The Latest Kashmir Crisis Proved That India, Not Pakistan, Is the Real Rogue State

Astute News

The latest Kashmir Crisis resulted in a stunning reversal of international perceptions about India and Pakistan whereby the self-professed “world’s largest democracy” has now been recast as a rogue state wanting to wage a war of aggression on unproven pretexts while the previously presumed “rogue state” of Pakistan has been revealed to be a responsible international actor fighting to uphold the UN-enshrined rules-based international order that the US and “Israel’s” South Asian ally is dangerously trying to undermine.

The Kashmir Crisis of 2019 will go down in history as the moment when international perceptions about India and Pakistan were stunningly reversed. The fast-moving multi-dimensional developments that took place between the last week of February and the first week of March did more than anything else to ruin India’s global reputation (mostly through its own reckless actions) while greatly improving Pakistan’s, something that few observers could have expected because they’d been…

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Kashmir, Korea, Venezuela, Iran: hot, cold, hybrid war

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March 01, 2019

by Pepe Escobar (cross-posted with the Asia Times by special agreement with the author)

Turning and turning in a widening gyre, the geopolitics of the young  21st century resembles a psychedelic mandala conceived by Yama, the Lord of Death.

Kim Jong Un, chairman of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, fresh from a 70-hour train journey, meets in prosperous, communist Hanoi with fellow Nobel Peace Prize contender Donald Trump under the benevolent gaze of Uncle Ho.

This very sentence, if announced not long ago, would have elicited transcontinental howls of derision.

Chairman Kim, owner of a small nuclear arsenal, is deemed worthy of dialogue by the hyperpower while the nuclear-deprived leadership in Iran is not, even as the hyperpower ditched a multilateral, UN-approved, working nuclear deal.

In parallel, the hottest border in Asia reveals itself not to be the DMZ between the Koreas, but once again the Line of Control between nuclear powers India and Pakistan in Kashmir.

Although Islamabad and Delhi might, in theory, escalate to pointing nuclear missiles towards each other, the DPRK won’t point a nuclear-tipped missile at Guam and Tehran points to nothing at all, as it does not hold any nuclear missiles.

In a lighter, Looney Tunes vein, exit regime change in Pyongyang, while regime change in Iran stays, and enter regime change in Venezuela. Iran may still be placed in the Axis of Evil, but the new motto is the troika of tyranny (Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua) as the government in Caracas plays ‘Beep Beep’ to the hyperpower’s Wily Coyote.

An array of dodgy US neocons and shady “foundations” keep the flame of regime change in Iran alive, even fabricating a Tehran-al-Qaeda axis, while in Venezuela a stealth scenario advances. An astonishing briefing at the Ministry of Foreign Relations in Moscow this past Friday revealed that “US special forces and tech units will be delivered closer to Venezuela’s borders. We do have information that the US and its NATO partners are organizing for a mass delivery of weapons for the opposition in Venezuela, which will come from an Eastern European country.”

Facts are implacable. NATO, after nearly two decades, was miserably defeated in Afghanistan. The NATO-Gulf Cooperation Council war by proxy in Syria failed. The winners are Damascus, Tehran and Moscow. The conflict in Donbass is frozen. So, a remixed Monroe doctrine is back, even as a humanitarian ploy – reminiscent of the “humanitarian imperialism” that led to the destruction of Libya – may have failed, for now.

Brazilian Vice-President General Hamilton Mourao has introduced a dose of sanity going against the “all options on the table” regime change of his own President, Jair Bolsonaro. Mourao constantly insists “the Venezuela question must be decided by Venezuelans”, adding that US threats sound “more like rhetoric than action” as a military attack would be “purposeless”.

Watch that K

What’s in a name? Pakistan may indeed mean “land of the pure” in Urdu, but the key is in the acronym; K stands for Kashmir – alongside P for Punjab, A for Afghania (actually the Pashtun tribal areas), S for Sindh and T for the “tan” in Balochistan. K is a matter of national identity.

The first Indo-Pak war after Partition in 1947 was over Kashmir. In the following year, Kashmir was divided by the Line of Control (LoC), which remains the de facto Berlin Wall of Asia, way more dangerous than the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the Koreas. Another mini-war across the LoC took place in 1999.

