Review of World Politics (RWP)

By Shashi P.B.B. Malla Nepal’s Political Parties Gone to the Dogs! All the major political parties of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal (FDRN) have gone to the dogs – with the exception perhaps of the Pashupati Shumsher faction of the Rashtriya Prajatantra Party (RPP/National Democratic Party. Some are fighting over the most delicious dishes at the high table [distributing the spoils of office, equivalent to sharing loot among robbers = bhagbanda], while others are jostling for the scraps that fall to the floor. In any case, it is a case of unseemly and pathetic jostling [= haaraloos] of apparatchiks and hangers-on. The last hope of saving genuine democracy and the present flawed Constitution was the Nepali Congress’ Sher Bahadur Deuba. But he has turned out to be a great disappointment, riding roughshod over the very Constitution, rule of law and parliamentary democracy that he was installed [by the Supreme Court, not sovereign people] to protect and nurture. Deuba seems to be under the thumb of the Communists – the so-called ‘United Marxists-Leninists’ of ‘Makune’ and the Maoistsof ‘Prachande’. On the other hand, he seems to be too much under the influence of his ‘kitchen cabinet’, including his all-powerful Rana wife. We Nepalese are, therefore, now living under a ‘Phariyako Sashan’ --- from the domination of a single household to that of an entire nation! HM King Gyanendra was right all along! Deuba has re-established himself as the most incompetent in the nation’s history – in fact, five times PM and no bit wiser! How unfortunate are we as a people to be saddled with such a useless person, giving weight to the adage: ‘there’s no fool like an old fool’. How and why was King Gyanendra being accused of being ‘regressive’? What is Nepal’s political establishment, the so-called ‘political elite’ doing about our present crop of political leaders of the so-called established, major political parties? They seem to be dominated by the riff-raff of Nepalese society and should, therefore, be sent to the political wilderness – for rest, re-education and regeneration in the far back countryside – just like the Chinese Red Guards did to the failing members of the Chinese Communist Party [the NC has become an appendage of the Communists]. The Communists have thrown overboard the concept of ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’ and have now introduced the dictatorship of the political parties. The Communists are no longer ‘Marxist’, but purely Leninist-Stalinist-Maoist. The main Nepalese political parties have become political and constitutional liability. Is there any doubt that they have completely interpreted the Constitution according to their own needs and purposes, and made a laughing stock of the Parliament? Yet apologists of the post-2008 political dispensation and the pro-India lobby continue to defend ‘federalism’, ‘republicanism’ and ‘secularism’ – all imposed by the Indian establishment and Maoists (in bondage to India) – all foreign concepts to the Nepali soil and, therefore, never really got a foothold here. The ‘fake progressives, whether in government, political parties, civil society, the media or academia have had a field day, but hopefully, their days are numbered! Thanks to their untiring efforts, the Nepalese political system as a whole has metastasized, and what is to be done to such a cancerous growth in the body politic? A radical cure is the need of the hour! The country has to build its democratic institutions from scratch and the practice of social, economic and political participation built from the bottom up – starting with the ‘women’s groups’ [Ama Samuha] in the villages. Afghanistan: A New Beginning? Taliban’s Brilliant Tactics and Strategy For all intents and purposes, the Taliban carried out a whirlwind conquest of the country. However, a closer analysis shows that the Islamist militants prepared the ground very well. They had adapted very well to the enemy’s strategy. The U.S. military had directed the Afghan government forces to concentrate in the urban centres of the various provinces, as the far-flung countrysides would be difficult to defend with the men and materiel at hand. Slowly but certainly the Taliban first concentrated in the villages and won over the village and tribal elders. They were at an advantage because, in popular perception, the nationalist Taliban were fighting foreign occupiers and their local helpers. This slow and steady infiltration had already started during the Trump administration and found its high watermark when Biden announced the hasty withdrawal. At the beginning of the fighting season in 2021, i.e. when the ‘spring offensive’ traditionally starts, the Taliban were already in control of large swathes of the Afghan countryside and had successfully applied Mao Zedong’s concept of ‘protracted war’ remodeled to the Afghan environment. This meant that without the Afghan government and their American military allies realizing it, the Taliban had the urban areas and their nearby airfields in an invisible stranglehold.   On the international front, the Trump administration had already extended a large measure of legitimacy to the insurgents by conducting bilateral negotiations in Doha, Qatar. In fact, the entire political leadership was living there. This allowed them to receive financial help, as well as, arms and ammunition from different quarters. The military leadership had no difficulty in crisscrossing from Doha to a friendly country to entry points in the beleaguered country. Biden’s sudden announcement of the precipitous departure of U.S. troops – without first consulting, his NATO and Afghan allies – effectively pulled the rug from under an already flailing national government. Corrupt & Inept Afghan Government Another major factor for the perceived sudden collapse of the Ashraf Ghani government was the indubitable fact that the government was rotten to the core and was a democracy only in the name [as in many other countries around the world, including the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal]. The Americans were willfully and knowingly propping up a government for decades that did not have the interests of the Afghan people at heart, but only their own selfish interests – a veritable Potemkin Village! There was collusion between the U.S. government(s) and the Afghan political elite. It is cheap and lame to now claim that the U.S. was not in Afghanistan for “nation-building”. As a consequence, the Afghan security forces, in general, were in poor shape [except for the elite commando units], were badly paid or not at all. Outposts were not being supplied on a regular basis with food, supplies and ammunition, or not at all. Did not the great Napoleon say: “An army marches on its stomach”? How can the Biden administration after the U.S.’s 20 years in Afghanistan – the so-called “forever war”—be bewildered by the “domino effect” of the Taliban conquest and the utter crumbling of the Afghan security apparatus like a house of cards? U.S. Complicity What was the world’s largest and most efficient national security apparatus – the crème de la crème of foreign affairs savants -- thinking by announcing a withdrawal date just before the start of potential spring hostilities? The Taliban were emboldened to now start attacking the urban centres which were also infiltrated from within. The security forces were too weak to provide resistance, and the tribal elders wanted to avoid violence and civilian casualties.  