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By July-August 2001, it
was clear that something dramatic was about
to happen. Pepe Escobar, our "Roving
Eye", was
traveling in Afghanistan and the tribal areas
of Pakistan. The rumor was that US forces
were about to use Pakistan to launch a raid
into Afghanistan. Escobar's article, published
by Asia Times Online on August 30, 2001, was
headlined Get
Osama! Now! Or else ... Our Karachi correspondent,
Syed Saleem Shazad, was meanwhile filing articles
like Osama
bin Laden: The thorn in Pakistan's flesh
(August 22) ...
October 10-September 10,
2002
The price of Russian
support
 By cutting business
deals with Iran, Iraq, North Korea and other
such states on the US blacklist, Russia is
signaling to the West that its post-September 11
policy of backing Washington is neither
irreversible nor free of charge. (Oct 10,
'02)
China's Iraq stance pleases US - for
now
Wielding
veto power on the United Nations Security
Council and traditionally an opponent of US
"hegemonism", China has so far demonstrated
surprising flexibility on the issue of military
action against Iraq. But China's reliance on
Iraqi oil and its long-standing distrust of the
United States could yet tip the scales.
(Oct 9,
'02)
COMMENTARY
Smoke on the
water
In the stew of conspiracy that is the
Internet these days, the explosion of a French
supertanker off the coast of Yemen has been
attributed to any of a number of terrorist
groups - assuming that it was even a terror
attack. At which point perception and reality
become frustratingly confusing. - Paul
Belden (Oct 9, '02)
Tanker blast: Experts cry 'Osama!'
...
The
blast that tore a hole in the French supertanker
Limburg - an explosion in which some experts
discern the handwriting of Osama bin Laden -
happened to share a news cycle with an audiotape
purporting to be of the man himself calling on
"the youth of Islam [to] target key sectors of
your economy". Coincidence? Or not. (Oct 8,
'02)
... as the Jackal's eyes
gleam
As the
French counter-intelligence agency DST begins
its investigation into the Limburg explosion,
suspicions are rising that the French themselves
(who also lost nine submarine experts in a
Karachi hotel bombing in May) may have become
targets of the remnant of a network led by one
Ilich Ramirez Sanchez - aka Carlos the Jackal -
who now sits in a cell - in France - perhaps
smiling. - B Raman (Oct 8,
'02)
US report blasts religious
intolerance
The State Department has accused several
Asian states, in particular those with
totalitarian governments or predominantly Muslim
populations, of denying religious freedom to
their citizens and discriminating against
religious minorities. A US Muslim group has
advised America to have a look in the mirror.
(Oct 8,
'02)
Indonesia: Defending Islam against
itself
The
pro-Suharto radical FPI group claims to be
fighting for Islam, but the great majority of
Indonesians and mainstream Muslim organizations
see it for what it is: a gang of thugs and
vandals who terrorize the public and drive away
business and tourists. Finally, after two years
of mayhem, come signs the "Defenders of Islam"
will be brought to account. - Bill
Guerin
(Oct 8,
'02)
US-India ties: An adept adaptation
The US's embrace of Pakistan as
its key South Asian "ally" in the war on terror
rankles in India (which thought itself much
better cast in the role). Still, New Delhi has
lost no time in extracting what advantage it can
- to wit, Finance Minister Jaswant Singh's
recent adroit appropriation of the language of
"preemption" for India's own war on
Islamabad-sanctioned terror. - Ramtanu
Maitra (Oct 7,
'02)
Terror
stalks India's Silicon
City
World-renowned as India's
information technology capital, Bangalore is
emerging as a haven for terrorists and
underworld fugitives - with potentially
disastrous consequences. - Sudha
Ramachandran (Oct 4, '02)
Iraq: Use of force is
unavoidable
With the US Congress's authorization
forthcoming in the next few days, President
George W Bush has a free hand, and all the
justification he needs, to launch military
action against the regime of Saddam Hussein -
unilaterally if needs be. - Marc Erikson (Oct 4, '02)
 The House resolution: Full
text
Congress falls into
line
COMMENTARY
The
militarization of American foreign
policy
If a majority of a
state's citizens can be empowered to determine
its policies, as in any democracy, perhaps a
majority of the world's states should be
empowered to determine global policies. The US,
however, has made its overriding objective
the creation of a system in which its will goes
unchallenged. - Ahmad Faruqui (Oct 3, '02)
