Drawn by war victors and colonial powers in South Asia, Middle East and Africa, in a protracted period beginning in the wake of the First World War up until the end of the decolonisation of 1960s, these artificial boundaries have remained to be one of the major sources of intra-state violence – not to mention various inter-state border wars. Indeed, these boundaries are not social but political constructs; they do not reflect cultural, national and historical realities.

And yet, ironically, they are deemed essential for maintenance of order and stability.

What was the prime motive that drove the European powers to fiddle with centuries-old cultural frontiers is an inquisitive subject that, of course, requires thorough investigation. What became clear, however, in the wake of decolonisation was that both former colonial powers of Europe and the successor states in Africa and Asia were seen determined to defend these unjust arrangements.  

In spite of their mutual differences on a host of international issues, such as trade and aid imbalances as well as equal representation in international institutions, both groups of states were, nonetheless, united in preservation of newly established status quo ante: The present international boundaries must remain intact.

Conscious of their legally protected status within international law as “sovereign entities,” the elite of each newly independent state embarked on an aggressive path to create a unitary state, often crushing not only the customs and traditions of small nationalities but also, in some cases, pushing for new settlements in their territories in order to change the demographic facts in the pretext of developments and economic progress. Xingjian in China and Balochistan in Iran and Pakistan are obvious cases in this regard.

Faced with criticism on the foreign front, a series of resolutions were passed by these quasi states (to borrow a term from Robert Jackson) during the 1970s in UN General Assembly, soon, followed by another set of resolutions from African Union: defending the legal norm of non-interference in the domestic affairs of sovereign states. When questions raised by the former colonial powers over their repressive treatment of minority groups, the leadership of quasi states were quick to invoke international legal norms. Hence, any criticism on their abusive conducts was tantamount to intervention in state sovereignty.

But, as the Cold War came to a dramatic end, so did the myth of inviolability of international borders. From the breakup of Yugoslavia in early 1990s to the recent independence of South Sudan, and the ongoing crisis in Libya, it has increasingly become clear that the legal norms, such as non-interference and respect of state sovereignty, are not applicable when it comes to abusive behaviour of dominant groups, rogue armies or regimes within the quasi states. Sovereignty, indeed, comes with responsibilities.      

The following articles reflect major changes underway in international arena. In the past, state sovereignty of a quasi state was seen as a sacred norm by the international society, often overlooking their artificial makeup. But, over recent years that perception has changed; the logic behind this shift is simple: if the status quo ante is not sustainable, it won’t be sustained.

Breaking Up Is Good to Do

Southern Sudan is just the beginning. The world may soon have 300 independent, sovereign nations … and that’s just fine.

BY PARAG KHANNA

This year will almost certainly see the birth of a new country named Southern Sudan. It might also witness the creation of an independent Palestine, as Palestinian leaders push for unilateral recognition of their national sovereignty within their country’s 1967 borders. And within a couple of years, a sovereign Kurdistan might emerge from a still-brittle Iraq. We could be entering a new period of mass state birth: Imagine an independent South Ossetia, Somaliland, and Darfur too. The trend is nothing new, but it’s picking up steam again. The most recent sovereign entrant was in 2008, when Kosovo emerged from the breakup of Yugoslavia; nine years earlier, in 1999, it was East Timor gaining independence from Indonesia.

Because of this wave of self-determination culminating in sovereignty, there are today more autonomous political units in the world than at any time since the Middle Ages of a millennium ago. Within a few decades, we could easily have 300 states in the world. Moreover, we are gradually returning to the medieval world of thousands of multilayered communities ranging from the supranational European Union to the magnetic city-states of the Persian Gulf to the indigenous communities of the Inuit of Canada and Greenland.

This instability is the cartographic expression of an underlying geopolitical phenomenon afflicting much of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia: post-colonial entropy. Except for a few, rare cases, many of the colonies that gained their independence a half-century ago have since experienced unmanageable population growth, predatory and corrupt dictatorship, crumbling infrastructure and institutions, and ethnic or sectarian polarization.

Whether or not Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, or the Democratic Republic of the Congo technically qualify as “failed states,” their fates are sealed by their colonial inheritance. Indeed, it’s often their borders that are the deepest cause of their conflicts. Many of these national borders are in desperate need of adjustment, and the rest of the world should show more flexibility in allowing them to do so. Europe messed it up the first time, but now the West can support the right regional bodies to adjudicate these new borders — helping others help themselves in the process.

By this logic, today’s hot spots such as Iraq and Afghanistan are not simply “America’s Wars.” Rather, they are to some extent the unexploded ordinance left over from old European wars, with their fuses lit on slow release. Indeed, the United States had nothing to do with the Sykes-Picot and other agreements that parceled the Levant into French- and British-allied monarchies, or the Congress of Berlin, which drew suspiciously straight lines on Africa’s map. Some of these haphazard agreements created oversized or artificial agglomerations like Sudan, which threw together heretofore independent groups of Arabs, Africans, Christians, and Muslims into a country one-fourth the size of the United States but lacking any common national ethos or adequate distribution of resources to sustain commitment to unity. Others did the opposite, like the British officer Henry Mortimer Durand, whose infamous line divided the Pashtun nation between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This growing cartographic stress is not just America’s challenge. All the world’s influential powers and diplomats should seize a new moral high ground by agreeing to prudently apply in such cases Woodrow Wilson’s support for self-determination of peoples. This would be a marked improvement over today’s ad hoc system of backing disreputable allies, assembling unworkable coalitions, or simply hoping for tidy dissolutions. Reasserting the principle of self-determination would allow for the sort of true statesmanship lacking on today’s global stage.

In Sudan, the United States has certainly placed itself on the right side of this trend. It has been a key architect of the internationally sanctioned referendum that will likely result in Southern Sudan’s independence, making clear that the eventual split is not a U.S.-led conspiracy to hack apart the Arab-Muslim world. Such a legitimate process has given cover to China to reorient its policy as well, balancing its staunch support for the regime of Omar Hassan al-Bashir in Khartoum with upgraded relations with the Southern government in Juba, which has in return promised to honor the China National Petroleum Corp.’s contracts. (Sixty percent of Sudan’s oil exports currently go to China.)

But there is more to ushering new nations into existence than preventing neighboring antagonists from invading one another (as fundamentally important as that is). All three of the world’s current quasi-states — Southern Sudan, Palestine, and Kurdistan — will be effectively landlocked and vulnerable unless they are provided with viable infrastructure to connect to external markets. In addition to the existing Sudanese north-south pipelines, Southern Sudan needs a new pipeline across Kenya to the Indian Ocean to export oil through additional routes. Likewise, Kurdistan needs pipelines via Turkey and Syria to Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, and Palestine needs the Rand Corp.’s proposed “Arc” of road and rail corridors to link the West Bank and Gaza into an integrated unit. These linkages to the outside world are insurance policies against dependence on and domination by neighbors, whether Sudan, Iraq and Turkey, or Israel, respectively. While the White House remains obsessed with “security guarantees” for Israel that rest on empty or short-lived gestures of goodwill, it is infrastructure, rather, that is the prerequisite to peaceful coexistence. Nation-building is as much physical as institutional; independence without infrastructure is impossible.

The entropy afflicting the post-colonial world will not stop anytime soon. States like Congo, Nigeria, and Pakistan, which are internally diffuse and often intentionally unevenly developed, will soon be too large to manage themselves. It is less likely that they will gather the competence, capacity, and will to become equitable modern states than that they will continue to inspire resistance to the legacies of centralized misrule.

The coming partitions must be performed with a combination of scalpel and ax, soft and hard power. Above all, the world must recognize that these partitions are inevitable. Our reflex is to fear changes on the map out of concern for violence or having to learn the names of new countries. But in an age when any group can acquire the tools of violent resistance, the only alternative to self-determination is perpetual conflict. After genocidal campaigns such as Saddam Hussein’s gassing of the Kurds and Serbia’s brutal repression of the Kosovars, it is impossible to imagine those groups again living under one government. Rather than delay, the emphasis should be on diplomatic efficiency: Speedy partitions can lead to more amicable outcomes, such as the “velvet divorce” between the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993. Both are now members of the European Union, within which they respect one another’s borders even as such borders have largely become irrelevant.

Finally, we must be weary of status quo conservatism motivated by selfish concerns. Russia and China staunchly opposed Kosovo’s independence for the sake of their own quasi-imperial possessions, but did a sovereign government in Pristina really undermine Russia’s ironclad rule over Chechnya or China’s grip on Tibet?

Each territorial conflict has a particular mix of historical, geographic, and diplomatic conditions that will breed unique solutions. But one thing is certain: The way to create a peaceful and borderless world is, ironically, by allowing ever more nations to define themselves and their borders. Then, and only then, will they seek openness and integration with the rest of the world. Breakups are sometimes the path to better friendships.

F.P

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/13/breaking_up_is_good_to_do

To Partition or Not to Partition?

Ted Galen Carpenter | February 25, 2011

The recent referendum [3] in southern Sudan endorsing the secession of that region will produce a newly independent country. And it appears that the central government in Khartoum will peacefully accept [4] the loss of more than a third of its territory—something that it violently opposed over the past several decades.

The outcome in southern Sudan suggests that, contrary to the long-standing bias of current governments in the international system, partition can sometimes be a solution—perhaps the only solution—to irreconcilable differences between ethnic or religious groups within a country. Admittedly, one can point to cases in which the strategy has not worked well, for example Britain’s decision to divide its South Asian colony between the newly independent states of predominantly Hindu India and predominantly Muslim Pakistan. A few cases have even produced disastrous results (the division of Palestine being the premier example). But it is equally possible to cite examples in which the results have been positive, and were certainly better than the alternative. The dissolution of the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia’s “velvet divorce” are clear instances of that outcome.

