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Volume 35 Number 1 2014 ISSN 1010-9536 01 Prospects for Attaining A New Height in Bangladesh-Myanmar Relations: Bangladesh Perspective M. Jashim Uddin 23 Emerging Strategic Landscape in the Bay of Bengal and Maritime Capability Building of Bangladesh Md. Jahan Shoieb and Md. Muhibbur Rahman 45 The Iran Nuclear Deal and Geopolitical Realignment Ruksana Kibria 71 Peace Initiatives and Prospect of Peace in Afghanistan Mahbubur Rashid Bhuiyan 91 Overcoming the Rwanda Failure: The Impact of R2P on the Protection of Civilians Saima Ahmed

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A NEW HEIGHT IN BANGLADESH-MYANMAR RELATIONS

Volume 35Number 1

2014

ISSN 1010-9536

01 Prospects for Attaining A New Height in Bangladesh-Myanmar Relations: Bangladesh Perspective

M. Jashim Uddin

23 Emerging Strategic Landscape in the Bay of Bengal and Maritime Capability Building of Bangladesh

Md. Jahan Shoieb and Md. Muhibbur Rahman 45 The Iran Nuclear Deal and Geopolitical Realignment

Ruksana Kibria

71 Peace Initiatives and Prospect of Peace in Afghanistan Mahbubur Rashid Bhuiyan

91 Overcoming the Rwanda Failure: The Impact of R2P on the Protection of Civilians

Saima Ahmed

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VOLUME 35

Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic StudiesDhaka

NUMBER 1 JANUARY 2014

Chief EditorS M Sha�uddin Ahmed

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Assistant Editors M. Jashim Uddin

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TABLE OF CONTENT

VOLUME 35 NUMBER 1 JANUARY 2014

M. Jashim UddinProspects for Attaining A New Height in Bangladesh-Myanmar Relations: Bangladesh Perspective 01 Md. Jahan Shoieb and Md. Muhibbur Rahman Emerging Strategic Landscape in the Bay of Bengal and Maritime Capability Building of Bangladesh 23

Ruksana KibriaThe Iran Nuclear Deal and Geopolitical Realignment 45

Mahbubur Rashid BhuiyanPeace Initiatives and Prospect of Peace in Afghanistan 71

Saima AhmedOvercoming the Rwanda Failure: The Impact of R2P on the Protectionof Civilians 91

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BIISS JOURNAL, VOL. 35, NO. 1, JANUARY 2014: 01-22

M. Jashim Uddin

PROSPECTS FOR ATTAINING A NEW HEIGHT IN BANGLADESH-MYANMAR RELATIONS: BANGLADESH PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Bangladesh and Myanmar share both land and maritime borders, and have age-old commercial and cultural ties. These two close neighbours have unlimited potentials in mutual cooperation in trade, connectivity and people to people contact. Both geostrategic and geoeconomic viewpoints justify the necessity of strong Bangladesh-Myanmar relations. Nevertheless, they have failed to best utilise their proximity and historical ties for economic and strategic gains. Since the establishment of the diplomatic tie in 1972, the relations have not always been smooth due to lack of political will especially from the Myanmar government, mutual misperceptions and suspicions. The Rohingya refugee issue, tensions in border and transnational crimes have been the key impediments to a meaningful bilateral relation. As consequences, many vital bilateral agreements and MoUs are pending. It is a reality that friends or allies may be changed but not neighbours. Therefore, the best interests of these close neighbours lie in exploring potential areas of cooperation and prosper together. This paper identifies several potential areas of mutual cooperation to explore and argues that for attaining a new height in Bangladesh-Myanmar relations, failure in resolving any hard issue such as the refugee issue should not be allowed to leave any negative impact on other prospective areas. Exploring the potential areas and trying to resolve the key disputes through various channels can be done simultaneously. For greater friendship, removing suspicions and opening up minds are imperative for these neighbours.

1. Introduction

Bangladesh and Myanmar are close neighbours sharing both land and maritime boundaries.1 They have traditional commercial and cultural ties for centuries. Myanmar was amongst the first neighbours to recognise Bangladesh on 13 January 1972. Bangladesh also set up its mission in Yangon on 1 April 1972. Many exchanges of high level visits have taken place between Bangladesh and Myanmar since then for promoting mutual relationship.2 It is noteworthy that all the heads of the state/

M. Jashim Uddin, PhD is Senior Research Fellow at Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS), Dhaka. His e-mail address is: [email protected]

© Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS), 2014.1 The two countries share 314.40 kms (207.20 land boundary, 68.20 Naff river and 39.00 kms maritime boundary up to St. Martin) common boundary. Information collected from the East Asia and Pacific Wing, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bangladesh Government on 26 June 2013. 2 President Ne Win was the first Asian Head of State to visit independent Bangladesh in April 1974. He again visited Bangladesh in May 1979 and November 1982. Prime Minister General Khin Nyunt visited Bangladesh in April 2004. Vice Senior General Maung Aye, Vice Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) of Myanmar, paid a state visit to Bangladesh in October 2008. From Bangladesh side, President Ziaur Rahman paid the first state visit to Myanmar in July 1977. Information collected from the Southeast Asian

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government (except the caretaker governments) of Bangladesh visited Myanmar since 1977. In recent past, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina visited Myanmar in December 2011. The return visit of Myanmar President to Bangladesh was due in July 2012.3 The visits of top leaders of the mainstream political parties from Bangladesh indicate their priority for building a stronger relationship with Myanmar.

Despite all these exchanges of high profile visits, and of having unlimited potentials in reciprocal cooperation in trade, connectivity, tourism, people to people contact, the relations have not been always smooth.4 The two countries have failed to best utilise their proximity and historical ties for building a pragmatic relation because of lack of political will especially from the Myanmar government, their mutual suspicions and misperceptions regarding Rohingya refugee issue, tensions in border and transnational crimes. Undoubtedly, the influx of Rohingya refugees is the key dispute that has spill over impact on other issues. Although international organisations provide significant support for the refugees’ food and medicine, Bangladesh, a least developed country, still suffers a heavy burden.5 The crisis having both security and humanitarian concerns has emerged as a dilemma for Bangladesh. The future of both documented and undocumented refugees in Bangladesh remain bleak and uncertain as Myanmar regime is reluctant to take them back and does not fully cooperate for a permanent solution. In contrast, the regime terms ‘Rohingyas’ as ‘Bengalis’. In addition, due to misperceptions and lack of knowledge about each other,6 there exist no interests to know each other which eventually result in almost no connectivity and insignificant trade.

However, the recent political and economic reforms in Myanmar bring new hopes and opportunities for developing better relations between Bangladesh and Myanmar.7 The developed world has already withdrawn their long political and economic sanctions against Myanmar, creating new opportunities for other countries including Bangladesh to explore their potential areas of cooperation with this country, rich in natural resources. This paper argues that there are prospects for vast cooperation between Bangladesh and Myanmar, and both countries can take their relations to a new height for mutual benefit.

Wing, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bangladesh Government on 20 March 2014.3 Information on high profile bilateral visits between Bangladesh and Myanmar, Ibid.4 Zaglul A Chowdhury, Bangladesh’s Relations with India, Myanmar and Nepal: The Impact on Citizens and Development, Dhaka: News Networks, 2003, p. 55.5 Christina Fink, Living Silence in Burma: Surviving Under Military Rule, New York: Zed Books ltd, 2009, p. 253.6 This author views that very few people in Bangladesh know well about the culture, history, politics, economy, society, food habit, names of the cities of Myanmar even though it is an immediate neighbour. Comparatively, the people of Bangladesh know far more about the other neighbouring countries like India, Sri Lanka and China etc. 7 The Myanmar regime has initiated several reforms e.g. permitting greater freedom to assembly, media and cultural activities, releasing hundreds of political prisoners etc. See, Kyaw Yin Hlaing, “Understanding recent political Change in Myanmar”, Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs, Vol. 34, No. 2, 2012, pp. 197-216.

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A NEW HEIGHT IN BANGLADESH-MYANMAR RELATIONS

The objective of this paper is to address the existing key challenges in Bangladesh-Myanmar relations, and explore the potential areas that can take the relations to a new height for a win-win situation. This paper consists of six sections including introduction. Section two briefly focuses on the significance of the relations between Bangladesh and Myanmar. The key challenges between these two close neighbours are addressed in section three. Section four shades light on the scopes for potential areas of cooperation for taking the current relations to a new height. Section five discusses the significance of Track II diplomacy in building confidence between the countries. The final section provides some specific policy recommendations and concluding remarks.

2. Significance of the Relations

Friends or allies may be changed but not neighbours. They are linked by history, culture and geography, and must live and prosper together. Any incident in one country can definitely have spillover impacts on neighbours,8 e.g., the ethnic unrest in Rakhine state and the recent political reforms in Myanmar are having their respective negative and positive impacts on Bangladesh. This paper argues that both geostrategic and geoeconomic perspectives justify the necessity of strong Bangladesh-Myanmar relations.

How significant are these neigbours to each other? It is not an exaggeration to say that as an immediate neighbour Myanmar occupies the second most important position only after India in many ways for Bangladesh.9 For examples, i) Myanmar, the largest country of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of some 678,500 kilometers lies at the juncture of three regions within Asia: East, Southeast, and South Asia. It occupies a critical geostrategic position between the two Asian giants China and India. ii) The country is located in a region, which has experienced tremendous economic growth over the last few decades. Huge reserves of natural resources and its geostrategic location between South and Southeast Asia suggest that it has the potential to be a major Southeast Asian player.10 iii) Myanmar can be the potential gateway for an alternative land route opening towards China and Southeast Asia for Bangladesh, boosting its trade and connectivity. iv) Bangladesh is a food-deficit country. The demand for foodstuffs is steadily growing here to feed its growing population. Moreover, it needs to protect itself against natural disasters. By 2025 its population will be over 200 million. Therefore, as an immediate neighbour, Myanmar can be a prime source of importing food for Bangladesh. Regarding this, K B Ahmed, president of the Bangladesh-Myanmar Chamber of Commerce in Dhaka, said that Myanmar, blessed with huge natural and marine resources is possibly going to be the

8 See, Yunus Ali Sheikh, “Bangladesh-Myanmar Relations: Making the Best of Proximity”, biiss journal, Vol. 19, No. 4, 1998, p. 471.9 Ibid., p. 54.10 Morten B. Pedersen, Emily Rudland and R. J May (eds.), Burma Myanmar: Strong Regime Weak State, London: C. Hurst & Co. Ltd., 2000, p. 241.

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saviour of Bangladesh.11 v) After five decades of isolation, for the current political and economic reforms, Myanmar has now become an attraction for foreign investment.12 Under the country’s new foreign investment rules, the Myanmar government allows 100 per cent foreign ownership on a broad range of business activities including telecommunications, energy, services, infrastructure projects, agriculture, hospitality and non-food manufacturing. A report by the McKinsey Global Institute estimated that Myanmar could attract as much as US$100 billion in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) over the next two decades.13 Certainly the changing environment in Myanmar brings opportunities for Bangladeshi investors too. vi) Rohingya Refugee crisis and transnational crimes in the Bangladesh-Myanmar border are security concerns for Bangladesh. Thus, cooperation is required from the Myanmar side to resolve or manage these disputes. vii) Due to the frequent killings of Bangladeshi nationals by the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) on Indo-Bangladesh border, Bangladesh earnestly needs a peaceful border with the neighbouring Myanmar.

Conversely, Bangladesh also bears significance to Myanmar. i) Bangladesh can also be a gateway for Myanmar to connect to eastern India and other parts of South Asia. Certainly, bridging Bangladesh will increase Myanmar’s importance to China and ASEAN countries for enhancing connectivity. ii) Chittagong-Kunming connectivity could bring benefit for Myanmar especially earning huge amount of transshipment fees from the countries of the three sub-regions of Asia (East, South and Southeast Asia). iii) With the rise of middle class, Bangladesh can become a potential market for Myanmar.14 iv) Bangladesh has a global reputation for peacekeeping and microcredit activities. Myanmar can receive cooperation from Bangladesh in the respective fields, e.g., Bangladesh can help promote human resource development in the backward areas of Myanmar like Rakhine state, and Myanmar army may receive training from experienced peacekeepers of Bangladesh. v) A peaceful solution of the refugee problem is vital for the growth of Rakhine state in particular and Myanmar in general. Hence, Bangladesh’s cooperation is crucial for Myanmar. vi) Both countries need to cooperate in combating transnational crimes like drugs, arms smuggling and human trafficking.

11 Anbarasan Ethirajan, "Bangladesh bids to boost trade with Burma”, BBC News, 18 December 2012, available at http://www.bbc.com/news/business-20675228, accessed on 15 February 2014.12 The list of companies going into Myanmar so far includes Thai corporations such as PTT Exploration and Production; Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding; and Hemaraj Land and Development. Japan’s Toyota and Honda have expressed an interest in locating a production base in Myanmar. Mitsubishi, Mitsui and Sumitomo, all from Japan, along with Malaysia’s Petronas, American conglomerate General Electric, Danish shipping line Maersk and Indian group Jubilant Energy are also planning to invest. Ford Motor Company recently became the first American automaker to launch operations in Myanmar with the opening of a new showroom and service centre in Yangon. Ford entered Myanmar market through a partnership with Capital Automotive, a subsidiary of one of Myanmar’s largest companies. See, Karl Wilson, “Asia Weekly: Myanmar poised for FDI take off”, China Daily Asia, 04 October, available at http://www.chinadailyasia.com/business/2013-10/04/content_15091101.html, accessed on 10 February 2014.13 Ibid.14 Ashfaqur Rahman, “Bangladesh-Myanmar Relations: The Economic Dimension”, Centre for Foreign Affairs Studies (CFAS), available at http://www.muslimpopulation.com/pdf/Bangladesh_myanmar_relation.pdf, accessed on 10 January 2014.

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A NEW HEIGHT IN BANGLADESH-MYANMAR RELATIONS

At this point, it can be claimed that these two immediate neighbours have substantial mutual geoeconomic and geostrategic interests for building a robust relation benefitting not only themselves but also the other countries of the regions. It is believed that if further research is done for exploring mutual interests and benefits, more areas of cooperation can be identified. The policy makers of both countries should consider these issues of mutual significance while making their policies.

3. Bangladesh-Myanmar Relations: Addressing Key Challenges

Despite having proximity and the above mentioned mutual geostrategic and geoeconomic interests, due to negative impacts of some disputes, the relations did not grow strong for a win-win situation. The key challenges in Bangladesh-Myanmar relations are i) Rohingya refugee crisis, ii) tension in Bangladesh-Myanmar border, iii) transnational crimes, iv) lack of connectivity, and v) insignificant trade. These challenges are discussed more elaborately in the following subsections.

