Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has become a virtual war zone, thanks to the US-led war in Afghanistan that has now engulfed Pakistan’s tribal areas as well. On November 18, two American missiles struck the village of Janikhel near Bannu, a settled area, killing several people.
By the time many readers see this issue of Crescent International, the US presidential elections will have taken place and the results known. Failing some drastic turnaround in the last days of campaigning (after Crescent goes to press), Barack Obama is likely to be confirmed as the US’s first black president, in what is already being widely anticipated as a total and deliberate repudiation of the legacy of the presidency of George W. Bush.
After months of debate and negotiation, punctuated by periodic reports of progress and agreement on various final drafts, the talks between the US and the Iraqi government on a new Status of Forces Agreement (SoFA) appear no closer to a conclusion than ever before.
When US and Iraqi officials said on August 25 that they had agreed a text for the long-awaited treaty covering a full withdrawal of US troops by 2011, it should have been a major political story. The fact that it wasn’t reflects certain political realities that make the treaty virtually worthless.
Speculation abounds about why, after years of threatening to attack Iran, the US suddenly decided to send William J. Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs, the third-highest-ranking US state department official, to Geneva to attend a meeting with Iran over its nuclear program.
Suspicions that Pakistan is being set up for a major US military operation, probably in the tribal areas in the north-west of the country, have intensified in recent weeks, given added credibility by the endorsement of two retired Pakistani generals known for their keen observation of events in the region.
The self-inflicted wounds on American imperialism and Israeli zionism in Iraq and Afghanistan are easily seen. The public memory is blank to the commander-in-chief who claimed the “end of major combat operations” just a few months after initiating the war against Iraq in March 2003.
After months of wishing away young anti-American Shi’a alim Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr, Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki is trying to marginalize the Sadrist Current (al-Tayyar al-Sadri) by military means. But the Iraqi military offensive against the Sadrists, which was supposed to demonstrate the power of the central government, has actually laid bare its weaknesses and highlighted the political weight of Sadr’s movement. Operation Cavalry Charge (Sawlat al-Fursan), which began on March 25 in Basra and set off clashes with Mahdi Army fighters in several cities throughout southern Iraq and in the Baghdad itself, has also underlined the growing influence of Iran in post-Saddam Iraq.
Five years and still sinking. That is what may well best describe the overall status in the world of its “sole superpower” as it careens from one war-euphemism to another. The United States of America, the inheritor of twentieth-century superpower rivalry, has been scrambling propaganda flares to distract attention from its downward movement ever since it invaded Iraq.
In 2003 the US invaded Iraq on the basis of a fabricated threat of “weapons of mass destruction” (WMDs), backed up by the dubious misinterpretation of intelligence materials. Last year, the US’s military intelligence community effectively vetoed a White House and administration plan to attack Iran using similarly dubious claims about its nuclear program.
Getting on the wrong side of the US involves great risks, but being its friend is no less dangerous. No country proves this better than Pakistan. Since its creation, successive Pakistani regimes have attempted to cultivate close links with Washington. The result has been an unmitigated disaster: today Pakistan is on the verge of disintegration, thanks to the stifling embrace of the US, especially since 9/11, and to Washington’s deliberate attempts to undermine the country.
When US president George W. Bush claimed last month that Iraq had been a victory for the US, hollow laughter echoed around the world. In this article, KHALIL FADL considers the real legacy of the Iraqwar, five years after the toppling of Saddam Hussein.
As NATO heads of state converge on Bucharest, the Romanian capital, in the first week of April, the question uppermost on everyone's mind will be the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. Despite the presence of more than 50,000 NATO troops, the security situation has worsened and the insurgency has escalated.
On March 3, there was further evidence of the US's involvement in Ethiopia's occupation of Somalia, when a Tomahawk missile fired from a US submarine hit the town of Dobley in southern Somalia, five miles from the border with Kenya, destroying at least one house and injuring six people.
The US and its allies are not only losing the war in Afghanistan, but their military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), is also on the verge of unravelling as a result of this failure. Several Western officials, including US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, defence secretary Robert Gates, British foreign secretary David Miliband and Lord Paddy Ashdown, a British peer, have in recent days given dire warnings about NATO’s impending collapse.
With their zeal, courage and discipline, Hizbullah's intrepid fighters stood off Israel's military juggernaut in the hilly, forested landscape of southernLebanon. Ensconced in villages and towns throughout southern Lebanon, Hizbullah's fighters weathered 33 days of intense Israeli air-strikes and a series of tank-led ground incursions, and emerged victorious.
Hizbullah's stunning victory over Israel has boosted many people's morale, especially Muslims who are struggling for peace and justice all over the world. By defeating the most powerful military machine in the Middle East, Hizbullah has not only demolished the myth of Israel's invincibility but also shaken the Arab potentates in their huge palaces to their boots.
Hizbullah has won a stunning victory over the Israelis in southern Lebanon. That is a reality recognised by virtually everyone around the world, despite the efforts of the Israelis and their supporters in the West to pretend otherwise.
The international arms trade is one of the largest and most profitable in the world, with developing countries spending vast amounts on Western arms. ABDAR RAHMAN KOYA discusses how the West abuses its power in this unequal and exploitative relationship.
As international pressure on Sudan to admit UN peacekeepers in Darfur appeared to flounder by mid-August, the US and Britain – the two main powers behind the scheme intensified their effort to break the resolve of president Omar Hassan al-Bashir to resist their ill-disguised plot to prepare for the eventual separation of the Western region from the rest of Sudan.
