Big powers and the Lebanese chessboard

By: Azhar Azam

After Arab defeat in 1967 war, Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) established its first bases in southern Lebanon along borders of Israel and Syria however bloody Black September showdown with Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1970 forced PLO to completely retreat to Lebanon. Beirut, under 1969 Cairo Accord, had already legalized Palestinian armed presence in the country.

In April 1975, a 15-year long civil war broke out in Lebanon with armed conflict between Lebanese Christian militias and Palestinians that was quickly backed by leftists and Muslim segments. With US endorsement, Syrian army intervened in 1976 to help embattled Christian forces whereas Israel in 1982 invaded the country by launching Operation Peace for Galilee in southern Lebanon.

Though battle among confessional communities ended in 1990 with killing of 120,000 people and Lebanese army finished off the ouster of PLO in 1991 – Israel resumed occupation of southern Lebanon and withdrew only in May 2000 through enforced UNSC resolutions. International community wielded enormous pressure on Syria at the heels of assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and it too pulled out its troops from country in 2005.

Foreign military draw-down unchanged Lebanon a sporadic opportunity to move toward stability and retrieve renaissance of its capital, Beirut. But the spillover of Syrian refugees and Iran-backed and -inspired Hezbollah’s militant engagement in Syria to prop up Assad regime against rebellion groups as well as involvement in Iranian-led meddling in Iraq grassed this big-break.

Resultantly, 1989 Taif Agreement is yet to implement its core objective of obliterating political sectarianism in Lebanon and the country stays alienated from inter-faith harmony and mutual respect. In addition, religious diversity in Lebanese population– comprising 61.1% Muslims (Sunnis 30.6% and Shias 30.5%), Christians 33.7% (largely Maronite Catholics) and Druze (5.2%) – would be the biggest roadblock to derive unity among leading political blocs, supported by Saudi Arabia, Iran, France and Britain, making Lebanon prone to foreign interventions.

Lebanese people apprehend potential disparity between national leadership and protests, forcing Hassan Diab’s government to resign after the Beirut port explosion, could just be the beginning of nationwide awakening against the corrupt ruling elite. Similarly, they might also question the role of Hezbollah, which elevated its stature in Muslim world by confronting Israeli brutalities and expansionist polices, but seems to have changed tracks to serve as Iranian proxy in Lebanon and region.

Concurrently, Lebanese Christians are not shy to hide their association with France. By visiting Beirut as the first foreign head of state, calling for a new political system and giving a caveat to Iran to stay out of Lebanon – President Emmanuel Macron has disclosed his intention to encroach on a former French colony to counter Turkish influence in Mediterranean.

Paris is wary of Ankara’s oil exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean and would look to exploit Lebanese crisis to advance its regional strategic goals and online petition from Lebanese, urging him to take control of Lebanon for 10 years, should revivify his hopes to roll a sandy pitch for Turkey in the region. While Turkish vice president and foreign minister immediately reached Beirut to show their solidarity with Lebanese people, the tour touts Ankara's cloaked plan to replace Riyadh in Lebanon as a protector of Sunnis and warns of a new geopolitical rivalry.

For France, it would be credulous to expect Iran to draw back its support for Hezbollah and retrench its mastery in Lebanese politics. As Iran reaffirms its support for Lebanon and keeps on using its proxies in Iraq, Syria and Yemen in a way assisting Israel by denting the fragile unity in Ummah – the Middle East is heading en route for a much deeper catastrophe. Lebanese failing system, corruption, mismanagement and free-falling economy, in the meantime, will make Lebanon another chessboard for regional and global powers to pursue their nefarious agendas.

*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared in "The Express Tribune":
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2259806/big-powers-and-the-lebanese-chessboard

Why the White House failed to bully Beijing's friends

By: Azhar Azam

Over the past few months, the Trump administration has been going ballistic by sharpening an extensive and unprovoked campaign toward China. Since Beijing is the world's second-largest economy and a rising military power, the wanton effort would only end up in ripping the global economy and world peace.

The White House launched this dissipated push with great fanfare and bullied the countries across the planet to endorse and embrace its madly pursued decoupling drive. But these nations have grasped the sinister U.S. idea and begun to defy it openly.