As I suggest here [5], chronically dysfunctional Bosnia-Herzegovina ought to be considered a prime candidate for partition. Despite the utter failure of that artificial entity to forge anything even faintly resembling national cohesion—much less a competent government and functioning economy—in the more than 15 years since the Dayton Accords ended a violent civil war, U.S. and European leaders still [6] insist [7] on keeping Bosnia intact, even if it must remain indefinitely on life support from international agencies. That is an appallingly short-sighted strategy.

Western policy makers grasp at ever more fragile straws to make their case that Bosnia will eventually turn out to be a success story. The favorite recent panacea [8] is that once Bosnia joins the European Union, the petty ethnic quarrels among the country’s Serb, Croat, and Muslim communities will become irrelevant.Not only does that assumption underestimate the depth of the continuing ethnic hatreds, it is wildly optimistic about the probability of the EU admitting Bosnia anytime soon.

There is more and more grumbling within the major EU states about some of the existing smaller and weaker members. That is especially true in Germany, which has had to shoulder primary responsibility for the financial bailouts of some of those members. The EU already has to deal with such members states as Greece, Portugal, and Ireland that have severe economic problems. It already has one member (Cyprus) that has a huge, unresolved territorial issue (with Turkish troops occupying the northern 37 percent of the country) and another member (Spain) with two simmering secessionist issues. EU governments are likely to be very reluctant about acquiring Bosnia as a member when the country has both political and economic defects that are intractable.

Both the United States and the EU should accept the manifest [9] desire [10] of the Serb minority (some one-third of Bosnia’s population, and one that inhabits a reasonably compact territory) to secede and either form an independent country or merge with Serbia. The United States and its NATO allies have tried to dictate policy in Bosnia for far too long. Their meddling has produced a festering, unsustainable situation. They need to change course and approve a political transition based on partition. Their sole goal should be to orchestrate that process to maximize the probability that it will be peaceful.

 T.N.I

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/partition-or-not-partition-4948

The case in point is the Mongolian imperial control of much of the Eurasian landmass by 1280. Genghis Khan and his successors, by adopting brilliant and ruthless tactics, achieved spectacular victories, thereby, occupying much of China in the east, Anatolia and Persia in the southwest, Central Europe in the northwest. They established an impressive territorial empire through military power.

However, in the end, they failed to consolidate the empire they had achieved through hard work. The absence of an assertive culture, as well as lack of a subjective sense of ethnic superiority, undermined the confidence of the Mongol elite. Consequently, they quickly assimilated into more advanced cultures: one grandson of Genghis Khan, who was the ruler of China, embraced Confucianism; another became devout Muslim, the sultan of Persia; while the third one adopted Persian cultural values and became the ruler of the Great Steppe.

By contrast, the Roman and Chinese empires sustained remarkably well. Indeed, the Roman Empire was the most dynamic one.

Although, the early Pagan-worshiping Romans laid the foundation of the Empire in the republican era, it was, nonetheless, a Rome equipped with Christian faith that expanded further afield, stretching from Britain to Mesopotamia. Civis Romanus sum (I am a Roman citizen) was a source of pride while Christianity became the official faith that provided the moral cover. Ironically, according to Edward Gibbon, Christianity became one of the causes of its decline and fall too.

While, from the Arab-Islamic Empire of the mid-seventh century to the Ottomans, the story of Islam has been dominated by the imperial dreams. Islam as a potent ideology used by the Arabs for regional, if not the world mastery. Their political ambitions cloaked by religious aura and constantly expanded the empire: stretching from Iran to Egypt and from Yemen to northern Syria under the banner of Islam – one of the most remarkable examples of empire building in history. Unlike European imperial statecraft, which marked a clear dividing line between master and subject, the Islamic empires were land based system: the distinction between ruled and ruling classes became increasingly blurred through extensive colonisation and assimilation.

Thanks to this rigorous imperial epoch (conquer and assimilate) the widely diverse ethnic groups in the Middle East, today, share same language and religion, hence, a unified Arabic culture. But some groups, despite being conquered and converted into Islam hereafter, succeeded in preserving their core cultural values. Reason: perhaps such values are deeply rooted in their society. They are, indeed, proved to be most resilient ones, that is why they often withstood in the face of socio-political upheavals such as invasion, revolution and occupation.

The following essay, authored by Abbas Milani of Stanford University, presents an interesting case: while Shiite dogmas, centrally imposed by Islamic regime, are aimed to crush the ancient values as well as subdue the cultural values of other nationalities in Iran, the ancient cultural influences tend to resist social engineering and are still embedded in peoples psyche and characters. It is not an easy task to remove such values through forceful indoctrination.

Zoroastrian, one of the oldest religions in our region, is believed to have some kind of connection with our ancestors. Nawab Akbar Bugti always relished the fact that Baloch heritage contains strong Zoroastrian attributes.

However, in this case study, Mr Milani attempts to analyse different socio-cultural paradigms that have emerged in contemporary Iranian society and shows how these social forces interact – often clash to one another – in different political settings.

This piece truly deserves attention of those who are interested in cultural and historical discourses.

Zoroaster and the Ayatollahs

December 16, 2010
Abbas Milani

CULTURE IS hard to define and even harder to change. Beneath the surface solemnities of politics and the exigencies of economics lurks the intricate web of habits and rituals, practices and privileges, that we call culture. In its overt manifestations, culture may seem a docile tool, or perhaps an efficient vehicle for political change. In reality, culture has the capacity not only to survive upheaval in the halls of power but also to gradually and inexorably alter the nature of governance, molding politics in its enduring patterns. More than once in Iran’s history, after the country was vanquished by outsiders—from Arabs to Mongols—the culture of the conquered survived and eventually molded the customs of the victors to its own pattern. It is hard to imagine that the 1979 revolution will be an exception to this enduring reality.
In that upheaval of some thirty years ago, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini surprisingly emerged as the leader of the unwieldy and incongruent coalition of cultural forces that united to overthrow the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In the months leading up to the revolution, Khomeini used remarkable discipline to conveniently hide his true theocratic, antimodern cultural paradigm, feigning instead support for the democratic, nationalist and leftist values and aspirations that defined the demands of the 1979 revolution. Once ensconced in power, however, Khomeini famously declared that the revolution was not carried out for economic gains but for pious ends. The economy, he said, “is for donkeys.” Creating a new Islamic society, fashioning new men and women based on an Islamic model that had been perfected in the prophetic era of Muhammad some fourteen centuries earlier, finally discarding the cultural values of modernity was, he now claimed, the real goal of the revolution.

Now even regime stalwarts concede that this project of cultural remodeling has failed miserably. And the failure, along with its incumbent cultural fluidity and political instability, is in no small measure the result of the resilient societal ethos dominant in Iran on the eve of the revolution.

IT HAS become something of a commonplace to say that for more than a thousand years Iran has been defined by a bifurcated, tormented, even schizoid cultural identity: pre-Islamic, Persian-Zoroastrian elements battling with forces and values of an Arab Islamic culture. The paisley, easily the most recurrent image in the Persian iconographic tradition, is said to capture this tormented division. It represents the cedar tree that Zoroaster planted in heaven which was bent by the winds of Islamic hegemonic culture. Adapting in this way has been the key to the ability of Iranian culture to survive marauding tribes and invading armies. But Iran and its heavenly cedar bend only to lash back to their upright gait when immediate danger has passed and occasion for reasserting traditional values has arisen.

Some scholars have gone so far as to argue that even Shiism—since the sixteenth century the dominant and “official” religion of Iran—is in its fundamental structure nothing but a form of Iranian nationalism. Recent remarks by Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, that Iran’s leaders in the last thirty years are all, in fact, Arabs and that their claims of being descendants of the prophet (symbolized by the black turbans they wear) reassert their Arab blood show clearly the continuing tensions between Persian identity and the Islamism of the rest of the Shia Middle East. Nasrallah needs to convince his followers thus that these Arab brothers have left nothing of a “Persian culture” to survive. These controversial comments indicate both the prevalence among ordinary Arabs of this view that Shiism might be an “un-Islamic invention”—and Iranian in origin. To justify his fealty to the country’s current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Nasrallah had to first make him an Arab.

For much of the twentieth century, these two cultural elements have been at war for domination in Iran. In power from 1925 until 1979, Reza Shah Pahlavi and then his son Mohammad Reza Shah tried to accentuate the pre-Islamic component of the country’s heritage and dilute the Islamic element. The shah’s infamously lavish celebration of two thousand five hundred years of monarchy in 1971—the international glitterati were invited, food was flown in from Maxim’s de Paris, and the ruins of Persepolis were used as a backdrop and a reminder of days of glory gone by—was more than anything intended to accentuate this imperial, pre-Islamic past. Even the country’s calendar was changed. The year 1355 in Iran’s Islamic calendar (or 1976 CE) suddenly became 2535. The beginning of the Islamic calendar went back to the journey of Islam’s prophet, Muhammad, from Mecca to Medina, while the new imperial time sought its genesis in the alleged birthday of Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire. As the tumult of the revolution began only two years later, in a gesture of concession to the opposition, the calendar was changed yet again. But neither the hubris of retuning the clock on a whim—earlier tried by the likes of Maximilien de Robespierre in France and Vladimir Lenin in the Soviet Union—nor hackneyed concessions to the opposition could alter the stubborn realities of Iran’s bifurcated culture, formed and ingrained over centuries.

