really ended and all means were employed to push Western
military arm NATO to encroach into and encircle Russian strategic space.
In central Europe it was carried out by dismantling Yugoslavia, an
Orthodox Christian Slav nation like and friendly to Russia and by
aligning Georgia and Azerbaijan to Washington. US franchised street
revolutions failed in Belarus but succeeded in Serbia and Georgia and
partially in Ukraine. When USA tried the same in Uzbekistan and
Kyrgyzstan, Uzbek ruler Islam Karimov expelled the Americans from the
air base and Kyrgyzstan placed new restrictions. The eastward movement
of NATO has resulted in the creation of Shanghai Corporation
Organization which is now promoting military coordination and
collaboration among its members and possibly even a formal military
alliance in future to counter NATO.
In its backyard Latin America, USA maintained its dominance under Monroe
doctrine except for defiant Cuba under Fidel Castro. But Washington is
losing its sway and total control, led against it by Hugo Chavez of
Venezuela and other leaders who represent and implement aspirations of
their people and not of the old elites in cahoots with corporate
interests in USA and Europe. US attempt for a colonial style control of
its oil has been brought to a halt by fierce Sunni Iraqi resistance;
full Shia resistance would also emerge. Defied by Iran and even forced
to engage with it, there are limitations to what Washington, now caught
in the Iraqi quagmire, can do in Latin America. With a defiant nuclear
North Korea, and China, an emerging economic power house, the policies
of Japan, the second economic industrial power in the world which can
quickly transmute its formidable industrial base into a lethal military
machine, the situation in East Asia remains pregnant with many
unpredictable possibilities. But certainly the US writ and influence are
on the wane everywhere.
K Gajendra Singh, Indian
ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan from
August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador
to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the
Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies. Copy right with the author. E-mail:
Gajendrak@hotmail.com.
April 2, 2008
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