3.1 Rohingya Refugee Crisis

Rohingya refugee crisis has emerged as the key challenge in Bangladesh-Myanmar relations and continues to be an unmanageable bar in establishing any sustainable relations between these two nations.15 Rohingyas are basically ethno-linguistic and religious minority Muslims belonging to no state since the Myanmar government denied their very identity by the controversial Citizenship act of 1982 in the constitution of Myanmar.16 Going back to history, after independence in 1948, the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar claimed a separate ethnic identity and were recognised by the newly independent government. In the 1950s, Rohiongyas had representation in parliament and held high level government posts. After the 1962 military takeover, however, they were systematically denied their civil, political, economic and social rights, which were ultimately legalised through the controversial Citizenship act.17 Why this discrimination? The Myanmar government views Rohingyas as Muslim migrants from neighbouring East Bengal which is now Bangladesh and settled in Myanmar during the British period. The junta governments in Myanmar adopted repressive policies against Rohingyas and treated them as strangers in their own land.

From geoeconomic perspectives, Rakhine (Arakan) state is very important for Myanmar. It has a coastal belt rich with natural resources e.g., petroleum, possibly uranium, iron and coal. The soil of Rakhine is very fertile. The state has a number of rivers rich in fish. It has a coastal water line of 300 miles long. In addition, the state

15 Mahfuzul H Chowdhury and Nasir Uddin, “Bar BetweenBrothers: Rohingya-Issue in Bangladesh-Myanmar Relations”, in Nasir uddin (ed.), To Host or To Hurt: Counter Narrative on Rohingya Refugee Issue in Bangladesh, Dhaka: ICDR, 2012, p. 42. 16 Ibid., p. 35.17 Imtiaz Ahmed (ed.), The Plight of the Stateless Rohingyas: Responses of the State, Society & the International Community, Dhaka: The University Press Limited, 2010. p. 16.

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has military and strategic significance as well. In case of any war or confrontation regarding South Asia, it can serve as a buffer zone.18 Therefore, Myanmar considers this region very importent as well as sensitive, and in turn, continues its persecution of Rohingyas.

Historically, ethnic Burmese political leaders – whether in government or in anti-government organisations – have tended to deny or ignore the diversity of interest, background, language and concerns of the ‘national minorities’. Moreover, Burmese people rarely recognise such denial or intolerance as problematic at all. This is evident when the deportation of Rohingya Muslims going on at the Bangladesh border received widespread support in Myanmar.19 In a recent census in March 2014 (the first since 1983) in Rakhine state, it was decided that Arakani Muslims would be identified as “Rohingyas”, but later the Myanmar authority decided that these people would be termed as “Bengalis”. Eventually, Rohingyas could not participate in the census.20 Considering these circumstances, it can be argued that the key driving forces behind the exodus of the Rohingyas include denial of citizenship rights, denial of religious freedom, denial of free movement, sexual harassment, forced labour and relocation, arbitrary taxation, expulsion and other form of human rights abuse.21

Making relations with Myanmar has been challenging for neighbouring countries including Bangladesh.22 Regarding the Rohingya issue, Christina Fink said, “Bangladesh has been extremely frustrating by the Burmese regime’s refusal to take back all the Rohingya refugees and its continued harsh policies towards the Rohingya in Burma which, cause yet more Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh.”23 Another scholar opines that the Rohingya issue remains one of the main challenges for cooperation between Bangladesh and Myanmar. The stability and security between the two bordering cities of Bangladesh and Myanmar, namely Teknaf and Maungdaw between the Naf River, is affected by the influx of Rohingyas from Myanmar to Bangladesh. The security in the border areas is prerequisite for enhancing trade and connectivity between the countries. Since 1978, the Rohingya issue has been hampering cooperation.24

After the independence, Rohingyas started to come to Bangladesh again since late 1970s. In the early 1990s, Bangladesh witnessed a wave of a few hundred thousand

18 Ibid., pp. 21-22. Also, see, Brother Jarlath D’Souze, Rohingyas: A Case for Human Rights Violation, Dhaka: SHETU, 1992, p. 24.19 Morten B. Pedersen, Emily Rudland and R. J May (eds.), op. cit., p. 35.20 “Rohingyas told to Register as Bengalis”, The Daily Star, 31 March 2014.21 Cgris Lewa, ‘IDP’s In Burma’ in C R Abrar and M. P. Lama (eds.), Displacement within Borders: The IDP’s of Bangladesh and Region, Dhaka: RMMRU, 2003, pp. 169-175. Also interviewed with Rohingya refugees living in Kutupalong and makeshipt camps in Ukhia in Cox’s Bazaar district from 12 to 14 March 2014.22 Christina Fink, op.cit., p. 252.23 Ibid. 24 Syeda Naushin Parnini, “Non-Traditional Security and Problems of Rohingya across Bangladesh-Myanmar Borders”, British Journal of Arts and Social Sciences, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2012.

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Rohingyas who fled to Bangladesh due to ethnic conflicts, tension and sectarian violence in the Rakhine state. Currently, Bangladesh hosts 28000 documented and 2-5 hundred thousand undocumented refugees. Although Bangladesh is not a party to 1951 Geneva Convention, she has been receiving the refugees for the last three/four decades mainly on humanitarian ground. However, from a security perspective, these Rohingya refugees in particular the undocumented ones have gradually become a security concern for Bangladesh. The most alarming security concern is the change in demographic/ethnic composition particularly in Teknaf where the number of Rohingyas will be more than the local people in near future.25

Particularly, many unregistered Rohingyas are involved in illegal activities like trafficking and smuggling. A number of Rohingyas are sent to Malaysia through the trafficking network. Rohingyas are also involved in transnational organised crimes like human and drugs trafficking and arms smuggling. It was argued that one of the major consequences of military operations in Rakhine and persistent torture on Rohingyas is the establishment of several dissident groups over the last three decades, and some refugees are involved with these groups.26 However, there is no authentic information of their activities within Bangladesh territory, and the Bangladesh government denies the existence of any insurgent groups of Myanmar in its territory. As a whole, however, Bangladesh is facing challenges to maintain law and order in its South-eastern part due to illegal activities of Rohingyas. By using fake Bangladeshi passport, they are going to various destinations including Malaysia and Middle East and hamper the labour market. Although Bangladesh allowed the refugees many times, but being a small economy it has its limitations. Therefore, recently, when Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh and sought shelter, Bangladesh refused their appeal and pushed them back.27 Based on a field trip to Cox’s Bazaar from 12-15 March, the following table provides a brief overview of the security concerns generated by Rohingyas in Bangladesh.

25 Interviewed with Faiyaz Murshed Kazi, Director, UN Desk, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bangladesh Government on 20 February 2014. 26 See, Imtiaz Ahmed (ed.), op. cit., pp. 70-72.27 Mahfuzul H Chowdhury and Nasir Uddin, op.cit., p. 42.

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Table 1. Brief overview of the security concerns generated by Rohingyas in Bangladesh28

Security Concerns Facts

Demographic Change The high growth rate of Rohingyas (4.3 per cent) caus-ing demographic change particularly in Teknaf. They produce more children to get more rations from the UNHCR and other international organisations in the camps.

Environmental Threats Rohingyas are destroying forests near the camps and other areas wherever they inhabit. They also destroy mountains causing landslides in nearby areas.

Human Trafficking Rohingyas are involved in human trafficking, smug-gling, and abduction etc. There is a trafficking network sending Rohingyas to Malaysia. Their network extends from Dhaka to Chittagong.

Drug Trafficking Rohingyas are involved in drug trafficking. 80 per cent of undocumented Rohingyas are carriers of drugs (yaba). Recently, a Rohingya was caught with 150000 piece yaba. Strong nexus between unregistered Rohingyas and some Myanmar people exists. They use mobile net-works on both sides of the border to conduct the crimes.

Unemployment Rohingyas are occupying local job market. Local wom-en are also vulnerable as they are losing household jobs. 90 per cent rickshaw pullers of Cox’s Bazaar dis-trict are Rohingyas. Even day labourers are losing their jobs as Rohingyas provide cheap labour.

Threat to Tourism Industry Cox’s Bazar is the hub of tourism industry in Bna-gladesh. And security is precondition for promotion of tourism. However, the activities of Rohingyas are threatening the industry.

Deteriorating Law and Order Situation

Rohingyas commit various crimes including profes-sional killing, theft, robbery, etc.

Hampering the Labour Market By using fake Bangladeshi passport, Rohinyas are go-ing to Middle East, Malaysia and other countries, and for their unlawful activities, Bangladesh is losing its image.

Bangladesh has been trying to solve the problem diplomatically. There was a bilateral agreement in 1992 for the safe voluntary returns of Rohingya refugees. Myanmar wants to verify the refugees before taking them back home. Bangladesh proposed to establish a Joint Committee to exclusively deal with repatriation process. The undocumented refugees need to be identified. Bangladesh government is planning to verify the undocumented refugees though it is not an easy task as there is a fear that more influx can occur for the documentation. Bangladesh believes that 28 The information in the table is based on the interviews with various stakeholders including District Commissioner, Sector Commander, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), Additional Superintendant of Police, and other high officials of Cox’s Bazaar district and also local people from 12 to 15 March 2014.

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an amicable solution of the Rohingya issue will not only improve security situations in the border areas, but also open up new avenues of cooperation between the two countries.

3.2 Tensions in Border

Bangladesh and Myanmar share about 275 (including the Naaf river) kilometers of land border.29 Both countries signed a boundary agreement in 1998: “Demarcation of the Land Section of the Boundary North of the Naaf River”. However, they are yet to ratify the agreement. Compared to Bangladesh-India border, Bangladesh-Myanmar border has been peaceful in terms of frequency of border killing of Bangladeshi nationals. Nevertheless, tensions erupted in different times, e.g., in January 2001, the border area became tense and many felt a war-like situation due to the Myanmar authority’s attempt to build a controversial dam on a river near Teknaf and hostile activities of Nasaka force.30 The month-long tension along the border finally almost ended when Yangon agreed to stop the construction of the dam. Another incident sparked tensions in 2009, when Myanmar started fencing 40 kilometers of Bangladesh-Myanmar border. Bangladesh government expressed its reservation on such construction. The Myanmar government assured that the construction would be used only for preventing illicit networks in the border area and it would not affect relations between the two countries. Finally, Bangladesh allowed Myanmar to construct the fence. Sometimes without any valid reason, Myanmar border forces create pressure in the border area, e.g., when in 2012, the verdict on Bangladesh-Myanmar maritime dispute was about to be delivered, the later amassed soldiers along its border with Bangladesh. Tensions ran high in Bangladesh-Myanmar border areas after the news of this deployment.31

When almost every month, hundreds of Rohingyas illegally entering into Bangladesh are arrested by BGB and Coast Guard of Bangladesh and then pushed back,32 the Myanmar perspectives are a concern for Bangladesh. Recently, Khin Saw Wai, a member of parliament from Rakhine state told VOA’s Burmese service that the laxity of Bangladesh-Myanmar border is helping Bangladeshi people to trespass into Myanmar. He said that the existing fence at Myanmar’s western door between Bangladesh and Rakhine state is not enough to stop illegal entry into Myanmar.  Therefore, there would be 15 more security gates at the border.33 Bangladesh opposed to construct

29 Information varies from source to source about the length of the Bangladesh-Myanmar common land border. Some sources claim it is 271 kms and some others claim it is 275 kms. This author with his own calculation found it 275 kms (including the Naaf river).30 Zaglul A Chowdhury, op. cit.31 “Myanmar moves army to Bangladesh border”, Pakistan Defence, available at http://defence.pk/threads/myanmar-moves-army-to-bangladesh-border.165501/, accessed on 20 September 2013.32 In January 2014, 544 Rohingyas were pushed back by BGB while in March the number was 536 up to 14 March (till the date of interview). The difficulty of the terrain makes it almost impossible to guard all the points in Bangladesh- Myanmar Boeder; Rohingyas take advantage of this and cross the border. There is an unprotected border of 42 kms. Interviewed with the Sector Commander, BGB, Cox’s Bazaar, 15 March 2014.33 Khin, Phyu Htway, “Burma Constructs New Border Checkpoints With Bangladesh”, Voice of America, 20

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fences on any of its frontiers in the past, however, has for the first time decided to put up a barbed-wire fence along the Myanmar border to prevent illegal migration of Rohingyas.34

3.3 Transnational Crimes

The porous border between Bangladesh and Myanmar is rapidly becoming a conduit of transnational crimes such as smuggling of arms, drugs and human trafficking. The failure or inability of the Myanmar government to eradicate drug production has had particularly profound consequences for neighbouring countries.35 The Bangladesh-Myanmar border region has been identified by the Bangladesh Department of Narcotics Control as the key point for drugs smuggling.36 There are several factories in the border area inside Myanmar which produce illegal drugs that are being smuggled into Bangladesh. The contraband yaba tablets continue to enter and flood Bangladesh despite different measures to stop them. This trade soared 14 times within a span of only three years. Phensidyl is being produced in India while yaba in Myanmar, which are posing a serious threat to our young generation due to easy availability, transportation advantage and stimulating effect.37 The Rohingyas are recruited as carriers, intermediaries or traffickers. Due to hilly terrain, dissident groups of Rohingyas may take advantage for conducting various transnational crimes.

3.4 Lack of Connectivity

Lack of connectivity is one of the key obstacles to develop a better relation between Bangladesh and Myanmar. In the era of globalisation, when nations are reaping benefit from their relations even though they are far from each other, these two close neighbours do not have even road links or sea links for trade, commerce and people’s movement. Historically these links were there, but have fallen into disuse for decades.38 Chittagong was connected with Arakan state of Myanmar through a road link for ages until early 1960s when it was discontinued. In 2007, the signing of the agreement to develop a direct road link between the two countries was indeed a landmark development: Bangladesh proposed Myanmar to build 25 kilometers road (2 km in Bangladesh and 23 km in Myanmar) at its own cost. The main objective was to construct 2 km long Balukhali-Gundum road within Bangladesh and 23 km long Gundum-Bawlibazar road within Myanmar. The agreement has been pending as Myanmar did not show any interest later. The Bangladesh government is also interested in setting up a railway network between Kunming city in Yunnan province

March 2014, available at http://www.voanews.com/content/burma-constructs-new-border-checkpoints-with-bangladesh/1875708.html, accessed on 21 March 2014.34 “Dhaka to build fence along Myanmar border”, Dhaka Tribune, 11 June 2013.35 Christina Fink, op. cit., p. 253.36 “BGB proposals for Bangladesh-Myanmar deal on security dialogue”, Dhaka Tribune, 06 March 2014. 37 “Inflow of Yaba on the Rise”, The News Today, 21 August 2013.38 Ashfaqur Rahman, op. cit.