Kashmir is a crucial geostrategic prize. Assuming India would ever own it all, that would represent a direct bridge to Central Asia and a border with Afghanistan while depriving Pakistan of a border with China, thus nullifying to a great extent the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), one of the key projects of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

If Pakistan ever owned it all, that would solve the country’s worries about water security. The Indus River starts in the Himalayas, in Tibet, and skirts through Indian-controlled Kashmir before entering Pakistan and running all the way down to the Arabian Sea. The Indus and its tributaries provide water to two-thirds of Pakistan. New Delhi has just threatened to weaponize the flow of water to Pakistan.

There’s no end in sight to Kashmir being roiled over and over by skirmishes or even partial conflagration between jihadis – protected by Islamabad at different levels – and the Indian army. The Islamist Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) wants the whole of Kashmir annexed to a Pakistan governed by Sharia law.

JeM’s Kashmir obsession is also shared by their de facto allies Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Both are supported – with degrees of nuance – by Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI. Most of all, both are heavily supported, financially, by the Wahhabi House of Saud and the United Arab Emirates.

There’s no solution for Kashmir that does not involve cutting off Saudi proselytizing, financing and weaponizing – the toxic cocktail that nurtured Pakistan’s famous Kalashnikov culture. And there can be no solution when the House of Saud’s ability to have nuclear weapons “on order” from Islamabad remains the number-one open secret in South Asia.

Russia and China as voices of reason

Were this a sensible realm, oblivious of Yama, India and Pakistan would talk, like Prime Minister Imran Khan has just offered, within a framework such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, of which both are members, with Russia and China as mediators.

And that brings us to what happened in Yueqing, China, on Wednesday, totally under the Western radar; a de facto, ministerial-level meeting of the “RIC” in BRICS, uniting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj.

Lavrov may have denounced “absolutely brazen attempts” to “artificially create a pretext for military intervention” in Venezuela. But the game-changer should have been what Russia, China and India discussed on Kashmir, which may eventually have a direct impact on both Islamabad and New Delhi attempting to defuse a still explosive scenario.

China and Russia’s coordinated positions were absolutely instrumental in facilitating North Korea’s dialogue with the Trump administration. Yet it’s still a long way away from South Korean President Moon’s dream: Trump officially declaring an end to the 1950-53 Korean war, via a peace treaty replacing the current armistice with iron-clad security guarantees. After all, that is the number-one condition for the DPRK to start contemplating denuclearization.

China and Russia, in theory, also have what it takes to bring India and Pakistan to reason – plus the clout to put pressure on Saudi Arabia’s weaponized Wahhabism.

And yet, from Washington’s perspective, China and Russia are “threats” – from the National Security Strategy all the way down to functionaries such as Air Force General Terrence O’Shaughnessy, the Northcom commander, who just told a Senate committee that Russia’s “intent to hold the US at risk” presents an urgent threat.

Some more equal than others

China, Russia and Iran are essential nodes of Eurasia integration, which interlock key vectors of the New Silk Roads, via Iran’s trade agreement with the Eurasia Economic Union and expansion of the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC). Considering the stakes, Lavrov and Yi could not but be stunned by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif resigning from his post via Instagram.

Sources in Tehran maintained that the key reason for Zarif resigning was that he was not informed – and did not attend – an ultra high-level meeting in Tehran on Monday of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, the IRGC’s Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani and President Hassan Rouhani when they discussed strictly Syrian military matters, not diplomacy. Zarif may not have been in the room, but his number two, Abbas Araghchi, was.

In the end, Rouhani rejected Zarif’s resignation, stressing that it was against Iran’s national interests. And crucially, Soleimani said that Zarif had total support from Khamenei. Even as various factions of Iran’s hardliners may be fuming with both Zarif and Rouhani, characterizing them as fools who fell into an American trap, the last thing Tehran needs at the moment – under pressure by hybrid war – is internal division. In parallel, support from both Russia and China won’t waiver.

Washington may deploy variations of Hybrid War but most reflexes remain undiluted Cold War. The mechanism remains the same. A fortune in US taxpayers’ money is showered on the industrial-military complex, with defense contractors and major corporations paying back fabulous campaign contributions to the political class. That’s why someone like Tulsi Gabbard, who is anti-war – hot, cold and hybrid – and anti-regime change, will be smeared to Kingdom Come by the weapons lobby, and prevented from making a run for the presidency.