COMMENTARY
Like lambs to the slaughter of
Iraq
While
the multilateralist Europeans and Asians for the
most part sit quietly by, American
unilateralists and superhawks push on with their
agenda of regime change. The most worrying
question, though, is whether or not they will be
content to stop with Iraq. - Ehsan Ahrari
(Oct 2,
'02)
Preemption meets the map of
Asia
Preemption, the cornerstone of the Bush
administration's new National Security Strategy,
will require the ability to project force in the
form of air power. But that ability is severely
limited throughout much of Asia, where distances
are great and modern airfields few. -
David Isenberg (Oct 2, '02)
OIL AND
WAR
Part 2: Crude assumptions
If the US plays its cards right, it could
be on its way to a strategic grand slam, with
Americans running the show in Iraq, and
Americans running the show in Saudi Arabia. That
would be a strong hand - except for the many
jokers in the pack, headed by Russia. -
Dinkar Ayilavarapu (Oct 1,
'02)
Economic woes threaten Saudi
stability
Saudi Arabia is
crippled with 33% unemployment and a
faltering economy. Such factors heighten
the likelihood of serious social
instability, already a threat if the country
becomes engaged in any US war on Iraq. - Hooman Peimani (Oct 1,
'02)
COMMENTARY
India: Time to
dispense with illusions
In the
context of the United States' burgeoning
relations with Central Asian nations, Washington
is going to depend on Islamabad and the
Pakistani army - and not on India, despite what
New Delhi might believe to the contrary. - Ramtanu Maitra
(Oct 1, '02)
Human rights
crackdowns overstated
After the
September 11 terror attacks, human rights
organizations feared that the US-led war on
terrorism would lead widespread suppression of
dissidents. This has not been the case, as human
rights crackdowns in Asia under the guise of
counter-terrorism have been overstated. - Alan Boyd (Oct 1,
'02)
OIL AND
WAR
Part 1: OPEC in the line of
fire
 The US's
thinly-disguised strategy to get Iraq's oil into
friendly hands, and in the process deal a
crippling blow to the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries, has many pitfalls,
including strengthening the hands of non-OPEC
members. - Dinkar
Ayilavarapu (Sep 30, '02)
 OPEC prices break
through ceiling
Iraq: Speed is of the
essence
If
past US occupations of the Philippines, Korea,
Vietnam and, more recently, Afghanistan offer
any useful lesson, it is that Washington likely
has only one good option in a post-Saddam Iraq -
get in and out as quickly as possible. -
David Isenberg (Sep 30,
'02)
SATIRE
The case for regime
change
Faced with a defiant
challenge from a rogue regime that subjects
political opponents and ethnic minorities to
arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, that violates
the most basic civil rights of its
citizens, and ignores the Geneva
Conventions on the humane treatment of prisoners
of war, the United Nations must face up to its
responsibilities. - Ted Rall
(Sep 30,
'02)
After Saddam: Fledgling states, oceans of
oil
When the
US wins its war against Iraq, which has little
to do with Iraq and a lot to do with Saudi
Arabia and the oil reserves of the Persian Gulf,
there will come the business of controlling the
brave new world. One major key is to stem Arab
resentment by settling the Palestinian question,
but it will be more complicated than that.
- Francesco Sisci (Sep 27,
'02)
Bush shoots
his Weapon of Mass
Democracy
The latest rationale
offered by the Bush administration for ousting
Saddam Hussein - that it would result in a
flourishing of democracy in Iraq - is hypocrisy
in the extreme, given the contempt with which
many in Washington hold Arab and Islamic
societies. (Sep 27,
'02)
THE
ROVING EYE
A resolution of question
With Tony Blair failing to produce a
smoking gun against Saddam Hussein, attention
now turns to the US-proposed UN Security Council
resolution against Iraq. Like Blair's report, it
is likely to be ambiguous at best, leaving the
US sufficient scope to exercise its own
resolution and oust Saddam. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 26, '02)
Blair
fetches the stick for Bush to beat
Iraq
The British dossier on
Iraqi arms is less an intelligence assessment
than a political football. Offering little in
the way of hard data, it instead seeks to shift
the burden of proving the absence of weapons of
mass destruction in Iraq onto Saddam Hussein.
Meanwhile, the manager of the Indian firm named
as a supplier of banned rocket propellant to
Iraq denies the allegations, insisting "we don't
make chemicals". (Sep
25, '02)
Humble no more
...
