De tendentieuze berichtgeving rond Iran en Syrië

Niet iedereen in blij met de huidige Iraanse regering. Veel Iraniërs willen meer vrijheid en een eind aan de corruptie. Maar zij wijzen het Westerse imperialisme af. De tendentieuze berichtgeving over Iran op het platform van onze publieke omroep is gevaarlijk want bereidt de publieke opinie voor op gewelddadig Westers ingrijpen. Een oorlog met Iran wordt geen lachertje.

‘Met de herverkiezing van president Rouhani in 2017 hoopten de Iraniërs op een betere toekomst. Maar vandaag staat uw land door mismanagement en corruptie voor een economische en politieke crisis. Daar komen de nieuwe Amerikaanse sancties nog eens bij toen president Trump zich terugtrok uit de nucleaire deal. De bevolking moet tegen het regime in opstand komen. Een nieuwe regering moet dringend orde op zaken stellen’. Dat is in de bovenstaande aflevering van HARDtalk van 15 augustus 2018 de boodschap van de Britse journalist Stephen Sackur aan de Iraanse politicoloog Mohammad Marandi.

Professor Marandi geeft toe dat de Iraanse economie door een diep dal gaat, maar binnen enkele maanden zal stabiliseren. “Ons land heeft veel zwaardere crises overwonnen. De Amerikanen willen het Iraanse volk klein krijgen, maar dat zal niet lukken. Ja, er is protest, er zijn demonstraties. De mensen hebben dat recht. Gebeurt zoiets in ons land, dan spreekt de wereld over burgeroorlog. In het Westen heten identieke demonstraties een verworven recht in een democratische rechtsstaat. Ja, de sancties van maffiabaas Trump doen pijn”, aldus Marandi.

Tendentieuze berichtgeving van Jens Franssen over Iran

Aan de beeldvorming over Iran schort in het Westen het één en ander. Zo publiceerde Jens Franssen, journalist bij de Vlaamse publieke oproep VRT, op 11 februari het artikel ‘In beeld: 40 jaar Iraanse revolutie’, dat samenviel met zijn reportage op Terzake TV over de Iraanse Volksmoedjahedien in Albanië. Zowel het artikel als de reportage geven een vertekend beeld van de werkelijkheid.

Anders dan wat Franssen eufemistisch “oppositie en druk op het regime via sociale media” noemt gaat het om het verspreiden van verachtelijk fake news vanuit een NAVO-lid en kandidaat-EU-lidstaat door een groepering die door de Amerikaanse geheime dienst financieel en logistiek wordt gesteund. Het komt neer op een internetoorlog tegen Iran door leden van de Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), een groep Iraanse dissidenten die tot voor kort op de Amerikaanse lijst van terreurorganisaties stond en daarvan werd geschrapt om opportuniteitsredenen. Franssen’s “druk op het regime” is dus in werkelijkheid cyberterreur tegen een soeverein land dat al kreunt onder verlammende eenzijdige Amerikaanse sancties. Het zijn de beproefde imperialistische tactieken die aan een militaire aanval voorafgaan.

Franssen schrijft dat ayatollah Khomeini de macht greep en een “antiwesterse theocratie” installeerde. Dat is tendentieuze berichtgeving. Het terreurbewind van de sjah was dan pro-Westers want geïnstalleerd na de regime change operatie tegen de democratische regering van Mossadegh, het huidige Iran is daarmee niet antiwesters. Het land wil goede betrekkingen met iedereen, maar verzet zich tegen de onrechtmatige druk van de VS, Israel, Saoedi-Arabië en enkele ex-koloniale Europese mogendheden. Wikipedia plaatst de nieuwe Iraanse staatsvorm in de juiste context: in een referendum sprak de bevolking zich uit voor een islamitische republiek, een staatsvorm die men ook in andere VN-lidstaten zoals Pakistan, en Afghanistan aantreft. Met de regeringsvorm is dus niets mis.