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of China and Chittagong of Bangladesh via Myanmar. A 130 km railway track will be laid from Dohazari of Bangladesh to Gundum in Rakhine state of Myanmar via Ramu of Cox’s Bazar. The route would also strengthen connectivity between Bangladesh and Myanmar. In this regard, Mustafizur Rahman, Executive Director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), said that transport (both road and shipping) connectivity with Myanmar is vital for increasing bilateral trade.39 It is imperative that the countries re-establish the road link soon.

3.5 Insignificant Bilateral Trade

Despite being close neigbours, due to the negative impacts of the above problems and lack of interests in each other, bilateral trade has been very insignificant. Trade between Bangladesh and Myanmar reached around US$ 100 million in FY 2012-13.40 That year, Bangladesh’s exports to Myanmar stood worth of US$ 13.67 million and imports US$ 84 million. Compared to FY 2011-12, imports from Myanmar rose about US$ 30 million and exports from Bangladesh rose merely US$ 0.27 million.41 The small slice in Fig. 1 reveals Bangladesh’s export to Myanmar in FY 2012-13 while the bigger portion represents Myanmar’s export to Bangladesh that same year. Therefore, it is clear that balance of trade is heavily in favour of Myanmar42 and export from Bangladesh needs to be increased. As a whole, the trade figure is insignificant compared to Bangladesh’s trade with other neighbouring countries.

Even though trade volumes are low, the potential is very high. At present, although Myanmar enjoys the trade in their favour as Bangladesh imports many food items from that country, the trade gap is expected to be narrowed down as Myanmar has started to import some new items from Bangladesh since early 2012, following the visit of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to Myanmar in late 2011.43 The key items imported from Myanmar are rice, fish, timber, pickles etc. Conversely, exports to Myanmar include cement, medicine, light engineering machinery, biscuit, iron, tin and soft drinks. In the 7th Joint Trade Commission (JTC), both countries were optimistic to raise the trade figure to US$ 500 million.

Cross-border trade receives substantial attention in different countries for confidence building. Such trade can help reduce distrust and misunderstandings between Bangladesh and Myanmar. It can also assist in building harmony among people of both countries living on the borders. Nonetheless, the current cross-border trade between Bangladesh and Myanmar is on the decline. Although there is no updated official statisties available, according to a source, Bangladesh-Myanmar border trade reached US$ 15.336 million in FY 2011-12, but dropped to a meager US$

39 “Road, sea link with Myanmar can ‘help reduce trade gap”, The Financial Express, 09 March 2014.40 See Table 2.41 Ibid.42 See Figure 1 on Trade deficit between Bangladesh and Myanmar in FY 2012-13.43 Bangladesh’s export increased to US$13.45 million in FY 2011-12 from US$ 9 million in FY 2010-11.

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7.250 million in FY 2012-13 as revealed by a spokesperson from the Sittwe border trade centre.44 This was due to a scarcity of fishery products and regional instability. Upgrading the infrastructures of Teknaf land port and building warehouses along the bordering areas are essential. Both countries must engage sincere efforts to use their geographic proximity for boosting cross-border trade.

Table 2: Bilateral Trade between Bangladesh and Myanmar from FY 2005-6 to 2012-13

Financial Year Imports from Myanmar(In millions US$)

Export to Myanmar(In millions US$)

2005-06 66.64 5.192006-07 60.00 6.312007-08 57.85 9.582008-09 66.60 9.172009-10 57.00 10.242010-11 166.9 9.002011-12 65.25 13.452012-13 84.00 13.67

Source: Ministry of Trade and Commerce and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2013, Bangladesh Government. Fig 1. Trade deficit between Bangladesh and Myanmar in FY 2012-1345

Trade De�cit between Bangladesh and Myanmar

2012-13 Bangladesh

2012-13 Myanmar

Source: Ministry of Trade and Commerce and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2013, Bangladesh Government.

44 See, “Myanmar relations with India, Bangladesh, Japan, North Korea, and Europe”, available at http://factsanddetails.com/southeast-asia/Myanmar/sub5_5f/entry-3115.html, accessed on 15 February 2014.45 The small slice of the pie was the volume/portion of Bangladesh’s trade with Myanmar in FY 2012-13.

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A NEW HEIGHT IN BANGLADESH-MYANMAR RELATIONS

3.6 Key Hindrances to Robust Bilateral Relations

The basis of Bangladesh foreign policy is “friendship to all, malice to none”. Based on this policy, Bangladesh has always tried to build a warm relation with Myanmar, a country ruled by Junta for long. Although democratic process started, due to the nature of the regime and suspicion, response from Myanmar was and even now is very slow. As a consequence, a number of vital agreements have not been implemented hindering bilateral cooperation. Some key pending agreements, MoUs and proposals can be mentioned here:

• Ratification of the land boundary agreement signed in 1998

• Meeting of Joint Commission agreed during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit in Myanmar in December 2011

• Agreement signed in 2007 for road connectivity

• MoU between the chambers of commerce of two countries in 2012

• Renewal of cultural agreement expired in 2012

• Proposed security dialogues in 7th Foreign Office Consultation (FOC) in June 2013

It would not be exaggeration to say that understanding the Myanmar authority is a difficult job. Nevertheless, the Bangladesh government and the civil society are eager and relentlessly giving efforts to make the best of proximity with this next door neighbour.46 Some of the key hindrances in Bangladesh-Myanmar relations that are limiting the efficacy of the official diplomacy are discussed below.

I) Lack of political will: The first one is obviously the lack of political will, particularly from the government of Myanmar, to take more robust actions in resolving the bilateral disputes. One big instance is that, due to mostly lack of political will, unresolved border issues are not only resulting into bilateral tensions but also affecting the potential of improving the volume of cross-border trade and investment, hindering inter-connectivity and development cooperation between Bangladesh and Myanmar. Concerning the Rohingya refugee problem, though governments have signed several agreements including an agreement of 1978 and an agreement in April 1992 for the ‘safe voluntary’ return of Rohingya refugees, the issue continues to offset the prospects of cooperation in other areas. A strong political will is necessary to address the sufferings of these people and create conducive environment for greater cooperation. Delay in the ratification of the 1998 agreement is another example of the lack of strong political will. Though the agreement was signed in 1998, Bangladesh and Myanmar are yet to ratify the agreement.

46 Yunus Ali Sheikh, op. cit.

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II) Lack of trust and confidence: Another important hindrance is the lack of mutual trust and confidence between the governments. This is an issue which needs to be addressed through gestures of goodwill and mutual compromise over a number of years. For developing a strong bilateral tie and friendship, trust and mutual confidence is essential. On the other hand, a lingering trust deficit is overshadowing a positive and dialogue mindset and hindering institutional collaboration among pertinent bodies of different ministries of the two countries. Issues of tensions between the border security forces of both countries, reluctance to exchange intelligence and take collective actions to address transnational security issues are some corollaries of trust deficit. One pertinent example is border fencing by Myanmar government. Though it confirmed that fencing is only for preventing illicit networks in the border, but barbed wire fencing 40 km of border suggests lack of mutual trust and confidence.

III) Lack of regular exchanges: A third major hindrance is the lack of regular exchanges and confidence-building measures between the border security forces. Due to the lack of regular interactions and joint ventures, both countries have failed to curb illicit networks in the border areas and effectively deal with other transnational security problems. A study by Saferworld presents an alarming scenario of illicit networks in the border areas and alerts about the security concerns.47 However, in the 7th FOC, Bangladesh proposed a consultation mechanism between the chiefs of the border security forces of both countries. Bangladesh is also emphasising on the necessity of communication and dialogue among the civil administrations of border districts in both countries.

IV) Lack of interest and knowledge about each other: Lack of interest and knowledge among general people including business community of both countries is also obstructing official engagement as well as the potential for trade and investment. Although both countries established Joint Trade Commission in 2003, lifted tariff barriers against 152 products, arranged business meetings several times, trade and investment volume remained unexpectedly low. The lack of mutual understanding of economic and social characteristics, habits and practices have resulted into low level of political, economic and social engagement and low level of exploration of opportunities on both ends.

4. Prospects for Mutual Cooperation in Various Fields

There are potential areas where Bangladesh and Myanmar can and should extend their cooperation for reducing misperception and best utilising their proximity for mutual benefit. Several areas of cooperation are identified in this section that need to be explored by these two close neighbours.

47 Bangladesh Enterprise Institute, Mitra and Associates and Saferworld, “Safety and security in the South-East border area of Bangladesh: A public perceptions survey”, London: Saferworld, February 2013.

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4.1 Energy Cooperation

There are prospects of cooperation in the energy sector through importing gas from Myanmar, as Bangladesh faces energy shortage while Myanmar is rich in it. Applying the buyback policy, a joint venture can be initiated in the border districts of Bangladesh as such by using Myanmar’s gas, Bangladesh can produce urea fertiliser and export to Myanmar for meeting its agricultural needs. Bangladesh has already showed interests for importing gas, but Myanmar has been reluctant as it always says that after meeting domestic needs, if there is any surplus, then it will export. Bangladesh has also shortages of electricity. Myanmar can export hydropower to Bangladesh. In September 2010, it was announced that two countries would sign an MoU to build two dams in Rakhine state. The dams would supply 575 Megawatts (MWs) to Cox’s Bazaar. If Myanmar allows Bangladesh to buy hydroelectricity, it would be helpful for Bangladesh. However, there is no concrete timeframe and advancement for the project. Currently, Myanmar exports these commodities to China and Thailand. If it can export these commodities to those countries, then why not to Bangladesh?

4.2 Cooperation in Promoting Human Resources

Bangladesh can cooperate with Myanmar on microcredit, education and women empowerment. Bangladesh is proud to have two globally reputed microcredit organisations like Grameen Bank and BRAC. Model of Grameen Bank is being adopted by other countries. BRAC, on the other hand, has experience to conduct its activities in many other countries in the world including several African countries and Afghanistan, a war ravaged country. It has already started activities in Myanmar on a small scale. It can play significant role in promoting human resources in remote or backward areas like Rakhine state in Myanmar. Vocational training could be another area, where they can help Myanmar. If the Myanmar government shows interest, the Bangladesh government can proceed in this regard.48

4.3 People to People Exchange

People to people exchange is the key for attaining a new height in Bangladesh-Myanmar relations. It can be done through tourism, student exchange, organising sports events etc. Every year almost 3 million tourists from all over the world visit Myanmar as it has many attractive tourist spots.49 On the other hand, every year,

48 “Informal Track II Dialogue between BIISS and MISIS” held on 22 January at Traders Hotel in Singapore. The Bangladeshi delegation was led by Major General S M Shafiuddin Ahmed, ndu, psc, Director General of BIISS while the Myanmar delegation was led by Ambassador (retd.) Win Lwin. This author participated in the dialogue as one of the members of Bangladeshi delegation. The delegation from MISIS requested the Bangladeshi delegation to help Myanmar promote human resource development particularly in the backward regions of the country.49 Information collected from the Southeast Asian Desk, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bangladesh Government on 25 March 2014.

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about six hundred thousand Bangladeshi tourists visit Thailand and Malaysia, but almost nil to Myanmar. Myanmar can earn huge currency from Bangladeshi tourists by strengthening the relations. Bangladesh also has many attractive places to visit. Both countries have several religious and historic places. Moreover, Bangladesh has substantial number of Buddhists. Shwedagon, Maha Wizaya, Maha Bodhi Ta Htaung etc are some famous Buddhist monasteries in Myanmar. Therefore, tourism in the form of pilgrimage can be arranged for Bangladeshi Buddhists. Such trips can also be arranged for Myanmar’s Buddhists who may wish to visit Golden Temple of Bandarbon, Moinamoti Buddhist Bihar, Ramu etc. Both countries can explore vast opportunities for promotion of tourism. The coastal nearness can be used in this regard. Myanmar’s port city of Sittwe and Bangladeshi port city of Cox’s Bazaar are situated nearby which both nations must focus on encouraging this industry. Both are now trying to open coastal shipping between themselves, for business purposes, however such shipping facilities can be used for tourists too.

Student exchange, on the other hand, can be another way to boost up the idea of people to people contact. A good number of foreign students including Chinese students are coming to study medical science in different medical colleges and universities in Bangladesh. Students from Myanmar can also come to study medical science and engineering in Bangladesh. For boosting student exchange, the Ministry of Health, Bangladesh government, planned in October 2013 to provide financial support/scholarships to five Myanmar students who are interested in studying medical science in Bangladesh.50 Usually, the SAARC countries have this kind of provision to support students of the region. In addition, by organising sports events, summer vacation, this people to people contact can be enhanced.

4.4 Cultural Cooperation including Interfaith Dialogue

The Bangladesh-Myanmar longstanding historical ties provide ample prospect for promoting cultural cooperation. In the past, such relations did exist which are reduced at present. Cultural delegations can visit each other. Exchange of music, drama and art should be helpful not only to know each other more but also increase mutual understanding and remove mutual misperceptions as well as distrust. In some of the famous folk songs in Southern Bangladesh, the name of Rangoon and bringing valuable things from there for loved ones are found. This cultural cooperation can make our tie stronger. Interfaith dialogues, on the other hand, between Muslims and Buddhists can be organised for broadening harmony and mutual respect. It may help reduce the tension in Rakhine state. So far, Bangladesh government is interested in organising such dialogues. Therefore, positive response from Myanmar would be great. MoU on Cultural cooperation between these two countries already expired in 2012 which needs to be renewed immediately.

50 Ibid.

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4.5 Defence Cooperation

Defence cooperation between these two close neighbours is vital. Over the years, armed forces of the two countries have maintained friendly relations. Cooperation exists in the following fields: visits by high defence officials; training of defence personnel; exchange of navy ships’ goodwill visits and arrangement of goodwill visit among military medical institutions, army medical corps etc.51 The consecutive visits by the Chief of Air Staff Air Marshal Muhammad Enamul Bari in January and by the Chief of Bangladesh Army Staff General Iqbal Karim Bhuiyan in February 2014 signify the importance of Bangladesh-Myanmar defence cooperation.

