View from America

By M.R. Josse GAITHERSBURG, MD: As usual, there’s much worth commenting upon vis-à-vis the domestic American scene; here we’ll focus on just a few items, including virus authority Dr Antony Fauci’s warning that Covid-19 variants that evade protection could emerge in the United States if more people don’t get vaccinated. Thus, if too few people get vaccinated, the virus would continue to spread, possibly resulting in the emergence of an even more dangerous variant than the ‘delta’ currently ravaging the country.   VACCINATIONS   Resistance to vaccinations continues, especially among Republicans; media has had a field day highlighting the tragedy of many Covid-19 victims, before succumbing to the dread disease, admitting to their lethal negligence and pleading to relatives and friends to take their vaccinations in time. Meanwhile, UNDP informs that while 60 percent of people in the developed countries are currently vaccinated the corresponding figure for developing countries is a dismal 1 percent only – a hardly happy situation when juxtaposed against the conventional dictum: no one is safe until all are safe. In that context one is reminded of a recent WHO notification urging developed countries not to promote booster, or third, doses of the vaccine for the vulnerable – before supplying vaccines of the needed jabs to countries where most people have not received even any.   Though I am not aware whether that appeal has had any concrete or positive results, there is currently a pretty confusing situation on the ground here, with some states mandating masking for schools while other states are going in the other direction. Strange: one country, one science yet two very different responses! On the internal security situation, it is noteworthy that, as CNN reported the other day quoting law enforcement sources, the Department of Homeland Security has warned state and local authorities about an increase in calls for violence online tied to election-related conspiracies. As reported, DHS declared: “As public visibility of the narratives increases, we are concerned about more calls to violence. Reporting indicates that the timing of these activities may occur during August 2021, although we lack information on specific plots of planned actions.” As the 20th anniversary is just a month away, according to BBC, families of the 11 September 2001 terror attacks have called on President Joe Biden to stay away from memorial events unless he declassifies information of the attackers. Nearly 1,800 people signed a letter calling on him to release documents that they believe implicate Saudi officials in the plot. They say that if he refuses, they would not attend the ceremonies next month commemorating that horrific landmark event that triggered the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. It may be recalled that 15 of the 19 aircraft hijackers involved were Saudi nationals. It is no secret that the United States has thus far been extremely loath to take up human rights issues with Saudi Arabia, as it does selectively and vigorously with other countries. It is widely held that this reluctance is largely influenced by Saudi Arabia’s massive purchases of expensive American weaponry, and, on the other, by Riyadh’s rivalry with Iran which suits the United States just fine.     Reference to Iran, incidentally, brings to mind that Washington has just called on new Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to revive the stalled nuclear deal formalized in 2015, from which the U.S. withdrew during the presidency of Donald Trump in 2018. At this time, while State Department spokesman Ned Price said the window of diplomacy would not be open forever, Raisi declared after being sworn into office, 5 August, that he would support “any diplomatic plans to end sanctions against Iran.” A very different diplomatic story emerges from the United Nations – specifically, that two Myanmar nationals in New York City have been arrested, 6 August, over an alleged plot to murder Kyaw Moe Tun, the ousted Myanmar government’s envoy at the United Nations. What’s most interesting is that the U.N. has not recognized the military junta that ousted the previous government as far back as February; Tun, therefore, continues to function as if his status has not drastically changed. While one may wonder how much longer the U.N. can hold on to such a stand, I am equally intrigued by who now pays Tun’s salary and underwrites the cost of maintaining a full-fledged diplomatic mission in expensive New York.    TALIBAN BLITZKRIEG