No sooner had Ayatollah Khomeini and his clerical allies seized power than they not only began to reverse the pre-Islamic ardor of the Pahlavi era but they also moved to the other extreme, trying to dilute, diminish and at times altogether erase from cultural memory evidence of Iran’s non-Islamic past. Jahiliyyah, or the age of darkness, has long been a concept used by Islamist historians and ideologues to derisively describe what exists in a society before the advent of Islam. Now some fifteen hundred years of Iran’s imperial era was disparaged and diminished as jahiliyyah. In the early days of the revolution, some of the more ardent new Islamist victors moved to destroy Persepolis (and were forced to cease their destructive plans only in the face of stiff opposition both domestically and internationally), while one of Khomeini’s closest confidants, Ayatollah Sadegh Khalkhali, the man infamously known as the “hanging judge”—a title he had deservedly earned for his role in the judicial murder of hundreds of ancient-regime leaders and the new-regime opponents—dismissed Cyrus as a sodomite Jew, hardly worthy of veneration by a pious nation. Even today, thirty years after the victory of the revolution, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s zealots are taking their ideological hammer to the texts taught in Iranian schools, hoping to erase from the annals of history any sign of pagan “royal historiography.”

The clerics even tried to fight some of the most venerable rites and rituals of the nation. For a time, they focused their attention on eliminating, or at least diminishing in value, the ancient Persian habit of celebrating the vernal equinox as their new year (Nowruz). In retrospect, this anti-Nowruz crusade began even before the 1979 revolution, when in the sixties and seventies religious forces made a concerted effort to replace Nowruz with other religious holidays and feasts. While in those days many in society participated in these religious ceremonies only to spite the regime, since 1979 the tables have turned. Now, celebrating Nowruz is an easy way to show your sentiments about the ruling clerics. The clerical leaders have apparently reconciled themselves to the reality that they have failed in their crusade against the celebration. But their quixotic efforts at delegitimizing Persian habits have not ended. For the last three decades, they have also tried to dissuade the Iranian people from their ritualistic habit of jumping over fires on the last Wednesday of each year—said to symbolize the hope and desire to burn away the past twelve months’ troubles and travails. Even as late as 2010, Khamenei issued a new fatwa declaring the practice heresy and a form of fire worship. Yet both traditions are more alive and celebrated today than ever before. When a regime politicizes all cultural and personal practices, as do the clerics in Iran, then every facet of the culture, every gesture of personal behavior, every sartorial statement (from women’s defiant refusal to wear the forced veil to men’s insistence on wearing ties or shaving their faces) becomes a form of dissent and resistance.

The Persian language, spoken by a majority of Iran’s multiethnic society, and long considered a bastion of Iranian nationalism, has not been immune from the vicissitudes of this culture war either. While much was made of cleansing the Persian language of any Arabic words and influence during the Pahlavi era, Ayatollah Khomeini and his allies made an equally concentrated and futile attempt to infuse the language with more and more Arabic words, phrases and even grammatical structures. For them, Arabic is the language of God and of the Koran, while to the Iranian nationalists it is a detested tool of Arab and Islamic cultural invasion. Just as the effort to create a new “Islamic society” has failed, the attempt to introduce Arabic into the Persian language has also been unsuccessful. Not only is the Persian vernacular today replete with new, cleverly constructed Persian words, but a whole generation of parents are increasingly moving away from naming their children after religious figures, opting instead for names from Iran’s mytho-history, or newly minted names conjured or coined from the Persian vocabulary. In this sense, then, the 1979 revolution was only a moment in the centuries-old culture war to define the soul of Iran; yet another attempt in the long line of efforts to eliminate or diminish in influence certain components of the country’s bifurcated identity.

ADDING TO the complexity of this cultural dualism has been the temptation of modernity. For more than a century, Iran has faced the challenges of an increasingly global modernity—an interrelated set of changes that radically alter a society’s notions of self, identity, politics, economy, spirituality and aesthetic. Culture became the arena in which these battles were most intensely fought. Every discursive realm, from poetry and painting to sermons and stories, turned into at once “instruments” and loci of contention in a culture war between different narratives of selfhood and individual and collective identity.

In response to these formidable challenges, four starkly different cultural and political paradigms, each supporting or rejecting modernity from its own prism and based on its own set of axioms and ideals, emerged. All were vying for domination on the eve of the 1979 revolution. In a sense, the shah was “unkinged” by the very cultural forces he helped to create. He was himself an advocate of Western modernization, even modernity. He supported a woman’s right to vote and the right of religious minorities to practice their faiths (affording unprecedented assistance to Iran’s Jews and Baha’is in particular). He facilitated increased contact with the West, and the training of a large technocratic class, and finally offered patronage and support for experimentation with forms of art, all of course predicated on the society’s acceptance of his patriarchic, authoritarian personal rule.

In the last decade of his reign, inspired by the cultural sensibilities of his wife, Farah Pahlavi, a student of architecture before becoming queen, the shah’s stern political paradigm was accompanied by a well-supported effort to preserve hitherto-ignored elements of Iran’s cultural tradition. Everything from establishing an office entrusted with the task of finding and preserving classics of Persian music to attempts to renovate or preserve gems of Persian architecture flourished under the queen’s patronage and support.

Throughout the seventies, in the Shiraz Arts Festival, some of the most cutting-edge thespians and playwrights in the world put on radical and innovative shows. British director Peter Brook and his Polish contemporary Jerzy Grotowski brought their new experimental productions to the city. Conservative clergy attacked these performances as lewd and lascivious, intended to undermine “Islamic moral values,” yet they were not the only critics of this display. On the other side, the democratic and leftist opposition (which embraced modernity’s values through its support of the “rights of man”) dismissed the festival as the futile and expensive facade of tolerance created by an oppressive regime. For them, the shah’s authoritarianism, his “dependence” on the West and his “original sin” of participating in the 1953 CIA-backed removal of then–Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh from power, trumped in value any cultural freedoms his regime offered or supported.

While the leftist, centrist and clerical opposition to the shah “overdetermined” politics to the detriment of cultural freedoms, the ruler, for his part, failed to understand what increasingly became the clear iron law of culture: men (and women) do not live by bread alone, and when a society is introduced into the ethos of modernity—from the rule of reason and women’s suffrage to the idea of natural rights of citizens and the notion of a community joined together by social contract and legitimized by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s popular will—then it will invariably demand its democratic rights. That society will not tolerate the authoritarian rule of even a modernizing monarch capable of delivering impressive economic development. The shah tried to treat the people of Iran as “subjects” and expected their gratitude for the cultural freedoms and economic advancement he had “given” them. But he, and his father (and before them, the participants in the Constitutional Revolution at the turn of the twentieth century), had helped develop a new cultural disposition by creating a parliament and a system of law wherein the people considered themselves citizens and thought of these liberties as their right—not as gifts benevolently bestowed upon them.

FOR IF cultural and economic modernity, minus democracy, was the essence of the shah’s paradigm, the second-most-powerful cultural model of modernity was advocated by a disproportionately large segment of the Iranian intelligentsia. Though divided in aspects of their aesthetic and cultural sensibilities, advocates of this second paradigm included a wide variety of poets, scholars and historians who championed the idea of citizenship in a modern, democratic polity where rule of law was to be the only mode of adjudicating differences. Identity was, in this system, at once both individual and national. They advocated a modernity that was invariably “Westophile” in its disposition, looking to the Enlightenment, modernism and other Western aesthetic developments for at least part of their inspiration. They were thus culturally more or less on the same side of history as the shah and his modernizing efforts. Yet, steeped as many of these artists and scholars were in what Isaiah Berlin called the Russian concept of intelligentsia, and thereby believing that the necessary posture of an artist was criticism of the status quo, they saw the shah and his regime as an obstacle to, if not an enemy of, progress. The literary and scholarly efforts of this group cemented a sense of Iranian cultural identity. But they were often dismissed and at times harassed by the Pahlavi regime. Limits on their creativity, begot by the shah’s authoritarianism, only added to the schism between advocates of this paradigm and the Iranian ruler.

And within this paradigm was forged the uneasy relationship with the West still present in the battle to reconcile Iranian identity—particularly the pre-Islamic elements—with Enlightenment values. It may be masked beneath the heavy shroud of the current theocratic regime, but it lies in wait. Montesquieu might well have been the first to recognize the inherent difficulties of this sort of resolution when, in his Persian Letters, he asked how one can be at once modern and Persian. Indeed, among the advocates of a democratic polity—no less influential but far less famous—were the often self-effacing scholars, poets, historians, writers and musicians who in those years worked hard to discover, preserve, publish and display critical, often-ignored elements of Iran’s imperial era as well as its post-Islamic cultural heritage. Their efforts were indispensable to the emergence of a new form of Iranian cultural modernity that was less awed and intimidated by the West and more inclined to infuse into their work usable elements of Iran’s own tradition. From music and architecture to painting and poetry, there was initially a rush to reproduce in Iran the styles and forms that were popular in the West. But by the late sixties and early seventies, something fundamental happened to many advocates of this Westophile modernity; they forsook their earlier attempts at simply imitating the works of Western masters and began an eventful age of the “return” to native roots. Transcending the tradition of old and incorporating it into the best the West had to offer, rather than simply emulating the Western way of life, became the motto of this new Iranian ethos.

Many cultural fields witnessed this profound process of looking inward while innovating. Actor Parviz Sayyad and filmmaker Bahram Beizai, for example, took the traditional forms of Ta’ziyeh—religious musical pageantry and passion plays—and fashioned out of them a modernist interpretation that attracted the attention of many of the theater world’s most inventive directors and playwrights. Sayyad not only worked hard to preserve these traditional plays but also created for television some of the most memorable characters of modern Persian media. His Samad—a guileful peasant, ill at ease in his new urban surroundings but more than willing to milk his situation for all he could—was uncanny in capturing the pathos and pathologies in the “drama of modernization” that social scientists have long written about. And the cinematic displays of the likes of Ebrahim Golestan’s Asrar ganj dareheye jenni,or Mysteries of the Treasure at Ghost Valley (describing the destructive transformations in the life of a man who suddenly discovers a wealth of artifacts buried under his field), were prescient in anticipating the revolution and underscoring the cultural dislocations that defined Iran on the eve of the uprising. Golestan’s “man,” and his tragicomic effort to “modernize” his house by simply buying the accoutrements of a contemporary life, was an unmistakable allusion to the shah’s inability to wisely manage the sudden surge of income.