Tegelijk bagatelliseert Franssen de “erg bloedige oorlog” tussen Iran en Irak in de tachtiger jaren. “Tijdens de oorlog wordt gifgas ingezet. Zo’n half miljoen Iraakse en Iraanse militairen komen om,” aldus Franssen, die insinueert dat ook Iran chemische wapens gebruikte en daarmee Iraakse slachtoffers maakte. In werkelijkheid viel Saddam Hoessein Iran binnen, met Amerikaanse steun: bewapening, inlichtingen, doelwitcoördinaten en materiaal voor de productie van chemische en biologische wapens. Zo konden Iraakse troepen dagelijks chemische wapens inzetten tegen Iraniërs. “Iraniërs weten hoe chemische wapens ruiken” bloklettert Thomas Erdbrink op 11 november 2002 in NRC. Alle resoluties in de Veiligheidsraad tegen deze manier van oorlog voeren sneuvelden door Amerikaanse en Britse veto’s. En voor alle duidelijkheid: Iran heeft nooit (chemisch) teruggeslagen. Een decreet van Khomeini verbood chemische wapens.

Jens Franssen checkt zijn bronnen over chemische wapens in Syrië niet

Eerder sprak ondergetekende Jens Franssen al eens aan over zijn verwijzing in het radioprogramma ‘De Ochtend’ naar de fact-finding missie van de OPCW, de Organisatie voor het Verbod op Chemische Wapens in Den Haag, rond het incident in Khan Shaykhun (Syrië) op 4 april 2017 waar chemische wapens zouden zijn gebruikt. Het OPCW-rapport spreekt slechts van de site of the incident, maar Franssen maakte daar ongegeneerd “bominslag” van en verwees naar een Nederlandse anonieme bron (waarschijnlijk een lid van de Nederlandse diplomatieke missie bij de OPCW), die “met aan zekerheid grenzende zekerheid” wist dat Assad de schuldige was. Opnieuw tendentieuze informatie want onbevestigde geruchten, die de publieke opinie moet warm maken voor ingrijpen.

Franssen verwees naar een OPCW-rapport dat slinks zegt: “mensen zijn blootgesteld aan sarin, een chemisch wapen” zonder opgave van de manier waarop dat wapen werd ingezet. In een later rapport zegt de OPCW: “Er is sarin gebruikt. Dat is een zenuwgassubstantie. Wij veroordelen deze gruwel[ijke daad], die haaks staat op de normen van de Conventie”. Geen van deze rapporten bevestigt dat sarin als wapen is gebruikt, noch door het Syrische regime. Maar Jens Franssen zegt dat zijn bronnen de Syrische president Assad als schuldige aanwijzen. Tot op vandaag is daarvoor geen enkel bewijs. Franssen was niet bereid op Radio1 in prime time zijn berichtgeving recht te zetten, minstens te nuanceren. Al wat hij deed was ondergetekende blokkeren op Twitter.

Jens Franssen slaat zowel met zijn reportage als met zijn artikel de bal goed mis. En dat is verwijtbaar want hij moet beter weten. Het is ook gevaarlijk omdat zijn optreden op het platform van de publieke omroep bijdraagt aan de beeldvorming bij het publiek op grond waarvan de VS “eindelijk” Iran en Syrië militair kan aanvallen. In het geval van Syrië deinsde president Obama daar voor terug toen hij werd geïnformeerd over fake news over chemische aanvallen door het regime van Assad en het Britse parlement groen licht voor een coalition of the willing weigerde en ook het Amerikaanse congres met vragen bleef zitten.

Update

Het incident in Khan Shaykhun op 4 april 2017 was voor Trump aanleiding om vanaf oorlogsschepen in de Middellandse Zee 59 Tomahawk raketten af te vuren op de vliegbasis in Shayrat. Dat gebeurde op een moment waarop niet bekend was wat er precies was gebeurd en wie eventueel schuldig was aan een aanval met chemische wapens. Achteraf bleek dat het incident was gefingeerd. Internationaal onderzoek leerde dat de helft van de vermeende slachtoffers in het ziekenhuis aankwamen vóór het tijdstip van het incident.

