View from America
By M.R. Josse
TAMPA, FL: The successful 11 July flight of UK billionaire Sir Richard Burton to the edge of space aboard his Virgin Galactic rocket plane – and return safely to Earth just over an hour after leaving the ground at Spaceport, New Mexico – has understandably dominated the news here, ushering a brave new world of space tourism pioneers trying out their own space vehicles.
NEW ERA DAWNS
Richard Branson becomes the first billionaire in space. Photo: The Telegraph
Hitherto, the ‘space race’ saw fierce competition between governments, mainly those of the United States and the erstwhile Soviet Union; now, the door has been opened for a frenzied race between extremely wealthy private individuals.
Burton’s successful dream mission made him the first entrepreneur to do so, beating Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and SpaceX’s Elon Musk who are planning similar space adventures in the near future. Sir Richard billed the flight as a test of the space tourism experience that he expects to begin selling to customers from next year.
As per BBC’s Jonathon Amos: “Some 600 individuals have already paid deposits for tickets that will cost up to $ 250,000. Throughout the 2000s, seven wealthy individuals paid to visit the International Space Station (ISS). But this adventurism, organized under the patronage of the Russian space agency, ceased in 2009…The Russians are reprising their commercial flights to the ISS, and there are even those who want to launch private space stations for people to visit. Among these is Axiom a company started by a former Nasa ISS programme manager.”
On another front, the arrest by Haiti police of a new mastermind/suspect – a 63-year old Christian Emmanuel Saron – accused of orchestrating the 7 July assassination of President Jovenel Moise at his home in Port-au-Prince is just the latest twist in a bizarre, opaque and tragic episode in the Caribbean nation’s long history of violence and political instability.
This is a news story that had received a great deal of traction in these parts, not least because of the earlier arrests, among others, of two American Haitians and the involvement of the Colombian police and the FBI in the ongoing investigations. As far as I’m concerned, it’s too early to jump to hasty conclusions, one way or another. Possibly, there could be quite a few surprises ahead.
What has not been surprising, though, is former President Donald Trump’s relentless crusade against the Biden administration, founded on his Big Lie: that the 2020 election was stolen from him! That the majority of Grand Old Party believe that brazen travesty of the truth – or pretend they do – maybe astounding to outside observers but it does not apparently raise too many eyebrows here.
Trump’s continuing iron-grip on the Republican party and its downplaying of the ominous portents of the 6 January insurrection at the U.S. Capitol are, to my mind, bound to suck out a considerable amount of oxygen from the Biden administration’s domestic agenda and priorities and perhaps, even, erode its international credibility, especially against the backdrop of the rapid unraveling of the Afghan government’s hold on power and the ascendency of the Taliban.
TALIBAN’S RAPID ADVANCES
Taliban advances in Afghanistan. Photo: Internet
Indeed, for much of the world outside the United States’ pale, it is Afghanistan that is most on their minds, especially in countries in that beleaguered nation’s periphery.
The fact that President Joe Biden has had, once again, to defend the withdrawal of U.S. forces amid Taliban advance speaks for itself. “Just one more year of fighting in Afghanistan is not the solution,” Biden said in a White House speech 8 July, but “a recipe for fighting there indefinitely.”
He denied that a Taliban takeover is “inevitable” saying that the Taliban force of approximately 75,000 is no match for the 300,000 Afghan security forces. He has also been quoted as reminding: “We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build.”
While, as BBC reports it, recent polls have shown broad U.S. support for leaving Afghanistan, with Republican voters more skeptical of the decision to withdraw, its chief international correspondent Lyse Ducet quotes Biden as saying “it’s highly unlikely that there will be a unified government and not much that the U.S. can do, or should do, if Kabul collapses: that’s up to Afghanistan – and the countries next door” – meaning Iran, Pakistan, China, Tajikistan and India.
On 9 July BBC reported that the Taliban captured the Islam Qala crossing in Herat province, which is one of the biggest gateways to Iran from Afghanistan, generating an estimated $ 20 million in monthly revenue for the government. The BBC quoted other reports informing that Taliban fighters had seized five districts in Herat without a fight and, earlier this week, that more than 1,000 members of the Afghan security forces fled to Tajikistan as the Taliban advanced around them.
Tellingly, Iranian television had streamed a video of the Afghan national flag being lowered at the Islam Qala crossing customs post and it being replaced by the Taliban standard.
Among interesting recent write-ups on Afghanistan was Pankaj Mishra’s piece in Bloomberg, 9 July, the thrust of which is: American leaders were foolish to think they could remake Afghan society after its invasion.
Mishra reminded readers that the George W. Bush administration had “opted for a colossal military and political reengineering of an entire country” and went on to add that “before 9/11, the Taliban had themselves been welcomed as liberators in large parts of the country, especially in the south where the country’s Pashtun majority lives.”
Mishra claimed that the Taliban drew strength from the countryside, “not to mention from sympathetic Pashtuns and military and intelligence officers in Pakistan, who saw the Taliban as their hedge against Western and Indian influence in Afghanistan.” He then questioned: “Why should the U.S. have succeeded where the communists had failed? How could its proxies and allies help build democracy and protect women’s rights?”
