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Why Russia and China Are Expanding Their Roles in Afghanistan

Highlights

• The shared threat of an Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan will drive Pakistan and Russia into a closer partnership as Moscow strengthens its leverage over the Afghan negotiations.
• Pakistan's national security imperatives mean it will always choose to promote a sympathetic government in Kabul, even if this choice means relations with the United States deteriorate.
• China's expanding diplomatic and economic profile make it likely that Beijing will establish a limited and localized military presence in Afghanistan.

As the great powers deepen their presence in South Asia, all eyes are on Afghanistan. A year has passed since U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled his Afghan war strategy in August 2017, seeking to break the stalemate in America's longest-running conflict. But the Taliban's sustained assault on the city of Ghazni demonstrates that the addition of a few thousand U.S. troops under operations Resolute Support and Freedom's Sentinel has failed to decisively swing the pendulum in Kabul's favor. What's more, Afghanistan's Interior Ministry blamed Pakistan for planning the Ghazni attack, denting prospects of an improvement in relations after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani telephoned Imran Khan to congratulate him on becoming Pakistan's new prime minister.

This relapse was to be expected. The fate of the Afghan conflict is shaped to a significant degree by Pakistan. And its grand strategy of maintaining internal unity by thwarting external aggression dictates that Islamabad's military-dominated foreign policy will always seek a sympathetic government in Kabul — particularly one that recognizes the disputed border and that chooses to keep India at arm's length to assuage any concerns of strategic encirclement. Pakistan's current strategy to achieve this goal is to support the Taliban. This support, however, is deepening the antagonism between Islamabad and Washington under Trump, the latest U.S. president pressuring Pakistan to abandon its support for militant proxies. But forced to choose between satisfying its strategic imperatives or appeasing the United States, Pakistan will always choose the former.

Pivoting to Russia

Still, Islamabad has options, and the logical response to its deteriorating relationship with one great power is to forge stronger relations with another. Enter Russia. While Pakistan's relationship with China has a deep history, born in 1963 out of a mutual enmity to India, its relationship with Russia was openly hostile, devolving into a proxy conflict during the Soviet-Afghan war. After the Red Army's 40th division crossed into Afghanistan in December 1979, the CIA and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence coordinated the shipment of arms to the Afghan resistance movement known as the mujahideen. What followed was a harrowing nine-year conflict that saw Islamabad and Moscow on opposite sides in what amounted to the final proxy battle of the Cold War.

Today, however, these roles are shifting. The United States is distancing itself from Pakistan while building a Sinocentric defense partnership with India, Russia's key partner during the Cold War in South Asia. Moscow is responding to Pakistan's overtures by building a stronger partnership with Islamabad. Russia's interests stem in large part from concerns about Afghanistan. The advent of the Islamic State's Khorasan chapter in 2015 stoked Moscow's fears of the transnational extremist group using Afghanistan to launch attacks into Russia's Central Asian periphery. For Pakistan, the threat from the Islamic State's Khorasan affiliate hits even closer to home: On July 6, the group claimed a bombing that killed 149 people in Balochistan, the second deadliest act of terrorism in the country's history.

Unsurprisingly, Moscow's and Islamabad's concerns about the Islamic State are driving them closer while the two countries are experiencing tense relations with Washington. For Russia, its deepening relations with Pakistan overlap with its growing attempt to involve itself as a mediator in Afghanistan. Beginning in December 2016, Moscow hosted the first of several conferences aimed at jump-starting talks between Kabul and the Taliban. Although the Taliban did not attend any of these gatherings, they have accepted Moscow's invitation to take part in an upcoming conference; that acceptance is a sign of the movement's desire to elevate its diplomatic profile by positioning itself as a serious political actor. Initially scheduled for Sept. 4, Moscow has postponed the conference on behalf of Ghani, who wants more time to prepare for what he insists should be Afghan-led negotiations. If Russia succeeds in bringing both Kabul and the Taliban to the same table, the accomplishment would heighten President Vladimir Putin's leverage over negotiations to end a NATO-backed conflict that Washington has failed to resolve.

China Eases In

Finally, China is deepening its role in Afghanistan. Beijing's involvement in Afghanistan after the start of the war was limited to resource extraction, including a $3 billion agreement to develop the Mes Aynak copper mine. But the prospects of persistent Afghan instability after the NATO drawdown in 2014 awakened China — which borders Afghanistan — into playing a more active role. Bigger promises of foreign aid followed, while Beijing used its diplomatic heft to push for talks between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to try to do the same between the Taliban and Kabul. China has also invited Afghanistan to join the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. This involvement now is rumored to even include a proposed military base in the Wakhan Corridor. Although Beijing has denied it is planning a military base in Afghanistan, China's expanding diplomatic and economic profile means it will be forced to establish a localized security presence in various theaters. And Afghanistan is a logical starting point, given Beijing's two core concerns regarding the country — namely, Afghanistan's ability to disrupt neighboring Belt and Road Initiative projects and the ability of Uighur militants to use Afghan territory to plot attacks in neighboring Xinjiang province.