On August 7, Pakistan's permanent ambassador to the United Nations, Munir Akram, told Newsweek that the trade rifts between China and the U.S. are "natural." Nevertheless the ulterior aim of the U.S. – to encourage separatism in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Xinjiang, as well as assertive actions in the South China Sea, play with the crucial Chinese interests and Beijing's resistance is understandable.

In so doing, the envoy and president of the UN Economic and Social Council represented Pakistan's objective position that the U.S. should resume talks with China to settle bilateral differences and prevent it from routinely violating globally established and binding international law of non-interference and non-intervention.

Akram believed there was no "rationale of a confrontation" between the two major powers and urged the sides to respect "each other's systems, each other's vital national interests and each other's serenity and territorial integrity" in a veiled reference to Washington's passing of inflammatory bills and destabilization measures in areas relating to Chinese sovereignty.

Seeing all the U.S. covert and overt efforts have cut no ice with China's economic growth, worldwide adherence to its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and commitment to protect rights and security in regions and the South China Sea, the American federal government imposed sanctions on almost a dozen Hong Kong officials, including Chief Executive Carrie Lam.

While one of Hong Kong's senior officials, targeted by the restrictions, mocked the ban and offered to send 100 U.S. dollars to U.S. President Donald Trump so he may freeze his asset, the Guardian dubbed it relatively unusual to directly sanction the leader of a region or country, other than Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

American actions to transgress the international rules-based order set a dangerous precedent for the world and pose a serious threat to global peace, security and prosperity. Drawing inspiration from the diabolic U.S. attitude, more countries might suspend the process of peaceful consultations and follow the path of hostility to get a head start in bilateral disputes.

Spotting such a threat to the region, Akram stated that China is not a U.S. adversary and expressed his deep incredulity in Washington's growing military relations with New Delhi – which last year exacerbated tensions with Beijing and Islamabad through unilaterally changing the status quo of the disputed Indian-held Kashmir, including Jammu and Ladakh, and now is politicizing overall economic and trade cooperation with the former in the wake of the Himalayan standoff.

Unfortunately, Washington felt no regrets for its historical slippery and tottery behavior toward Islamabad and instead of addressing its demurrals; the State Department spokesperson cast a shadow on Pakistan's contributions to bring peace in Afghanistan, urging it "to take sustained and irreversible action to dismantle militant groups…without distinction."

The U.S. has long worked to make waves between Beijing and Islamabad by throwing its unsought inkling on transparency and debt issues regarding the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project under Chinese BRI. Beholding it as hypocrisy, Akram lashed out at Washington.

"If you don't want the Chinese to do it, then you do it," he said. "But don't tell us not to do it with the Chinese when you can't do it yourself, It is like a dog in the manger," the ambassador said. "The U.S. should, as you say, walk the talk. If the United States has real concerns that Chinese projects are unfair on terms that are not good enough, well, it should provide alternatives."

In fact, there is a stark contrast between Pakistan and the U.S. approach. Islamabad, having suffered over 150 billion U.S. dollars of economic losses and sacrificed more than 70,000 lives in the U.S.-led war on terror to make America secure, places Beijing at the core of its foreign policy, recognizing it a dependable and sincere friendship that has always extended full support to the South Asian country in the face of all economic, defense and natural challenges.

The U.S., on the other hand, fantasies to only use Pakistan for its heavy-handed objectives against China and sees the partnership between the two staunch friends, including for the stability and economic growth of Afghanistan, through the lens of orthodox distrust.

It is therefore quixotic on the part of Washington to expect Islamabad – seldom acknowledged for its relentless contributions and frequently experienced American drone strikes in breach of its sovereignty – to chop its economic kismet and disenchant a time-tested friend, Beijing, which it believes is pivotal for its economy and national security.

The U.S. needs to divest itself of China-paranoia. Washington, instead of circumnavigating the globe to temp and sponsor nations in confronting Beijing or forcing them to abjure ties with an economy that is the key to the global economic growth, should accept Chinese significance on the international stage and start all over again a fresh round of bilateral negotiations to discover the secrets of the global embrace of its peaceful economic rise.