Maar Jens Franssen had zijn radiopubliek al laten weten dat “het regime van Assad” een aanval met sarin had uitgevoerd. Fake news dus op de publieke omroep.

En ook de ziekenhuisscène met kokhalsende kindertjes na de “sarin aanval door Assad” in Douma op 7 april 2018 was gefingeerd. Dat zegt Riam Dalati, een gereputeerde BBC-verslaggever die het incident ter plaatse heeft onderzocht. Het incident werd door de VS, het VK en Frankrijk gebruikt als voorwendsel om Syrische overheidsgebouwen en militaire installaties te bombarderen, en dat terwijl er over de toedracht niets vaststond en tenminste één NAVO-land wist dat het om een gefingeerde sarinaanval ging.

Daar waar de ziekenhuisscène wereldwijd tot in het absurde werd vertoond op de grote televisiestations bleef het oorverdovend stil over het relaas van Dalati. En ook onze publieke omroep kwam niet met een rechtzetting.

Directe gewapende confrontatie in de Golf

Iran viert deze week zijn veertigste verjaardag. Het heeft zich tot een belangrijke actor in de regio ontwikkeld. Als rivaal van Saoedi-Arabië geeft het steun aan Jemen, Irak en Syrië en heeft nauwe banden met de Libanese sjiitische beweging Hezbollah die een belangrijke fractie vormt in de Libanese regering. Op de Iraanse regering is veel aan te merken. Veel Iraniërs willen niet alleen bevrijd worden van het huidige regime, maar ook van het Westerse oriëntalisme en imperialisme. Tegen die achtergrond is correcte berichtgeving van essentieel belang.

Iran verdient de Amerikaanse sancties niet. Trump’s bewering dat Iran zijn verplichtingen niet nakomt wordt tegengesproken door de VN-atoomwaakhond. Wat de Amerikaanse president ook beweert, hij voert een hoog risico campagne om het regime in Teheran te provoceren, te intimideren, omver te werpen. Door zijn funeste onwetendheid kon de president, daartoe aangemoedigd door zijn oorlogszuchtige veiligheidsadviseur John Bolton, wel eens belanden in een veel groter conflict dan een eenvoudige crisis met het oog op zijn herverkiezing. Iran kent ook hardliners. President Rouhani kon die tot op heden in bedwang houden, maar deze lieden konden wel eens de macht grijpen. Dan komt het schrikbarende vooruitzicht van een directe gewapende confrontatie in de Golf steeds dichterbij.

Als de vlam in de pan schiet loopt het echt uit de hand. Iran heeft aangekondigd dat het de Straat van Hormuz zal afsluiten als het geen olie meer kan uitvoeren. Er kunnen dan opnieuw raketten vallen op Saoedische olietankers in de Rode Zee. De Amerikaanse marinebasis in Bahrein kan ook een doelwit worden. Hoe reageren de salonkrijgslieden Trump, Bolton en Pompeo dan? Die kunnen dan nog moeilijk terugkomen op hun roekeloze oorlogstaal van de afgelopen maanden. Het antwoord kan enkel nog maar geweld zijn. Deze gestoorde lieden hebben elke weg naar diplomatie afgesneden.

Wordt het conflict met Iran in Syrië uitgevochten?

De balans in het Iran-dossier is treurig. Iran laat zich niet afpersen. Men mag kritiek hebben op de islamitische republiek. Maar de bevolking komt niet in opstand. Er komt geen tweede revolutie op bevel van Washington, om tegemoet te komen aan Trump’s valse, primitieve ideeën over vrijheid en democratie. In dit hele dossier heeft de VS zich van zijn Europese vrienden en Russische en Chinese rivalen vervreemd. Tenzij er snel iets verandert krijgt Trump gewild of ongewild zijn oorlog. Als we president Rouhani mogen geloven wordt dat de “Moeder van alle Oorlogen”.