George
W Bush's newly-released National Security
Strategy commits the United States to a
strike-first-and-fast doctrine in a "battle
for the future of the Muslim world". It is a far
cry from Bush's pre-election
statement that the US must have a "humble"
foreign policy. (Sep
24, '02)
Deterrence
be
damned
By
unequivocally consigning the doctrine of
deterrence to the rubbish bin of
history, the Bush administration is sending
a clear message to the US's foes - and
also likely strengthening, rather than
weakening, their resolve. - Ehsan Ahrari (Sep 24, '02)
Iran
and Kuwait close ranks
Kuwait
and Iran deny that their stepped up diplomatic
exchanges have anything to do with the
possibility of a US strike on Iraq. Nonsense:
the two countries are desperately trying to work
out a strategy to deal with the fast-changing
events in their region. - Hooman Peimani
(Sep 24,
'02)
Iraq may well have
nukes
Ukraine has "lost" up to 200 nuclear
warheads. It has also sold high-tech weapons to
Iraq. Along with many well-documented cases of
theft and smuggling of weapons-grade nuclear
material, and the know-how of Iraqi scientists,
this all adds up to the probability that Iraq
has attained a rudimentary nuclear capability. -
Marc
Erikson (Sep
23, '02)
North
Korea's nuclear capability
US
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week
that North Korea "has nuclear weapons". If
Rumsfeld has evidence for this, he may be the
only one. But he is by no means alone in
recognizing that Pyongyang has the technology
and the nuclear material required to build such
weapons. - David Isenberg (Sep 23,
'02)
COMMENT
US
intelligence failure: Deja
vu
The current Congressional
investigation into the state of the US
intelligence community in the pre- and
post-September 11 environment will most likely
expose glaring deficiencies. But if these
problems are addressed as shoddily as previous
intelligence lapses were, expect more bungling.
- B Raman (Sep
23, '02)
United
they must stand, and fight
The
US needs a new "strategic quartet" if it is to
win the war against terrorism, writes American
analyst Michael P Noonan. The police officer in
New York City, the Special Forces soldier in the
Hindu Kush, the CIA agent and the American
public are all in this one together. (Sep 23,
'02)
Bangladesh: Breeding ground for
terror
From
its base in Bangladesh near the Myanmar border,
the Myanmese separatist group Rohingya
Solidarity Organization has by no means limited
itself to local action. In recent years, its
influence has been felt as far Pakistan,
Afghanistan, Jammu and Kashmir and Malaysia.
(Sep 20,
'02)
Jurassic Park in
Washington
The principled multilateralism that
served the interests of the US - not to mention
the free world - well during the Cold War is
being chased out of town, not by
neo-conservatives, nor even "conservative
realists", but by those whom Nelson Mandela
calls "dinosaurs". - Ehsan
Ahrari (Sep 19, '02)
THE ROVING
EYE
Brave new (Middle Eastern)
world
Part 2: The Iranian
equation
Iran, troubled though it is by deep
political and religious divisions, has its own
views on how best to benefit from US aggression
in the region. But ultimately, its designs will
play second fiddle to what is decided in
Washington to be in the best interests of the
US. - Pepe Escobar (Sep 19, '02)
Bush's backside
UN-covered
Even as
President George W Bush demanded that the United
Nations "act" on Iraq, he knew that the UN can
never act on its own. But that's exactly what
Bush was playing for: UN cover to effect the
"regime change" that is US - not UN - policy.
Will he get it? The answer depends on China,
France and Russia, whose hand has been
strengthened by Saddam Hussein's latest
invitation to weapons inspectors. - Alexander
Casella (Sep 18, '02)
A US-Russian pas de
deux
George W Bush spoke, Saddam Hussein
answered, and the eyes of the world are turned
to the United Nations. Now begins a time of
delicate maneuvering - largely between the US
and Russia - to determine the shape and nature
of the world body's next step.(Sep 18, '02)
THE ROVING EYE
Brave new (Middle Eastern)
world
Part 1: The Saudi
equation
What Venice was to the 15th century, what
Amsterdam was to the 17th - Dubai is to the
21st: the world's definitive cultural and
commercial crossroads between East and West.