To increase defence cooperation, both armed forces can cooperate at least in two specific areas. Bangladesh is highly experienced and globally reputed in providing training for peace support operations and the country has also been the second largest contributor at UN peace missions. Therefore, Myanmar can be benefitted by sending its personnel to Bangladesh to be trained in those. The Bangladesh Institute of Peace Support Operation Training (BIPSOT) can be the leading institute for providing necessary education to those officials. Another area is that both countries can jointly carry out exercises to combat maritime piracy in the Bay of Bengal. Since they have close friendship and military cooperation with China, they may take technological and logistic support from that country.

4.6 Trilateral/Chittagong to Kunming Connectivity via Myanmar

In addition to Bangladesh China India Myanmar (BCIM) connectivity, trilateral connectivity among Bangladesh, Myanmar and China is imperative for greater cooperation. The Chittagong-Kunming connectivity will bring enormous benefit for these three countries.52 China, Myanmar’s longtime close ally, is keenly interested in this connectivity as it would help increase its export by using the proposed Sonadia seaport in Chittagong. One of the major benefits of this connectivity is the decrease of both-way trading costs. A direct road link would help lessen transportation cost and increase smoother and timely delivery of products in trade. Thus products from Myanmar such as fish, timber, spices will be able to attract more customers in Bangladesh given the low cost and timely services. A major outcome is tax and custom related revenues that Myanmar could avail from the direct road link. The traffic of transportation from Bangladesh to China through Myanmar can provide the country with a huge amount of transit and transshipment fees and other associated revenues. Through this road link, a corridor can be extended up to other ASEAN nations.53

51 Southeast Asian Wing, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, op. cit.52 See, paper presented by M. Jashim Uddin, “Bangladesh-China Relations: The Way Forward”, at a Roundtable Discussion on Bangladesh-China & Bangladesh-Myanmar Relations: Political and Economic Dimensions, organised by BIISS on 01 September 2013.53 There was a proposal of building road connectivity between Bangladesh and Myanmar in mid 1990s. The proposed road also connects Bangladesh with Thailand and China through Myanmar and thereby would bring ASEAN countries and parts of China adjacent to Myanmar closer to Bangladesh.

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4.7 Investment in Myanmar

It is a fact that Myanmar is more resourceful compared to Bangladesh. Myanmar’s landmass or geographical territory is almost 5 times larger than that of Bangladesh but because of the policy of Myanmar, the resources have remained largely unexplored. The country is already open to the rest of the world, and if it continues to maintain this openness, Bangladeshi business community particularly who are interested in investing there can be encouraged. During the British period, contributions of expatriate Bengalis were enormous in areas of agriculture and business in the then Burma. Bangladeshi entrepreneurs are interested in investing in Myanmar, particularly in agro-processing industries. If there is road link then it will facilitate the local entrepreneurs to visit Myanmar. There are vast scopes for cooperation in exploring energy and natural resources for the benefit of both countries.

4.8 Cooperation in Maritime issues

Demarcation of the maritime boundary was one of the key challenges in Bangladesh-Myanmar relations. But, by the verdict of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) declared on 14 March 2012, the issue was settled. The Tribunal allocated approximately 111,631 square kilometers of the relevant area to Bangladesh and approximately 171,832 square kilometers to Myanmar. The ratio of the allocated areas is approximately 1:1.54 in favour of Myanmar.54 The solution of the problem opened new opportunities for both countries. Beyond the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ, 200 nm), Myanmar can go for fishing while Bangladesh has right to explore seabed resources. In case Bangladesh finds resources in that area, it may have to consult with Myanmar for the exploration. It is now necessary that both countries cooperate for further exploration of natural resources and amicable sharing of maritime areas. Constant communication and information sharing about exploring natural resources are necessary to avoid any further debate on the issue.

5. Significance of Track II Diplomacy in Building Confidence between Bangladesh and Myanmar

Considering the current relations, it will not be exaggerated to say that official channel of interaction between Bangladesh and Myanmar could not bring expected level of outcomes. Although there have been several attempts including high level of official visits, agreements, MoUs and FOCs, advancement in many areas has not been satisfactory as evident in ongoing tensions on the refugee and border issues, and pending agreements and MoUs. In fact, Track I diplomacy has inherent limits in negotiations as the diplomats engaged in have due obligation to the respective governments and people that restrict their scopes and they remain alert as to not say anything harming their national interests. On the other hand, although Track II

54 Information collected from “Brief for Bangladesh delegation to China”, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bangladesh Government, 25 June 2013.

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diplomacy is informal, it has more scope and can play a significant role for dialogue and confidence building between and among the parties. Joseph Montville, an American diplomat, coined the term “Track II diplomacy” for the first time in 1981, which covers a wide range of unofficial contacts and interactions aimed at resolving conflicts between the parties in conflict. He defined Track II diplomacy as “Unofficial, informal interaction between members of adversary groups or nations which aims to develop strategies, influence public opinion, and organize human and material resources in ways that might help resolve their conflict.”55

It is important to note here that Track II diplomacy is not a substitute for Track I diplomacy, but a supplemental operation. According to Lewis Rasmussen, “Unofficial actors, in what is known as Track II diplomacy, perform a range of supplemental or parallel functions to help improve relationships at various levels and among different individuals.”56 Track II diplomats can facilitate successful conduct of official state relations as witnessed in the Oslo components of the Middle East Peace Process. Track II diplomacy may have a role in the settlement of a conflict in which at least one of the parties believes that Track I intervention would give too much legitimacy to its rival. Track II diplomacy, this author argues, is a second line of communication between the adversaries or parties, which seeks to bridge the gap between official government positions by serving as testing grounds for new policy recommendations and a combination of Track I and Track II efforts could be more effective in managing an intricate and long conflict.

Due to the starting of democratisation in Myanmar, it is now expected to be easier to conduct discussion or negotiation between Bangladesh, a democracy, and Myanmar. However, the country is still in transition; the regime is not fully democratic in nature and still influenced by the military who governed the country for long. Therefore, outcome of official negotiations is not being as desired. This indicates the necessity of unofficial Track II diplomacy which has long been proven to play a substantial complementary role in creating conducive environment for governments to engage more effectively and constructively.

What can be done at Track II level for reducing suspicion and building confidence between these two close neighbours? At the outset, both Bangladesh and Myanmar need to address the areas of both conflict and cooperation. Then they should go for prioritising among these issues and can form groups of relevant experts on specific issues. These groups can observe issues/areas, analyse, work on and provide viable suggestions or recommendations to the respective governments. For example, a group can initiate extensive research work on connectivity. For that, they

55 Joseph V. Montville, “The Arrow and the Olive branch: A case for track two Diplomacy”, in John W. Mc Donald and Diane B. Bendahmane, (eds.), Conflict Resolution: Track Two Diplomacy, Washington D.C.: Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy, 1995, p. 9.56 J. Lewis Rasmussen, “Peacemaking in the Twenty-First Century”, in I. William Zartman and J. Lewis Rasmussen, (eds.), Peacemaking in International Conflict: Methods & Techniques, Washington D. C.: United States Institute of Peace, 1997, p. 43.

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can go to the field to study this matter, not limiting their work just to literature review. They can study the existing problems, prospects, as well as necessity and feasibility of connectivity. Such practical work can be undertaken regarding the refugee and border disputes too. Bangladesh government has proposed to hold security dialogues with Myanmar. At the back channel, how these disputes emerged, what initiatives already have been taken, what are the shortcomings, what initiatives can be taken are some questions to be discussed and answered through dialogues.

Concerning the Track II initiatives between Bangladesh and Myanmar, to strengthen Bangladesh-Myanmar relations the informal dialogue between Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS) and Myanmar Institute of Strategic and International Studies (MISIS) held in Singapore on 22 January 2014 facilitated by the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue can be a good example to mention here. The outcome of the Track II dialogue was significant. After a detailed discussion in a very friendly atmosphere, both sides agreed to give emphasis on various issues including road building between Bangladesh and Myanmar, visiting each other’s institutes and signing an MoU, implementing border trade agreement to increase cross-border trade, defence cooperation in particular in the area of peacekeeping, cooperation for human resource development especially in Rakhine state, and more frequent visits by senior political leaders of both nations.57 This kind of Track II initiative should be taken more to reduce suspicion and build confidence between the two countries.

6. Policy Recommendations and Concluding Remarks

6.1 Policy Recommendations

For enhancing the bilateral relations between Bangladesh and Myanmar, the following recommendations are imperative:

I Political will is the driver for developing a bilateral relation. Therefore, leaders of both countries must have their political will for bringing this relation to a new height. In this regard, mutual visits of high level leaders can play a vital role in reducing suspicion and misperception. The visits can bring new opportunities for the people of the countries.

II Undertaking initiatives for increasing people to people contacts, e.g., forming various forums for businesspeople, journalists, students, people from different religious communities for interfaith dialogue, people involving sports etc. These will work as Track III diplomacy to shape and influence the Track I diplomacy.

57 “Informal Track II Dialogue between BIISS and MISIS”, op. cit.

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III Connectivity is the key to boost up the relations. Chittagong-Kunming connectivity can bring enormous benefit for Myanmar, China and Bangladesh. Therefore, the concerned ministries in Myanmar can study the matter deeply and discuss with other stakeholders initially at the Track II level.

IV As the lack of follow up of measures decided in various bilateral meetings has been a constraint, therefore, monitoring the follow up measures to keep commitment with sincerity is an obligation for both parties involved in negotiations.

VI For enhancing people to people contact, obtaining visa easily is a key. Both governments need to ensure smooth visa procedures. It is an issue that deserves utmost priority.

VII Think tanks like Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS) and Myanmar ISIS can engage more with each other, sign MoUs with relevant institutions, jointly organise international seminars and dialogues on both challenges and potential areas of cooperation.

VIII Various measures need to be taken to promote trade and investment between these two neighbours. The current trade figure is insignificant. Considering the reality, in the short term, rapid growth in trade and investment may not be attainable, but in the long run may be. For trade promotion, chamber of commerce of both countries can provide a blueprint to increase trade and investment. Both countries should encourage and provide incentives to each other to participate in trade fairs. Illegal trades should be brought into the legal framework of trade for mutual benefits.

IX If Myanmar wishes, Bangladesh can help Myanmar promote human resource development, implement educational reform and also provide training in vocational education in Rakhine state. Our competency in disaster management is widely recognised, thus Bangladesh can provide disaster management training to Myanmar.

X Defence cooperation between neighbours is always crucial as it tremendously helps build confidence and has very positive impact on the overall bilateral relations. Therefore, both nations can and should expand their defence cooperation. They should continue to push each other to engage in regular security dialogues on border management.

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6.2 Concluding Remarks

Being immediate neighbours, Bangladesh and Myanmar are politically, economically and strategically vital for each other. Connectivity between these two countries can bring enormous opportunities not only for them but also for other countries. In addition, there are various unexplored potential areas where they have prospects for mutual cooperation on a win-win basis. But regrettably, due to the Rohingya crisis and lack of enthusiasm from the Myanmar government in resolving other existing disputes, proper utilisation of the proximity and exploration of potential areas for mutual economic and strategic gains have yet to be realised. The characteristic of the Myanmar regime may have discouraged policy makers in Dhaka to build a healthy bilateral relation. Bangladesh has been always open and cooperative to resolve the disputes and expand the level of cooperation. Therefore, Myanmar should reciprocate in the same way.

Resolving the existing challenges and seeking cooperation in the potential areas can be done simultaneously by the two countries. Failure in resolving any hard issue should not be allowed to leave any negative impact on other prospective areas. Undoubtedly, the Rohingya issue has spillover effect on all other bilateral issues, but it will be wise if the issue is singled out and resolved through both Track I and Track II channels. For mutual interests of the countries and greater stability in the region, the Rohingya issue needs to be resolved as early as possible on the basis of national security concerns and humanitarian perspectives.

Bangladesh and Myanmar have prospects for enhancing their bilateral relations. Various measures including recent Track II dialogue between Bangladesh and Myanmar in Singapore for reducing suspicion and building confidence can be mentioned. From another perspective, proximity has both advantage and disadvantage. The disadvantage is that unless and until a cordial relation is established, an element of insecurity remains at one’s doorstep. Therefore, confidence building between neighbours is very much essential. For greater friendship, removing suspicion and opening up minds are imperative. To this end, people to people exchange and more and more constructive Track II dialogue can play a vital role to shape public opinion for cooperation between the two nations. For attaining a new height in Bangladesh-Myanmar relations, these close neighbours must think beyond their boundaries.

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Md. Jahan Shoieb and Md. Muhibbur Rahman

EMERGING STRATEGIC LANDSCAPE IN THE BAY OF BENGAL AND MARITIME CAPABILITY BUILDING OF BANGLADESH

Abstract

The paper seeks to assess the growing strategic importance of the Bay of Bengal and how this signifies for Bangladesh’s imperative to develop strong maritime capabilities. With the growing significance of the Bay of Bengal, both the littoral and the extra-littoral countries are reassessing their interests in this region and reformulating respective strategies to ensure optimum benefit in their favour. After the verdict by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in March 2012, Bangladesh is now able to establish its claim over a significant area in the Bay of Bengal. These emerging realities are driving Bangladesh to develop capabilities to project effective control over its maritime zone and to ensure sustainable utilisation of marine resources. To respond efficiently, Bangladesh government has undertaken various initiatives including modernisation of the Bangladesh Navy with an aim of establishing a three dimensional force. The paper, based on secondary literature, finds that there is a growing interest among the countries in the Bay of Bengal area leading to a competitive strategic atmosphere for countries like Bangladesh. The findings also suggest that Bangladesh’s drive for maritime capability building is a timely and pragmatic step which requires further strengthening in the coming years. Besides, the paper also argues that Bangladesh needs to formulate a comprehensive maritime strategy, focusing on diverse sectors of capability building. Some key areas can include empowering the coast guard, resource exploration and exploitation capacities, maritime infrastructure development for connectivity and seaborne trade as well as well-coordinated maritime governance.

1. Introduction

The Bay of Bengal, the largest bay of the world, is strategically important for all the littoral1 countries – Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand. The interests of extra-littoral countries2 namely those of China and the United States (US) have multiplied the significance of the Bay of Bengal. Over 400 million people of the littoral countries are directly or indirectly dependent on the coastal and marine

Md. Jahan Shoieb and Md. Muhibbur Rahman are Research Officers at Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS). Their email addresses are: [email protected] and [email protected] respectively.

© Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS), 2014. 1 In geography, littoral means the coast, and littoral countries are those located in the coastal zone of a sea or an ocean. Key littoral countries in the Bay of Bengal region include Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand. 2 Extra-littoral countries refer to the countries with significant maritime stakes, in this context in the Bay of Bengal, although their geographic location lies outside the littoral zones, namely China and the US.

BIISS JOURNAL, VOL. 35, NO. 1, JANUARY 2014: 23-43

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resources of the Bay of Bengal for their food, livelihood and security.3 It is also a rich source of marine biodiversity as it abounds with coral reefs, tropical dolphins and sharks. From the ancient period a large amount of international trade of the littoral countries is being conducted through the sea lanes of the Bay of Bengal. With the verdict by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in March 2012, Bangladesh is now able to establish its claim over with 111,000 sq km in the Bay of Bengal.4 These emerging realities are driving Bangladesh to develop capabilities to project effective control over its maritime zone and to ensure sustainable utilisation of marine resources, including significant hydro-carbon reserves in its maritime zones. Besides, the growing interests of other players, mainly of India, China and the US are also pushing Bangladesh to rethink its own maritime strategy. This has put forward the question of Bangladesh’s maritime capability building vis-à-vis other countries with strategic and economic interests in the Bay of Bengal.

Among the littoral countries, India has already taken distinct policy approaches towards the Bay of Bengal. It has undertaken endeavours to modernise its navy and is increasing bilateral and multilateral naval ties with other littoral countries. Over the years, it has made strategic partnership with the US. India might have counted China as a potential competitor in the greater Indian Ocean region and strengthened its ties with the US. Indian strategic planners worry that Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean outposts could turn them into military bases that would enable China to ‘encircle’ India.5 Particularly with regard to the Bay of Bengal, China’s influential relationship with Myanmar has also added urgency to India’s involvement. India has deepened its ties with Myanmar to have a safe gateway to the Southeast Asian countries. Similarly, Myanmar, another actor in the region to be counted by Bangladesh, is keen to redefine its geopolitical identity by exploiting its mounting strategic value in the Bay of Bengal region. The country, coming out of decades-long isolation, is actively engaging with the world’s major players in the region. It is participating in naval exchanges, joint exploration of energy resources and development of connectivity infrastructure in the vital littoral outposts of the Bay of Bengal.

Extra-littoral actors like the US and China have also been drawn to the geographical and strategic significance of the Bay of Bengal. Particularly, the Obama administration has undertaken major policy shifts to the Asia-Pacific region adopting a rebalancing foreign policy in the greater Indo-Pacific region, and explicitly identified the region as a geographic priority for the US.6 Although commentators in China and many observers have suggested that the rebalancing is designed to contain China, the policy itself indicates the intensity of US interests in the region. Following more

3 Food and Agricultural Organisation, “Bay of Bengal Large Marine Ecosystem (BOBLME) Project”, BOBLME Brochure, 2011, available at http://www.boblme.org/project_overview.html, accessed on 24 December 2013. 4 “BD wins maritime suit against Myanmar”, The Financial Express, 15 March 2012. 5 Nilanthi Samaranayake, “The Long Littoral Project: Bay of Bengal A Maritime Perspective on Indo Pacific Security”, CNA Corporation, September 2012. 6 Ely Ratner, “Rebalancing to Asia with an Insecure China”, The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 2, 2013, pp. 21-38.

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than a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Obama administration has been trying to place more emphasis on Northeast, Southeast, and South Asia – parts of the world that will be of growing strategic and economic importance in the first half of the 21st century.7 China, on the other hand, has interests in the Bay of Bengal and taken initiatives to make strong ties with the littoral countries. It has economic and strategic partnerships with Sri Lanka and Myanmar. Over the years, China has taken multiple initiatives to modernise its navy. Critics argue that China has undertaken ‘string of pearl’ strategy to spread its sphere of influence in the region8 though Chinese political and military leadership has repeatedly opposed the proposition.

In this context, Bangladesh, being in the vital strategic location of the Bay of Bengal, is reassessing its fundamental geopolitical and economic stakes in the region. It is formulating pertinent policy guidelines and undertaking initiatives to strengthen maritime capabilities, particularly focusing on the modernisation of its navy, for safeguarding and augmenting its maritime interests. While the country is emphasising primarily on naval modernisation, there is a growing need for a comprehensive maritime strategy where diverse sectors of capability building need to be prioritised. Some key areas can include empowering the coast guard, resource exploration and exploitation capacities, maritime infrastructure development for connectivity and seaborne trade as well as well-coordinated maritime governance.

The objective of the paper is to analyse the interests of littoral and extra-littoral countries in the Bay of Bengal as well as to delineate maritime capability building endeavours of Bangladesh. The key research questions that the paper addresses include: What factors are contributing to the growing significance of the Bay of Bengal as a vital strategic and economic region? How are the littoral and extra-littoral countries reconfiguring their respective policies to utilise the geopolitical advantages of the Bay of Bengal for maximising their national interests? What are the key strategic and economic interests of Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal region? And finally, what endeavours has Bangladesh been undertaking to enhance its maritime capabilities?

To answer the key research questions, the paper is divided into six sections. After introduction, the second section deals with geostrategic and economic significance of the Bay of Bengal. The third section details out the emerging security landscape of the Bay of Bengal based on maritime strategic postures of India, Myanmar, China and the US in this region. The fourth section discusses Bangladesh’s stakes in the Bay of Bengal. The fifth section analyses Bangladesh’s drive to strengthen its maritime capability, particularly its endeavour to modernise its navy, as well as outlines the necessity to initiate comprehensive capability building in

7 Robert G. Sutter et. al.,“Balancing Acts: The US Rebalance and Asia Pacific Stability”, George Washington University, August 2013, available at http://www2.gwu.edu/~sigur/assets/docs/BalancingActs_Compiled1.pdf, accessed on 04 March 2014.8 Ashley S. Townshend, “Unraveling China’s String of Pearls”, Yale Global, 16 September 2011.

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diverse sectors. In the sixth section, the paper concludes by outlining some policy perspectives.

2. Geostrategic and Economic Significance of the Bay of Bengal

In the South Asian geopolitical context, the Bay of Bengal bears enormous spatial and strategic significance for the littoral countries of the region. The Bay of Bengal, with an approximately 1,000 miles (1,600 kms) width and an average depth near 8,500 feet (2,600 meters), is the northern extension of the Indian Ocean.9 It is geographically positioned between India and Sri Lanka in the west, Bangladesh to the north, and Myanmar and the northern part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the east. The Bay of Bengal is the largest bay of the world occupying an area of about 2.2 million sq kms.10 A unique feature of this Bay of Bengal lies in its location in the downstream of one of the world’s most active delta, receiving massive inflows from many large international rivers.

Map 1: The Bay of Bengal and the Littorals

Source: Google Map

From the geostrategic perspective, the Bay of Bengal is a highly potential ground of power politics. Its geographical and strategic environment promises tremendous opportunities for regional and global powers to leverage. As it is situated

9 “Bay of Bengal”, World Atlas, available at http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/baybengal.htm, accessed on 10 December 2013. 10 “Bay of Bengal”, Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh, 2012, available at http://www.banglapedia.org/HT/B_0406.htm, accessed on 12 December 2013.

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in the dead point of strategically rival countries, the geopolitical value of the Bay of Bengal is far beyond than its anticipated values.11 It lies at the centre of two adjacent economic blocs, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), and connects the South East Asian economy to Middle Eastern oil sources. It also connects the strategic sea route between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.12 The Bay of Bengal stretches to all the sea lanes of the region, connecting the important Malacca Straits and Taiwan Straits, and extends to South China Sea, East China Sea and the Pacific.13 The marshalling point of Malacca Straits that hosts an average of 200 ships’ transit everyday is located in the Bay of Bengal. The trade link along the Bay of Bengal stretches from China in the east to West Asia and Africa in the west. Each of the smaller littorals offers tremendous economic potential due to untapped natural resources.14 These connections have enhanced the position of the Bay of Bengal as a strategic and economic hub in the region. Hence, the security and stability in the Bay of Bengal is crucial for both littoral and extra-littoral countries.

One aspect of geostrategic importance involves the South Asian security dynamics. As the Bay of Bengal provides access for all major sea ports of Bangladesh, India, Myanmar and other littoral countries as well as China’s southern landlocked region to the Indian Ocean, controlling and commanding position in this maritime sphere by any particular country provides critical strategic leverage to dominate regional politics and security matters. For instance, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are of immense importance of India’s security, providing the country with strategic and military foothold in the heart of the Bay of Bengal. The Islands are in commanding position and hold a key to the eastern gate to Pacific Ocean, being situated astride the strategic sea lanes of communication.15 The Bay of Bengal is also going to host two emerging strategic waterways: the Sethusamudram Canal Project between southern India and Sri Lanka and the Isthumus of Kra in southern Thailand which are dubbed as Asia’s Panama Canal.16 These waterways could reduce transit time tremendously, save few hundred miles of distance as well as facilitate small littoral ports to grow and thereby boom the littoral countries’ economic growth.

From the ecological and natural resource perspectives, the Bay of Bengal also bears special significance. It is one of the world’s sixty-three large marine ecosystems. Over 400 million, the 25 per cent of global population, live on coastal catchment

11 Farhana Razzak, “Geopolitical Significance of the Bay of Bengal”, Academia.edu, 2012, available at http://www.academia.edu/5104579/Geopolitical_Significance_of_the_Bay_of_Bengal, accessed on 23 November 2013.12 Vijay Sakhuja, “Energy Transformation Security in the Bay of Bengal”, in Sudhir T Devare (ed.), A New Energy Frontier: The Bay of Bengal Region, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008, p. 155. 13 Mahbubur Rahman, “Security Dimensions of Bay of Bengal and Sino-Bangla Cooperation”, The Daily Star, 27 December 2012.14 Golam Sadeq, “Involvement of the United States in the Bay of Bengal: Need for a Strategy of Winning the Battle Without Fighting”, /LUCE.NT/, November 2011, pp. 75-87. 15 Vijay Sakhuja, op. cit. 16 Ibid.

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areas and these numbers are expected to increase by 20 per cent by the year 2015.17 The Bay of Bengal, having one of the most densely populated coastlines on earth, provides natural resources for its coastal habitats, particularly fisheries to these large numbers of people. The potential of huge oil and gas reserves, particularly Bangladesh, Myanmar and Indian coasts hold unexploited reserves of 100 Trillion Cubic Feet (TCF) or approximately 1 per cent of the world’s total of oil and gas, according to official sources, and approximately 200 TCF according to various unofficial sources.18 Besides, fisheries production in the Bay of Bengal is six million tonnes per year, more than 7 per cent of the world’s total catch.19

However, what has increased the geopolitical significance of the Bay of Bengal the most is the shifting of world center of gravity from trans-Atlantic to Indo-Pacific, as delineated in Robert Kaplan’s assessment of Indian Ocean, in his book Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and The Future of American Power, as demographic and strategic hub of the world in the twenty-first century. This proposition signals of a paramount shift in the locus of strategic rivalry among the big powers.20 The rise of China and India on one hand and the US rebalancing policy in Indo-Pacific on the other have come together to make the region a geopolitical hub of world economic and political competition.21 The Bay of Bengal, due to its geographic proximity with the Indian Ocean region and its location as a buffer between the Indian Ocean and the littoral countries of South, Southeast and East Asia, occupies a significant place within the calculus of Indo-Pacific great game.22 Therefore, the Bay of Bengal becomes strategically crucial for both littoral and extra-littoral countries.

3. Emerging Strategic Landscape in the Bay of Bengal

Historically, the Bay of Bengal, being shaped by the monsoons and human migration, served as a maritime highway between India and China and then as a battleground for European empires.23 While in the nineteenth century, colonial powers reconfigured the Bay of Bengal in their quest for coffee, rice and rubber, the littoral ports and cities in the region became the most culturally diverse societies of their time. But with the shifting geopolitical focus to Euro-Atlantic landscape in the early twentieth century, the Bay of Bengal’s centuries-old patterns of interconnection

17 United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), State of World Population 2011, New York: UNFPA, 2011. 18 Golam Sadeq, op. cit. 19 “Bay of Bengal”, Wildlife Conservation Society, available at http://www.wcs.org/where-we-work/oceans/bay-of-bengal.aspx, accessed on 12 December 2013.20 See Robert D. Kaplan, Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power, New York: Random House Publishing Group, 2010. 21 For details, see S. D. Muni and Vivek Chadha (eds.), Asian Strategic Review 2014: US Pivot and Asian Security, New Delhi: Pentagon Press, 2014.22 In the emerging strategic landscape, the US rebalancing in Asia and the convergence of Indo-US interests in the greater Asia-Pacific region have acquired a connotation of ‘Indo-Pacific Great Game’ due to the potential of great power rivalry among the US, China, Japan and India on the cards. 23 See Sunil S. Amrith, Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.

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began to erode. History has come to repeat its episodes again and now with a more convoluted and conflicting storyline. Both the littoral and the extra-littoral countries are keen to shape the contemporary strategic development in the Bay of Bengal at their own advantages, utilising its growing significance in recent years. Bangladesh, being one of the vital littoral countries, is going to face an increasingly competitive maritime atmosphere in the coming days.

3.1 Strategic Postures of the Littoral Players

India and Myanmar, the two adjacent neighbouring countries of Bangladesh, are major littoral players in the Bay of Bengal. India has enormous strategic interests in the Bay of Bengal. Considering it as its backyard sphere of influence, India puts substantive strategic weight on controlling and commanding maritime security matters in the region. The fundamental interests of India in the Bay of Bengal include: to negate the expansion of any influence by any other actors who can substantively threaten India’s national interests; to enshrine India’s leadership and dominance on the Bay of Bengal’s geopolitical issues; to reduce the growing Chinese influence in the greater Indian Ocean region, particularly the Bay of Bengal littoral countries’ economic and military dependency on China;24 and to ensure safety and security of India’s seaborne trade and energy supply.

Indian policymakers count the Bay of Bengal as a strategic-maritime space for its political and diplomatic initiatives. The fundamental among all is India’s drive to modernise its maritime capability which was started more than five decades ago. After mid 1960s, India began to search for a new framework for its maritime strategy. It started to modernise its navy with modern equipments. Most importantly, India approached the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and began acquiring Soviet equipments such as submarines, destroyers, frigates, missile boats, ships for amphibious operations as well as maritime reconnaissance aircrafts.25 The potential for China to project maritime power in the Indian Ocean has arguably become India’s principal long term source of concern.26 As a result, India is increasing bilateral and multilateral naval ties in the region and strengthening strategic partnership with the US, another anxious party about China’s entry into the Indian Ocean region.