Teheran is niet van plan te capituleren, en al zeker niet zonder serieuze strijd. Het probeert een oorlog op allerlei manieren te vermijden, maar verwerpt de eisen van Bolton en Pompeo die neerkomen op onvoorwaardelijke overgave. De cultureel rijke en trotse Iraniërs aanvaarden geen van buiten opgelegde regeringswissel, zelfs niet onder druk van pijnlijke sancties. Dan blijft de mogelijkheid open om het conflict - waar vooral Israel op aanstuurt - buiten de landsgrenzen uit te vechten, in Syrië. Maar ook dat wordt geen lachertje.

The bin Laden assassination and the lies of the “war on terror”

President Barack Obama talks with members of the national security team at the conclusion of one in a series of meetings discussing the mission against Osama bin Laden,

in the Situation Room of the White House, May 1, 2011. Gen. James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is seen on the screen.

Photo: Pete Souza, The White House

by Patrick Martin

The 10,000-word essay by Seymour Hersh on the US killing of Osama bin Laden, published Sunday by the London Review of Books, is a devastating blow to the entire narrative of the US “war on terror,” as it has been elaborated by both the Bush and Obama administrations.

The central thrust of Hersh’s exposure—that the Obama administration systematically lied about the raid by US Navy Seals that killed bin Laden on May 1, 2011—has been rapidly confirmed by other media outlets, including several that are hostile to Hersh and supportive of the White House.

NBC News reported, citing three unnamed sources, two of them in US intelligence, that a “walk in” from Pakistani intelligence told the CIA where Osama bin Laden was hiding a year before the US raid, and that the Pakistani government knew that bin Laden was hiding in Abbottabad, a headquarters town for the Pakistani military.

Several Pakistani news outlets reported the name of the former intelligence official who tipped off the CIA about bin Laden, identifying him as former brigadier Usman Khalid of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, the Pakistani military intelligence service, who has been moved to the United States and is working with the CIA. They also confirmed that Pakistani officials at the highest level were aware of bin Laden’s presence and identified one intelligence official, Ijaz Shah, as the man who arranged to house bin Laden in Abbottabad, at the direction of then-president Pervez Musharraf.

It has also been revealed that many of the key allegations made by Hersh—the Pakistanis holding bin Laden, the Saudis paying the expenses, the “walk in” providing bin Laden’s location to the CIA, the Pakistani cooperation with the raid by the Navy Seals, the US plan to claim bin Laden had been killed by a drone-fired missile—were previously made by R. J. Hillhouse, a US college professor and blogger on national security issues, in several postings during August 2011. Hillhouse now says that Hersh’s story “has been spot on,” but that she had different sources within the military-intelligence apparatus.

There are continued attempts in the US media to rebut Hersh’s account by focusing on various alleged inconsistencies, and US officials and the White House have denounced the Hersh exposure while refusing to deal with any of its substantive charges. In other words, the military-intelligence apparatus and its media apologists proceed as they always do in response to exposure of US government crimes, with a mixture of stonewalling and character assassination.

Seymour Hersh is a courageous journalist with a record of exposing official crimes, going back to the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War. He has relatively few resources—above all his reputation for being willing to defy the official media consensus in order to report truthfully. He stands in sharp contrast to a media establishment where every significant report on the national security apparatus is cleared in advance with the government, and where most “exposures” are leaks planned and directed by the military-intelligence apparatus.

After the killing of bin Laden, the American media swallowed the official story without question. No official notice of instruction was required. The newspaper editors and the network executives knew immediately what it was they were not to investigate, and they proceeded accordingly.

The principal response of the media to Hersh’s revelations has been to bury them. After limited coverage on Monday, there was very little further commentary on Tuesday. CNN subordinated any references to the story to a manufactured terror scare over alleged threats posed by the Islamic State to the US “homeland.”

The reaction is itself a reflection of the explosive and far-reaching implications of Hersh’s exposures. The assassination of bin Laden, after all, was proclaimed by the Obama administration as its greatest foreign policy achievement, used to drum up support for the US military and intelligence apparatus and its illegal activities. The entire apparatus of the media, including Hollywood in the form of the CIA propaganda movie Zero Dark Thirty, was mobilized for this purpose. The entire narrative was a monumental fiction.