Here, in the capital of modern Arab
cosmopolitanism, Pepe Escobar discusses
Arabian politics, Islamic advice columnists, and
the popular local perception of the US as being
transfixed by a vision of Iraq as "a ripe fruit
just waiting to be plucked". (Sep 18, '02)
War on Iraq: Costs and
consequences
In the second of two articles on the
forgotten lessons of the Vietnam War,
Francesco Sisci examines the complexities
of establishing a new balance in the Middle East
after a US-Iraq war. If Washington has a postwar
plan of action, it's not revealing it.
(Sep 18, '02)
THE
ROVING EYE
Enlightened
warlordism
In a land
where distrust runs rampant - of the Karzai
government, of the American presence, of the
bomb-throwing warlords vying for power - a
patriot in Nangarhar province encourages his
countrymen to "put up the guns, pick up the
pens" and get on with the business of rebuilding
the country. The West would do well to heed the
call too. - Pepe
Escobar (Sep 17,
'02)
The war on
terror's neglected
battlefield
The United
States has had laudable military successes in
the past year, and is looking to carry its war
into Iraq. But as it learned - or should have
learned - from the Vietnam War, if the battle
for hearts and minds is lost, military victory
will be empty and fleeting. This is the first of
two articles by Francesco Sisci.
(Sep 17, '02)
After the
rhetoric, the reality
George W
Bush's speech to the United Nations set out the
case for disarming Iraq; now it falls to the
great powers to see this done through collective
action of the United Nations. The stakes are no
less than war and peace, and not just in Iraq -
watching closely from the sidelines are Georgia,
Taiwan and other nations at risk of war. - Ehsan
Ahrari (Sep 17,
'02)
Dealing in
double standards: Bush at the UN
George W Bush's UN speech highlights the
double standards and opportunism in
his administration's efforts to promote
compliance with UN resolutions as the
justification for military action against
Iraq. (Sep 17, '02)
The economic costs of war with
Iraq
"The
preponderance of evidence suggests that if we
start this war we will be endangering our [the
US's] economic health." This is the conclusion
of Miriam Pemberton, of Foreign Policy in Focus,
testifying before the US Congress last
week. (Sep 16, '02)
Terrorism's financial tentacles
hard to sever
The real
frontline in the war on terror is the
labyrinth of financial cells that prop up the
operations of extremist groups. Cut off the
tentacles, declared George W Bush, and the body
will quickly wither away. But a year later, the
body is still evidently well nourished - largely
because of widespread money-laundering in Asia.
- Alan Boyd (Sep 16, '02)
COMMENT
Smoking
al-Qaeda out of
Karachi
Pakistan has
consistently denied that Arab members of
al-Qaeda are sheltering in Karachi. Last week's
shootout and capture of leading figures
manifestly proves the Pakistanis wrong. Further,
writes B Raman, a former head of the
counter-terrorism arm of the Indian Research
& Analysis Wing, the latest incident throws
the spotlight on Karachi's underworld, where
India has some scores to settle. (Sep 16,
'02)
Terror
in the hands of a teenager
This is the story of
Abdullah, a Pakistani barely old enough to grow
a beard, who crossed the border into
Indian-administered Kashmir and helped massacre
28 people in July. Abdullah is just one of many
who ply this cross-border trade in
terror. (Sep 16,
'02)
Russia
runs out of patience with
Georgia
As the US argues at the
UN for war on Iraq, another invasion is brewing
not far away. Russian President Vladimir
Putin has ordered his military to prepare to
strike Georgia - with justification borrowed
from George W Bush. (Sep 13, '02)
US-Russia:
Thawing ice but freezing rain
US
and India: Back to square
one
One year after
enthusiastically embracing the US in its war on
terror, India should have reaped some benefits
from Washington, especially with regard to
Kashmir. This has not happened, much to the
chagrin of New Delhi, which is now seriously
reconsidering its position. - Sultan
Shahin (Sep 13, '02)
Hawks
hit by a rhetorical ricochet
By
suggesting that it may be time to "take the
Saudi out of Arabia", pro-war neo-conservatives
in the US may have been trying to throw a scare
into Crown Prince Abdullah and his rival Prince
Sultan - but the ones really spooked by the
tough-guy rhetoric were names such as Kissinger,
Brzezinski and George Bush Sr.
(Sep 12, '02)
Asian
winners and losers after September
11
All of Asia has seized upon
the opportunity of currying US favor in the war
on terrorism. Some nations - or their rulers -
have apparently improved their situations, and
some have not. Overall, though, their
opportunistic maneuverings have not necessarily
benefited the world, the US, or even themselves.