Ultimately, the growing involvement of Russia and China with Pakistan will limit Washington's ability to bend Islamabad toward its own strategy in Afghanistan. Although the shared threat posed by the Islamic State's Khorasan affiliate provides a rare unifying purpose for the disparate external actors involved in Afghanistan, the geopolitical tensions inherent in great power competition mean that coordination on resolving the conflict will be intermittent, at best, as the war goes on through 2018.

 https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/why-russia-and-china-are-expanding-their-roles-afghanistan

#Pakistan - Imran Khan: High Hopes, Greater Expectations

By Daud Khattak

Imran Khan is hitting controversies early exactly because his supporters expect so much from his government.

It’s been less than a month since Imran Khan’s swearing-in, and Pakistan’s most popular politician, who is now prime minister of the country, is mired in controversies regarding the performance of his government and team members.

The “missteps” that the new government is being derided for are in fact oft-repeated practices under previous administration. The problem is that people did not expect the same routine from a government they believe — or were made to believe — is based on justice, equality, austerity, and the rule of law.

Social justice is what the average Pakistani longs for, along with equal opportunities of employment. And Khan, during his 22-year political career after announcing his retirement from cricket in 1992, crafted his party’s narrative along the same lines.

It is natural that people will raise questions when seeing Khan, the relentless faultfinder of the protocol, extravagance, and authoritarian practices of his predecessors, repeat the same old practices.

Khan’s helicopter travel, for instance, from the Prime Minister House in Islamabad to his personal Bani Gala residence a few kilometers away, has become a subject of ridicule on social media, particularly after his information minister told a television show anchor that the cost is “55 rupees [less than 55 cents] per kilometer.”

One of the oft-repeated questions is why Khan previously criticized his predecessors for spending huge sums on protocol and travel, when he himself prefers a helicopter instead of road travel?

The helicopter debate is now winding down after trending on social media websites and television channels for almost a week. However, the next controversy is already at hand: the midnight transfer of a regional police officer.

The officer, Rizwan Gondal, was reportedly transferred on the unwritten order of the chief minister of Punjab province after an altercation with the ex-husband of Khan’s wife Bushra, who is now the First Lady. The matter was highlighted in social media to such an extent that the Supreme Court of Pakistan took a suo motu notice to settle the issue.

The transfer orders, like the helicopter issue, will likely fade away without leaving an immediate impact on Khan’s government, but the marginal dents, and that too at the very beginning of his term, may challenge the high moral ground that the former cricket star used to reach the country’s highest civilian position.

According to Khan’s utopian vision, Pakistan will be run in the style of Riasat-e-Medina, a reference to the State of Medina during the days of Prophet Muhammad. Khan idealizes the justice and austerity observed during the days of Omar, the second caliph of Islam.

Khan never minced his words, criticizing and even calling names during his public meetings, while lambasting his opponents for “looting the country.” However, many eyebrows were raised over Khan’s picks for key slots in the provinces and the federal cabinet, where several members are said to have corruption or criminal charges against them.

Khan promised “Naya Pakistan” (new Pakistan) and “Tabdeeli” (change) to his supporters and party activists, but the majority of the ministers in his cabinet have already been part of governments before — with some accused of changing political loyalties quite often.

Khan raised his voice against family politics, but several of his close associates have already launched their closest family members using the platform of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

Right now, Khan’s die-hard followers are backing his each and every move, either out of love and sincere enthusiasm for his cause or out of hatred for the leadership of the two major rival political parties – the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) – that Khan almost customarily targets in his public speeches.

There is no question of Khan’s losing his support base so early, despite widespread criticism. But he may fail to retain the goodwill of the nonpartisan section of the middle class who voted PTI not because of political affiliation, but as a reaction to the politics of the status quo.

The majority of middle-class Pakistanis, who are not affiliated with any political party, were unimpressed with the performance of the previous governments of the PPP and PMLN. They were more attracted by Khan’s slogans of “Tabdeeli” and “Riasat-e-Medina,” which promised easy access to social justice.

It is this section of the society whose support is going to be affected by the recent controversies, which contradict the claims and promises made with much fanfare during Khan’s run-up to the July 25 election.

Still, this is the honeymoon period of the PTI government. All the controversies, criticism, and ridicule over the past few days are not going to have a lasting effect on the government because the party’s die-hard supporters are in no mood to come out of the victory euphoria. And that is an encouraging signal for Imran Khan.

The dispiriting side, however, is that neither of the two previous democratically elected governments ran into controversies so early after their election. The hardships of the PPP government (2008 – 2013) started after the killing of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Ladin in a U.S. raid in May 2011. And the PMLN government, elected in 2013, only started fighting for its survival when Khan launched his sit-in protest in front of the Parliament House in Islamabad in the latter half of 2014.

The PTI, on the other hand, has been facing tougher questions from day one, and one obvious reason is the high hopes and greater expectations. The common Pakistani is more interested in jobs, housing, prices of daily commodities, law and order, and quick dispensation of justice. That means quick fixes. Key policy such as the government’s circular debts, financial position, or foreign policy is not their priority.

For over a decade, Khan and his team members raised hopes and expectations by assuring common Pakistanis that the resolution of all their problems would swiftly follow once his party won the election. As a Pashto language adage says, “A hungry man awaits the plate more than anything else” — so the PTI supporters, who voted for the promised change, now can’t wait any longer.

Among the taller hopes and promises, one is the creation of 10 million jobs. Anyone familiar with the traditional support bases of politicians may easily understand that majority of the electorate visit the offices and residences of their elected representatives mainly to ask for employment.