The Global South has learned that turning and turning in the widening gyre, some countries are indeed more equal than others. Even though some may be relentlessly blasted as terrorist enablers (Pakistan), and nuclear powers as a rule must be appeased (DPRK) and seduced (India as a plank of the “Indo-Pacific” strategy). Chairman Kim is now a “great leader” who can hand his nation a “tremendous future”.

Non-nuclear powers, especially those rich in natural resources and implementing strategies such as bypassing the US dollar, like Iran and Venezuela, face the fate of being regime change targets, slowly and painfully devoured by Yama, the Lord of Death.

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What Can Modi’s Fanaticism Unleash and Why?

March 2, 2019

Zara Ali

Two South Asian nuclear powers with 71 year history of high-strung relations seemingly stand at the brink of war.  The recent stand off now seems to point towards a strong possibility of an intensified conflict beyond the extent of routine skirmishes along the Line of Control (LOC) or the Working Boundary – unless and until back door diplomacy bears fruit and other deterrents such as a degree of political and public pressure within India come to check Modi’s fanatic drive for war.

Following the provocative one-sided military action taken by the Indian Air Force (IAF) on February 26 during which India claimed to have targeted a JeM training camp killing 300 terrorists near the city of Balakot in Pakistan, more action was witnessed on February 27.

As I indicated in an earlier op-ed on the current tension in the region, Pakistan’s official verbal response to India’s unlawful act seemed to indicate Pak may not sit quiet.  And that is exactly what transpired during the course of February 27 morning.  Pak decided to send a strong message to Delhi thereby categorically reminding Modi he no more enjoyed the clandestine support of a CIA puppet regime enthroned in Islamabad as was the case during the last ten years of dark democratic rule and he should therefore understand Pakistan will not sit put rather act unanimously and effectively if he did not hold his horses back.

Unlike what Ms. Ayres, a senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations prefers to believe, the truth is perhaps there never has been a greater sense of coherence between the military command and the civilian government in the history of Pakistan than under Khan’s premiership – Khan shall not ‘feel the need to push back on the military’ whether or not he has ‘a political base of his own’ for one simple reason – and that is the civilian and military leadership is single-mindedly serving one agenda only – the security and national interest of Pakistan.  Looks like the ‘senior’ fellows at CFR will take much longer to realise they are no longer dealing with the treacherous soul-selling breed of politicians of the likes of Nawaz and Zardari and that the entire dynamics of a country, Washington thought it could successfully enslave, has more than significantly altered – a process that is on-going and shall not come to a halt.

Coming back to February 27, 2019 – the Pakistani nation witnessed its armed forces and its civilian leadership acting in unison – from the looks of it the decision had been made in principle on the same day as the IAF attempted attack on Balakot city i.e. February 26.  Hence with prior warning and in broad daylight Pakistan reportedly engaged six targets across the LOC to strike – the intention was singularly clear:  ‘We have the ability to strike, and the capability for self defence.  We do not wish to escalate the matter but if we are drawn into that paradigm, we will act accordingly’.  India as usual contested the claim and insisted “Pak attempt was foiled successfully, PAF presence was detected, and IAF responded instantly”.

Amidst a plethora of statements and counter statements, admissions and denials, that have continued to pour out since the one thing that is categorically clear is that Pak did shoot down one IAF MiG 21 and captured one pilot.  The Pak claim of having shot down another IAF aircraft that fell in Indian Occupied Kashmir has been denied by Indian officials – they insist that aircraft came down due to an ‘unrelated reason – technical fault’.  The Indian claim of having shot down a PAF F-16 (that fell on the Pak side of LOC according to India) has been denied by Pak indicating the dog fight occurred between a Combat Air Partol (CAP) JF-17 Thunder Block 2 that hit down the MiG-21 – F-16s were not involved.

Quite evidently military information is never released as it is, one can only attempt to piece official and leaked information together to paint a picture that makes sense however at this point in time, judging from the reaction shaping within India, it does appear Modi has fallen into the trap he had set out for Pak – to a considerable extent.  From a strictly military point of view Pak has come out on top.  Yet war will only open all doors to hell in the region, hence not a sane option for either Pakistan or India.  Pak has categorically and repeatedly sent out message of peace inviting India to talk – albeit the likes of Ms. Ayres tend to doubt the sincerity of this intention in an evidently vile attempt to malign Pakistan after all!