After the revolution, more than once, artists and intellectuals have similarly used myths and metaphors to underscore the implied, but now abrogated, contract between the clergy and the people. Khomeini had promised to go to a seminary once the shah was overthrown, thereby relinquishing any role in ruling Iran. He also promised to prevent any clergy from seizing the levers of power. But once the revolution was won, he breached that contract. Today, every post of importance is divided between some three hundred top clerics in the country. The Sufi tale of Sheikh Sanaan was cleverly used by one assaying to describe and deride this abrogation. In the original story, the sheikh fell in love with the Christian daughter of a pig farmer—something that should have been anathema to him as a Muslim. In the revived and revised account, the sheikh falls in love with Power—and her temptations lead him to forget every one of his promises.

Much the same can be said of a whole genre of “film-farsi” that developed in the seventies. These movies were known for the crass and primitive quality of their production, the archetypal simplicity of their stories—rich girl meets poor boy, family objects, problems arise and then a happy ending follows. Within a few years, even some of these popular films were beginning to delve into “social issues,” showing a culture of vigilantism and at times even nascent hints of newly assertive religiosity. Since the revolution, the enormous popularity of these “film-farsi” among the urban poor has made them into one of the favorite vehicles for pedagogy in the hands of the clerical regime. Hundreds of films, extolling “martyrdom” and describing the stories of war, have been made in the last two decades. The great divide between these highly popular but aesthetically crass movies and the tradition of art-house productions was in fact one aspect of the chasm that divided the preoccupations of the intelligentsia and the cultural habits of the masses under the shah. Today, too, serious Iranian filmmakers—from Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Jafar Panahi to Abbas Kiarostami and Tahmineh Milani—are creating works that are often only shown in international film festivals and deftly defy and transcend the pious shibboleths promoted by the regime’s own sanctioned cinema.

INDEED, ALONG with these aesthetic and intellectual developments, the needs of the “ordinary” Iranian have also long vied for dominance in Iran’s complicated encounter with modernity. In a country whose modernization was fashioned with petrodollars and controlled by the elites, it is no surprise then that Marxism should find itself as the third paradigm of modernity. Though by the mid-seventies there were numerous small groups and sects with varying versions of Marxism as their mottoes, the clearly dominant form was Stalinism, with its emphasis on a “statist” economy run by a totalitarian party and inclined not toward the West but the Soviet empire. Like Stalin, these Iranian Marxists also believed that culture was an auxiliary of the economy. Change the economic base, Stalin had opined, and the culture will change with it. Moreover, inspired by the same Russian tradition of “social criticism” and “committed art,” Iranian Marxists too believed that all cultural productions were nothing but instruments of the class struggle. Form was subservient to content; simple, even simpleminded cultural artifacts, supposedly understandable to the masses, were preferred over “decadent” bourgeois productions that privileged form and aesthetic excellence.

The animosity of most of these Marxists toward the shah was driven as much by dictates of theory—the discourse of imperialism and colonialism, and the shah as their “lackey” if not “client”—as by exigencies of their “big brother,” the Soviet Union. Their surprising support for Khomeini had the same roots. They saw in the religious leader an Aleksandr Kerensky, who lost his leadership to Lenin, and believed they would inherit or grab the power Khomeini would prove incapable of managing. Moreover, toppling the shah was seen by the Soviet Union as a first step in curtailing America’s influence in the region. Finally, striking structural similarities between Khomeini’s Shiism and this form of Marxism—their belief in a messiah, their claim to a monopoly on truth, their willingness to sacrifice the individual for the greater good, their eschatological view of history, their belief that the truly pious or revolutionary are invariably in the minority, their disparagement of liberal democracy, their Machiavellian willingness to use any means necessary to achieve their ends, their peculiar epistemology where a quote from sacred texts is used in lieu of rational arguments—created a cultural consanguinity between radical Shiism and Stalinist Marxists. Politics, they say, makes strange bedfellows; authoritarian politics, like the reality of Iran in the seventies, begets monstrously ill-conceived alliances to achieve the superficially common goal of ending despotism. And thus it was that advocates of the Marxist and the secular-democratic cultural paradigms of modernity formed an alliance against the shah, who advocated his own iteration of the same paradigm. Even more strangely, this incongruent coalition chose as its leader Ayatollah Khomeini, easily the most fervent enemy of modernity in contemporary Iran.

FACED WITH the inexorable challenge of modernity, Shiism in the twentieth century in fact split into two different camps, some trying to reconcile it with democracy and rationalism, while others, led by Khomeini, rejected nearly every cultural component of modernity as a colonial construct. In a sense, this was the fourth critical cultural paradigm in Iran’s encounter with modernity. The other three offered different ways of embracing change, while this version provided reasons why the whole temptation of the progressive era should be ignored and overcome. Ayatollah Khomeini and his small band of cohorts criticized nationalism and denigrated individualism as a ploy of colonialism. Instead, they advocated “brotherhood” in an internationalist “ummah,” or spiritual community of the believers. As early as 1944, with the publication of his book Kashf al-Asrar (Solving Mysteries), Khomeini offered a paradigm of politics and culture that not only dismissed modernity and much of the modernization project, but fought on two religious fronts as well. On the one hand, he took issue with clerics who advocated a “quietist” interpretation of Shiism like his mentor and teacher, Ayatollah Hairi, and Ayatollah Kazem Shariat-Madari (easily the most influential and senior cleric inside Iran in 1978) who believed the clergy must limit their interventions in politics and instead attend to the spiritual demands of the flock. At the same time, Ayatollah Khomeini fought against Islamist reformists—most notably Ali Shariati and his attempt to eclectically mix Marx, Freud, Sartre, Fanon, Che and Islam—who wanted Shiism stripped of its superstition and anachronistic rituals.

While the shah was busy fighting the cultural influence of the Left, and while the Left, ever self-congratulatory in its exaggeration of its own importance and influence, flirted with the clergy as “allies” in the anti-imperialist struggle, Khomeini and his cohorts worked quietly to enhance their own influence and strengthen their labyrinthine network of groups, mosques, neighborhood “mourning” committees and even professional organizations. They used this vast network to dominate the democratic movement that emerged in 1978 in Iran. Khomeini’s concealment of his true intentions just before the revolution, as well as his ability to portray himself both to the majority in Iran and even to the American embassy in Tehran as a proponent of democracy, allowed for the formation of the unwieldy alliance of advocates and foes of modernity against the shah’s authoritarianism.

THE COALITION that overthrew the shah brought together technocrats and merchants of the bazaar, members of the urban middle class and much of the working classes, along with the women’s movement, labor unions, students, forces of the Left and the clergy. Yet no sooner had Khomeini come to power than the coalition broke apart; the clergy successfully sidelined secular leftist and centrist factions. With Khomeini’s seizure of control, and with clerical despotism increasing its total grip on power, Iran entered a period of political strife and instability. Since 1979, disillusioned advocates of democracy and modernity have continued their sometimes overt, other times covert struggle to realize the democratic dream. For in this theocratic version of Iran, the cultural influences of its Persian past and its adaptation of those influences with the political and economic rights of man have been subsumed by the Arab Islamism foreign to the vibrant intellectual struggle of this nation to free itself of monarchical and autocratic forces. But this culture war continues to play out in the background of politics—the ethos of the “conquered” people working quietly but relentlessly to subvert, change and eventually replace the alien culture of their usurping rulers.

And this current manifestation was clear during the June 2009 uprising. Once again, that same democratic coalition that formed a foolhardy alliance with the clerical regime—and now numerically stronger than ever but still denied a chance to organize itself politically—came together to invigorate what Khomeini’s successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his conservative allies hoped would be an anemic presidential campaign by a dour, uncharismatic Mir Hussein Moussavi. But the remarkable surge of social energy in support of Moussavi forced the conservatives to steal the election for Ahmadinejad. And then suddenly, the country’s seemingly docile population rose up around a beguilingly simple slogan: Where is my vote? In Tehran alone, 3 million people marched in remarkable discipline to demand their democratic rights. Their slogan pithily captured in a mere four words the hundred-year-old dream of modernity and democracy in Iran. Using thugs and guns, prison and torture, the ayatollah has so far succeeded in intimidating the people back into their homes. But a critical look at the past shows the bleak future of Khamenei and other champions of despotism. Violence can only delay but not destroy the rights of man in a nation that has embraced the cultural ethos of modernity. The hushed, brutalized quiet of today is at best a prelude to the liberating storms of tomorrow.

Abbas Milani is the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University, where he is also the codirector of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution. His book, The Shah, was published in January 2011 by Palgrave Macmillan.

TNI

http://nationalinterest.org/article/zoroaster-the-ayatollahs-4580

Pakistan has entered into negotiations with Kalat on the basis of recognising the state’s claim to independence and of treating the previous agreements between the Crown and Kalat providing for the lease of Quetta and other areas, which would otherwise lapse under section 7 (I) (6) of the Indian independence Act, as international agreements untouched by the termination of paramountcy. The Khan of Kalat whose territories marches with Persia of course in no position to undertake the international responsibility of an independent state, and Lord Mountbatten, who before the transfer of power, was warned of the dangers of such a development doubtless passed on this warning to the Pakistani Government. The United Kingdom High Commissioner in Pakistan is being informed of the position and asked to do what he can to guide the Pakistani Government away from making agreement with Kalat which would involve recognition of the state as a separate international entity [Baloch 1987:257] & [IOR: L-P+S/13/1846].