Partly in response to China and partly as a power rising on the world stage, India, in recent years, is undertaking a major modernisation endeavour of its navy. It has begun upgrading its tri-service Andaman and Nicobar (A&N) Command, allocating

24 David Brewster, “The Bay of Bengal: A New Locus for Strategic Competition in Asia”, Asia Pacific Bulletin, No. 263, 15 May 2014. 25 K. R. Singh, “The Changing Paradigm of India’s Maritime Security”, International Studies, Vol. 40, No. 3, 2003, pp. 229-245. 26 P. K. Ghosh, “Maritime Security Challenges in South Asia and the Indian Ocean: Response Strategies”, Paper prepared for the Center for Strategic and International Studies – American-Pacific Sealanes Security Institute conference on Maritime Security in Asia. Honolulu, Hawaii, 18-20 January 2004.

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greater resources to the Eastern Naval Command (ENC)27, which is located along India’s Bay of Bengal coast, and increasing navy-to-navy ties through forums such as the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium and the ‘Milan’ exercise.28 It has embarked on infrastructure development projects of its own in the littoral countries including at Sittwe port in Myanmar and at Sri Lanka’s Kankesanthurai (KKS) port. In August 2013, the Indian Navy celebrated two major developments: it launched the first indigenously built carrier, the 37,500 ton ‘Vikrant’ and the reactor of its first native-built nuclear submarine ‘Arihant’.29 The country, by 2022, plans to own a 160-plus ship navy, along with 3 aircraft carriers, 60 major combatants, including submarines and about 400 aircrafts of different types.30 India, with a proactive maritime policy and strong naval capability, is preparing for its take off stage to become a dominant power in Asia.

Myanmar, like India, gives immense importance to the Bay of Bengal, as it perceives the Bay of Bengal as a vital part of its strategic security and economic growth. Isolated for decades, Myanmar is now actively engaging with the world’s major players in redefining its geopolitical identity, where its location as a geopolitical pivot in the Bay of Bengal is playing a significant role. This has encouraged naval exchanges, exploration of energy resources and development of connectivity infrastructure by a vital littoral of the Bay of Bengal.31 Besides, the reform process in Myanmar adds newer strategic weight to the country, and opened up opportunities to build partnership with the US and India in maritime affairs.

Over the years, Myanmar has been counted by both India and China, as the country can provide access for the poor landlocked provinces in their southeast and northeast to the Indian Ocean respectively.32 Utilising this opportunity, Myanmar is developing defence and economic ties with both countries. On one hand, Myanmar has been strengthening naval cooperation with China in the last many decades. The country has purchased naval defence equipments, including missiles, fighter planes, radars and warships, and also received training for its naval officers.33 The defence

27 Founded in 1968, the ENC is headquartered at Vishakhapatnam and has bases in Chennai and Kolkata. The ENC is responsible for India’s security in the Bay of Bengal. 28 Milan, meaning meeting in Hindi, is a biennial gathering of regional navies that is hosted by the Indian Navy. The aim of this exercise is to foster understanding and cooperation in the areas of common interest and safeguard SLOC’s (sea lanes of communication) from poaching, piracy and terrorist activities, promote interoperability to the extent possible and engage in joint search and rescue and humanitarian operations. See Mrityunjoy Mazumdar, “Exercise Milan 08: Friendship Across the Seas”, Bharat Rakshak, January 2008. See also, Nilanthi Samarnayake, op. cit. 29 Norman Friedman, “World Naval Developments – India’s Naval Buildup Gains Stream”, Proceedings Magazine, October 2013.30 “Indian Navy Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta Spells Out Vision 2022”, India Defence, 10 August 2008.31 K. Yhome, “Myanmar and the Geopolitics of the Bay of Bengal”, Observer Research Foundation Issue Brief, No. 68, January 2014. 32 Ramtanu Maitra, “The Strategic Importance of Myanmar for the Region and Beyond”, available at http://fsss.in/agni-volume/The_Strategic_Importance_of_Myanmar_forthe_Region_and_Beyond.pdf, accessed on 03 February 2014.33 Li Chenyang and Lye Liang Fook, “China’s Policies towards Myanmar: A Successful Model for Dealing with the Myanmar Issue”, in Li Chenyang and Wilhelm Hofmeister (eds.), Myanmar: Prospect for Change, Singapore: Select Publishing, 2010, p. 186.

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ties between Myanmar and China have grown to an extent of strategic partnership today. On the other hand, the Myanmar Navy has a sound relationship with India. Exchange of high-level naval officers has become an important part of the ties. During the Myanmar Navy chief’s visit to India in July 2013, the two navies proposed “to further strengthen the navy-to-navy cooperation in operations, training and material support and take the existing relationship to another plane and promote capacity building and capability enhancement”.34

However, in the shadow of isolation, Myanmar has been modernising its military capabilities continuously. Though the Myanmar Navy started a modernisation program in 2001, it experienced dramatic growth between 1988 and 1998 under the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), when Myanmar doubled the number of fleet with Chinese assistance. It is claimed that Myanmar could have a blue water capability for the first time in its history, provided the SLORC’s ambitious naval modernisation program is successful.35 After the modernisation scheme started, the Myanmar Navy had significantly upgraded and its scope of operations has expanded to include carrying anti-ship missiles in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. It is also planning to establish a submarine fleet by 2015.36

3.2 Extra-littoral Interests and Forces

Among the extra-littoral countries, the US has appeared to be a principal actor in the emerging strategic dynamics in the Indian Ocean region in general and the Bay of Bengal in particular. In the shifting geopolitical focus towards the Indo-Pacific, referred to as the ‘‘post-Vasco da Gama era”, ‘‘the post-Columbian epoch’’ and ‘‘the end of the Atlantic era”37, the US is keenly interested to check the rise of any peer competitor capable to threaten US vital interests and allies in the region. The primary concern for Washington in Asia is mainly China’s growing military capabilities and assertiveness, especially in the South and East China Seas, and potentially into the Indian Ocean region.38 Thus, America's 'Asia Pivot’ policy aims at bolstering the country’s defence ties with countries throughout the region and expanding its naval presence there.39 The US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, during his mid 2012 trip to Southeast Asia, assured its allies and friends in the region by foregrounding on ‘rebalancing’ foreign policy.40 Panetta remarked that America’s “rebalance” strategy would involve: 34 “Myanmar Navy Chief visits India”, Indian Navy Release, available at http://indiannavy.nic.in/print/1864, accessed on 12 January 2013. 35 “Myanmar – Navy”, Global Security, available at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/myanmar/navy.htm, accessed on 12 January 2014. 36 Ibid. 37 Michael Evans, “Power and Paradox: Asian Geopolitics and Sino-American Relations in the 21st Century”, Orbis, Vol. 55, No. 1, 2011, pp. 85-113. 38 Ronald O’Rourke, “China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities – Background and Issues for Congress”, CRS report prepared for members and committees of Congress, Congressional Research Service, 05 June 2014. 39 Robert R. Ross, “The Problem with the Pivot: Obama’s New Asia Policy Is Unnecessary and Counterproductive”, Foreign Affairs, November/December, 2012. 40 K. Alan Kronstadt and Sonia Pinto, “India-US Military Relations: Current Engagement”, CRS report prepared

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Over the next few years an increase in the number and the size of [U.S.] exercises in the Pacific. [The United States] will also increase and more widely distribute port visits, including in the important Indian Ocean region. And by 2020 the Navy will reposture its forces from today’s roughly 50/50 per cent split between the Pacific and the Atlantic to about a 60/40 split between those oceans. That will include six aircraft carriers in this region, a majority of our cruisers, destroyers, Littoral Combat Ships, and submarines.41

However, it is evident from the growing involvement of the US with India in the Bay of Bengal security matters, after engaging in strategic partnership in 2010, that the country prioritises the Bay of Bengal as a significant strategic outpost in its Indo-Pacific strategic calculation. Changing its traditional policy of depending on the Diego Garcia naval support facility which was established in the 1970s, it is pursuing partnership building with the littoral countries including India, Bangladesh and Myanmar. It was involved in more than fifty joint military exercises and combined military operations with India, such as naval cooperation during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and the Malabar naval exercise involving Quad group42 in the Bay of Bengal.43 As the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean region are becoming epicentres of critical trade and energy conduit,44 the US' concerns also involve the security of its 22 per cent oil imports and more than 50 strategic minerals that come from or transit through this littoral region.45

China, though an extra-littoral nation to the Bay of Bengal, has become an emerging player here, due to its southward orientation and interests in the Indian Ocean.46 The country’s aspiration to expand its influence in the Bay of Bengal is a part of its long-aspired vision of developing strong foothold in the Indian Ocean region. Its overall growth of power and influence in the Asia-Pacific, including its naval capabilities, designates the country as a key stakeholder in the region.47 The major concerns of China involve the security of its energy supply and its seaborne trade with South Asia, Middle East and Africa. Although China does not admit explicitly, its perceived fear of containment by the US on one hand and India on the other has made the country to appear cautious, and to engage with the littoral countries so that it manages an uninterrupted energy supply and trade transactions with other parts of the world.48

for members and committees of Congress, Congressional Research Service, 13 November 2012.41 The speech delivered by the US Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta at Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore, 02 June 2012.42 Quad group nations are: the US, Japan, Australia, and India.43 Ashok Sharma, “U.S.-India Strategic Partnership: An Overview of Defense and Nuclear Courtship”, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, 04 July 2013. 44 Andrew E Erickson, Walter C. Ladwig and Justin D. Mikolay, “Diego Garcia and United States’ Emerging Indian Ocean Strategy”, Asian Security, Vol. 6, No. 3, 2010, pp. 214-217. 45 Ibid. 46 K Yhome, op. cit. 47 Sujit Dutta, “China’s Emerging Power and Military Role: Implications For South Asia”, in Jonathan D. Pollack and Richard H. Yang (eds.), In China’s Shadow: Regional Perspectives on Chinese Foreign Policy and Military Development, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1998. 48 Gordon Sandy, “Strategic Interest of Major Indian Ocean Powers: An Australian Perspective”, in Harjeet Singh (ed.), South Asia Defence and Strategic Year Book 2010, New Delhi: Pentagon Press, 2010.

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Over the years, China has strengthened its defence and economic cooperation with the Bay of Bengal littoral countries.49 For instance, it has cultivated relationships with Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh through mega-infrastructure projects including port development. Certain sites on the Bay of Bengal are of particular interest to China. These include, but are not limited to, ports along the coastline: Kyaukphyu in Myanmar, Hambantota in Sri Lanka and Chittagong in Bangladesh. These Chinese activities often have been dubbed a “string of pearls” in an attempt to characterise them as a coordinated Chinese effort to establish strategic lodgments along the Indian Ocean littoral.50 According to Lin,

China’s ‘pearls’ consist of an upgraded airship on Woody Island in Paracel archipelago, a container shipping facility in Chittagong, Bangladesh, the construction of deep water port in Sittwe, Myanmar, the construction of navy base in Gwadar, Pakistan, a pipeline through Islamabad and over Karakoram Highway to Kashgar in Xinjiang province, intelligence gathering facilities on islands in the Bay of Bengal near the Malacca Strait and the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka, etc. with more projects in the planning.51

Map 2: China’s String of Pearls

Source: globalbalita.com

49 “US $1.5 Billion Chinese Built Deep Sea Port Opens in Sri Lanka”, Taipei Times, 07 June 2012.50 Nilanthi Samaranayake, op. cit.51 Christina Y. Lin, “Militarization of China’s Energy Security Policy-Defence Cooperation and WMD Proliferation Along its String of Pearls in the Indian Ocean”, Institut für Strategie-Politik-Sicherhcites-und Wirtschaftsberatung (ISPSW), Berlin, Germany, 18 June 2008, pp. 3-4.

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34

However, China is keen to preserve its interests in the Bay of Bengal particularly to ensure the security of the vital sea lanes of communication. Chinese strategy became evident that with a powerful navy, it has the ability to dominate the regional security matters. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy has been producing frigates, destroyers, submarines and missile boats at an unprecedented speed. It already has commissioned its first air craft career.52 It appears to have established some communication facilities and a radar station in Coco Island in the Rakhine coast of Myanmar to observe the naval movements in the Bay of Bengal.53 China fears that the continuing Indo-American cooperation in defence and maritime spheres would prolong the US hegemony and prevent the establishment of a post-American, Sino-centric hierarchical order in Asia.54

4. Bangladesh’s Stake in the Bay of Bengal

Bangladesh’s maritime territory in the Bay of Bengal is of paramount importance to its national interest and security. Bangladesh has 47,211 sq kms of coastal area which is approximately 32 per cent of the total land mass of the country.55 It is the gateway for Bangladesh to the Indian Ocean.56 The maritime delimitation of March 2012 grants Bangladesh with 200 nautical miles Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), extensive share of outer continental shelf beyond 200 miles and full 12 nautical miles territorial sea around St Martin’s Island and so on.57 It has not only brought ample resources and opportunities for Bangladesh, but also given huge responsibility on the country to effectively patrol maritime zones, safeguard sea lanes of communication as well as maintain effective maritime governance in the area.

In the changing context as discussed in the previous section, the delimitation of the maritime zone has necessitated revisiting Bangladesh’s stakes and interests in the Bay of Bengal region. The first and foremost task is to establish effective control and sovereign entitlements in the country’s maritime jurisdiction. This is fundamental for fighting both traditional security threats and geopolitical barriers. Bangladesh has to keep in mind that the Bay of Bengal is fast turning into a hotbed of rivalry involving India, China and the USA.58 Besides, Bangladesh has long-disputed maritime boundary with India and conflicting claims over the South Talpatti Island, located 3.5 kms from

52 Seth Robson, “China’s naval aspirations: A blue water force”, Stars and Stripes, 25 June 2013.53 Andrew Selth, “Chinese Military Bases in Burma: The Explosion of a Myth”, Regional Outlook Paper, No. 10, Griffith Asia Institute, 2007. 54 Mohan Malik, “China and India Today: Diplomatic Jostle, Militaries Prepare", World Affairs, July-August 2012.55 Mohammad Rubaiyat Rahman, “Regional Cooperation in Maritime Security: A View from the Bay of Bengal”, Annual International Studies Convention on Re-imagining Global Orders: Perspectives from the South, organised by Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, India, 10-12 December 2013. 56 Ayabur Rahman, “Challenges in conducting Bangladesh’s foreign policy”, The Daily Star, 15th Anniversary Special, 19 February 2006. 57 Syed Tashfin Chowdhury, “Bangladesh Wins Offshore Claims Against Myanmar”, Asia Times Online, 20 March 2012. 58 Sakhawat Hussein, “Geo-strategic Importance of Bangladesh”, The Daily Star, 15th Anniversary Special, 19 February 2006.