A majority of the grievances against traditional politicians are about not giving favor in resolving a police case, not paving a road leading to one’s house, not repairing an out-of-order tube well, and not providing employment to one’s relatives.

Challenging this order, which is part of the status quo Khan had promised to break, will be an uphill task. And the dream of Naya Pakistan or Tabdeeli will remain unfulfilled unless Khan breaks that order.

Like the hue and cry over the transfer of a police officer or the use of a helicopter, one can predict more storms in the days ahead as Khan’s die-hard supporters and ordinary voters come out of their post-election elation. And it is only because of the high moral benchmarks Imran Khan had set for himself and his party.

The pre-election period was a tough test for Khan’s skills in expanding his support base. The post-election time is going to pose an even tougher problem: how to keep that base intact. Though it is only the naysayers and opponents who are raising questions today, it could be his followers and supporters tomorrow. There is a tough road ahead for the Kaptaan to materialize his promises.

#Pakistan: CPEC Chinese Checkmate – Analysis

By Tushar Ranjan Mohanty

At least six persons – among them three Chinese engineers – were injured in a suicide attack on a bus in the Dalbandin area of Chagai District in Balochistan in the morning of August 11, 2018. The bus carrying 18 Chinese engineers was being escorted by Frontier Corps (FC) troops to the Dalbandin airport from the Saindaik copper and gold mines when a suicide bomber tried to drive his explosives-laden vehicle into the bus. “The explosives-laden vehicle exploded near the bus on Quetta-Taftan Highway – and as a result three Chinese engineers, two FC soldiers and the bus driver were injured,” an unnamed Levies official stated. Saifullah Khatiran,Deputy Commissioner of Chagai District, disclosed that the engineers were working on the Saindak project, a joint venture between Pakistan and China to extract gold, copper and silver from an area close to the border.The three injured Chinese engineers were identified as Huo Xiaohu, Shi Jiangpeng and You Riwei. The suicide bomber was killed. All the Chinese engineers were later sent to Karachi.

The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for the attacksaying it was carried out “to warn China to vacate Balochistan and stop plundering its resources”.Jiand Baloch, a ‘spokesperson’ for BLA, stated, “We targeted this bus which was carrying Chinese engineers. We attacked them because they are extracting gold from our region, we won’t allow it.” In a statement issued on Twitter, the militant group identified the suicide bomber as Rehan Baloch,who died in the attack,the elder son of BLA’s ‘senior commander’ Aslam Baloch.

On February 5, 2018, a Chinese national, Chen Zhu (46), who was a top official at a shipping firm, was shot dead by unknown armed assailants in a ‘targeted’ attack at Zamzama Park in Clifton in Karachi, the provincial capital of Sindh.Azad Khan, Deputy Inspector General of Police (Karachi south zone) stated, “The incident appears to be [a] targeted attack, [it] doesn’t look [like] a mugging… The victim is associated with Cosco Shipping Lines Co, a Chinese shipping company. We are trying to get further details.”

While there was no claim of responsibility and the motive was not immediately clear in the February 5, 2018, attack,the ChineseGovernment had, on December 8, 2017,warned its nationals in Pakistan about plans for imminent attacks on Chinese targets there.The ChineseEmbassy in Islamabad hadstated that it had been informed that terrorists were planning “a series of attacks soon” against Chinese nationals:

“The embassy alerts all Chinese organisations and citizens in Pakistan to stay vigilant, safeguard personal security, reduce time spent outside and avoid going to crowded places as much as possible.”

The Dalbandin suicide attack was the first of its kind in the history of the Baloch insurgency, when a suicide bomber was used in an attack to target the Chinese in Balochistan. The Province is at the heart of the USD 62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) – a massive series of projects that includes a network of highways, railways and energy infrastructure spanning the entire country.CPEC is a flagship project in China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Nevertheless, the Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Yao Jing claimed thatBaloch militant organisations were no longer a threat to the CPEC, in an interview to BBC Urdu on February 2, 2018, arguing, “If they [Baloch militants] are true Pakistanis, they should work in the interest of Pakistan”. He also hadasserted that Gwadar Port would soon become one of the world’s trading hubs, as the security situation in Pakistan had improved to a large extent over the past few years.Yao Jing also expressed satisfaction over the security provided to about 10,000 Chinese nationals working on different CPEC projects in Pakistan, which also had some 60,000-local people employed on different jobs.

Significantly, China has reportedly been quietly holding talks with the Baloch militants for more than five years in an effort to protect the USD 62 billion worth of infrastructure projects it is financing as part of the CPEC. TheFinancial Times, citing three unnamed people with knowledge of the talks,claimed that the Chinese had been in direct contact with the Baloch insurgents, since many of the scheme’s most important projects were located in the Province.

On February 22, 2018, however, China rejected reports claiming that it has been engaged in a dialogue with Baloch separatists in a bid to secure the CPEC project. China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang, when asked about such reports, asserted,”I have never heard of such things as you mentioned.” On February 23, 2018, Pakistan alsodenied the reports that China was holding talks with Baloch insurgents to ensure the security of CPEC projects. Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesperson, Dr. Mohammad Faisal, said that the Chinese Foreign Ministry had already rejected this speculation, and that both the Governments were constantly in touch and working in coordination on CPEC security matters.