(The above extract is taken from a secret memorandum, prepared by the minister of state for Commonwealth relations of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland dated 12 September, 1947)

With its harsh climate, unproductive soil, and negligible levels of commerce, Balochistan – except for the Indo-Perso trade corridor – offered far fewer tangible benefits than other British colonies on the sub-continent. So, what led Britain to retain control of this unappealing country for so long?

The answer relates broadly to Britain’s colonial interests in India, which fall into two main categories: commerce and security. First, India’s huge population presented an ideal market for British manufacturers and traders alike. And second, a large Indian army under British command – yet maintained with Indian taxpayers’ money – represented an attractive means of projecting British power into Asia and Africa, as well as increasing Britain’s power and influence relative to its European rivals. To protect these vital economic and security interests, Britain had to keep a close watch on the most vulnerable areas of India’s western periphery, including Balochistan.

Having taken control of Balochistan in 1839, Britain made no effort over the following century to build political and security institutions in Balochistan – just as in India. The only system it developed was known as the Sandeman system. Under this arrangement, tribal chiefs were given policing powers and subsidies to maintain order in their own regions, thus diminishing the central authority of the Khanate and corrupting the traditional role of the sardar (chieftain) in Baloch society [Baloch, 1987]. Under this system, the Crown representative retained ultimate power, reinforcing this position by playing on the differences between the sardars and the Khan of Kalat.

Isolated from its vital regions and its historical neighbours, the State of Kalat, became a client state, its rulers and administrators responsive to the whims of Westminster. By the time Britain decided to transfer the sovereignty back to Kalat, the state had become so weak that it was unable even to sustain its railway system, let alone control its vast territories bordering Iran, Afghanistan and newly formed Pakistan. However, the Crown’s abrupt withdrawal of security and administrative support was a conscious ploy to depict Kalat as ‘a weak state in a dangerous neighbourhood’ that would be better off under Pakistani tutelage [IOR: L-P+S/13/1846].

This ‘weak state’ concern was not, however, the only factor in play. The emerging Cold War confrontation between the ideologically polarised east and west had significant geopolitical implications, Winston Churchill’s famous speech in March 1946 in Missouri having defined the new geographic fault lines [Kissinger, 1994:442]. Thereafter, Britain began to tackle local Marx-inspired independence movements in order to cleanse the region of any Soviet influence. On the sub-continent, too, it became increasingly apparent that Britain would not leave frontier states to their own devices for fear of jeopardising British interests following withdrawal from the region.

In supporting the fiercely independent Pashtuns in Afghanistan and creating a new Muslim state (Pakistan) along India’s western borders, Britain ensured that neither the Soviets to the north nor the potentially powerful India to the east would go on to gain a foothold in Balochistan.

In the post-colonial era, however, while Balochistan’s importance in security sphere has remained intact, the discovery of huge deposits of natural resources has added a new dimension.

Since their incorporation into Iran and Pakistan, both parts of Balochistan have been controlled in a brutal fashion. Tehran and Islamabad continued to extract resources while maintaining internal security through a crude mix of terror and inducement. To strengthen its hold on the Iranian part, Tehran systematically crushed tribal power – the last line of defence guarding against Persian domination of the people of western Balochistan. By contrast, Pakistan never succeeded in fully imposing itself on eastern Balochistan; instead, it relied on tactics redolent of earlier colonial modes of control: first, offering meagre bribes to an elite willing to collaborate daylight natural-resource robbery; and second, constant use of force or threat of force against nationalists, who opposed their plans.

Despite the relative success of this strategy in maintaining for decades their exploitative policies, these two countries now appear to bent on full-scale control of the region, transforming the native population into an aboriginal-type minority. In this, a perpetual quest for natural resources combines with an ambitious desire to turn the whole region into a transit corridor, pushing both Islamabad and Tehran into a race to achieve absolute control over the Baloch region.

Examining their everlasting quest for land and resources, in his book ‘In the Shadow of Afghanistan,’ Dr Selig S. Harrison long ago recognised the ulterior motive of two countries:

 Both Islamabad and Tehran view the sparsely settled expanses of Baluchistan as a safety valve for surplus population, a source of badly needed raw materials, and an area of vital strategic importance over which the central government should rightfully hold undisputed sway. For the ideologues of Pakistani and Iranian nationalism, the Baluch and other minorities cannot be permitted to stand in the way of modernization programs addressed to the overall development needs of the impoverished millions living in all parts of their respective countries [Harrison, 1981:04].

Tehran has already developed Chahbahar sea port, and a new highway linking this port city to land-locked Afghanistan is under construction [Wirsing, Strategic StudiesInstitute, 2008] . Furthermore, in an attempt to consolidate its control over western Balochistan, Tehran is also erecting hundreds of kilometres border walls – physically dividing the Baloch homeland between Iran and Pakistan – as a means of blocking cultural and political influences emanating from eastern Balochistan.

Meanwhile, Pakistan is looking to develop rail links between Gwadar deep-sea port, the Central Asian republics, even China’s far-flung western territories [Asia Times, 24 February 2007]. Pipeline networks would soon criss-cross Balochistan from west to east and north to south, carrying gas – and possibly oil – from Iran and Turkmenistan. Already, faced with crippling fiscal crisis, Pakistan is selling Baloch natural resources at knockdown prices, as with the multi-billion-dollar copper and gold mines of the Rakhshan region. It is, likewise, desperately seeking investments for further exploration of the gas and oil wealth hidden deep beneath Kach-Ghandawa, in the northeaster region.

With a rapidly growing economy and an unrestrained hunger for natural resources, China’s shadow looms large. For the Chinese, Balochistan, with its resources and location, would represent a significant geopolitical boon to its isolated western region.

Although the tormented histories of Poland and Balochistan may not run on completely parallel trajectories, there are, nonetheless, striking similarities between the two nations’ pasts: both were subjugated by foreign powers; both were partitioned for geopolitical reasons; and both resisted foreign occupation.

The rise and fall of the independent nation of Poland depended heavily on the moves made by the great powers in its immediate proximity [Morgenthau, 1993:190], and its survival was intimately linked to changes in the distribution of power in a wider European configuration that paid heed to the fate of minor nations.

Balochistan, with all its remoteness, became an object of the great power rivalry in a colonial setting. Given that British imperial policy looked to consolidate its colonial possessions, the region between the Persian Gulf and the River Indus became vitally important to the security of its richest colony, India. Moreover, British strategists well understood that so long as routes of possible western invasion open, true Indian security would not be achieved. Therefore, it became a geopolitical necessity for Britain to penetrate into Afghanistan and Balochistan, both to create safe buffer areas and also to deny Russia access to the Arabian Sea.

Unlike Afghanistan, Balochistan failed to maintain its independence because its society was too divided and, thus, too weak to resist; its rulers did not have national purpose around which scattered tribal power could coalesce into a national force. Furthermore, in its eventual rush to depart from the sub-continent, London, as sole security provider, gave the green light to Pakistan’s decision to reject Kalat’s sovereignty and impose a full-scale occupation.

Poland, after the Cold war, sought refuge under NATO’s security umbrella and integrated itself in the concrete institutional framework of the EU’s political and economic union. Balochistan, meanwhile, remains under stringent control of Iran and Pakistan, its natural wealth being looted, its people oppressed, and its secular socio-cultural structure coming under attack from both sides.

Given the two countries’ growing strategic interests in various spheres – driven by economic imperatives, demographic pressures and even ideological impulses – Balochistan will remain an object of oppression unless a dramatic geopolitical shift occurs.

ENDNOTES:

• Adye, J. M. 1897 & 2006: Indian Frontier Policy: An Historical Sketch, London: Elibron Classics.
• Harrison, S. S. 1981: In the Shadow of Afghanistan: Baluch Nationalism and Soviet Temptations, Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
• Baloch, I. 1987: The problem of ‘Greater Baluchistan’: a study of Baluch nationalism, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden GmbH.
• Colin, S. G. & Sloan, G. 1999: Geopolitics, Geography and Strategy, Abingdon: Frank Cass.
• Morgenthau, J. H. 1993: Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, Boston: McGraw Hill
• Bull, H. & Watson, A. 1984: The Expansion of International Society, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• Kissinger, H. 1994: Diplomacy, New York: Simon & Schuster:
• India Office Record, L-P+S/13/1846, British National Archives
• Wirsing, G. R. Baloch Nationalism and the Geopolitics of Energy Resources: The Changing Context of Seperatism in Pakistan, April 2008, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub853.pdf
• Syed Fazl-e-Haider, China-Pakistan rail link on the horizon, Asia Times, 24 February 2007.  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IB24Df02.html

. . . the course of politics is the product of two sets of forces, impelling and guiding. The impetus is from the past, in the history embedded in a people’s character and tradition. The present guides the movement by economic wants and geographical opportunities. Statesmen and diplomatists succeed and fail pretty much as they recognize the irresistible power of these forces.” – Sir Halford Mackinder (1861-1947)  [Gray & Sloan, 1999:02]

No country in contemporary Europe has absorbed so many jolts of history than Poland. Up until the last quarter of the 18^th century, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a thriving entity with a vast landmass, stretching from the Baltic to the Black sea and a relatively strong army protecting monarchy and its border. By the end of the century, the kingdom had been plunged into a deep political crisis, subsequently expiring as its internal weaknesses were subjected to massive external pressures. Inevitably, neighbouring giants – Russia, Austria and Prussia – were on hand to pick up the pieces. In doing so, they made certain that in future, there would be no such thing as Poland in this region.