He concluded by asserting that “Afghanistan today seems, above all, a massive intellectual failure: a failure even to acknowledge, let alone grapple with, complex reality; a failure that seeded all other failures – diplomatic, military and political – in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan.”
IMPACT ON NEIGHBOURS
Turning our attention now to the impact on Afghanistan’s key neighbours, let us, first, consider Pakistan. As per Dawn, 9 July, National Security Adviser Moeed Yousuf, warned that militants could enter Pakistan under the guise of refugees.
Briefing the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, he expressed concern over the worsening situation in Afghanistan, terming it “extremely bad and out of Pakistan’s control.” He however denied the presence of the Taliban in Pakistan, terming such reports, “Indian propaganda.” He declared that the Afghan government needed to improve its relations with Pakistan, if it wanted peace in the country.
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi also briefed the same Committee, saying that Pakistan intended to suggest a power-sharing arrangement in Afghanistan, to avoid civil war. In such an eventuality, Qureshi said, Pakistan would not be able to handle the influx of refugees. He also affirmed that he would not be “apologetic” during an important conference on Afghanistan he was due to attend in Uzbekistan in the coming days.
While stating that Afghanistan lacked the resources to ensure its security, Pakistan would have to prepare for dealing with the changing situation in the war-torn country, as India wanted to sabotage the peace process there. He alleged that India neither wanted stability in Afghanistan nor in Pakistan.
He informed that Prime Minister Imran Khan and security officials had had meetings with the Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazaras so as to make clear to them that Pakistan had “no favorite in Afghanistan.” Incidentally, Qureshi pointed out that the United States saw strategic rivalry with China as a challenge and Pakistan had a role to play in this regard.
As far as India is concerned, it is worth noting that, as a PTI report published in the Indian Express, 11 July, had it, India evacuated 50 diplomats and security personnel from its Consulate in Kandahar as the Taliban captured new areas.
A special aircraft of the Indian Air Force was sent on Saturday, 10 July, to bring back Indian diplomats, officials and other staff members, including a group of Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel. Significantly, earlier on Tuesday, the Indian Embassy in Kabul had stated that there was no plan to close the embassy in Kabul or consulates in Kandahar and Mazar-i-Sharif.
An AP report out of Beijing, 9 July published in the Indian Express, had it that China evacuated its nationals from Afghanistan, amid the U.S. pullout of its military forces. Beijing sent a special flight to bring home 210 of its nationals, as the U.S. military prepares to leave Afghanistan and the situation grows increasingly fraught, AP reported.
The government-owned Global Times newspaper had disclosed that a Xiamen Airlines flight departing Kabul, 2 July, had returned to China landing in the central Chinese province of Hubei. The AP report recalled that Chinese companies have invested in Afghan mining and infrastructure but that those assets appear increasingly in jeopardy as the Taliban seize large amounts of territory, possibly putting Kabul at risk.
A NEW ‘GREAT GAME’
Given the rapid geopolitical and strategic shifts and changes on the ground in Afghanistan, in the wake of the U.S.’s nearly-completed military withdrawal – and not forgetting the history of the earlier hasty Soviet and American retreats from that country – one can legitimately question: does a new ‘Great Game’ loom over Afghanistan?
Leaving aside for the moment, the clashing/congruent interests or intentions of Iran, Pakistan, and India in Afghanistan, it is natural to assume that the key power players such as Russia and China will be on the lookout for fresh opportunities to advance their national interest or influence while minimizing that of those perceived as rivals.
Will they act in concert or will they be rivals? I believe they will act in a way that does not raise suspicions or hackles in the other. Will Russia coordinate policy with India? I think not, as India is currently in a quasi-alliance with the United States, Russia’s and China’s bugbear. But, who really knows? In any case, what was Indian Foreign Minister’s S. Jaishankar’s recent dash to Moscow all about?
As of the present, there are reports that Turkey, too, is looking to position itself as a major international player in the new ‘Great Game’- famously engaged in by the Russian and British Empires in the heyday of colonialism, covering most of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century.
Will the emergent contest for control/influence in Afghanistan by great and wanna-be great powers have any repercussions in Nepal? Though much would naturally depend on how fast – if at all – Kabul collapses or whether or not a sustainable power-sharing arrangement between the principal stakeholders can be cobbled, there is an urgent need for our foreign policy wizards and political mavens to keep their eyes and eyes firmly focused on that important issue, including by our diplomats in Moscow, Beijing, New Delhi, Islamabad and Washington.
EXPECTING TOO MUCH
That, unfortunately, may be a hard sell, given that another political circus is coming to town, this one led by the NC’s lackluster president Sher Bahadur Deuba not exactly famous for eloquence, political versatility or diplomatic perspicacity. Besides, with a wholesale reshuffle of ambassadors in the offing, keeping a sharp eye on the Afghan geopolitical ball – while maintaining Nepal’s traditional policy of balance intact – may be expecting too much.
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