At issue, moreover, is not just the murder of bin Laden. Indeed, there is little doubt that the US government decided to kill the Al Qaeda leader to forestall a trial at which bin Laden could testify about his longstanding relationship with sections of the Saudi state and US intelligence agencies.

Ever since the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, American foreign and domestic policy has been founded on the lie of the “war on terror.” Under that scenario, vicious terrorists attacked America out of the blue, killing nearly 3,000 people, and forcing the US government to go to war against them in response.

This lie required covering up the real origins of the 9/11 attacks, in the CIA recruitment and training of Islamic fundamentalist terrorists—including Osama bin Laden—for the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet military occupation. It required covering up the ongoing connections between the US intelligence agencies and Al Qaeda, which have resurfaced again in Libya and Syria, where Al Qaeda forces have been a key element in US-backed operations for “regime change.”

The 9/11 attacks provided the pretext not only for US wars abroad, but for the enormous build-up of police-state powers within the United States: the creation of the Department of Homeland Security; the Pentagon’s Northern Command; the vast expansion of spying on telecommunications and the Internet; and dress rehearsals for military-police dictatorship like the crackdown that followed the Boston Marathon bombing.

All these actions are driven by the deepening social, economic and political crisis of American and world capitalism. It is impossible to maintain democratic forms of rule in a society where a tiny fraction of the population monopolizes virtually all the wealth. But the steady drive towards a dictatorship of the financial oligarchy, directed against the democratic rights of the American people, is passed off as an effort to defend ordinary Americans from the threat of terrorism.

Certain conclusions can be drawn. Lying on a staggering scale is an essential feature of American foreign and domestic policy. There are profound class reasons for this. The fundamental role of the US government is to defend the interests of a rapacious financial aristocracy, a few tens of thousands of the super-rich, while pretending to represent the American people as a whole. Lying is therefore intrinsic to its operation.

The corporate-controlled media plays a central role in this process of mass deception. The government is able to lie on a colossal scale and get away with it, in large measure because of the uncritical parroting of these lies by the television networks and leading “mainstream” newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post .

If the American government and its media accomplices have lied so brazenly about the assassination of bin Laden, absolutely nothing they say about anything can be believed.

This article first appeared on World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) on 13 May 2015, and was republished with permission.

Islamic State vs its far enemy

by Paul Rogers

U.S. Sailors launch an F/A-18F Super Hornet aircraft assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 213 from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) in the Persian Gulf

Oct. 18, 2014, as the ship supports Inherent Resolve. President Barack Obama authorized humanitarian aid deliveries to Iraq as well as targeted airstrikes to protect U.S. personnel from extremists

known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. U.S. Central Command directed the operations.

Photo: MC3 Joshua Card – Wikimedia Commons

Behind the flux of conflict on the ground in Syria-Iraq, all sides are digging in for a long war.

Much of the recent attention on the war against Islamic State has focused on the intense conflict between the movement and local Kurds in and around Kobane, close to the Syria-Turkey border. Its 60,000 people had been relatively undisturbed by the Syrian war until a few months ago, when thousands of people displaced by the escalating conflict began to swell its population.

Within a short period, as many as 400,000 had arrived. Most fled across the border to Turkey when the town was besieged by Islamic State (IS) militias. Today, control of otherwise deserted and ravaged Kobane is divided between these militias and Kurdish fighters, including some from Kurdish Iraq (see Tim Arango, “In Syria battle, a test for all sides”, New York Times, 20 November 2014)

Kobane is strategically important for IS, not least as seizing it would give the movement command of a long stretch of the border. The repeated targeting of IS positions by US airstrikes has made the battle there even more pivotal. At the same time, it is but one part of a wider war with many other elements. Three of these involve western and Iraqi governments, and three the Islamic State.

In the first category:

• The Pentagon is deploying a further 1,500 troops to Iraq. This will take the acknowledged total to around 3,000, although this may not include special-force units whose deployment is seldom reported

• The US chair of the joint chiefs of staff, General Martin Dempsey, has not ruled out deploying US ground troops to the frontline with Iraq army units

• Both US and Iraqi sources have strongly discounted talk of an Iraqi army “spring offensive” in Anbar province in 2015, on the basis that rebuilding, retraining and re-equipping Iraq's army will take many months.