Despite this tripartite division of their homeland, the Poles continued to struggle for its reestablishment; they undoubtedly pinned their hopes on future and kept the dream of a free Poland alive, even as the heat of the Napoleonic wars crushed weak and powerful states alike. Polish claim to statehood was again denied in the negotiation of a post-war settlement the Vienna Congress, where Metternich and Castlereigh prevented small nations from attaining independence in the name of “maintenance of order and peace” in Europe.

But, an era of struggles between Great Powers also meant great instability. This instability, and the fact that war was the dominant instrument of statecraft, meant that geopolitical miracles could happen. Thus, with the end of the First World War, Poland reemerged from the rubble of the very empires that had wrought its destruction a century earlier.

However, it is one thing to acquire independence, and quite another to protect it.

Barely enjoyed two decades of freedom under the post-WW I order, Poland found itself caught once again between two giants, Russia and Germany. Although, these giants were both hostile towards one another, they had one thing common: the desire to divide the Polish state in two. Indeed, this is precisely what Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Russia pledged, on the eve of the Second World War, in signing the notorious Molotov-Ribbentrop Agreement. Ultimately, this agreement not only paved the way for a re-partition of the Polish state but also became one of the main precipitating causes of the Second World War.

Thus, during and after the war, Poland remained in Soviet captivity. In spite of being a Soviet vassal state for more than four decades of the Cold War, the hope for freedom among the Poles never faded away; on the contrary, Poland became the first Warsaw-Pact to reassert its sovereignty, thereby, defying Soviet hegemony in eastern and central Europe.

In short, Poland’s problems stem from its geography, as do those of Balochistan.

Much of Balochistan’s tragic history has followed similar lines. Britain, in its colonial-era pursuit of its geopolitical interests, became the first European power to dominate the region. Initially, it appeared that British forces had entered Balochistan in order to gain control of a narrow access route to Afghanistan. This move, however, turned out to be an indirect occupation that would last over a century.

This was a gradual process: first, Balochistan was forced to concede to colonial demands in 1839, its territorial structure being broken into three parts (western part to Iran, the northwest to Afghanistan and the rump state of Kalat remaining under British control). This division facilitated the complete liquidation of Balochistan as an entity in 1948, just seven months after independence.

This process was played out on the chessboard of what contemporary geo-strategists call the southern rim of Eurasia. In this game of cunning and deception, Afghanistan was merely the frontline state, straddling south and central Asia. The real prize, however, was Balochistan. Because of its sensitive geopolitical location – close to Persia, and India, while not too far from the Great Steppe – London was determined to deny its colonial rivals, and particularly tsarist Russia, any access of the region.  

Watching from a distance as Russia conquered Central Asia and advanced towards the north of Afghanistan, London’s paranoia over the security of South Asian colonies increased tremendously. To create an effective barrier against Russians, London waged a preventive strike in what would later be called the first Afghan war. The immediate aim of this war was to replace Amir Dost Muhammad’s legitimate rule in Kabul with Shah Shujah, a discredited Afghan leader sustained in India by British larges. With regime change in Kabul achieved, Balochistan was placed under partial Afghan control, thereby extending British imperial westward to the Persian Gulf and northward to the River Amu.

Such plans and strategies look good on paper often to fail to meet expectations when put into practice. Here, British strategists were simplistic in their incursion into Afghan affairs. Soon after the toppling of Amir Doust Muhammad, endemic violence ensued, rendering the British position first dangerous, then critical, and finally desperate. Politicians in London ignored the warning of their own commanders; General Sir John Keane rightly pointed out the imminent danger, saying:

Mark my words; it will not be long before there is here some signal catastrophe [Adye, 1897:11].”

In time, the whole enterprise was turned on its head, becoming a disaster in both economic and military terms.

Having incurred terrible losses in Afghanistan, British commanders turned their guns on Balochistan, a peaceful but brittle entity that represented an easy target for their heavily armed expeditionary forces. A vigorous attack on Kalat in 1839 signaled the beginning of painful process that gradually eroded Balochistan’s sovereignty.

However, the blame does not rest with colonial Britain alone, as the Baloch rulers’ inherent weaknesses also played a role. With colonial powers sweeping across the whole region, the elite in Kalat failed to foresee the coming danger and was thus unprepared to meet Balochistan’s new security challenges.

In this, they differed from their predecessors. Balochistan remained a stable confederacy until the early years of nineteenth century; its borders constantly expanded both through conquests and alliance in line with the policies adopted by its dynamic leader, Mir Naseer Khan I.

Mir Naseer Khan I and his predecessors were wise in the domestic sphere and remained active abroad. With an instinctive grasp on medieval statecraft, they were aware not only of the geographic significance of Balochistan – a trade and security corridor between east and west – but also of the need to maintain the Khanate’s integrity within an increasingly volatile neighbourhood.

Alas, Mir Naseer Khan’s successors failed to follow his footsteps, squandering the vital gains made over a century and a half.

Colonialism often justified by nineteenth-century historians the notion of the mission civilitarice, according to which colonialism would spread the ‘benefits of western Civilisation,’ so as to enlighten the backward peoples of the world. In recent times scholars have put this argument on a more realistic basis: expanding the order and rule of law over ungovernable territories ultimately produced what we know today as the society of states [Bull & Watson, 1984:120].  

Yet, Balochistan was neither an empty space awaiting colonizers justified their intrusion, nor was it a home to a mess of unruly tribes. Despite its internal political malaise, it was an evolving state, much like eighteenth century feudal societies of Europe which later transformed into modern nation states. The state structure was clearly defined by its constitution of two legislative councils, a wazir (prime minister), a wakil (chancellor of exchequer) and a centralised bureaucratic apparatus which helped to administer the far-flung areas of the Khanate [Harrison, 1981:16].  Prior to intervention, one British general described thus the stability and constitutional order of the pre-colonial Balochistan:

. . . whilst in Afghanistan the tribes all along the frontier were for the most part independent of the Ameer of Cabul, and were ruled by their own ‘jirghas’ or councils, in Beloochistan the mode of government was so far different that the chiefs, whilst acknowledging the Khan as their hereditary ruler, were entitled, not only to govern their own tribes, but to take part in the general administration of the country as the constitutional advisers of the paramount chief [Adye, 1897:23] [Italic added].”

“You know, when we are so dependent upon long supply lines – as we are in Afghanistan, where everything has to be imported — it’s much more difficult than it was in Iraq, where we had Kuwait as a staging ground.

You offload a ship in Karachi. And by the time whatever it is – you know, muffins for our soldiers’ breakfast or anti-IED equipment – gets to where we’re headed, it goes through a lot of hands. And one of the major sources of funding for the Taliban is the protection money. That has nothing to do with President Karzai.”    –Hilary Rodham Clinton, 02 December 2009

As U.S. President Barack Obama unfolded a new strategy for war in Afghanistan, one thing became apparent from this unexpected move: the situation in Afghanistan constitutes a primary national security threat to the United States.

The deployment of thirty-thousand additional troops by a war weary administration, signifies the grave nature of the threats emanating from Afghanistan and the border areas of Pakistan. The war has been neglected for years, partly due to the lack of a coherent strategy, as well as the overambitious desire of the previous administration to transform a war-torn Afghan polity into a state of what one expert mockingly termed ‘a gender-sensitive, multi-ethnic, centralised state.’

Thus, for now, it seems that policies based on idealistic notions have given way to more realistic objectives. Small wonder then, that popular utterances, such as ‘success’ and ‘victory’ have been replaced with more sobering terms like ‘stability’ and ‘prevention’ – concepts that were quite familiar during the Cold War era.

In a nutshell, security concerns of the administration have ultimately overcome fanciful desires.

With such a limited (albeit realistic) aim in mind, Mr Obama has turned to Pakistan, the regional pariah, employing diplomatic tactics such as aid inducements as well as generous offers like ‘strategic partnership’ between the two countries. In return, he demands tough stances, including the blockage of access routes and removal of safe havens of Afghan insurgents in FATA and Pashtun-dominated districts of Balochistan. To bolster this diplomatic campaign, high level U.S. diplomats and military personnel – including national security advisor Jim Jones and the head of joint chief of staff admiral Mullen – paid a series of visits to lay the groundwork.

Amidst all this, the row between the military and its civilian puppets over the Kerry-Lugar Bill further deepened when the Supreme Court of Pakistan passed a verdict against Zardari and his disciples. As ever, the army emerged as the sole winner in this internal power struggle and has remained in full-control of the country’s foreign and security policies.

With such a dominant position, it is hard to believe that Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) will abandon its proxy, in spite of relentless pressure from Washington. Past evidence suggests that jihadists were never abandoned by Pakistan’s notorious spymasters, even at the height of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Islamabad did withdraw its military support in the run up to the toppling of the Taliban regime, partly due to sever punitive threats from Washington, but it never relinquished its ties with them. In fact, in the ensuing years, Islamabad not only provided sanctuaries to Taliban deep inside Pakistani territory, but also encouraged them to fight against Western forces across the border.

Again, in the face of U.S. pressure, the ISI may ask its surrogates to lie low and wait until U.S. forces withdraw from the region.

Nevertheless, U.S. expectations for Islamabad’s full cooperation vis-à-vis Afghanistan are based on a flawed notion: that inducement such as military and economic aid will bring Islamabad into Washington’s orbit. By contrast, Islamabad’s primary objectives are not aid or trade-oriented (although it does expect reimbursement from the U.S., with no strings attached); its objectives are indeed geopolitical in nature – a persistent desire to have permanent place in the Afghan polity.

Just as the Second Reich, in a bid to strengthen its continental power, justified its imperial expansion abroad by claiming German peoples’ ‘rightful’ share to have a ‘place in the sun;’ so too, Punjab’s quest to bring Afghanistan back into its sphere of influence is grounded in its expansionist policy which, in turn, is motivated by its geographic insecurity. Faced with Indian might on its eastern borders, Punjab’s survival increasingly depends on control of the Pashtun areas in the west, as well as the Baloch homeland in the southwest.