Talks or no talks, discontent persists among the ethnic Baloch people and groups with regard to CPEC. There was, consequently, always a persistent threat to Chinese engineers and people associated with CPEC projects from Baloch nationalists, who considerCPEC part of a ‘strategic design’ by Pakistan and China to loot Balochistan’s resources and eliminate their culture and identity.

Dubbing China a ‘great threat’ to the Baloch people, UNHRC Balochistan representative Mehran Marri argued, on August 13, 2016,

China really-really is spreading its tentacles in Balochistan very rapidly, and therefore, we are appealing to the international community. The Gwadar project is for the Chinese military. This would be detrimental to international powers, to the people’s interest, where 60 percent of world’s oil flows.So, the world has to really take rapid action in curbing China’s influence in Balochistan in particular and in Pakistan in general.

Asserting that CPEC would convert the Baloch people into minorities in their own homeland, Noordin Mengal, a human rights campaigner from Balochistan, stated that, with an influx of outsiders as a result of the project, the identity of the Baloch was being threatened.

Sardar Akhtar Jan Mengal, thepro-Government Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) president, asserted, on March 5, 2017, that successive rulers of the country over the preceding 70 years had given nothing to the people of Balochistan, except hunger, poverty, unemployment and lawlessness. He alleged that the rulers had deliberately kept Balochistan backward, and had never paid attention to development, depriving its people of their due rights, including their share in the natural resources of their own Province. He claimed that no development could be seen in Balochistan under the CPEC, and that this project would not benefit its people, as not a single development project had been launched in the region as part of the mega project.

Pakistan currently hosts a sizable Chinese population and the numbers are only slated to grow as the project progresses. Concern about the demographic transformation of Balochistan had been reiterated in a report by the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) on December 28, 2016, which noted that, at the current and projected rate of influx of Chinese nationals into Balochistan, the native population of the area would be outnumbered by 2048.

Since the start of the ground work on CPEC, more than 39,000 Chinese have come to Pakistan over the past five years, according to official data and documents reportedon March 5, 2018.As many as 7,859 Chinese were issued visas in 2013, at the start of the CPEC projects, soon after the Nawaz Sharif Government came to power. Another 69 visas were issued in 2014; 13,268 in 2015; 6,268 in 2016; and, according to informed officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, an estimated 12,287 in 2017.In addition, officials told the media that about 91,000 Chinese nationals visited Pakistan on tourist visas over this period.

Militants trying to disrupt construction of CPEC projects in Balochistan had killed 44 workers between 2014 and September 7, 2016. According to Colonel Zafar Iqbal, a spokesperson for the construction company Frontier Works Organisation (FWO), speaking on this date, “The latest figure has climbed up to 44 deaths and over 100 wounded men on CPEC projects, mainly road construction in Balochistan, which began in 2014.” Since September 7, 2016, according to theSouth Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), another 17 persons have been killed in different CPEC related projects across the province (till August 31, 2018).

The Government of Pakistan has deputed an estimated 37,000 security personnel to guard Chinese workers engaged in some 22 projects directly associated with the CPEC and another 214 related small and mega projects in Pakistan. These include 15,780 military personnel trained under the umbrella of the Special Security Division (SSD) and the Maritime Security Force (MSF). Balochistan is to get more security with the addition of 450 personnel of the MSF for coastal areas; six wings comprising 6,700 personnel of the Frontier Corps; 3,210 Police constables; and 1,320 Levies personnel to guard project routes.

Despite this,China appears to lack confidence in Pakistan’s assurance of security to all Chinese citizens, and is reportedly building a city to house half a million Chinese nationals at a cost of USD 150 million in the port city of Gwadar. According to media reports, only Chinese citizens will live in this gated zone, thus paving the way for the establishment of a Chinese colony within Pakistan. The proposed city will also be a Financial District.The China-Pak Investment Corporation has bought the 3.6-million square foot International Port City and will build a gated community for the anticipated 500,000 Chinese professionals who will be located there by 2022.

On August 20, 2018,Pakistan’s new Prime Minister Imran Khan assured Chinese Premier Li Keqiang that his Government would take “strictest precautions” for the security and safety of Chinese personnel working on CPEC.Khan assured Keqiang of all help to protect projects under the CPEC, which had come under sporadic militant attacks. However, as long as, Pakistan’s all-powerful Army and civilian leadership fail to address legitimate grievances of the Baloch people, the threat to CPEC related projects in the Province will persist.

#DefenceDay - Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhuttoi’s message on Defence Day of Pakistan

Chairman Pakistan Peoples Party Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said that a befitting celebration of Defence Day of Pakistan is to protect geography, ideology and democracy and pay glowing tributes to those fellow citizens and soldiers who embraced martyrdom in defending the nation.

In his message on the Defence Day of Pakistan, the PPP Chairman said that extremism and militancy were the main current threats and entire nation along with all institutions have to be on same page to defend the country.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that September 6, 1965 was the day when both citizens and armed forces put a valiant fight in a conventional war against the much bigger adversary India, which forced it to initiate and expedite its nuclear programme. He pointed out that it was only Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who noticed hegemonic Indian nuclear intentions in the region and he laid foundation of nuclear programme to balance the security environment providing base for an invincible status to the future Pakistan. “Prime Minister Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto brought in the Ballistic Missile Technology to strengthen the defence of the country,” Bilawal Bhutto Zardari further said.