In the second category:

• The Islamic State is reported to have concluded some sort of limited agreement with the al-Nusra Front (the al-Qaida affiliate in Syria) in order to bring inter-militia violence to an end there. In turn this development follows al-Nusra’s success in capturing a number of towns and villages from other Syrian militias with a more secular agenda

Al-Nusra is also reported to have overrun arms dumps containing modern weapons provided by western states for use against Bashar al-Assad's regime. These may include as many as eighty US-made BGM-71 anti-tank missiles (see Columb Strack, “Jihadists make gains in Syria after weapons seizure”, Jane’s Intelligence Review, December 2014).

• The Islamic State has reputedly secured the allegiance of the most violent of Egypt's militant groups, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (see David D Kirkpatrick, “Militant Group in Egypt Vows Loyalty to ISIS”, New York Times, 10 November 2014). If confirmed this would be its biggest international boost, as the group is fighting Abdel Fattah al-Sisi government in Cairo and challenging the latter's violent suppression of Islamist and other dissent (see Sara Khorshid, “Egypt’s new police state”, New York Times, 17 November 2014).

• Iraqi Kurdish sources say that western agencies are underestimating IS's military capacity. The true number of IS paramilitaries may be over six times larger than the 31,500 often quoted (see Patrick Cockburn, “War with ISIS: Islamic militants have army of 200,000, claims senior Kurdish leader”, Independent on Sunday, 16 November 2014).

The narrative

In other aspects of this complex conflict, the Islamic State's ability to make major advances has stalled. The movement is now preparing for a long conflict. A priority will be maintaining and enhancing its transnational support, in terms both of personnel (an estimated 15,000 have already come to join IS from across the Middle East and beyond, but it needs more) and finance (with individuals in western Gulf states playing a key role). These efforts require IS to determinedly promote its core narrative, which may be extreme by western perceptions but does have a sufficient basis to attract support.

This sees the Islamic State as a vanguard movement in the global defence of Islam at a time when Islam is under attack and leaders of Muslim states across the Middle East are either apostate or utterly untrue to the tenets of Islam. The movement has established a renewed caliphate, currently centred on Raqqa (the early capital of the most durable caliphate, the Abbasids of 1,200 years ago) with plans to extend it to Baghdad (the later and much longer-lasting Abbasid capital. In turn it will spread to Saudi Arabia, ousting the House of Saud and claiming guardianship of Mecca and Medina (sites of the "two holy places") - and, ultimately, reclaim the "third holy place" in Jerusalem.

The Islamic State is leading this historic renewal against the "far enemy" of the United States and its allies that have brought chaos to Afghanistan and Iraq, killing over 200,000 Muslims and wounding many more in the process. These enemy forces have also killed Muslims in Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Mali and many other states, while propping up corrupt and un-Islamic regimes (al-Sisi’s Egypt being the latest). IS points to the far enemy’s practice of rendition, torture and detention without trial, and it emphasises the role of the Zionists. Indeed, Israel is seen as little more than an extension of the United States, and Israel strike-aircraft and helicopter-gunships as US military hardware with Israeli markings.

The prospect

The reality of the Islamic State is very different from its self-portrait. The progress it has made since mid-2014 has owed much to largely secular Ba'athists and others who hardly buy into its theology or long-term vision are prepared to make common cause against the hated Iraqi government and the United States. The narrative does resonate, though, with a small minority of young Muslims, for whom Islamic State answers a longing even more seductive than did al-Qaida after 9/11. The fact that IS has created a territorial entity, a physical manifestation of the promised caliphate, adds to its aura.

This narrative is not easy for western analysts to comprehend, especially given the brutality of many of the movement’s operations. But it is being worked on and developed relentlessly, then propagated over and over in many different forms (especially through new social media). It is helped greatly by the actions of the Israeli government of Binyamin Netanyahu, and would dearly like a serious ground war with western troops - which the current "mission-creep" may well provide. If that war comes, there will no doubt be elements in Islamic State that look forward to the capture of American soldiers, their detention, waterboarding, and on camera execution in orange jump-suits.