Whether or not, the U.S., by using the sheer weight of its military power, succeeds in breaking the back of the insurgency in Afghanistan, it will, nonetheless, alter the regional dynamics by pushing Pakistan and its proxy back to their heartland, in doing so, it will create conditions for advancing its security agenda in Afghanistan, the benevolent implications on such policy for the Baloch Cause cannot be ignored.

The question is, therefore, how far is Baloch leadership willing to go in order to harness this extraordinary opportunity arising from policies which, strictly speaking, were designed by Washington for limited purposes, but that may well indirectly impact the Baloch region too.

Having said this, one cannot indulge in the wishful thinking that Western forces will do our bidding by intervening in Balochistan to thwart Pakistani designs. Given, the current geo-strategic position of the West on the world stage, it is unlikely that they will embark on a foreign expedition, even in the face of a crisis with humanitarian dimensions. Nor is it feasible to think that they would open their war chest and put the lives of their soldiers in harm’s way simply to pursue interests that lie at the peripheries.

And, yet, it is prudent to think that a large concentration of foreign troops in neighbouring Afghanistan is in itself enough to signal to the Pakistanis to stop their military conducts in Balochistan. The military posture by the West on Afghan soil will surely work as psychological deterrence against Pakistan, which, in turn, ultimately creates an essential space for Baloch forces to improve their operational capabilities and enhance their political control over the region.

The most fundamental challenge we face is how to capture the imagination and strategise our priorities to take advantage of the imminent geopolitical shift in the region.

Strategic ideas, regardless of their merits, cannot alone generate strategic effects without a firm backing of powerful actors within Baloch political arena; nor can such ideas make any difference when employed by those whose strength rests on mere rhetoric rather than their ability to effect dynamics of the struggle on the ground.

Execution of an effective strategy is, however, a collective process which requires the consent of all stakeholders, for instance, weak and strong actors can travel in the same bus, but only the strong can sit in the driver’s seat. In this case, much of the burden rests on the shoulders of the forces we call the ‘Core Group.’ Having established their credibility by investing blood and treasure in this struggle, they remain the backbone and therefore, for this reason, they deserve to have the leading role. At the same time, however, they should ensure that everyone is on board.

In short, without complete political harmony over the goals and strategy of the movement among those forces involved, regardless of their strengths and weaknesses, the task of steering the strategy will be that much harder.

Herein, Clausewitz offers gleaming advice:

“War plans cover every aspect of a war, and weave them all into a single operation that must have a single, ultimate objective in which all particular aims are reconciled. No one starts a war – or rather, no one his senses ought to do so – without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it. The former is its political purpose, the latter its operational objectives.”     (Clawsewitz, On War, 579)

The situation in Afghanistan, coupled with the activities of Islamists in Pakistan, will continue to be the main source of threat to the West. Therefore, disrupting the insurgency – if not eliminating it altogether – is the main policy goal Washington is determined to achieve by deploying large numbers of troops in Afghanistan. The Afghan insurgency, however, is not solely an indigenous phenomenon; it is, indeed, covertly backed by Pakistan’s military-led spy agencies. Because Pakistan perceives the Afghan Taliban as a long-term strategic asset, necessary to advance its interests in the region, its posture will consequently clash with the U.S. goals to neutralise the threat posed by Taliban.

In this fog of conflict, the clash between Islamabad and Washington over competing interests in Afghanistan will continue to generate frictions. The dominant position of the U.S. in the region will also increase Pakistan’s suspicion – that Washington has motives other than bringing stability to Afghanistan. After all, it was the NATO’s Peace-enforcing mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina that became a source of encouragement for Kosovo Liberation Army in its challenge of the Serbian state.

It is this uncertain environment that will ultimately create a strategic opportunity for the Baloch to further their interests; and, it is up to our leadership to determine how to wisely plan the initiatives to seize this opportunity which lies at our doorstep.

War is more than a true chameleon that slightly adapts its characteristics to the given case. As a total phenomenon its dominant tendencies always make war a paradoxical trinity – composed of primordial violence, hatred, and enmity, which are to be regarded as a blind natural force; of the play of chance and probability within which the creative spirit is free to roam; and of its element of subordination, as an instrument of policy, which makes it subject to reason alone.

The first of these three aspects mainly concerns the people; the second the commander and his army; the third the government. The passions that are to be kindled in war must already be inherent in the people; the scope which the play of courage and talent will enjoy in the realm of probability and chance depends on the particular character of the commander and the army; but the political aims are the business of government alone.

These three tendencies that are like three different codes of law, deep-rooted in their subject and yet variable in their relationship to one another. A theory that ignores any one of them or seeks to fix an arbitrary relationship between them would conflict with reality to such an extent that for this reason alone it would be totally useless.

Our task therefore, is to develop a theory that maintains a balance between these three tendencies, like an object suspended between three magnets.

‘On War’ 89 Carl von Clausewitz

“The demise of nations comes not due to annihilation but capitulation,” an age-old Balochi maxim – almost forgotten by ordinary folks – invoked by him with full vigour in his last interview. Without a shred of doubt, Mir Balaach Marri held a firm belief in the essence of this ancient dictum till the last moment of his life.

The wounds inflicted by Punjab’s mercenary squad in Tratani were raw and fresh; the very forces of chaos, after only a short span of time, struck back in Sarlat, a historical region that gave birth to the modern day resistance movement. This time, the target was Mir Balaach Marri. As a standard–bearer of the Baloch cause, he was a marked man from day one.

Like Mir Mehrab, Agha Karim, Hameed Baloch, Asad Mengal, Nawab Bugti, Khalid Jan and many other valiant sons of this nation – Balaach too, was a happy martyr; he chose this path in high spirit, despite knowing the hazards lying in every step of this journey. He, however, rightly insisted that this is the only avenue that leads to emancipation. As Thucydides, the ancient Greek historian of the Peloponnesian War invokes these wise words in defence of such a gallant fighter: 

“…if the only choice was between submission with loss of independence, and danger with the hope of preserving that independence, in such a case it is he who will not accept the risk, that deserves blame, not he who will.”

No one had a clue that this courageous man was on a history-making path; neither could anyone gauge his credentials: his allegiance to motherland and its inhabitants. Cynics, though, bet heavily on false notions that by raising the spectre of the Baloch Cause he would be aiming to strike a bargain with occupiers. While others even went further by whispering that he would soon find his place in a club of politicians whose sources of power chiefly derive from the largess provided by their masters in Punjab.

As usual, they were dead wrong.

Such demeaning blitz on Balaach was erupting from a bunch of people whose collective role as a custodian of Punjab’s interests in Balochistan – makes them no less repugnant than those who served as the guards of Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War. That collaborationist elite surely underestimated Balaach’s iron resolve.

Balaach grew up in times when state terror was on its height and Baloch were dying in large numbers. He went to school under the shadow of the Chamalaang massacre; he saw and felt closely the deaths and ruins across the land brought by Punjab’s military which received a helping hand from the Phelavis of Persia. Indeed, they both found a common cause, hence a common enemy.

It was this ghastly period which shaped his conscience and character. His statements and interviews clearly reflect a set of belief that he held throughout his life. His most moving discourses to public were grounded in the images of the shame of slavery, pride of freedom, the agony of the humiliating occupation and the breakable power of enemy. In doing so, he was actually pointing to the severity of the threats to our existence, and also the depths to which we as a nation were prone to drift but at the time he was able to summon us to hope.

True, a Baloch child is a natural born nationalist in wartime. In Balaach’s case, there was something unique, something rooted in his upbringing too which played a greater role: he was nurtured by a father who has a grand-standing in modern Baloch history. A man who has devoted almost entire his life to a cause and spearheaded the movement whether in war or peace.

As thousands of Baloch made their way to Afghanistan in the aftermath of 1970s war, Balaach was very much part of this incredible journey. And later his student days in the Soviet Union, he witnessed the seismic waves that swept across Eurasian landscape: the old order was unravelling before his eyes; and he stood and watched the historical events that accelerated the collapse of Soviet empire and the emergence of several nation states from the ruins of what many of us believed the preeminent superpower. He embraced the fact that artificially constructed bonds under communism were much weaker than the nationalistic aspirations of the very people who preserved their cultural values despite decades of imperial repressions.

To understand Balaach’s transformative role in Baloch politics, one has to put the post war period of Baloch politics in context.

The leadership vacuum emerged in the early 1980s, was filled by a group of politicians who unfortunately not only lacked the charisma, but were completely detached from the historical realities. Such shortcomings hindered their ability to move forward. They found it exceedingly difficult to define the whole purpose of the Baloch struggle in the absence of a clear vision. Instead, most of the political parties that claimed to be representing the Baloch cause became trapped in a long internal battle. Unnecessary factional fighting deteriorated public confidence toward the Baloch cause. While military establishment gained enormously from these pitfalls, turning such condition into a strategic advantage for itself and continued to foment tribal feuds which led to a series of intra and inter-tribal clashes. But this was only part of the story.

Having seen us so weak and fragmented, Islamabad planned to get an absolute grip on Balochistan. They devised a grand plan with an intention to turn the entire region into a mini Punjab in the guise of “development projects.”

 During these chaotic times Mir Balaach emerged as the sole champion of emancipation. He came up with a clear vision and above all a strategy to advance this vision. To make things clearer, he drew a sharp line between two extremities of Baloch politics: on the one hand, there are those utopians who tend to rely on empty moralism and legalism, pretending that Pakistan’s shoddy democratic process would eventually deliver; and those realists, on the other hand, who believe that any illusionary desire of harmony of interests between Punjab and Balochistan would ultimately prolong the suffering of the masses and thus, such wishful thinking is no less than an unwitting attempt by the federalists to legitimise six-decade long occupation.