Taliban's victory sweep in Afghanistan. Photo: Asia Times

As CNN reports, the Taliban have seized their fifth – their sixth, according to BBC - Afghan provincial capital in a matter of days. “A string of victories that come as foreign forces, led by the United States complete their withdrawal from Afghanistan…The speed of the militants’ gains, which include the major city of Kunduz, has compounded concerns about the civilian toll. At least, 27 children have been killed and 136 injured over the past 72 hours in Afghanistan, the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) said in a statement Monday.” CNN also reported that, in the past week, the U.S. has increased airstrikes against Taliban positions in a bid to halt their advances. The Taliban has, for its part, accused the United States of bombing a hospital and a high school, along with other targets in Helmand Province. CNN stated it could not independently verify Taliban claims. BBC reports, meanwhile, that the Taliban has rejected international calls for a ceasefire. They have rapidly captured large swathes of countryside and are now targeting towns and cities, it confirms.       Following the Taliban’s capture of the first Afghan regional capital of Zarang, BBC, in its reporting on 6 August, quoted the U.N’s special envoy for Afghanistan, Deborah Lyons, saying that the war there had entered a “new, deadlier and more destructive phase” with more than 1,000 civilians killed in the past month. She warned that the country was heading for a “catastrophe” and called on the United Nations Security Council to issue “an unambiguous statement that attacks against cities must stop now.” Incidentally, on the same day, the U.K. government advised all its citizens in Afghanistan to leave because of the worsening security situation, even as, in Kabul, the Taliban shot dead Afghan Ashraf Ghani’s former spokesman and carried out a bomb attack on the acting defence minister.     While it is inevitable that the ‘fog of war’ would obscure many details of the Taliban blitzkrieg coming to light – or all corresponding activities of the U.S.-led forces – other key political and diplomatic developments, in and outside Afghanistan, are hardly shrouded in mystery. Thus, according to Karachi’s Dawn newspaper, 5 August, the United States went public with its call for Pakistan to keep its borders with Afghanistan open for Afghan refugees – a demand that would clearly overload the already strained relations between the two countries. Though it was only predictable that Pakistan would push back against such a proposal – in fact, National Security Adviser Moeed Yusuf told a press briefing in Washington last week that arrangements should be made to keep the displaced Afghans inside their country instead of pushing them into Pakistan – Turkey, too, has reportedly emphasized that the U.S. plans for third countries to resettle Afghans would cause “a huge migration crisis in the region.”   Earlier elsewhere, Sudharshan Ramabardan gushed in the Deccan Herald, 3 August, not only that for the first time Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi would preside over the United Nations Security Council – as India has assumed its presidency for the month of August 2021 – but even predicted that India would advance “its quest for a permanent seat in the UNSC” by exhibiting that India is “a force for global good” during its presidency. However, that proud claim soon proved to be pretty hollow, as exposed by Pakistan’s U.N. Ambassador Munir Akram (brother of Zamir Akram, Pakistan’s Ambassador to Nepal in the early 2000s) who, as per Dawn, called a press conference in New York, 6 August, and disclosed: “We made a formal request for participation in the United Nations Security Council’s emergency meeting on Afghanistan but was denied (by India).” Akram revealed that Pakistan, as a neighbouring country with a direct stake in peace in Afghanistan, had formally requested the UNSC president for August (India) for an opportunity to address the Council at that meeting to discuss the rising violence in Afghanistan. He further informed that the said meeting was called after the Afghan Foreign Minister Haneef Atmar spoke to Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar in the wake of the Taliban’s assault on major cities and an attack on the residence of the Defence Minister. He then lamented: “Obviously, we do not expect fairness from the Indian presidency, for Pakistan.”   Now, before concluding this segment, I wish to recall telling observations by Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO New America, and Ian Bremmer, head of Eurasia Group, and a political scientist of repute.  Slaughter, in a CNN TV interview with Fareed Zakaria, 8 August, said that she supported Biden’s decision to withdraw forces from Afghanistan, explaining that the Taliban had been on the ascendency for the past decade. The effort, presently, she argued should be on regional diplomacy. She did not think there would be a “serious blow-back to the U.S.” from the Taliban’s triumph in Afghanistan. Bremmer, on the other hand, opined that it was “too late for diplomacy”; that “China didn’t want us to leave Afghanistan” and that Beijing would, in any case, feel “the backlash” of the Taliban victory in Afghanistan. QUAD DREAMS Kevin Rudd is a well-known name in the community of China watchers/observers. A former Australian Prime Minister and ex-Foreign Minister, Rudd is a fluent Mandarin speaker and considered a leading international authority on China. Presently, he is President and CEO, Asia Society, New York. Despite such awesome credentials, I found his recent Foreign Affairs article ‘Why the Quad alarms China’ difficult to digest, particularly some key observations vis-à-vis India, including the strategic significance of the June 2020 Sino-Indian clashes in the Himalayas which he says has strengthened Quad. As most in South Asia well know, India was no match for China; not then, not in 1962. Besides, as Dawn columnist Saad Rasool recently reminded: “Serious policy circles, in Washington and across the globe, are asking what benefit India can provide in the Pacific (against the Chinese) if they cannot even retrieve any (claimed) territory from China. If its forces cannot face the Chinese military in Ladakh, can India really be expected to send warships to the South China Sea? Or into the deep blue waters of the Indian Ocean. Can it curtail or hinder the China Pakistan Economic Corridor route, when it is having trouble keeping the Chinese at bay in Sikkim? That aside, it is generally acknowledged that even in Southeast Asia India’s influence has in recent years plummeted, with China’s direct influence and that of the ethnic Chinese in the region being steadily on the rise – not to talk of the disastrous impact that Modi’s communal politics and infringements upon minority rights have generally had in the region, and beyond. Besides, apart from India’s incapacity to contribute meaningfully, in raw power terms, to the core Quad goal of containing China, in the wake of the utter disregard for India’s strategic goals in Afghanistan that the U.S. has just advertised, New Delhi would be wise to craft an enlightened China policy, cut her losses, resolve the never-ending boundary dispute, repair and cultivate ties with Beijing and thereby reap the benefits of durable peace and mutually advantageous cooperation.    As far as Rudd’s write-up is concerned, it’s far too early to predict that the Quad will put an end to China’s rise and expanding global influence. Finally, it may be appropriate to conclude on a brief note on the revealing medals tally of participating nations of the just-concluded Olympics in Tokyo. The top spot was secured by the United States, (39 gold medals), followed by China (38), then by Japan (27), with the sixth position for Australia (10), and trailed by India in the 48th spot with just one!