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the mouth of the Hariabhanga River, which serves as the border between Bangladesh and India. Unlike with Myanmar, a legal arbitration might not be enough to settle the dispute with India, requiring effective power projection to maintain stability in the region. Importantly, India has the ability to successfully blockade the Bay of Bengal with a potential to inflict grave economic damage for Bangladesh.59 One crucial thing is that one of the strategic Indian marine outposts, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands which is developing to be an important military base is only about 300 miles south of Bangladesh’s prime seaport of Chittagong.60 Bangladesh also encounters traditional security threats from Myanmar as reflected in the incidents of 2008 and 2009 when the naval vessels of both countries confronted in the disputed territorial waters.61 In this context, Bangladesh needs to pursue maritime capability to project effective power over the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf and beyond to both gain the legitimacy of its jurisdiction as well as to defend the territorial integrity of the country.

The strategic importance of Bangladesh would be sustained and augmented further only if it can acquire adequate naval strength to command its maritime jurisdiction as well as act strategically keeping a balanced engagement with the Indo-Pacific big powers. While due to the establishment of a naval base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean reduces Bangladesh’s strategic importance to the US, the country particularly its Chittagong port and coastal St Martin Island receive immense priority to China. China's profound interest in the proposed deep sea port of Bangladesh underlies much of its strategic objective in the Bay of Bengal region.62 On the other hand, the US, in recent years, is also strengthening maritime cooperation with Bangladesh to devise partnership so as to curb the expanding influence of the supposed ‘String of Pearls’ strategy of China. Maintaining the relations with both the big powers within acceptable bounds of one another is critical for Bangladesh’s command in the Bay of Bengal.

A vital maritime stake for Bangladesh is to ensure maritime security, particularly to curb irregular security threats in the sea waters (see table 1). Armed robbery, petty theft and piracy remain major concerns for Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal region.63 The safety of both seaborne trade and energy transportation are

59 Andrew Detsch, “With Pricey Naval Revamp, Bangladesh Can’t Afford to Fail”, The Diplomat, 22 November 2013. 60 Sakhawat Hussein, op. cit. 61 Sam Bateman, “Bay of Bengal: A New Sea of Troubles?”, RSIS Commentaries, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore, 21 May 2010. 62 Jonathan B. Miller, “China Making a Play at Bangladesh”, Forbes, 03 January 2014. 63 In Bangladesh coastline, threats are basically come from armed robbery and petty theft, rather than what is called “maritime piracy” according to international law of the sea. But Chittagong port of the country was listed as one of the most piracy-prone ports in the world by International Maritime Bureau. This was due to the mislabeling of armed robbery and petty theft as piracy by the local newspapers. For details, see Md. Khurshed Alam, “Maritime Piracy and Bangladesh Perspective”, paper presented in the Seminar Maritime Piracy and Human Response, organised by Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS), 05 March 2013, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

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fundamental for Bangladesh’s economy. Almost 90 per cent of the Gross National Product (GNP) depends on sea trade and commerce as well as almost 100 per cent of its energy requirements travels by sea.64 As many as 2500 merchant ships arrive at Chittagong and Mongla ports every year. The menace of piracy is also threatening fishermen’s income. About 5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Bangladesh gleans from the fish produce.65 Besides, trafficking of arms and drugs via sea routes, illegal and unregulated fishing and other living resources are also present. Curbing security threats in the maritime zone, therefore, appears to be an important priority of Bangladesh.

Table 1: Irregular Threats in Bangladeshi Sea WatersVulnerable Areas Threats

High Medium Low

Sea ports Natural disaster Smuggling of goods and arms

Piracy

Merchant ships Petty theft Armed robbery Piracy

Non-biological resources Natural disaster Petty theft, armed robbery

Piracy

Biological resources Illegal exploitation Over exploitation Marine Pollu-tion

Marine environment Pollution Sea level rise -

Coastal population Natural disaster Sea level rise Extortion

Sea farers Petty theft, armed rob-bery

Natural disaster Extortion

Source: The table is a modified version, originally taken from Masudul Karim Siddique, “Irregular Threats at Sea that Never Cease to Bother”, Sharanika, published on the occasion of the18th Anniversary of Bangladesh Coast Guard, 14 February 2013, pp. 36-47.

The most significant of all is Bangladesh’s drive to safeguard, explore and extract mineral and marine resources. Natural resources such as petroleum, carbon and marine fisheries in the Bay of Bengal are significant components of future economic development of Bangladesh.66 It has potential to become one of the biggest sources of offshore hydrocarbon reserves including gas and oil as well as organic materials such as fish, herbs, creepers, corals and so on. While almost entire pool of resources are yet to explore in Bangladesh’s part of the Bay of Bengal, the discovery of the Krishna Godavari and Mahanandi Basins of India with a potential reserve of 100 trillion cubic feet of gas (200 trillion cubic feet according to unofficial estimates) indicates that the prospect of hydrocarbon reserve in Bangladesh’s part is massively high.67 Myanmar also discovered seven trillion cubic feet of gas in 2006

64 “Bangladesh Free to Explore Resources in Bay: PM”, The Daily Star, 11 December 2012.65 According to data of the Department of Fisheries, the Government of Bangladesh. 66 Sifat Uddin, “US Naval Interest in Bangladesh”, The Daily Star, 28 July 2012. 67 “Sea border issue fails to grab govt focus”, The Daily Star, 03 November 2008.

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close to Bangladesh waters and India discovered two billion barrels of oil.68 India is utilising its share in the Bay of Bengal significantly. For instance, a large gas field in the Bay of Bengal produces one-third of the country’s domestic supply. Besides, the huge reserve of marine fisheries in the Bay of Bengal, estimated 475 species69, also presents an essential maritime incentive for Bangladesh.

One of the currently discussed priorities of Bangladesh is to undertake an ambitious plan to develop a blue water economy along with a deep sea port in order to increase seaborne trade and connect the country’s economy with the emerging economic tigers of Southeast and East Asia. It can be termed as “look-sea policy”, in which the plan would be to develop coastal cities facing the Bay of Bengal as industrial and logistics hub of the Indo-Pacific region. Myanmar’s ongoing Special Economic Zone (SEZ) projects in Kyaukpyu in Rakhine state, Thilawa near Yangon and Dawei in Tanintharyi could be some examples to follow.70 The cornerstone of Bangladesh’s policy in this area is the development of a deep sea port in Sonadia Island. Many governments including China and India have proposed to assist Bangladesh with the construction of the port. The ongoing negotiation with China is progressing in this regard. While Bangladesh strongly maintains only economic motives of the deep sea port, in effect, the port will not only enhance geoeconomic position of Bangladesh, it will also serve as the major strategic outpost for the country’s maritime security.

It is also in the interest of Bangladesh to maintain stable and effective maritime governance by promoting regional cooperation and collective actions to face transnational vulnerabilities and climate change induced calamities. In addition to natural disasters, rising sea levels caused by climate change pose a long-term security threat to coastal regions. Large numbers of Bangladesh’s total population live at sea level in low-lying area particularly in the coastline areas. An eight-inch rise in sea levels could result in 10 million environmental refugees by 2030.71 Besides, issues of piracy and illegal maritime activities can be best addressed through cooperative surveillance and information sharing arrangements.72 Bangladesh has propounded the formation of a SAARC Centre for Maritime Cooperation which would foster maritime cooperation and dialogue, secure atmosphere for the sustained exploitation of the resources of the sea and provide a framework of cooperation for weather prediction and marine environment protection. Bangladesh also needs to build a common vision of maritime security, unhindered passage of trade, counterterrorism and piracy, disaster prevention and humanitarian relief in a balanced and inclusive manner for safeguarding regional commons.73 The next section will discuss how Bangladesh is

68 Ibid. 69 Md Owasim Uddin Bhuyan, “No survey on fish reserve in 32 years”, The New Age, 19 February 2013.70 K Yhome, op. cit. 71 Robert D. Kaplan, op. cit. 72 Mohammad Rubaiyat Rahman, op. cit. 73 Ataur Rahman, Keynote paper presented in the seminar on Bangladesh-China Cooperation and the Security Dimensions of the Bay of Bengal, organised by Centre for East Asia (Foundations) at CIRDAP Auditorium, Dhaka, 22 December 2012.

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undertaking maritime capability building activities as well as what other areas need to be taken into consideration for comprehensively addressing maritime security.

5. Maritime Capability Building of Bangladesh

5.1 Modernisation of Bangladesh Navy

The emerging security landscape in the Bay of Bengal and the associated strategic postures projected by both the regional and the extra-regional forces have created a logical culmination in the maritime capability building initiatives by the littoral countries like Bangladesh. As a response, Bangladesh government has engaged into diverse capability building activities, particularly focusing on the modernisation of its navy. While the prime mission of the navy is to make effective use of the Bay of Bengal and adjoining sea areas in the interests of national development and to safeguard territorial sovereignty against external aggression in any form, it lacks adequate strength to perform its duty effectively. However, the navy is undergoing major transformation since last decade. The government of Bangladesh has undertaken an ambitious procurement and expansion program under “The Forces Goal 2030” (initially under “The Draft Forces Goal 2020” proposed in 2005-2006), which envisaged the navy with submarines, helicopters, maritime patrol-aircrafts and so forth. This plan has thoroughly assessed the navy’s deficiencies and offered endeavours to address those in phases. The modernisation initiative began with the adoption of the 10 year development plan in 2009. The navy’s capacity building is now coming into focus primarily to protect maritime interests in the large EEZ that the country has acquired. Given the importance of maritime boundary, the government has put substantial importance on equipping the navy. Statistics of defence purchase from fiscal year 2008-09 to 2012-13 show that Tk 4,975.49 crore was spent for the navy, compared to Tk 5,407.27 crore for the army.74 Several programmes have been taken to turn the navy into a balanced and strong force by 2030.

Bangladesh Navy has undertaken modernisation drive in four fundamental areas of maritime capability building. The first area is the maritime surveillance capacity which is of paramount importance against both conventional and non-conventional threats. Traditionally, the navy was dependent on the clock surface ship deployments for the maritime policing role, as it lacked air surveillance capabilities. With the establishment of aviation wing in 2011, the surveillance capability of the navy has considerably improved.75 The aviation wing will have both rotary and fixed wing air assets. The navy has already acquired two Augusta Westland AW109E helicopters in June 2011 and has three surface platforms including BNS Bangabandhu, Dhaleswari and Bijoy for operating these helicopters at sea.76

74 “Defence purchase govt’s priority”, The Daily Star, 31 August 2013. 75 “PM inaugurates 3 warships, 2 patrol aircraft”, The Daily Sun, 30 August 2013. 76 “Bangladesh Navy – Modernization”, Global Security, available at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/bangladesh/navy-modernization.htm, accessed on 12 January 2014.

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The second major area of modernisation is the surface capability building. To address the capability gap in this field, two castle class offshore patrol vessels (OPVs) have been acquired from the UK in March 2011. These OPVs are now being deployed regularly in the Bay of Bengal. Surveillance and fire power augmentation of these OPVs are ongoing. Moreover, two new large patrol crafts (LPCs), fitted with surface-to-surface missiles and medium range guns with search and fire control systems, were constructed in Wuchang Shipyard, China. Besides, the navy has operationalised the Otomat77 missile system of BNS Bangabandhu. The navy has also acquired QW-278 shoulder launched surface-to-air missiles to improve the ships’ self-defence capability against air threats. The navy is also planning to build two new corvettes with all-round capabilities. The inclusion of more surface platforms and augmentation of the existing ones will multiply the navy’s offshore capabilities.

The third area involves the inclusion of submarine capacity as one of the three pillars of Bangladesh government’s plan to transform its navy into a three dimensional force by 2019.79 Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina declared the government’s plan in December 2010. The recent rush of submarine acquisition by most of the South and Southeast Asian nations highlights the platform’s importance in maintaining maritime sovereignty. Bangladesh Navy is actively negotiating with China to procure two diesel-electric submarines.80 For that end, the force has already taken steps to build infrastructure and train up its personnel.

Finally, the development and organisation of special operations forces is another priority area for maritime capability building. Bangladesh Navy is working to prepare for special operations during war and peacetime including antiterrorism and antipiracy capability. It has introduced ‘Special Warfare, Diving and Salvage’ (SWADS) teams in 2011.81 To help capacity building, the US has provided Bangladesh with 16 Defender class high-speed boats and 22 rigid hull inflatable boats. These boats are playing an active role during the navy’s support in civilian governance in the maritime related areas. The SWADS personnel are trained to dispose of explosives and bombs, conduct underwater search, rescue or salvage, and deep diving for commandos. Their training and ability to move quickly to remote areas would also help the navy to better handle natural disasters and post-disaster situation.82

Besides, operational and infrastructural development, Bangladesh Navy’s modernisation drive also includes measures to enhance resource mobilisation capacity. Research and development particularly the navy’s drive for building capacity in oceanographic research became the first priority. For that end, the navy has acquired

77 The Otomat is an anti-ship and coastal attack missile built by the Italian company Oto Melara jointly with Matra. 78 QW-2 is a missile with all aspect attack capability and improved electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM) capabilities.79 Shakhawat Liton, “Navy eyes sub, new frigates”, The Daily Star, 24 June 2009.80 “Bangladesh Navy – Modernization”, op. cit. 81 Sharier Khan, “Navy adds spl war unit to fight terror”, The Daily Star, 26 November 2013.82 Ibid.

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an oceanographic survey ship, the BNS Anushandhan in 2010.83 The ship is fitted with the latest equipment for carrying out surveys in deep seas. Besides, for human resource development, the navy is undergoing a major shift in the digitisation and transformation in terms of improving processes and infrastructures to ensure quality human resources. It has been upgrading its training facilities to match the changing technology and systems and also developing new training establishments. The newly introduced various automation systems are likely to enhance both its capacity and performances. Furthermore, the navy is getting involved in the defence industry sector particularly in shipbuilding industry. Matching the ongoing private sector shipbuilding boost, the navy has taken steps to reduce its long-term dependence on foreign warship builders. It has concluded a deal under which a Chinese company will help Khulna shipyard with construction and technology transfer.84 The Shipyard has already started constructing five patrol crafts which will boost the navy’s inshore maritime governance capability.