Balaach was the proponent of later school. He and Nawab Akbar Bugti both well understood the logic of war and peace. Unlike others, they correctly argued that morality is the function of politics, not the other way around; and without power all legal or moral imperatives are null and void.

Balaach was through and through a man of the Baloch traditional class. The virtues such as sacrifice, bravery, loyalty, patriotism, he upheld and defended till the last moment of his life are no different than the ones preached and instilled by the ancient Athenians, Spartans and Romans to their citizens. With such a huge sacrifice, Balaach restored the pride of the nation, there has to be more Balaach if the hope of freedom is to succeed.

We should remember Balaach today above all, and salute his bravery and nobility.

While the White House spared no time in condemning recent bombing in the Iranian-controlled Balochistan, calling it “an act of terrorism,” Tehran, on the contrary, put the entire blame on foreign powers especially the U.S. and Britain – asserting that without their active support it wouldn’t have happened, though offering no convincing evidence to backup such a serious charge.

Under pressure from Iran, the Obama administration has pronounced that it may consider a policy to proscribe Jundollah (of which Iran accused of this attack), enlisting it along side al-Qaeda and other transnational jihadi groups. If this happens, then it’s going to be a shift: that will surely mark a complete departure from its predecessor’s policy when it comes to Iran-Baloch confrontation; and such a move is bound to give a free hand to the Persian dominated regime vis-à-vis Baloch minority.   

So why would the U.S, all of a sudden, find soft corner for Iran and is even willing to swallow its harsh criticism?  

It was not the unexpected loss of Iran’s top military commanders, but a much contended Iran – that is ready to respond positively on the U.S. backed proposals over its uranium enrichment process in Vienna-talks – was the key motive that prompted the U.S to soothe aggrieved Mullahs of Tehran. This is hardly any surprising given the consistent lukewarm response by the Obama administration to the regime since its inauguration early this year.

Though, previously, human rights issues used to occupy a significant portion of foreign policy rhetoric let alone the goals, now, with this administration, such concerns have been replaced by a new policy of appeasement with regards to Iran. In short, Washington has taken a backstep from its moral commitments and is pursuing a policy of what commonly be described: ‘see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil.’

On the other hand, Iran’s newly found muscles in foreign policy arena which in turn reinforce its aggressive internal policies towards non-Persian population go completely unchecked. Increasing military build-up coupled with the planned settlements for outsiders are intended to change the demographic balance of Balochistan. And such policies are delibrately designed by the Perso-Shi’ite Iran to eliminate the native population systematically.

The belief that by softening the tone might help Iran changes its nuclear posture, which may be a clever strategy by the U.S to bring Tehran into the box, however, in due process, the west in general and the Obama administration in particular would overlook the conducts of the regime in Balohistan.  

Further Readings:

Iran: Human Rights Abuses Against The Baluchi Minority

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE13/104/2007

Iran’s Ethnic Tinderbox

http://www.twq.com/07winter/docs/07winter_bradley.pdf

Beyond the Wall: Sources of Iran’s Terror Campaign in Balochistan

http://balochinterest.wordpress.com/2008/05/02/beyond-the-wall-sources-of-iran%e2%80%99s-terror-campaign-in-balochistan/

Of all failing states in today’s world, none of them put blames so daringly to others – of their own dysfunctional conditions – than Pakistan. It claims that the ills which engulfed its borders and the plague that is eating away its core, all are rooted in foreign countries. Thus, the United States has become the usual suspect where Islamabad can dump all its miseries and shortcomings, particularly its phony war against al Qaeda.  

But the simple fact is that the monsters Punjab had nurtured over the course of quarter of century and used them as proxies to bully its neighbours – did not actually descend from sky at the whim of a divine force but were fostered in training camps of Punjab and in rugged valleys of Pushtoon lands. And yet, its military chief falsely proclaims for victimhood status and whenever his tanks roll into Pushtoon villages, he demands hefty price from the United States. Someone ought to tell him that you do not give the man who sets fire to your house a medal just because he phones for the fire brigade.

So long as jihadists continue their fight across the borders, there is apparently no problem whatsoever in Punjab’s GHQ but instead, a sense of relief prevails among the top brass, because those Islamists waging insurgency against westerners in Afghanistan are actually advancing Punjab’s strategic interests by a cheap means.

The crumbling security situation particularly in Pushtoon lands – an organized chaos – has become just a side show, crafted by shoddy intelligence services in order to prove to the west that they are not alone in it but Pakistan too has fallen prey to this menace thereby becoming first hand “victim” of terrorism. This is nothing but a petty display of victimhood, designed to reap more money from the west. Interestingly, such low level of tactic is evident in the streets of Pakistani cities, where notorious street beggars pretend to be severely injured by displaying their blood-soaked wound dressings to the passersby so they would be able to attract their sympathy and money.

 A country with a huge population, has utterly failed to create wealth and prosperity instead, relies on foreign hand-outs to run its daily business. And when the foreign powers attach strings with subsidies they provide, Islamabad complains and tries to reassert its “sovereignty,” forgetting the fact that when foreign aid knocks at the door, sovereignty flies out the window.

Already, cracks are getting wider and deeper between military and its civilian puppets on the one hand and the client-state and its international patron on the other. History does not necessarily repeat itself but in this client -patron relationship, one can easily draw Roman lesson:

 How did the Romans manage the security of the largest empire, ever built in the history of mankind, stretching from Britain to Armenia? The answer lies in the imperial security policy, i.e. the management of an extremely complex but very efficient client-state system. Under Augustus and later his successor Tiberius, Rome developed this comprehensive strategy, aimed at protecting the far flung frontiers of the empire; and the client-state system was in the heart of its grand strategy.

Given, the nature of the threats, often emanating from barbaric tribes, principalities – and even from bigger powers like Parthian empire – the legionary forces were not sufficient to counter such challenges, particularly in the eastern flank of the empire.  Such invisible frontier of client relationships established beyond the Rhine and Danube in the north, across the Black Sea including the Balkans and the Caucuses to the east and of course, Mediterranean peninsula in the south.

To control these dependent and sometimes hostile clients, Roman diplomatic techniques ranged from subsidies to punitive warfare. There were rewards for good behavior – offered in forms of cash and Roman citizenship to the ruling class – and indeed, sever punishment in the case of noncompliance.

The most important function of the client states in the system of imperial security was to absorb the security burden of Roman forces thereby providing security against border infiltration and other low intensity threats. In fact, as a hegemonic empire, Rome was in full control of not only security affairs but also the domestic affairs of its clients, thereby leaving no area of authority to the client rulers’ prerogative.

Demagoguery and art of statecraft cannot go hand in hand. A demagogue looks every unfolding political development through narrow emotive lenses and passes his judgments accordingly, because this approach fits well into his personal needs; whereas a rational statesman consciously calculates and weighs things before taking any step.

Why do you have to be a Realist in dealing with international issues?

Because the entire realm of international politics organized on a self-help basis in which everyone watches his own back and the margin of safety is too narrow to embark on any idealistic pipe dream. It’s like walking through a deadly minefield. Sometimes a small policy error could lead to an unimaginable catastrophe; and consequently, the entire nation has to pay a heavy price for the ill-fated decisions made by the leadership on its behalf.

Believe it or not, history is littered with lots of such examples in which leaders put their own parochial interests – or in some cases, trivial pursuit of honour – above national priorities. Saddam Hussein and Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi are two recent examples in sight. Both were preoccupied with their regimes’ security and the desire for personal glory; in due process, both abused the state power and squandered the national wealth; both committed foreign policy blunders by risking the survival and wellbeing of the very people they were supposed to protect. The overall outcome was terrible, especially in Iraq’s case,in which, Saddam’s miscalculation in foreign policy led to violent foreign interventions thereby subsequently turning the entire Iraqi society into a bloodbath.

On the other hand, Libyan leader Gaddafi survived and still clinging to the power but ordinary Libyans already paid a hefty price for the mistakes committed by their “beloved” leader. Once, the richest country of African continent with enormous hydrocarbon resources, Libya has now become an average African state with a crippling economy and crumbling infrastructure. And yet Gaddafi hasn’t forgone his flamboyant style of politics. In the heyday of his rule, he was famous for Arab nationalism and sought to create the pan Arab empire but the mission was aborted after Nasser’s death. Later, he jumped into murky waters of the Third World politics by seeking global justice for the Third World states and at the same time rejecting the entire post WW II structure. For the last two decades, he has embarked on a path to unify the whole African continent under his “wise” leadership. It seems that his quest for glory never ends.

In recent days, it seems he is on a mission to uncover the truth behind world’s top conspiracies and plots; from the death of the former UN Seceratary General Dag Hammarskjöld and murder of John F Kennedy to Diana’s car crash, he demands answers.

On his first visit to the US, and in his maiden address to the UN general assembly, he fully lived up to his reputation for eccentricity, bloody-mindedness and extreme verbiage. As UK daily the Guardian described it this way:

“He tore up a copy of the UN charter in front of startled delegates, accused the security council of being an al-Qaida like terrorist body, called for George Bush and Tony Blair to be put on trial for the Iraq war, demanded $7.7tn in compensation for the ravages of colonialism on Africa, and wondered whether swine flu was a biological weapon created in a military laboratory. At one point, he even demanded to know who was behind the killing of JFK. All in all, a pretty ordinary 100 minutes in the life of the colonel.

The technique he chose to do so – cunningly – was to blatantly insult his audience. The representatives of the 192 nations assembled in the assembly hall were no better, he told them, than orators at Hyde Park’s Speakers’ Corner. ‘You make your speech and then you disappear. That’s all you are right now’.”