Perhaps a few western policy-advisers and analysts are thinking such a narrative through, recognising its seductive nature and acting accordingly. There is, though, not too much sign of that, which makes it all the more likely that this will be a lengthy war.

Paul Rogers is professor in the department of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England. He is openDemocracy's international-security editor, and has been writing a weekly column on global security since 28 September 2001; he also writes a monthly briefing for the Oxford Research Group. His books include Why We’re Losing the War on Terror (Polity, 2007), and Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century (Pluto Press, 3rd edition, 2010). He is on twitter at: @ProfPRogers

This article first appeared on openDemocracy November 21, 2014

China and the Great Game

by Haifa Peerzada

Almost all discussion of Afghanistan after 2014 hinges on the withdrawal of western forces. Yet into that gap a major power is stepping - China. China’s involvement in turn poses major questions, vis-à-vis Pakistan, India and their own point of friction - Kashmir.

The conflict in Afghanistan is becoming more complex by the day, spreading beyond its borders into south Asia. There are four main parties: the US, Pakistan, Afghanistan itself and the Afghan Taliban. Others, previously remotely involved, are increasingly drawn in - the most prominent being China.

China’s growth rate of close to 10 per cent per annum makes it a global economic hub with which to reckon, second only to the US. This may not however be socially sustainable as it perpetuates inequality in income, heavily concentrated in China’s southern coastal area. Moreover, the country’s ethnic cohesion is uncertain: apart from minority tensions, the Han majority is itself fractured among ethno-linguistic communities which have experienced sustained segregation.

Fear of becoming a target of non-state actors has put the authorities in Beijing on their guard. That fear was exacerbated by the recent violent attack in Tiananmen Square, allegedly by members of the Muslim Uighur community from Xingiang province in the north-west. While the Turkish Islamic Party claimed responsibility, the authorities blamed the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a group affiliated with Al-Qaeda. Such incidents exacerbate the socio-economic problems which may in the final analysis prove destructive for the instrumental legitimacy on which the power of the Communist Party rests.

The state has for long been concerned about the separatist movement in Xingiang - a concern enhanced by a fear of Afghanistan providing safe havens for Uighur militants. China sought to counter this by maintaining good connections with the Afghan Taliban and the Quetta Shura. For their part the Taliban are not keen on isolating China as it is the only non-Muslim country that has promised to give them political recognition and respite from UN sanctions - in return for not allowing any group to conduct any violent activity on its territory. This understanding seems however to be falling apart, with China fearing that Afghanistan may be slipping into another civil war, thereby creating space for militants to launch attacks on it. That may be why China supported the US-Taliban talks in Doha, however unsuccessful they proved.

Regional balancing

There has been a change in the trilateral relationship among Afghanistan, Pakistan and China. Earlier, China’s relations with the Taliban were dependent on Pakistan but its relationship with Kabul is improving and in 2012 it granted Afghanistan observer status in the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO), a paradigm shift in regional diplomacy. China has also diversified its intelligence communications in the region, earlier confined to Pakistan, to deal with the Uighur militants in Xingiang province. Meanwhile, the relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan has become estranged in the last few years. Pakistan’s concept of strategic depth has also been watered down, owing to its domestic problems with the Taliban. The border dispute between the two states over the Durand line has added to tensions, feeding insurgency at the borders.

The most stable country in south Asia, India, is also China’s rival in the region, which inevitably brings to bear its existential rivalry with Pakistan. The main bone of contention between India and Pakistan since 1947 has been the Kashmir conflict. Yet Kashmir is not just divided between India and Pakistan: China is implicated too.