PPP Chairman stated that martyrs, both sons and daughters of Pakistan would be remembered and revered in our history as heroes and to pay homage, we salute to them.

https://mediacellppp.wordpress.com/2018/09/05/chairman-ppp-bilawal-bhutto-zardaris-message-on-defence-day-of-pakistan/

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#BobWoodward - Bob Woodward's book details Trump's chaotic and dysfunctional White House

Ed Pilkington

Fear is based on hundreds of hours of conversations with key players, according to the author, who uncovered the Watergate scandal.

The White House chief of staff, John Kelly, was so incensed by the behavior of Donald Trump that he privately described the president to other aides as an “idiot” and complained that they were in “Crazytown”, according to an incendiary new account of Trump’s presidency.

The unflattering portrait of Trump’s White House, in which the president is portrayed as being so gripped by paranoia over the Russia investigation that he is barely able to operate, is contained in Fear, the much-anticipated book by Bob Woodward. A copy of the book was obtained, days before its official release, by the Washington Post, which reported on several of its most arresting details on Tuesday.

Woodward has been a star reporter at the Post since 1971 and remains an associate editor. He is most famous for breaking the story of the Watergate scandal with his fellow Post reporter Carl Bernstein. The scandal prompted the resignation of Richard Nixon from the presidency in 1974.

Woodward’s depiction of the Trump administration as being in a state of “nervous breakdown” strongly echoes the picture of chaos and pandemonium laid out this year by Michael Wolff in his blockbuster Fire and Fury. But given Woodward’s powerful journalistic brand, from his seminal role in exposing Watergate through a series of insider portraits of a succession of presidents – including Bill Clinton, the younger George Bush and Barack Obama – Fear is likely to carry an even greater punch.

The White House was taking the threat of the forthcoming publication seriously enough to put out a statement about it on Tuesday. The White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, derided Fear as “nothing more than fabricated stories, many by former disgruntled employees, told to make the president look bad”.

The 448-page volume was based, Woodward said, on hundreds of hours of conversations with direct players, but only on an anonymous basis. Among the revelations was the way that Trump demeans his own senior advisers behind their backs. According to the Washington Post account of the book, the president used to mock his former national security adviser HR McMaster by impersonating him with a puffed-out chest.

Kelly’s predecessor as chief of staff, Reince Priebus, was “a little rat. He just scurries around,” Trump told one of Priebus’s subordinates. Jeff Sessions, the US attorney general, was “mentally retarded. He’s this dumb southerner [who] couldn’t even be a one-person country lawyer down in Alabama.”

Some insults were delivered to individuals’ faces. Trump apparently told the commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross: “I don’t trust you … you’re past your prime.”

Days after the nation mourned the death of the Arizona senator and Vietnam war hero John McCain, there are bombshell disclosures about the depth of Trump’s disdain for the man. Woodward is reported to describe a dinner at which Trump told senior White House officials that McCain had been cowardly in getting himself released early from a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp.

The defense secretary, Jim Mattis, had to correct the president by pointing out that the truth was in fact the direct opposite – McCain had refused an offer of early release from his captors, out of solidarity with fellow prisoners.

Perhaps the most disturbing element of the Post’s rendition of Woodward’s book is the alarm it portrays among top national security officials about Trump’s lack of grip over world affairs. After one high-stakes meeting in January of the National Security Council over the North Korean missile threat, Mattis was so exasperated he told associates that the president had the understanding of a 10-year-old schoolchild.

Top officials plot among themselves, the author writes, in a collective effort to thwart Trump from carrying out his more outlandish desires. Senior officials swipe documents from the president’s Oval Office desk so that he cannot act on them. The most chilling example of that pattern, Woodward says, was following the chemical weapons attack launched by the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in April 2017. “Let’s fucking kill him! Let’s go in. Let’s kill the fucking lot of them,” Trump is reported to have exclaimed. Mattis promised Trump he would respond immediately, but then quietly let the assassination idea drop.

Then there is that outburst attributed to John Kelly. Having called Trump an idiot, he is then said by Woodward to have lamented: “I don’t know why any of us are here. This is the worst job I’ve ever had.”

On Tuesday, the chief of staff also put out a statement in which he called the story “total BS”. Kelly said: “I spend more time with the president than anyone else, and we have an incredibly candid and strong relationship. This is another pathetic attempt to smear people close to President Trump and distract from the administration’s many successes.”

Opinion Sorry, Mr. Trump, the Attorney General Is America’s Lawyer

With his latest attack on Jeff Sessions, the president shows his real problem isn’t with the Justice Department but with the rule of law. By now, few might lift an eyebrow at President Trump’s crusade to delegitimize his own Justice Department and, specifically, his attorney general, Jeff Sessions. It long ago became clear that Mr. Trump regards federal law enforcement — as he sees all of government — as a political tool to advance the interests of himself and of his party (assuming those interests align, of course; if not, the party is on its own).

Yet even by that debased standard, Mr. Trump’s latest Twitter tantrum against Mr. Sessions, on Monday, set a new low, providing a kind of anti-civics lesson for the nation he’s supposed to lead.

“Two long-running, Obama era, investigations of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department,” he wrote. “Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff.”

With this latest outburst, the president has again laid bare his contempt for the rule of law. Mr. Trump does not even pretend to care about the allegations of corruption against the two lawmakers in question. His concern is only that they are “very popular” members who would have scored “easy wins” in November, if only Mr. Sessions had kept his fat mouth shut until after the midterms — or better yet, buried the allegations permanently.