On February 28, during the full tri-service press conference, India’s chiefs of armed forces failed to provide evidence of the ‘successful surgical strike on a JeM terrorist camp in Balakot city’ and evaded the question indicating ‘evidence’ will be made public upon the discretion of Modi’s administration.  May be that is the ‘evidence’ contained in the dossier handed over to Pak on February 27, however sharing such a dossier after having invaded Pakistan’s sovereign air space for an attempted surgical strike, only tends to cast more doubts on Delhi’s intent.  During the press conference the Indian army chiefs also put on exhibit a piece of metal they claimed came off the AIM-120 AMRAM missile fired by the PAF F-16 which according to India’s claim was later downed by IAF.  It appears they were not aware the said missile can in fact be used by the JF-17 Thunder as well – it would have made them sound more credible if they had also pieced together any other available bits of information/evidence to substantiate their claim in this regard even if the F-16 had rather ‘conveniently’ fallen on the Pak side of the LOC.

The truth of the matter is with highly advanced strategic partners of the likes of the United States, if there had been any JeM training facility that was destroyed and 300 terrorists that were killed, both Delhi and Washington would have jubilantly pounced upon the proof and marketed it around the globe faster than the speed of light, not to forget threaten Pakistan of dire consequences with great conviction.  And as for the events of February 27, from the looks of it India continues to cook up patches to shape her own story around the obvious facts in order to mitigate the reaction upon IAF aircraft going down and a pilot in Pak custody (now handed back) – after all Indian mass public has been known to not forgive even its own cricket stars following a defeat at the hands of Pakistan.

As it later turned out instead of allowing the escalation to cool down Modi in fact resolved to continue with an exhibition of his insanity into the night of February 27 – he intended to target 6-7 Pak sites, however these missile attacks would have been carried out from Indian soil without endangering IAF.  On this side of the border a similar plan of action was in place based on the information that leaked out of Delhi, however with an understanding that nothing shall be fired unless and until India took the lead.  Fortunately, from the looks of it diplomatic intervention on part of China and America managed to convince Modi to suspend his plans for the night.  The hope is, combined with the recently voiced Russian offer of mediation, diplomatic efforts of various nations may in fact be able to diffuse the current tension in the region – at least for some time to come.

Irrespective of Delhi’s proclaimed narrative, fact is this chain of events was anything but a spontaneous occurring – starting from February 13 attack on IRGC personnel in Sistan-Iran and ending on February 27 with Pak striking back as an act of self-assertion – it now seems hard to believe planning was not carried out mutually between Delhi and Washington – and the target was Pakistan.

Tehran’s imprudent outburst was essentially directed at reiterating to the world Pakistan permits mercenary terrorist groups to use its territory in order to conduct cross border terrorism.  The very next day it was Delhi’s turn.  And a similar narrative was religiously adopted – the world was apprised as to how Pakistan facilitates terrorism.  Perhaps if Tehran had not acted as unwisely as she did, the impact of Indian accusations would not have been as grave – however two neighbours crying wolf in chorus did tend to furnish the world community with more reason to trust what they heard.  Despite no evidence India received a pat on the back from Macron and Pompeo.  And as expected Pompeo asked Pakistan to exercise restraint while he and Macron both applauded the Indian resolve to fight cross-border terrorism.  It is also believed on February 26, Washington actually asked Pak to allow India ‘room for face-saving’ following the failed surgical strike carried out that involved a breach of Pak’s sovereignty – albeit this ‘request’ was quite categorically turned down by Islamabad unlike past times otherwise nothing would have transpired during the course of the morning on February 27.

Perhaps the ‘real exhaustion and fatigue with Pakistan’ that Ms. Ayres of CFR claims is ‘felt by India and other nations of the world’ vis-à-vis Pak’s alleged support of ‘Islamist terrorism’ required fresh ‘evidence’ – after all has not Pak been made a scapegoat for sins committed by Islamist terrorists anywhere since 9/11 whether or not there was any evidence to prove an affiliation?