 Map: Wikipedia

As an ally of China, in 1963 Pakistan ceded to it a northern area of Kashmir called Aksai-chin. Though China considers this a settled matter, India remains apprehensive about the China-Pakistan friendship. Stephen Cohen’s Shooting for a Century: Finding Solutions to The India-Pakistan Conundrum observes that for India Karakoram pass is critical to its security, concerned that China and Pakistan might seek to expand their influence through it. This also dictates the strategic importance of the Siachen glacier for India and its unwillingness to reach a settlement on it, despite positive signals from Pakistan.

Karakoram pass connects Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir with the Xingiang Autonomous Region. But China has also made incursions into the Ladakh area of Jammu and Kashmir, violating the Line of Actual Control, which clearly demonstrates its strategic design to expand its influence. Yet, keeping in mind its fear of spillovers from the Afghanistan conflict, it is highly unlikely China would press its expansion through Karakoram pass at the moment: the incursions seem rather to be an extension of politics in terms of bargaining from a position of strength. Peace in Kabul runs through Kashmir. This elicits more constructive Chinese participation in finding a sustainable resolution to the longstanding Kashmir dispute, rather than involvement in negative- or zero-sum bargaining.

The economic stake of China in Afghanistan is equally significant. State-owned Chinese companies like MCC, JCCL and CNPC have all expanded their corporate interests there, investing in various ventures tapping into natural resources. China has not hitherto been directly engaged with Afghanistan’s transition, relying on the now-departing US and its troops to secure those investments, but China’s access to central and west Asia’s natural resources is also through Afghanistan. India’s focus on economic development means it is similarly concerned as to how it meets its energy requirements. In other words, India and China both have an interest in maintaining strategic depth in Afghanistan.

This regional balancing complicates the bilateral relationships between the countries involved, which include formidable axes of non-cooperation: Afghanistan-Pakistan, India-Pakistan and China-India. In such a scenario, increased engagement on the part of China and India, as two great Asian powers, needs to be gauged properly to create a balance of power so that it assists a smooth transition for Afghanistan. Chinese engagement in bilateral efforts in south Asia is already under way, on ‘counter-terrorism’ with India as well as Pakistan. India and China also signed a Border Defence Co-operation Agreement, which again shows a commitment towards pushing friendly ties, yet in a way that is not inimical to the other’s interests. But merely co-operating bilaterally would not suffice to overcome the negative effects of regional balancing.

A new balance of power could be achieved by multilateral participation in organisations like the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation and the SCO, while co-operating bilaterally on issues of common concern as far as the conflict in Afghanistan is concerned - through ‘counter-terrorism’, trade, development and even training and assisting the Afghan National Security Force so that it can viably take over from the International Security Assistance Force. This would also reduce the deficit in trust among the countries involved.

The regional nexus and the US

Another dimension of rebalancing at a global level which affects the balancing at the regional level is the bilateral relation between China and the US. The latter’s ‘pivot’ to Asia is not just about containment of China and indeed need not come at its expense. The US-China bilateral relationship is far more strategically important than many understand, encompassing more areas for co-operation than discord. These cover a wide range of activities, from the economic arena to issues of global concern for both. While relations may be fraught with tensions, as the US may not appreciate the expansionist design of China, it has always played a dominant role in Asia and it was in this scenario that China grew as a potential counterpart in the region. In fact, the US is encouraging China to increase its engagement in Afghanistan, in the context of the withdrawal of US troops.

The US rebalancing actually allows a balance of power in south Asia as the US presence prevents China from indulging in any miscalculation or provocation, while assuring its neighbours - especially India - that China’s ambitions are not in any way inimical. This in turn may lead to a greater regional co-operation on issues of common concern, while favouring the resolution of areas of discord.

Such a best-case scenario where great world powers are involved already seems to be under way, as China increases its presence in south Asia. Having made its presence felt, China will not withdraw. How that will play out post-2014 remains to be seen. But China’s increased engagement in south Asia is not only desirable but inevitable and the opportunities it raises need to be captured strategically.

Haifa Peerzada is a lawyer and holds a masters in International Relations and Security from the University of Birmingham. She currently practices law at the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir, India and is also a visiting lecturer of peace and conflict studies at IUST, India.

This article first appeared on openDemocracy 27 December 2013.