A Seismic Jolt That Most Won't Even Notice

Just consider it the 21st century version of the "Great Game,"  the superpower struggle to wrest control of South Asia.  While it used to be a contest between Russia and Britain, today the players are Washington and Beijing.  The latest round goes to China and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which seems to be evolving into something akin to our side's NATO.

India and Pakistan have began accession to a regional security group led by China and Russia after two days of summits which Russian President Vladimir Putin held up as evidence Moscow is not isolated in the world.

The Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, meeting in the Russian city of Ufa on Friday, a day after the BRICS emerging economies held a summit there, said the invitation to the two Asian nations showed a "multipolar" world was now emerging.

Those words will have pleased Mr Putin, who says the United States has an outdated vision of a "uni-polar" world dominated by Washington and wants to show Russia has not been weakened by Western sanctions over its role in the Ukraine crisis.

The potential ramifications of this are as fascinating as they are worrying.  China is acquiring a land bridge that connects it via Pakistan to Iran and, from Iran, to Iraq.  Iran, at the moment, could really use a powerful benefactor.  Two would be even better.  Look at the map above.  Go from Iran to Pakistan, India and China, then on to Russia and south to the Caspian and the "Stans."  Now do you see what they're locking up?

Then look at the neighbouring waters.  China is already muscling into control of the South China Sea. With India and Pakistan aboard, that could spread to the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and, if Iran runs for cover, the Persian Gulf.

Next up, take a look at what this new geopolitical reality would mean to Southeast Asia - Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Burma, Bangladesh and Nepal. They're sort of sewn up.  

Then consider what this means in the context of the American position in the arc extending from Japan to Saudi Arabia, an area the US has been struggling to dominate.  This is not good news for Washington although it's not much of a surprise either.  This deal has been in the works for a couple of years.

One other thing.  If I were the Saudis or Israel, I'd be shitting bricks at the prospect of Iran backed by the muscle of Moscow and Beijing and, worse still, the "other side" being able to manipulate oil markets through control of the reserves of Iraq, Iran and the Caspian Basin.

My, my, my.  It's hard to say how much of this is America's own doing from marching NATO to Russia's doorstep to trying to contain China, primarily from contesting Chinese domination of the South China Sea, trying to recruit India to leave China's sea lane access to the Middle East vulnerable in the Indian Ocean and aligning the nations of the Asia Pacific toward Washington and away from Beijing.  None of those gambits seems particularly bright right now.

Don't Buy That New Atlas Just Yet

The way things are going today's Atlas might be out of date before you know it, at least from the Middle East to the Caucasus.

Georgia seems about to look a lot lighter with the loss of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as "independent" republics under Russian protection.

Oh yeah, then there's the Crimea. Maybe you haven't read about this one but there's a move afoot by the Russian-leaning Crimean peninsula to say "no" to a Ukraine enlisted in NATO. That would, of course, leave Sevastapol, whose port is under lease to the Russian navy until 2017,under Russian control and eliminate any ideas of a viable Western presence in the Black Sea.

But wait, there's more.

Afghanistan, as we know from our Furious Leader's recent tacit admission of failure, remains very much in play. It's not just the Taliban any more. Other tribes are beginning to turn on Kabul as well. We've long since gone from "liberator" to "occupier" in the minds of the locals and, as Petraeus himself noted in his counterinsurgency field manual, once you lose your moral legitimacy in a guerrilla war, you've lost the war. Shit, oh dear!

It wasn't supposed to be this way. It was supposed to be a strong American military presence in Iraq and a strong American military presence in Afghanistan with Iran caught right in the middle. Like all half-assed plans, this one doesn't seem to have worked out as hoped.

You see there's Pakistan messing up the gears. Ah Pakistan, a classic example of a Western attempt to hobble together disparate tribes into a modern country. Ouch! Think I'm kidding? Look up the history behind the country's name.

Pakistan is somewhat less than the Western ideal of a stable, nuclear power. But we cannot sort out Afghanistan until we overcome the refusal of the Pakistanis to do our bidding in the untamed tribal homelands. Here's where we begin to run out of options.

One of these is to try to pursue al Qaeda and the Taliban into the agencies, particularly Waziristan, as US special forces have done a couple of times recently. It sounds like a plan except it infuriates the Pakistani people and turns them against us. That's why their military has issued orders to fire upon Western forces who show up inside Pakistan.

Maybe we should just wipe out the Pakistan military. Trouble is it's too large and far too well trained to be taken lightly. It's not at all a pushover outfit like Saddam's army was in 2003. And then there's that business about Pakistan's nukes. Add to that the inconvenient fact that America's ground forces have been all but trashed by the protracted nonsense in Iraq and you've got a problem, but that's just the start.

Pakistan, if pushed too hard, could jump into the other camp. I'm talking about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization or SCO, the ascendant East's equivalent of NATO for the 21st Century. Guess who else is trying to get under the SCO's skirts? You're right - Iran. Best get that map out again.

Think of these numbers. Kabul to Islamabad - 374 km. Kabul to Tehran - 1614 km. Kabul to Moscow - 2,095 km. Kabul to Beijing - 4,183 km. Kabul to Washington - 11, 134 km. Get the picture?

Paskistan already has observer status at the SCO. So does Iran. That's sort of like the touchy-feely deal Washington is forcing NATO into with Georgia and Ukraine. Is this beginning to sound blurry? It is.