Unquestionably the success of this anti-Pak campaign has much to do with the fact Pak has not been able to fight her case at the diplomatic level since 9/11 – especially so during the ten years of puppet regimes in Islamabad albeit by 2007-8 it had become clear Pak had in fact dug her own grave by siding with the United States in its fake ‘War on Terror’.  Had Pakistan been able to effectively explain to the world how her role in the Afghan war against the ex-USSR during the 1980s left it socio-politically vulnerable for decades to come; how Washington simply chose to walk away from war torn Afghanistan once Soviet Union was pushed out; why it was necessary for Pak to recognise the Taliban rule in Kabul; how the Af-Pak region was left exposed to the perils of geopolitical and economic instability thereafter until Americans’ opium supply almost dried out and CIA’s future plans necessitated a return only to make things worse; how the religious passion of the ‘freedom fighters’ of yesteryears, the key to the defeat of ex-USSR, was progressively recycled into the extremist Islamist mindset of today; and how her army has resiliently fought a very long and successful battle to root out the menace of religious extremism from its territory – if at all a narrative had been formed around facts and disseminated avidly perhaps the global community would not have been confined to a one-sided storyline whether it came from Delhi or Washington or any other power centre playing its dirty power game and Ms. Ayres would not have been able to refer to ‘other nations of the world’ as emphatically.

The bottom line is clear – very clear – Modi’s ardent desire for Hindutva to dominate South Asia will be employed by the American Empire to isolate and destabilise Pak in a desperate effort to Balkanize the country and denuclearize the only nuclear Muslim nation – the ‘mapped dream’ of Pentagon envisioned to have manifested in 2015.  There is no question the fault does not lie entirely with external powers that have held stakes in Pakistan’s geopolitics for decades and have tended to exploit Pak’s security concerns vis-à-vis the ever present Indian threat in a bid to achieve their own ulterior motives – Pak’s military and civilian institutions have also erred in gauging the long-term repercussions of the difficult choices made since the fall of Dhaka in 1971 especially so during the long years of Soviet invasion of Afghanistan – and from one viewpoint Pak’s continued battle against extremism within her borders can be termed as an act of chastisement, however facts on the ground indicate America will not permit Pak to stabilise politically or economically and it shall not allow her armed forces any respite from active engagement – Khan’s rise to power has been a nightmare for Washington – Pak has quite obviously resolved to distance herself from Washington in a bid to align foreign policy goals with the emerging multipolar world order – hence the CIA mission that was hitherto accomplished through sellouts has to be completed one way or the other – what better than engaging Pakistan in a war like scenario at her Eastern and Western borders simultaneously, divert her focus from internal security, wreak havoc upon her through terrorism, and put an end to her dream of standing on her own feet?

That was why even after all the recent acts of madness, while speaking at a conference in India, Modi referred to the current military escalation as a ‘pilot project’ intended as ‘practice’ – may be this was just a political gimmick and may be he in fact intends to unleash darkness of war upon the people of South Asia – but if that comes to pass, it would be a mistake to think it shall be contained between these two nations alone.  That scenario will have the potential to alter global geopolitics more significantly than many may presume.

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MODI’S OFFICE WAS VERY MISLEADING ABOUT HIS CONVERSATION WITH PUTIN

MODI’S OFFICE WAS VERY MISLEADING ABOUT HIS CONVERSATION WITH PUTIN

March 1, 2019

Asif Aziz Opinion

According to the Kremlin’s official website, President Putin never said anything about “Russia’s steadfast support for India’s efforts to protect its interests against cross-border terror attacks”, but that didn’t stop Prime Minister Modi’s office from misleadingly implying that he did as India continues doing whatever it can to save face after Pakistan gave it a “bloody nose” earlier this week and its decades-long partner in Moscow pragmatically signaled that it regards Islamabad and New Delhi as international equals by offering to host peace talks between them.

President Putin called Prime Minister Modi on Thursday in a conversation that covered Russia’s repeated condolences for the Pulwama attack, anti-terrorism, and the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) that will take place later this year in Vladivostok. Putin’s call came just hours after Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said that his country would host peace talks between India and Pakistan if they asked it to do so, meaning that the Russian leader’s outreach to his Indian counterpart should be seen as Moscow’s first move in that direction.

This explains why Putin’s pretext for calling Modi was to reiterate Russia’s condolences for the Pulwama attack, as it in turn allowed him to broach the topic of whether or not his counterpart was interested in Moscow hosting peace talks between his country and Pakistan. At no time during the conversation, however, is there any plausible indication that Putin walked back Russia’s neutral “balancing” position towards this conflict by taking India’s side, whether directly or through a euphemism. In fact, here’s what the Kremlin’s official website had to say about the call:

“In addition to the message sent earlier, Vladimir Putin once again conveyed his condolences to the people of India in connection with the killing of Indian security force personnel in a terrorist attack on February 14.