*This is one of my opinion pieces that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)":
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-08-12/Why-the-White-House-failed-to-bully-Beijing-s-friends--SSbcAGt3uU/index.html

The US' continued antipathy towards China

By: Azhar Azam

As the fiery 2020 U.S. presidential election campaign draws near, Donald Trump is turning up the heat on China to boost his prospects and grab a second win by fueling intensifying his dodgy and debauched economic, diplomatic, political and technological bias against China.

A small group of half-witted lawyers – specifically the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Attorney General William Barr, FBI Director Christopher Wray and National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien – are at the forefront of Trump's anti-China drive.

But Trump's gimmicks – such as heaping blame on China for the coronavirus pandemic, capping the number of Chinese journalists to 100, sanctioning Chinese tech companies and individuals, closing the Chinese consulate in Houston and blocking Chinese students and workers, among others – are met with widespread criticism in the U.S.

In a blazing article for CNN, Stephen Roach classified all Trump's top aides as a "Gang of Four," who have been systematically focused on posing China an ideological threat, accusing it for espionage and knocking Beijing's policies while the U.S. was undergoing a delicate economic situation. He also busted Pompeo's conspiracy theories and his "racist depiction" of calling coronavirus as the "Wuhan" or "Chinese virus."

Roach, former chief economist at Morgan Stanley Asia, punched a hole in the Trump-led Gang's vile ambitions by stating its arguments, including the COVID-19 origin blame game, as a whole were unfounded and "laced with conspiracy theories and devoid of fact-based analytics." He further said that none of these officials had the necessary background to speak from the perspective of foreign trade that plays a key role in shaping the U.S. economy.

Roach is one of the many voices in the U.S. who preserve similar thoughts about a "gangster" administration that is detonating international trade, trying to rob international tech firms like Nokia and Ericsson to fight Huawei and now making efforts to predate TikTok while global economic system is decimated by the COVID-19, with a sole purpose to lift Trump's declining approval rating.

With hardly any substantial achievement on his back to boast about and many Americans say they don't trust Trump on anything he has said about the infectious disease, he is envisaging a potential defeat in the upcoming election. The fear of losing is making him more hostile, not only toward China, but all nations across the world.

The president's corrosive attitude has pushed the U.S. leadership's global acceptance to a historical low and made the administration unpopular worldwide. According to Gallup, universal image of the Trump administration remained at floors, especially in Europe where its disapproval scooped from 37 percent in 2016 to 61 percent in 2019.

As the U.S. is still overwhelmed with a glut of COVID-19 patients, deaths, job losses and a looming economic collapse – by virtue of Trump's inept policies and hopeless health response – the desperation from consistent failures are showing his true colors.

The economy, the bedrock of his politicking, has now contracted by a staggering 32.9 percent in the second quarter and well on track for eight percent yearly slump, is overshadowed by his belligerence. China, which was the first to successfully control the outbreak and the only major economy to post a plausible growth of 3.2 percent in Q2-2020, is his prime target to camouflage his enormous blunders.

As a matter of fact, Beijing's resilience to synchronously wrestle with the disease and prevent an economic calamity makes it an ideal and natural pick for the U.S. to come out of the crippling health and economic crisis.

Independent asset managers, economic analysts and think tanks said China's pandemic response was "far more focused, forceful and effective than elsewhere." The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the effectiveness of Chinese governance system, centralized economic decision making, government's commitment to deepening reforms and creating a market-based, internationalized business environment.

China, however, has over and over again affirmed that it is not interested in dominating the global economy or unseating the U.S. as a global leader. The Chinese government has always propounded the idea of forging a joint response against COVID-19 and engaging in extensive consultations to promote multilateral cooperation and derive shared benefits.

Pointing out the coronavirus-linked risks to the emerging markets, which are responsible for roughly two-thirds of the global growth in the past 10 years, experts urged China and the U.S. to "step up to the plate" and deploy more resources to developing economies to help them fight the virus and to prevent the real threat of "submerging world."

By extending medical support, writing off some loans, providing debt relief and efforts to increase trade, Beijing firmly stands by its commitment to help all the nations.

And importantly, China never attached any economic and political strings with its aid, as falsely disseminated by the Western media and some American officials. It believes that only by promoting trade, building consensus and working together can we resolve the dire challenges ahead.