Back to the map. Take a look at Afghanistan. Now imagine it isolated, surrounded on all sides by decidedly anti-Western Iran, Kazakhstan and Pakistan under the protection of Russia and China. Do you begin to see the picture? Hell, all China would have to do is to announce it would refuse to buy any more American debt. It doesn't have to raise a gun barrel to inflict crippling damage on the West. We can hardly grouse about it, we put that little weapon in their hands.

For more than two centuries Asians and South Asians have borne the yoke of Western domination. If you were in that situation, how would you feel about that?

Sorry, folks, but I think we may must have screwed the pooch this time. The Atlas, the one we created, may be about the change.

Are We Getting Squeezed Out of Afghanistan?

The United States and NATO have committed a fundamental blunder that will likely doom the mission to Afghanistan. Put simply, the high water mark was achieved in 2001 when the Taliban regime was driven from power. It's been steadily downhill since then but few have noticed.

Have you even heard of the United National Front? It's a new political movement whose ranks include people like this: former Commerce Minister Sayed Mustafa Kazimi, former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, speaker of the lower house Younus Qanuni, Minister for Energy and Water Ismail Khan, communist-era Minister (Sayed) Mohammad Gulabzoy, and military aide to President Hamid Karzai Rashid Dostum. Former communist party leader turned MP Noor-ul-Haq Ulumi was added to the list along with First Vice President Zia Mas’ud, former Afghan Defense Minister Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim and Mustafa Zahir, the grandson of Afghanistan’s former king.

The UNF is a warlord's paradise and is rising up to form a shadow government to that of Hamid Karzai. Most of its membership was formerly known - by us at least - as the Northern Alliance, our onetime allies in driving out the Taliban. So long as these two sides were at each others' throats that arrangement worked for us. But that was then, this is now. From Afgha.com:

"A number of of these individuals formerly served together in the disastrous government of the early 1990’s, committed grave war atrocities against civilians and have all fought each other at least once. When regional expert Syed Saleem Shahzad was asked whether this unsavory rogue’s gallery poses a security threat to the current administration he answered, “Of course it is. There are old traditions in Afghan society to switch sides and sometimes the alliances are very odd. One should recall that Jamiat-e-Islami Afghanistan (Rabbani) and Massoud were once ally of the Taliban against Hekmetyar when the Taliban movement emerged.” Most of the core members had numerous chances to redeem themselves, reform and fulfill promises and failed each time; giving observers and analysts no choice but to doubt the sincerity of this new alliance."

The UNF is now negotiating with the Taliban. From Asia Times Online:

"...former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani and the top NA commander from Panjshir, Mohammed Qasim Fahim (who also holds the position currently as a security advisor to President Hamid Karzai) have been meeting Taliban and other opposition groups (presumably, the Hezb-i-Islami led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar) during recent months for national reconciliation. ...these meetings have involved "important people" from the Taliban.

Indeed, Fahim (who was the chief of intelligence under the late Ahmad Shah Massoud) and Rabbani (who belonged to the original "Peshawar Seven" - mujahideen leaders based in Pakistan in the 1980s) would have old links with Hekmatyar and top Taliban leaders like Jalaluddin Haqqani. Rabbani told AP that the six-year war must be resolved through talks.

"We in the National Front and I myself believe the solution for the political process in Afghanistan will happen through negotiations," he said. Rabbani added that the opposition leaders would soon discuss and possibly select a formal negotiating team for holding talks with the Taliban. He found fault with Karzai for not pursuing dialogue with the Taliban. "I told Karzai that when a person starts something, he should complete it. On the issue of negotiations, it is not right to take one step forward and then one step back. This work should be continued in a very organized way."

One key demand of the National Front is a new constitution providing for elected provincial governors which is widely seen as a vehicle for decentralizing power and restoring the rule and influence of Afghanistan's warlords. That would even further undermine the country's already wobbly national institutions including the police and army.

Here's another thing to consider. If the National Front and the Taliban strike a deal, Karzai is the odd man out and our 10-year lease on Afghanistan's civil war is effectively over, a lost cause. I suppose we could declare victory and leave but that victory would have to be framed by other interests at play. These interests include China, Russia, the other "stans" and Iran.

Our supposed ally, Pervez Musharraf, is now eager for another alliance to get involved in Afghanistan, the SCO or Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The SCO comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as full members and Iran and Pakistan as "observers". Musharraf gave his SCO endorsement while in Beijing and it's known that Pakistan is seeking full membership in the alliance.

Every member of SCO has a direct interest in Afghanistan. China wants a pipeline across Afghanistan to access Iran's natural gas. Iran and Russia are in talks aimed at co-ordinating their natural gas resources. Iran is looking for membership in the SCO. China has already tied up Afghanistan's huge copper fields in the north and is building a railway to access the ore. Afghanistan's United Front has garnered the support of key SCO states.

Step by step, NATO, the US and Karzai are being marginalized, shoved to the sidelines.

NATO's half-hearted committment to Afghanistan at the recent Bucharest summit has created an apparent power vacuum which the SCO and others are looking to fill. Karzai's and NATO's inability to crush the Taliban has left the National Front willing to cut a power-sharing deal with the insurgency.

We botched this from the outset. Nobody bothered to learn the history of this place. If they had, they would have known that we didn't have seven years much less ten to achieve what we wanted in Afghanistan. When Bush decided to go play in the sandbox of Iraq, he pretty much wrote the final scene for Afghanistan.

We're still there swatting away at an insurgency to defend what we make ourselves believe is a viable, central government in Kabul, a government that is actually virtually terminal. We don't have a Plan "B" but others do.