In this context, the two leaders condemned international terrorism and any methods used to support it stressing, the need to step up the uncompromising fight against the terrorist threat.

While discussing the crisis in relations between India and Pakistan, Vladimir Putin expressed hope for a prompt settlement.

Topical issues on the bilateral agenda were also touched upon. The Russian President emphasised that Russian-Indian cooperation was developing quite successfully as a privileged strategic partnership. The two sides expressed interest in further promoting interaction in all areas, including military-technical ties.

Vladimir Putin invited Narendra Modi to take part in the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok in September 2019 as the main guest. The two leaders agreed to continue personal contact.”

Nevertheless, that didn’t stop the Indian Prime Minister’s office from misportraying their conversation (bolded emphasis is the author’s own):

“The President of the Russian Federation H.E. Mr. Vladimir V. Putin called Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on phone today.

President Putin expressed his deep condolences on the Pulwama terrorist attack. He also conveyed solidarity of the people of the Russian Federation with the people of India in the fight against terrorism.

The Prime Minister thanked President Putin for Russia’s steadfast support for India’s efforts to protect its interests against cross-border terror attacks, and renewed India’s commitment to strengthening bilateral cooperation in countering terrorism as a pillar of privileged and special strategic partnership. Both leaders agreed that the concerned should stop all support to terrorism.

Both the leaders also agreed that the growing cooperation between the two countries will take their Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership from strength to strength.

President Putin reiterated the invitation to the Prime Minister to attend the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok later this year. The Prime Minister welcomed the invitation and underscored the significance of growing economic cooperation, including in the Russian Far East, between the two countries.”

It’s categorically false that Russia ever expressed any “steadfast support for India’s efforts to protect its interests against cross-border terror attacks”, which is a euphemism for supporting India’s fake “surgical strike” against Pakistan, but New Delhi felt compelled to pretend that this was the case in order to save face after Islamabad gave it a “bloody nose” earlier this week. Furthermore, this false portrayal of reality might have also been another Indian infowar attack against Russia, albeit this time intended to as a last-ditch effort to provoke Pakistan into rejecting Moscow’s mediation offer.

Indian media, which is heavily influenced by the state (especially since the BJP returned to power in 2014), has been pushing the narrative that Russia’s relations with Pakistan are insincere and that Moscow would never regard Islamabad as being equal to New Delhi. This inaccurate notion was based on the arrogant belief that billions of dollars’ worth of business deals with Russia would somehow “buy off” the Kremlin and preempt its rapprochement with Pakistan, which was a failed policy if there ever was one because the two are now enjoying the fruits of a strategic partnership.

Russia’s 21^st-century grand strategy of becoming the supreme “balancing” force in Afro-Eurasia precludes the taking of partisan sides in any conflict, let alone one as high-stakes as between India and Pakistan (and especially in light of Moscow’s diplomatic gains with the Taliban being the result of close coordination with Islamabad). That’s why objective observers should have known from the get-go that Modi’s office was misportraying his conversation with Putin after it misleadingly made it seem like Russia said something in connection with its supposedly “steadfast support for India’s efforts to protect its interests against cross-border terror attacks”.

India’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) dangerously seem to believe the Bollywood narratives that they propagate among the masses, which has contributed to them having an over-inflated sense of their country’s importance in International Relations and especially with Russia. Few Indians, let alone those in a policymaking capacity, could have imagined that Russia would regard India and Pakistan as being equals, as this contradicts decades of indoctrination but nevertheless proves just how much International Relations is changing at the dawn of the emerging Multipolar World Order.

Unable to accept this, yet also unable to decline Russia’s mediation offer lest it be regarded as an irredeemable American proxy (which Moscow already suspects that it might be on the way to becoming after Lavrov hinted as much earlier this week), India felt that it’s only recourse was to misportray Modi’s conversation with Putin in the naïve hopes that Pakistan would take its words at face value and overreact in such a way that it would refuse to let Russia host peace talks between it and India. Unsurprisingly, this infowar attack also failed.