Should the White House break its self-demarcated anti-China shell and stretch out its hands of cooperation to settle bilateral gripes through dialogue, Beijing would be more than keen to embrace Washington and work with it to defeat the virus and revive each other's as well as global economy.

It is for the U.S. to decide whether it would continue its antipathy toward China, which has proved detrimental to America and the world, or pack up the bitterness and get back to talks with China to achieve win-win results.

*This is one of my opinion pieces that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)":
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-08-09/The-U-S-continued-antipathy-towards-China-SNhmW5gERW/index.html

Huawei and 5G Technology. US-China Confrontation

By: Azhar Azam

First-generation mobile technology offered only analogue calls and no browsing, data transfer or SMS. Even though today’s 4G long-term evolution (LTE) networks, which started to roll out a decade before, featured all these key services and represented both evolution and revolution, 5G will be a real sensation.

Newer series of cellular network technology introduces driverless cars and healthcare systems built on top of it and brings faster downloads and uploads, reduced lag time, smarter devices and rapider streaming for Netflix or YouTube with predicted speeds of up to 100x compared to 4G, round-trip transmission of data taking less than five milliseconds and increased bandwidth.

As of early 2020, US-disseminated security concerns had bungled to stem the rise of Chinese telco Huawei that led global market with 91 commercial contracts and shipped 600,000 5G Massive MIMO Active Antenna Units (AAUs) while Swedish Ericsson and Finish Nokia trailed behind with 81 and 63 deals across world.

Washington has two major concerns with the world's largest telecoms firm, Huawei. One, there is no company in American trillion-dollar Silicon Valley that can compete with low-cost, niche quality services provided by Shenzhen-based tech goliath. Two and indeed most excruciating for the US, it’s a whale from a strategic competitor that is supercharged and cruising along.

The underlying forebodings in an era of 5G infrastructure development last year pushed the US Commerce Department to add Huawei and its affiliates to the entity list for advancement of America’s national security and foreign policy objectives and promotion of its strategic technology leadership.

But by granting and continuously extending 90-day reprieve to Huawei through Temporary General License (TGL) as late as May 2020, allowing domestic consumers and companies to working with it, US admitted that it had no better replacement for Chinese telco giant and whatever there were, they lacked mettle to really challenge most valuable brand and innovative enterprise in world.

The US confronts another critical issue. Owing to low population and high infrastructure installation cost, major 5G infrastructure vendors are often shy to work in US rural areas. Huawei not only has invested and provided services in remote locations globally, in fact most of its customers in the US are rural Americans.

In February, US Senate unanimously passed bill to pay rural telecom carriers $1 billion to “rip and replace” any gear in their networks from Huawei and ZTE. While the amount was only half of what FCC head Geoffery Starks estimated, users might resist plans to revise or eliminate TGL after August 13.

Additionally As 5G is a more integrated and intelligent network than 3G or 4G that will technically sit on existing infrastructure so removing Huawei completely, from core of any network or even phasing it out won’t be an easy task over huge costs and massive delays and eventually, same set of security threats will occur when companies other than Huawei would be contracted.

Of Five Eyes nations, the US has so far swayed Australia, New Zealand and lately the UK to ban telecoms equipment purchases from Huawei whereas Canada is yet to decide. As Washington presses Europe to drop it from building their 5G networks, the sanctions – like Britain set to suffer $3.6 billion losses and delay 5G rollout by three years – could cost the region to endure $62 billion and defer deployment by 18 months.

Experts warn efforts to coerce and damage Huawei would reciprocate in at least equal costs, if not greater, to the US. They believe that due to the global system – characterized by complex and deep interdependence in economic, security and political relationships – current US policy against Huawei has a very little chance to succeed.

Whole structure being constructed around Huawei is thus internally hollow, plagiarized and brimmed with illusionary and perfidious ruses. In reality, the US anti-Huawei campaign is driven by fear of Chinese technological dominance, the cost of which would result in only delayed global access to 5G technology.

*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "Global Research/Centre for Research for Globalization (CRG)":
https://www.globalresearch.ca/huawei-bans-delay-global-access-5g-technology/5720367

A politically weakened Trump and Iraq

By: Azhar Azam

Despite all refutations by American officials and they were only willing to discuss force reconfiguration, the US-led Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS/Daesh is being given the sack by Iraqi government to shut down all its military bases in a sequel to the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in January.