And the Taliban were masters of the rural roads and highways – leading to a catastrophe in logistics and supply routes. The Afghan air force was overtaxed, and American air support was fragmented.  After the district and provincial capitals began to fall one after another, the Taliban advance carried the momentum, also capturing vehicles, arms and ammunition. Kabul fell without firing a shot. The Americans are now holed up at the international airport trying desperately to evacuate Americans, foreigners and threatened Afghans. The problem is that there are tens of thousands of people with and without proper papers trying desperately to get inside for a safe passage and at the same time blocking the entrances. The Way Forward Probably the only way out of the impasse would be to call an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, inviting the Taliban to participate. Of course, this would give them the much desired international legitimacy, but also the incentive to reach a negotiated settlement. They could be prevailed upon to accept a strong contingent of UN Peace Keeping Forces to secure the environs of the airport and its proper functioning [all foreign troops having previously departed], and above all to allow all foreigners and those Afghans with legitimate exit papers to depart safely. Having mastered this local humanitarian crisis, the UN Peace Keeping Operation would have also achieved its limited, core assignment. The new Afghan government should be given the benefit of the doubt and allowed to function normally. In the meantime, the regional powers that count – China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, and the Central Asian Republics --would have already started cooperating with the new regime – with or without formal recognition. German Election Campaign: Increased Support for Social Democrats The still incumbent German Chancellor [= prime minister] Angela Merkel from the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) sought on Saturday to shore up the chances of her would-be successor Armin Laschet, the governor of Germany’s most populous state North-Rhine- Westphalia. His continuing dismal poll ratings a month before general elections have triggered fears in the conservative camp that the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) could crash out of government (AFP, Aug. 21). Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU block has led Germany in various coalitions since WWII, and also since 2005 when she took the reins of government, but the composition of the country’s future new government has been thrown wide open as her departure from the political stage nears. The 67-year-old veteran of four successive terms will step down after the September 26 elections. A widely successful protegee of Dr Helmut Kohl, ‘the Chancellor of German Unity’, her popularity ratings have held steadily in the twilight of her incumbency, Laschet who is seeking to claim her crown is struggling to find favour with voters. The latest polls show the conservative bloc now polling equally at 22 % percent with junior coalition partners the Social Democratic Party (SPD), who have recent weeks made big strides to overtake erstwhile runners-up the Green Party (DW, Aug. 22). Another survey published last Friday showed just as many Germans want the Social Democrats to lead the next government – on par with the conservatives – an alarming big drop of five percentage points in voter preference for the CDU/CSU from early August. With the conservatives badly in need of a boost, Merkel stepped in at an election rally in Berlin on Saturday to help stem the haemorrhage in support. Earlier in the year, frustration against the government over the coronavirus pandemic had initially weighed on the conservatives’ popularity. In the meantime, the mood has brightened as more Germans were vaccinated and curbs were eased. An initial boost in support for the Greens had also melted away as its leader was embroiled in a plagiarism scandal and other gaffes, giving the conservatives a strong lead in polls entering the summer. All this showed that the candidates ignore the attentive and diligent German electorate at their peril. And so it happened. The mood dramatically turned in July when Laschet was seen chuckling in the background with local officials while Germany’s federal president [a former SPD foreign minister] was giving a speech mourning victims of deadly floods. The damage had been done. Laschet’s image had been tarnished – he comes over as frivolous. His main rival Olaf Scholz has a rock-solid reputation of a serious vice chancellor and finance minister – and possess the necessary gravitas. Ironically, Laschet’s biggest liability may be his own party and its fractured leadership whose statements on many occasions have seemed out of touch. Chinese Interests in Afghanistan Quite sometime before the Taliban completed their conquest of Afghanistan, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi received Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar with much fanfare in Tianjin for talks. Now with the hasty U.S. departure more or less complete, China has seen the realization of long-held hopes for a reduction/elimination of the influence of its geopolitical rival in what it considers its backyard [as does great power (but not superpower)Russia]. It remains to be seen, whether there is a clash or confluence of interests with Russia – the New Great Game in Central Asia? If so both India and Pakistan have been reduced to secondary players. At the same time, China is also deeply concerned that the very withdrawal could initiate risk and instability to that very backyard – Central Asia, the “Heartland” of Euro-Asia – and possibly even spill over their narrow, remote common border at the end of the Wakhan Corridor in the east into China itself and the heavily Muslim northwestern region of Xinjiang, home of the Uighurs. The Taliban takeover could certainly present political and economic opportunities for China, including developing Afghanistan’s vast mineral resources, and Beijing has said it is ready to help rebuild the impoverished nation. But stability will be necessary to exploit those benefits, but the immediate result of the rapid American withdrawal has been chaos. Raffaello Pantucci, an expert on the region said: “I think Beijing will play up the narrative of American fickleness and decline of Empire, painting this as evidence of why Beijing will be a better steward for the Eurasian heartland” (AP, Aug. 22). It is remarkable, that while deciding on the precipitous withdrawal, U.S. President Joe Biden did not at any moment consider its negative impact on the vaunted ‘Indo-Pacific Strategy’. India, the presumptive leading regional power in South Asia is now faced with the vexatious dilemma: “ to be, or not to be….”  The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com