- Gary LaMoshi (Sep 12,
'02)
THE ROVING
EYE
The
Panjshir Lion lives
 The assassination a
year ago of Ahmad Shah Masoud, mujahideen hero
and the Northern Alliance's Lion of the
Panjshir, at the hands of al-Qaeda suicide
operatives was aimed at eliminating the final
obstacle to complete Taliban control over
Afghanistan. His death, though, and the events
of September 11, led to precisely the opposite
happening. - Pepe
Escobar (Sep 11, '02)
THE ROVING EYE
EXCLUSIVE: The last
battle
Part
2: Special Forces, ordinary
people
With Pepe
Escobar in hot pursuit, US soldiers
scour the remote regions of eastern Kunar
province in Afghanistan looking for
... well, they refuse to say just whom. It
doesn't take much to work out, though, that the
targets of the Americans are members of the
formidable coalition now involved in a jihad to
kick foreign troops out of the
country. (Sep
11,
'02)
THE ROVING
EYE
EXCLUSIVE: The last
battle
Part 1: Exit Osama, enter
Hekmatyar
Roving deep into
Afghanistan, Pepe Escobar encounters
first hand American Special Forces in their
search for Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the catalyst for
the new jihad against foreign troops. The hunt,
though, as Escobar discovers in the first
article of a two-part series, is not a
straightforward one as it involves complex
shifting ethnic alliances peppered with traces
of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and the
Taliban. (Sep 10, '02)
The simmering threat of Indonesian
radicalism
While much of the Islamic world chose to
view the US-led war on terrorism as an attack on
their religion, the world's largest Muslim
country clung to its traditions of moderation
and tolerance. But with America poised to make
war on another Muslim country, and with a
government in Jakarta that has failed to seize
the high ground, the radicals may yet win over
peace-loving Indonesians. - Bill
Guerin (Sep 11, '02)
Under Russian eyes, Central Asia ponders
Iraq
With US troops and aid pouring
into formerly Soviet-bloc Central Asia, the
region is carefully weighing its options
regarding a possible US attack on Iraq. One big
question on every leader's mind: Where does
Moscow stand? - Sergei Blagov
(Sep 11, '02)
Battle is joined: Chicken Hawks v
Ostriches
The
political debate in the US over war with
Iraq is shaping up as a food fight between, on
the one hand, Republicans with loud opinions on
war but no actual experience of its brutal
reality and, on the other, Democrats with
nothing to say on that particular
subject.
Charge on Baghdad, cry the Chicken
Hawks
Baghdad? What? whisper the
ostriches
From
the al-Qaeda puzzle, a picture
emerges
Piece by
piece, the puzzle of al-Qaeda is becoming a
picture of an organization that had foreseen the
possible destruction of its Taliban hosts and
planned for a quiet shift of assets and
personnel to other, more secure nests. Two key
questions remain: "Where are those nests?" and
"Are they hatching a nuclear egg?" -
Syed Saleem Shahzad (Sep 10,
'02)
EDITORIAL
Vulnerable
forever?
Today, one year after
disaster struck from the blue sky, the United
States and the other enemies of terrorism face
an urgent question: what to do about Iraq? Two
things are already clear: heinous acts of terror
must be pre-empted, and Saddam Hussein still has
time to prove he's not part of the
problem. (Sep
10, '02)
The
decline of the American
Century
The 20th century witnessed
the rise of an empire, much like the empires of
the Romans, the Byzantines, the caliphs, the
Ottomans, and the British. At its zenith, it
seemed invincible. Then a ragtag band of
latter-day Assassins struck at the very heart of
its economic, political and military might,
exposing the weakness within. - K
Gajendra Singh (Sep 10, '02)
COMMENTARY
Invading
Iraq, no matter the cost
There
is no doubt that the United States has both the
will and the power to attack Iraq on its own.
But whether this is the prudent, or even
desirable, course of action is another issue
entirely. - Ehsan Ahrari (Sep 10,
'02)
Who will police the world's
policeman?
|
Minds they
are a-changing |
Jan '02 |
Sep
'02 |
The war on terrorism
in Afghanistan
is going
well. |
89% |
65% |
Although President George W
Bush's preference for unilateralism finds
resonance among Americans, according to a new
poll, this should not be read by Washington as
an excuse to go it alone in solving the world's
problems. - Ehsan
Ahrari
(Sep 10,
'02)
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