Sputnik reported the following about Pakistani Foreign Minister Qureshi’s recent interview with CNN:

“Commenting on Russia’s willingness to mediate between India and Pakistan to try to ease bilateral tensions, Qureshi said that Islamabad is ready to accept such an offer.

“[Russian Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov has offered to mediate. I do not know about India but I want to say this to Russia, that Pakistan is ready to come to the table and de-escalate tensions,” Qureshi underlined.”

Unlike India, Pakistan has no problem with Russia returning to South Asia and expanding its “balancing” strategy to such a point that it can mediate between the region’s two nuclear-armed powers. India, however, feels as though Russia inflicted a mortal wound to its international prestige by regarding Pakistan as being equal to it, which it legally is in terms of international law but which New Delhi has refused to recognize due to its Bollywood belief in being an “exceptional superpower”. Going forward, this latest infowar trick might further erode Russia’s trust in India while simultaneously increasing its trust in Pakistan.

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By Andrew Korybko
Source: Eurasia Future

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Is another war in South Asia imminent?

On September 22, 2018, the Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat while talking to media said, “India needs to take stern action to avenge the barbarism that the terrorists and Pakistan Army have been carrying out. Yes, it’s time to give it back to them in the same coin, not resorting to similar kind of barbarism. But I think the other side must also feel the same pain”.

This statement by the senior most Indian Army officer came in the wake of the news of alleged killing and mutilation of a BSF soldier a day earlier. Shortly after Times of India reported inflammatory statements by Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat on Saturday, the Pakistan Army spokesperson Major General Asif Ghafoor responded by saying: “We [Pakistan Army] are ready for war but choose to walk the path of peace in the interest of the people of Pakistan, the neighbors, and the region”.

Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor added that Pakistan has a long-standing record of fighting terrorism, adding “we know the price [that is paid] for peace”.

“We have struggled to achieve peace in the last two decades. We can never do anything to disgrace any soldier,” he asserted, strongly denying the claims made by India that hold the Pakistan Army responsible for the killing of a Border Security Force (BSF) soldier. “They have in the past as well laid the blame on us for mutilating the body of a fallen soldier. We are a professional army. We never engage in such acts,” the ISPR chief said.

Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry also promptly issued a response, backing the DG ISPR’s statement. “Pakistan and India are nuclear powers; a war is out of the question,” he said.

The information minister termed the Indian army chief’s statement an attempt to divert the attention of Indian public from the mega corruption scandal and the subsequent calls for resignation faced by PM Modi-led BJP government.

Is war Inevitable now?

The inflammatory statements by Indian military chief came at a time when Indian Occupied Kashmir is burning. In IOK, Indian troops launched a massive cordon and search operation in several villages of south Kashmir’s Pulwama district on Saturday.

The operation comes following the killing of three Indian police personnel posted in India-held Kashmir reportedly by armed Kashmiris, who have been waging a struggle for the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination. Several unarmed Kashmiri protestors have been killed in the past several days in addition to hundreds being injured and arrested by the Indian security forces.

“The simmering situation in Kashmir in addition to the exacerbating pressure on PM Modi led BJP government over corruption charges seems to have pressed the Indian government to adopt a belligerent position viz-a-viz Pakistan,” said Zeeshan Munir, a defense and security analyst based in Islamabad.

Whenever the Modi-led Indian government faces pressure from opposition parties on its poor performance in the last four years or when the situation in Kashmir heats up, Pakistan is used as a scapegoat to divert the attention of Indian populace and the international community from the internal problems which that country faces,” he added.

On a question of what to expect in coming days, he said, “Pakistan and India can’t go to war since both have nuclear weapons which are enough to deter them. However, the provocative statements by the Indian Army Chief must not be taken lightly. Indian establishment might use RAW to do something similar to Kamra or Karachi attack. Or it may opt for another ‘surgical strike drama’ to appease its weary populace. Pakistan must keep up its guard and prepare itself accordingly.”

Several other defense analysts GVS talked to also believe that the chances of a direct confrontation between the two nuclear-armed South Asian states are minimal, however, India might use its proxies to hurt Pakistan internally.

The Indian refusal to hold dialogue with Pakistan and refusing PM Khan’s request of parleys indicate that India is not willing to settle disputes on a table. It has once again resorted to antagonism which will be detrimental for regional peace and security. While the war between the two neighbors might be a distant proposition, it is certain that people in South Asia will have to wait for peace and prosperity which they desperately need.

Source

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

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