Chris Collins, Republican of New York, who was indicted last month on insider trading charges, is facing multiple counts of securities fraud, wire fraud and lying to federal agents. Investigators were aided in their efforts by the fact that the representative’s alleged misbehavior was caught on video while he was attending the White House congressional picnic last summer.

Duncan Hunter, Republican of California, indicted just a couple of weeks after Mr. Collins, is accused of misappropriating $250,000 in campaign funds for personal use. He and his wife, also named in the 47-page indictment, allegedly dipped into the political kitty to buy items ranging from running shoes to family vacations to plane tickets for their pet.

Both lawmakers have pleaded not guilty. Mr. Collins has suspended his campaign, while Mr. Hunter’s name will remain on the ballot and he has a strong chance to win re-election against an inexperienced Democratic challenger.

These indictments carry a personal resonance for the president. Mr. Collins was the first member of Congress to endorse Mr. Trump’s candidacy. Mr. Hunter was the second. For a president for whom blind loyalty matters above all, the possibility of losing two such devoted followers must be especially vexing.

The heart of the matter for Mr. Trump is, as always, what’s in it for Mr. Trump. Keeping Congress under Republican control is key to the president’s fortunes, both political and legal. As Mr. Trump sees it, Mr. Sessions has once more put everything at risk with his traitorous insistence upon upholding the law.

Indeed, Mr. Trump continues to make clear that if only he had known then what he knows now — especially as regards the Russia investigation — Mr. Sessions would never have been offered the job.

Mr. Trump’s beef is not with Jeff Sessions or the Justice Department. He has a problem with the law — or at least with the idea that it should apply to him and those who do his bidding. Republicans, especially Republican lawmakers, are by their silence complicit in this perversion of justice.

پاکستان پیپلزپارٹی کے چیئرمین بلاول بھٹو زرداری کی عارف علوی کو پاکستان کا صدر منتخب ہونے پر مبارکباد

پاکستان پیپلزپارٹی کے چیئرمین بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے عارف علوی کو پاکستان کا صدر منتخب ہونے پر مبارکباد پیش کرتے ہوئے امید ظاہر کی ہے کہ وہ ریاست کے سربراہ کی حیثیت اور وفاق کی علامت کے طور پر آئین کی روح کے مطابق صدر کے فرائض سرانجام دیں گے۔ ایک بیان میں بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے کہا کہ پاکستان پیپلزپارٹی منتخب صدر کو مبارکباد پیش کرتی ہے لیکن اس کے ساتھ ساتھ صدر کی حیثیت سے ان کے کردار پر نظر بھی رکھے گی۔ انہوں نے کہا کہ پی ٹی آئی کے لیڈران عمران خان اور عارف علوی نے پارلیمان اور شہری ریاست کے اداروں کی حیثیت کو گھٹایا ہے اور ان سے کہا ہے کہ وہ اپنے ماضی کے کردار سے خود کو دور کریں جس کی وجہ سے پارلیمنٹ کی حیثیت کم ہوئی تھی۔ بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے کہا کہ پارلیمنٹ کو اس کی حیثیت دینے کے لئے ایک پارلیمانی کمیٹی بنائی جائے جو بلاتاخیر اس بات کی تحقیقات کرے کہ 2018ءکے انتخابات میں کیا بدعنوانیاں ہوئی ہیں۔ انہوں نے منتخب صدر کو یادلایا کہ الیکشن کمیشن کی جانب سے اپ لوڈ کئے ہوئے فارم45کے فارنزک آڈٹ کرائے جائیں اور آرٹی ایس سسٹم کے فیل ہونے کی بھی تحقیقات کرائی جائیں۔ انہوں نے کہا کہ اس معاملے سے زیادہ عرصے تک گریز نہیں کیا جا سکتا۔

https://mediacellppp.wordpress.com/

PML-N has no opposition experience: Zardari

Responding to a journalist’s request for opinion on PML-N leadership’s claim that he had divided the opposition, former president Asif Ali Zardari said on Tuesday that in fact the PML-N leadership was not used to sitting on the opposition benches.

The question was posed to the PPP co-chairman as he arrived at the Parliament House to cast his vote for the country’s 13th presidential election.

Zardari’s initial reaction to the question was that of shock, as he asked back, “I divided the opposition?” He continued, “Why shouldn’t we say that Mian Sb [Shehbaz Sharif] has never sat on opposition benches.”

https://dailytimes.com.pk/292991/pml-n-has-no-opposition-experience-zardari/

As Pakistan hurtles towards deeper economic crises, Imran Khan’s biggest problem isn’t Trump or IMF but his own compatriots.

Last week, when the US government announced it would “re-programme” $300 million in military assistance to Pakistan, it was only the latest in a series of actions that have ratcheted up pressure on Islamabad.

A year ago, when US President Donald Trump announced his Afghanistan strategy, Pakistan came in for mention only in the context of his pledge to put more pressure on the country. Trump’s tweet on the first day of this year set the tone: the US has been foolish in giving Pakistan more than $33 billion over the past 15 years, “receiving only lies and deceit” in return. In an indication of his priorities, Trump blamed Pakistan for giving safe haven to the very terrorists that the US troops were fighting in Afghanistan. “No more!” he thundered.