The United States perhaps thought its feint, to display a military muscle in Baghdad, would further divide the political leadership of one of the most conflict-stricken nations in the world and allow it to gain a strategic edge in the region.

But the gamble backfired as the whirlwind American airstrike – which toyed with and ran over Iraq’s sovereignty – blurted out the stoicism of even the rival blocs in Iraq as they jointly said no to any venturesome agenda and called for a complete withdrawal of foreign troops.

On July 25, the military alliance freed another military base, Besmaya Camp, near Baghdad and handed it over to the Iraqi security forces. With the return of military site by Spanish forces, the total number of bases returned to their counterparts has clocked seven.

The consistent and firm stance by the Baghdad government, to protect its national domain and not laying down its arms for any dicey remote objectives, has compelled Washington that now looks to slash its troop presence in Iraq.

Frequent and emphatic American invasions of Iraq over the last thirty years have infringed international laws and rolled the eyes of the world, causing global trust in the US to nosedive. A January poll told that Washington’s “Trustworthiness” among the worldwide countries had witnessed a sharpest drop of more than 50% since 2016.

Washington’s emergence as an unreliable state on the global theater and its primitive trait – urging its allies to waive their sovereignty and forfeit freedom to adopt an independent foreign policy – would push not only Baghdad but many of its other partners further away and isolate the US internationally.

The White House claims that it is determined to deepen strategic partnership with Iraq and Iraqi people. But neither Baghdad government nor its folks have historically embraced Washington boot-imprint in the country with gusto.

After the US was driven out in December 2011 by Iraq following a collapsed deal to host thousands of US troops as trainers, Iraqis felt a sense of sovereignty and believed that the Americans had left them in chaos with elephantine power shortage, devastated infrastructure, fading economy and ever-increasing joblessness.

But creation of a cutthroat terrorist group, ISIS, by Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi in the second-largest Iraqi city, Mosul, in September 2014 permitted the US to recoup its military footprint in Iraq. The former US president Barack Obama, who boasted about fulfillment of his troop withdrawal promise in 2011, ordered the redeployment of forces in Baghdad.

Iraqis were once again herded into higher gear of insecurity and economic despair from either side; American salvo and ISIS brutality. Though record levels of oil production in 2018 somewhat helped Baghdad to fix its financial contagion however foreign intervention, internal conflicts and sectarian violence prevented the vantage to metamorphose into an employment and opulence windfall.

While Iraqis deplored the secret Trump’s Christmas trip to the US troops on Ain Al-Asad airbase in December 2018 and dubbed his visit a “blatant” and “flagrant and clear” violation of Iraq’s sovereignty” and “diplomatic norms” – after January incident, hundreds of people rallied in Baghdad and chanted “No, No to America” and “No, No to occupation,” forcing a number of coalition members to move their troops out of Iraq.

And don’t forget that back home in the country, a significant majority of American taxpayers – each of whom has so far subsidized roughly $8,000 out of total $2 trillion in Iraq – have not historically countersigned the Baghdad offensive in 2003.

As Trump sets neo-normal of a much-tottering US leadership and the White House remains unpopular worldwide, the declining trust among young American adults on the federal government and institutions, warns of a baking crisis that could get worse ahead of the 2020 presidential elections.

Donald Trump’s plunging popularity internationally and skydiving approval ratings domestically – could make him more aggressive amid fears of conceding the White House to Joe Biden. Though he has recurrently vowed to end US “endless wars” but the coronavirus-hit economic wounds can pressgang him to pass any controversial orders like before to grab an election win.

At the same time, the hurricane – which stemmed from the violation of Iraq sovereignty – is yet to veg out as a number of US allies, which have arrayed their militaries to Baghdad, keep concerned with protection of their forces. Canada, meanwhile, is also quietly reducing its military muscle in strife-torn Iraq.

If Washington fails to draw a moral equivalence with Baghdad, the impervious Iraqi drift could spread to other regional US allies, hosting American military bases, to revisit the transactional immunity granted to foreign troops. The potential rift would be a terrific opportunity for politically-weakened Trump to intensify his unsavory pomposity and boost his presidential candidacy.

*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared in "The Express Tribune":
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2258142/a-politically-weakened-trump-and-iraq