His administration has stuck to this line since then. Even as the Pakistani economy hurtled towards a deeper crisis, Washington has remained unsympathetic. For the first time in years, the Trump administration suspended a military education and training programme and excluded over 60 Pakistani military officers from various US defence academies. The financial cost of suspending this programme was trivial, but the signal was massive and aimed directly at the Pakistani military establishment.

This was followed by a deep cut to the ‘reimbursements’ to Pakistan under the Coalition Support Funds, the direct overt component of which used to be to the order of hundreds of millions of dollars every year. A couple of weeks ago, Trump signed a legislation that reduced this to $150 million, albeit liberalising the stringent conditions that used to be attached.

Washington is now squarely blaming Pakistan for the “lack of decisive actions in support of the (US) South Asia Strategy”. Including the latest cuts, the Pentagon has withheld $800 million in direct military assistance this year.  In a familiar routine, Jalaluddin Haqqani, a long-time proxy, has been reported dead a day before the US Secretary of State’s scheduled visit to Islamabad. It remains to be seen whether the Trump administration will fall for a trick the Pakistanis have successfully played with its two predecessors.

When the Wall Street Journal asked me to write an op-ed a few weeks after Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011, I had argued that Washington must “cut Pakistan loose”, as bailing it out will only impede the country’s transformation into a normal state. As long as the Pakistani military establishment could secure external assistance for itself and deflect the hardship and punishment onto the Pakistani people, more aid only meant the fattening of the military-Jihadi complex. It is only when the Pakistani establishment and the ruling elite are forced to confront stark choices can there be hope that the country will reform itself.

It looks like such a moment is in the offing. Pakistan urgently needs at least $10 billion in hard currency to tide over a looming balance-of-payments crisis. It needs two or three times that over a longer term if it does not want to slip back into periodical crises. Given its poor credit rating, there are few willing to lend it any money, and the few commercial lenders who are loaning it money are doing so at high interest rates and for very short terms. Pakistan is likely to find it difficult to service even these short-term loans as they become due within the year.

Although there are many in Pakistan who expect China to bail them out, the only real option is to approach the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for emergency assistance. The IMF is likely to insist on the standard macroeconomic diet: reduce wasteful expenditure, collect more taxes, control inflation and allow the local currency to fall. That’s why many Pakistanis find China attractive because it supposedly doesn’t insist on such painful conditions. But China has never played the role of the IMF before and is unlikely to want to be Pakistan’s sole unconditional creditor.

It is more likely that Beijing will advise Islamabad to approach the IMF, and promise to use its offices to get Pakistan a softer deal there. The US has already made it clear that Pakistan won’t have an easy time at the IMF, not least because they don’t know the extent and the terms of Pakistan’s CPEC deals with China. The IMF board might see a tussle between the United States and China over this, and it’s unclear if Beijing sees an aid package for Pakistan as important enough to confront the US on.

Imran Khan’s economic policy appointments inspire some confidence that he gets the seriousness of the situation and realises that his government will have to implement some very painful measures. Given his populist rhetoric — and presuming that he really believes what he has been saying — he might not hesitate to do things that will hurt the elite. For instance, forcing them to pay their taxes, electricity bills and so on.

What he might not be able to do so easily — and what IMF conditions might require him to do — is cut the defence expenditure. Today, the situation is such that once the Pakistani government services its debts and pays its military establishment, it has nothing left. Put another way, defence expenditure (around Rs 1 trillion) is one-third of the federal government’s expected revenue (around Rs 3 trillion). Any meaningful attempt to cut the fiscal deficit ought to start by cutting the defence expenditure.

Therein lies Imran Khan’s economic and existential challenge: Can he get the khakis to tighten their belts without incurring their, to put it mildly, displeasure? The military establishment is likely to go with whatever macroeconomic route Imran Khan decides, to the extent that he doesn’t hurt their interests. With the Trump administration in no mood to give them more money, the khakis might be unwilling to make any sacrifices of the financial kind for their country.

Tough as the challenge is, I think the Imran Khan government will be able to secure a reprieve of some sort from the IMF and stave off an immediate balance-of-payments crisis. After that, the people he must negotiate with and persuade are his own compatriots, which is where his real troubles lie.

Pakistan’s Military Has Quietly Reached Out to India for Talks

By Maria Abi-Habib

Concerned about Pakistan’s international isolation and faltering economy, the country’s powerful military has quietly reached out to its archrival India about resuming peace talks, but the response was tepid, according to Western diplomats and a senior Pakistani official.

The outreach, initiated by the army’s top commander, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, began months before Pakistan’s national elections. Pakistan offered to resume on-and-off talks with India over their border dispute in the Kashmir region, which stalled in 2015 as violence flared up there.

A key objective for Pakistan in reaching out to India is to open barriers to trade between the countries, which would give Pakistan more access to regional markets. Any eventual peace talks over Kashmir are likely to involve an increase in bilateral trade as a confidence-building measure.

Increasingly, Pakistan’s military sees the country’s battered economy as a security threat, because it aggravates the insurgencies that plague the country. Pakistan is expected to ask the International Monetary Fund for $9 billion in the coming weeks, after receiving several billions of dollars in loans from China earlier this year to pay its bills.

“We want to move forward and we are trying our best to have good ties with all our neighbors, including India,” Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said. “As General Bajwa says, regions prosper, countries don’t. India cannot prosper by weakening Pakistan.”

General Bajwa linked Pakistan’s economy to the region’s security in a hallmark speech last October, and the idea that the two are inseparable has since become known as the Bajwa doctrine. The army chief is also seen as more moderate than his predecessors were on India, which has been Pakistan’s bitter rival since the bloody partition that came with independence in 1947.

The Pakistani general and his Indian counterpart, Gen. Bipin Rawat, served together in a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo about a decade ago and get along well, diplomats say. Earlier this year, General Bajwa said the only way to solve the two countries’ conflict was through dialogue, a rare statement from the military.

Diplomats say General Bajwa has tried to reach out to General Rawat to initiate talks. But the effort has been stymied by what one diplomat called a “system mismatch.”

The army is Pakistan’s most powerful institution, but India’s military is much weaker and could not agree to a peace deal without the civilian government’s approval. Diplomats in New Delhi say Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is preoccupied with elections expected early next year and does not want talks before then, fearing that if talks collapse — as they have many times before — it could cost them at the polls.

“Till the Indian elections, there cannot be an immediate betterment in bilateral relations,” Mr. Chaudhry said. India’s military and its foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

The new Pakistani government led by Prime Minister Imran Khan has been sending strong signals in favor of talks, though it is the military that ultimately controls foreign and defense policy. “If you take one step forward, we will take two steps forward,” Mr. Khan said in his victory speech, addressing India. “We need to move ahead.”

With Mr. Khan in office, talks may have a better chance because he is seen as the army’s man, diplomats in both Islamabad and New Delhi say. India sees Mr. Khan’s outreach as sanctioned by the military and believes he will clearly present General Bajwa’s demands and red lines.

That the military would initiate such a major foreign policy decision unilaterally, and before the elections, suggests it was confident that its preferred candidate, Mr. Khan, would win. Mr. Khan was sworn in as prime minister last month, in the wake of accusations that the army had intervened to back his candidacy.

Diplomats in Islamabad say Pakistan’s outreach may also be driven in part by the country’s Chinese allies. Beijing has prodded Pakistan to stabilize its border with India, hoping for greater stability as it pursues its regional economic ambitions. China is investing some $62 billion in Pakistan, mostly in large infrastructure projects through what is being called the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, part of China’s global Belt and Road initiative.

The plan would give Beijing more direct access to important Western markets by building a series of highways through Pakistan, connecting China’s western border to Pakistan’s Gwadar Port on the Arabian Sea. If Pakistani troops are freed up along the border with India, the thinking goes, they could be diverted to secure the country’s western flank, where China’s trade routes would be. Chinese Muslim insurgents who oppose Beijing’s rule have been active in Afghanistan and western Pakistan, and other Pakistani insurgents, including Baloch separatists, have opposed the Chinese infrastructure projects. Last month, a Baloch separatist group attacked a bus carrying Chinese workers, wounding five.

Pakistan may also be realizing that it can no longer withstand its growing international isolation and its worsening ties with the United States, which was once its closest Western ally. The United States cut more than $1 billion of aid to Pakistan in January for not doing enough to curb terror groups, which it accuses the army of supporting.

Tensions with Washington were further aggravated this week when the American military said it would withhold $300 million in aid to Pakistan, just days before the Trump administration’s first meeting with Mr. Khan’s new government. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is scheduled to meet Mr. Khan on Wednesday in Islamabad, and Pakistani lawmakers enraged over the aid cut have been calling for Mr. Khan to scrap the meeting.

In the past, military and government officials in Pakistan have said they could withstand American aid cuts, pointing to their growing ties with China. But Pakistan was stunned this year when China went along with putting Islamabad on a terror-financing watch list, which will make it harder and more expensive for Pakistan to raise badly needed funding on international debt markets.

End the duplicity: Permanent cut in US aid to Pakistan should trigger Islamabad-Rawalpindi rethink on terror

US government last week announced a permanent cut of $300 million in aid to Pakistan. This announcement came just ahead of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to the country and sends an unambiguous signal that America is no longer prepared to tolerate duplicity in fighting terrorism. The US cited the lack of decisive action in support of its anti-terror strategy as the reason for the cut in aid. The timing could not have been worse. Pakistan’s macroeconomic indicators are worsening and it will need help from International Monetary Fund, where US has a decisive say.

Pakistan’s use of terrorism as a strategic weapon has taken a toll on its economy. Frequent macroeconomic crises are one way this economic cost has shown up. Once again, the country’s economic indicators such as fiscal deficit and current account deficit are worsening. However, on this occasion a part of the problem is the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which has stressed the country’s economy through loan repayments and profit repatriation. Pakistan’s strategic choices have undermined its society and economy, pushing it towards becoming a client state of China. 

America is now no longer mincing words in dealing with Pakistan. This should catalyse a rethink from the Pakistani army and Imran Khan, the new prime minister. There is no way to change the situation without seeking a peace dividend in the form of cordial ties with India. The only way to realise such a dividend is to stop using terror as a strategic tool. The US wants Pakistan not to be selective in dealing with terrorists. Pakistan’s establishment should heed this advice as its current path will lead to greater isolation and recurring economic crises.

https://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-editorials/end-the-duplicity-permanent-cut-in-us-aid-to-pakistan-should-trigger-islamabad-rawalpindi-rethink-on-terror/