The promising modernisation scheme of the navy is a pragmatic and timely initiative by the Bangladesh government which requires further strengthening in the coming years. The implementation of the targeted measures within the projected time would be critical. Further emphasis needs to be given on training, quality and efficiency of the personnel as well as procuring advanced combat vehicles and weaponry. In the near future, Bangladesh Navy needs to be able to command at high seas as well.

5.2 Empowering the Coast Guard

Along with the navy, empowering the coast guard bears enormous significance in the overall maritime capability enhancement framework of Bangladesh. Established in 1994, Bangladesh Coast Guard, has been playing a significant role in preserving economic and security interests at sea, particularly protecting fisheries; controlling piracy, illegal immigration, smuggling and illicit trafficking; and conducting search and rescue as well as disaster relief operations. Over the years, from only two ships, the coast guard is gradually becoming a full grown national law and order agency entrusted with the responsibility of providing surveillance over the sea areas of Bangladesh. However, though the agency is required to provide security to the coastal and island communities of about 50 million people who are dependent on sea professions either directly or indirectly,85 it lacks adequate men and resources, particularly high-powered ships and other vehicles. Equipped with only around two thousand people,86 it is almost impossible to provide security in the vast area of jurisdiction in the Bay of Bengal. Similarly, the numbers of ships are inadequate

83 “Bangladesh Navy – Modernization”, op. cit.84 “Khulna Shipyard hands over locally made ship to army”, The Daily Star, 14 November 2012. 85 Masudul Karim Siddique, “Irregular Threats at Sea that Never Cease to Bother”, Sharanika, published on the occasion of 18 Anniversary of Bangladesh Coast Guard, 14 February 2013, pp. 36-47.86 These people are also responsible to provide security in inland riverine waters of Bangladesh. See, Ibid.

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including: one aging costal patrol vessel (CPV) and one riverine patrol vessel (RPV) acquired from the navy; one inshore patrol vessel (IPV); two fast patrol boats (FPB); five high quality defender class boats and three metal shark ambulance pilot boats supplied by the USA; and indigenously built twenty dolphin class boats and one harbour patrol boat (HPB).87

Though the Bangladesh government has promised to modernise the coast guard on several occasions,88 plans were hardly materialised. With the delimitation of maritime boundary with Myanmar, now the area of jurisdiction is much bigger than before. It requires a coast guard, not only with enough men and resources, but also fortified with highly trained and efficient force operating modern vessels and boats. It is crucial that the coast guard is prioritised in the scheme of ‘Forces Goal 2030’ and modernised accordingly. For that end, newer ships are required to increase patrolling capacity at least up to continental shelf areas. Improvement of training facility particularly completing the construction of proposed training academy in Patuakhali is vital. Some other areas can include regular joint exercise with the neighbouring coast guards, and inter-agency coordination is also necessary to enhance the surveillance efficiency of the coast guard. Here, establishing a Maritime Interagency Coordination Centres (MIACC) in Chittagong and Mongla can harmonise the actions of concerned maritime agencies especially in combating crimes in the sea areas.89

5.3 Building Soft Capabilities

Along with hard capabilities, a comprehensive capability building also requires considerable attention towards soft capabilities. Bangladesh is lagging behind in this area, specially when it comes to the issues of maritime capability. There are at least three areas that demand extensive attention from both government and private-led institutions. The first is the development of resource exploration and extraction capacities. Bangladesh needs to strengthen capacity in hydrographic survey and oceanographic research for measuring the feature affecting maritime navigation, marine construction, dredging, offshore oil exploration and drilling and related activities. Currently, the Hydrographic Department of Bangladesh Navy is responsible for ensuring availability of reliable and updated information on the marine environment.90 But the country needs to develop comprehensive technological and technical know-how required for effectively exploring, drilling and extracting seabed mineral resources.

The second area is the construction of critical infrastructure at sea for facilitating seaborne trade, fight sea-induced natural disasters, control piracy and maritime pollution. Some priorities in the area are: the construction of deep sea port in Sonadia, increase capacity and efficiency of both Chittagong and Mongla ports, building

87 Masudul Karim Siddique, op. cit. 88 “Coast Guard to be modernised”, The Daily Star, 15 February 2009. Also see, Mohammad Jamil Khan, “40 Coast Guard members awarded medals”, Dhaka Tribune, 15 February 2014. 89 Masudul Karim Siddique, op. cit.90 According to the information of Hydrographic Department of Bangladesh Navy.

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strategic communication facilities in some coastal Islands and so on. The country needs to develop a clear policy guideline for the deep sea port and settle the issue of contract with the interested countries as soon as possible. The delay in constructing the port is harming Bangladesh’s economy exponentially and diminishing the growing prospect of the country to become a commercial and logistical hub in the region.

And the final area is the issue of maritime governance as the cornerstone of Bangladesh’s long-term maritime policy in the Bay of Bengal. Currently, maritime affairs are managed without any central coordination. There are many agencies including the navy, the coast guard, Maritime Fisheries Department, Department of Dhipping, Shipping Corporation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, port authorities, custom authorities, Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Commpany Limited and so on are operating often with overlapping jurisdiction in maritime related activities. For greater coordination, a central coordinating body would be critical in the coming years, given the increased level of activities in maritime areas in near future. For that end, Bangladesh government can think of either designating any of the relevant ministries as the lead body or establishing a separate full ministry of maritime affairs entrusted with the responsibility of managing the maritime affairs.

5. Conclusion

The Bay of Bengal is a lifeline for Bangladesh which has immense potential to contribute to its economy, if the enormous reserve of seabed resources are explored and extracted effectively. The geostrategic location of the Bay of Bengal has made it enormously important to the other countries including India, Myanmar, China and the US as well. The paper delineates the stakes of Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal and anlayses the country’s necessity of engaging in maritime capability building endeavours. While other littoral countries, particularly India and Myanmar, are acting proactively by redefining their objectives and reassessing their priorities in the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh is yet to develop a comprehensive maritime strategy to deal with the emerging issues and realities in the Bay of Bengal region. The consolidating efforts of the Indian Navy on one hand and the expanding naval ties of Myanmar with China and India on the other pose long-term challenges to Bangladesh’s stable and peaceful maritime governance. On the extra-littoral front, the US and China have also been drawn to the geographic and strategic significance of the Bay of Bengal and rebalancing their respective strategies to shape the rising security dynamics in their own favour, either in the form of partnership building or by marshalling their military presence in the littoral outposts of the Bay of Bengal. Both the Obama administration’s ‘Asia Pivot’ policy and the supposed Chinese strategy of ‘String of Pearls’ have brought compelling situation for Bangladesh to act in a balanced and stable manner, projecting its clear and definite national interests, instead of appearing to be taking sides. These realities demand a long-term maritime capability building programme for Bangladesh, where the country would not only

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develop strength and capacities, but also engage with both littoral and extra-littoral countries in creating a peaceful and prosperous Bay of Bengal region. This is fundamental to ensure the security of the sea lanes of communication, to boost seaborne trade and to maintain uninterrupted energy supply for the countries of the adjacent regions.

As a littoral country, Bangladesh needs to act proactively in providing security of the maritime areas under its own control. It has to employ its geopolitical and geostrategic advantages to extract a better output from the emerging landscape. The verdict of the ITLOS has brought a unique opportunity for Bangladesh to utilise the vast maritime areas for economic and development output so as to complement the fast saturating inland resources. To this end, Bangladesh needs to adopt a comprehensive maritime strategy, focusing on both hard capabilities including the modernisation of the navy and the coast guard as well as soft capabilities such as maritime governance, research and development, and resource exploration and exploitation capacities. Effective maritime governance is crucial to conserve, explore and manage both living and non-living resources at sea. It also helps to better coordinate among agencies working on maritime affairs, cooperate with other countries having overlapping interests and claims, and to fight irregular and transnational threats and vulnerabilities including piracy, illegal fishing, theft, smuggling, human and drug trafficking and so on. With a vigilant and comprehensive maritime capability, Bangladesh can reap the optimum benefit from the emerging opportunities in the Bay of Bengal as well as safeguard its rightful claims in the region.

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Ruksana Kibria

THE IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL AND GEOPOLITICAL REALIGNMENT

Abstract

The November 2013 interim nuclear deal that was signed between the P5+1 and Iran is an epochal event, though, given the volatile situation, it may be too early to make a correct prognosis of its ramifications. For one thing, the nuclear deal could complicate the regional security environment by exacerbating Saudi-Iranian tension, though as such, it is not the source.Regardless of Saudi displeasure at the conclusion of the accord, Iran’s ascendancy is amply clear, with its ambiguous nuclear status playing a strategic role. While the dominant narrative currently is the centrality of Shia-Sunni regional tension represented by Iran and Saudi Arabia, reality is far more intricate and multi-dimensional, requiring a more nuanced appreciation of their relationship, which suggests that, for the foreseeable future it would be in the US interest to have Saudi Arabia, off-setting Iran, but from a much weaker position, in a replay of the game of balance of power achieved through sustained geopolitical manipulation, and a smaller American foot-print. The goal of Tehran’s nuclear brinksmanship is essentially ensuring its regional primacy, which accords with US interests, too. While the recent interim Iran deal apparently concerns the nuclear issue, it has far-reaching implications for the global energy market, which the relaxation of economic sanctions and the integration of Iran as a legitimate member of the international community is certain to affect. US-Iran normalisation of relations is quietly enhancing China’s role, both economic and military, in the Gulf region, whose energy resources for the foreseeable future would continue to remain crucial for Beijing. More than a reconciliation between Washington and Tehran, the essence of a real paradigm shift would involve a Saudi-Iranian accommodation, and de facto Saudi acceptance of Iran’s regional pre-eminence.

1. Introduction

Considered to be a game-changer, the November 2013 Joint Plan of Action (JPOA),1 a historic nuclear deal between the P5+1 (five permanent members of the United Nations (UN) Security Council plus Germany) and Iran, marks the turning of a page in the playbook of the United States-Iran reconciliation process. The first formal but preliminary US-Iran agreement in more than 34 years, it is expected to herald

Ruksana Kibria is Professor at the Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka. Her email address is: [email protected]

© Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS), 2014.

1 For the full text of the Joint Plan of Action, see “Iran nuclear deal: joint plan of action - full document”, The Guardian, 24 November 2013.

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profound shifts in the regional geopolitical landscape, analogous to US President Richard M. Nixon’s diplomatic breakthrough with the People’s Republic of China in 1972. Going further back in history, one can perhaps liken it to renversement des alliances or diplomatic revolution, the first occurring in 1756, though in a vastly different context.2 According to Vali Nasr, the Dean of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, “It is a major seismic shift in the region. It rearranges the entire chess board.”3 It was regarded as particularly contentious for members of US Congress,4 as well as America’s regional allies, namely Saudi Arabia and Israel, in view of the haste with which it was concluded, and the secrecy that attended the negotiations held during the previous nine months, facilitated by Oman’s Sultan Qaboos bin Sayid Al Sayid. Saudi Arabia “cautiously welcomed” the deal,5 despite being manifestly riled, whereas the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu categorically denounced it as “a historic mistake”.6

As a result of this interim accord, some US$ 7 billion worth of “limited, targeted and reversible” economic sanctions would be lifted from Iran, in return for its suspension of uranium enrichment and additional International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitoring of its nuclear sites for the next six months. While the agreement is supposed to be a tentative resolution of the alleged Iranian nuclear programme, its scope is much more extensive, transcending the merely technical aspects to affect in an unprecedented manner the wider regional geopolitical environment. At the end of the day, it is more than a nuclear issue, or even a bomb; it is about the long-term and comprehensive political rapprochement between Washington and Tehran that would render the latter a major actor on the international stage. The final deal is expected to include the following: dismantling of the major portions of existing centrifuges and low enriched uranium; halting the under-ground nuclear facilities at Fordow, near Qom , and heavy water nuclear reactor at Arak; resolution of the weaponisation issue; and additional inspection and monitoring beyond the Action Plan. The inherent conflict between Iran’s desire to increase the number of centrifuges (currently 19,000), available for uranium enrichment, and the Western goal of reducing it to around a few thousand renders the conclusion of a final agreement between the P5+1 and

2 In 1756, during the Seven Years War, the Treaty of Versailles of that year transformed the Franco-Prussian Alliance against Great Britain and Austria into a Franco-Austrian Alliance against Great Britain and Prussia. See, Robert M. Cutler, “Washington’s ‘Fashoda’ moment”, Asia Times Online, 23 December 2013. 3 Mark Landler, “Nuclear Accord With Iran Opens Diplomatic Doors in the Mideast”, The New York Times, 24 November 2013. 4 On 19 December 2013 a draft bill was introduced by 19 Democratic and 19 Republican members of the US Senate that, if enacted, would imposed stringent sanctions on Iran in case of Iranian non-compliance with the previous November’s interim nuclear deal with the United States. “Current sanctions brought Iran to the negotiating table and a credible threat of future sanctions will require Iran to cooperate and act in good faith at the negotiating table”, said Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N. J., who undertook the legislative initiative along with Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., who called the draft bill “an insurance policy to defend against Iranian deception". Associated Press, “Defying Obama, 26 Senators Push New Iran Sanctions”, NPR, 19 December 2013; Joshua Hersh, “Iran Sanctions Bill From Sens. Bob Menendez and Mark Kirk Could Endanger US Negotiations”, Huffington Post, 19 December 2013.5 “Saudi Arabia Cautiously Welcomes Iran Nuclear Deal”, Voice of America, News/Middle East, 25 November 2013.6 Jodi Rudoren, “Israeli leaders Denounce Geneva Accord”, The New York Times, 24 November 2013.

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Iran questionable, the chances of which even the US President Barack Obama has admitted to be not more than “50/50”.7 Interestingly, if the final settlement requires another year of negotiation, it may be determined by the results of the US mid-term elections in November 2014.8

This paper seeks to explore the nature of the strategic paradigm shift, and the extent to which the JPOA recalibrates and reorders the regional geopolitical setting. It basically focuses on: i) the mutual interests of the United States and Iran in the deal; ii) its regional ramifications; iii) the potential impact of the deal on the global oil market; and iv) the prospects of a nuclear Iran, and assesses its overall geopolitical implications.

2. Historical Backdrop

At the heart of the conflict in the Persian Gulf region is the Saudi-Iranian rivalry over political influence not only in the Gulf region, but in the Levant and Afghanistan as well, leadership of the Muslim world, nuclear technology, and dominance of the global energy market.9 With Britain’s 1971 decision to withdraw from the “East of Suez,”10 a triangular regional security dynamic ensued, involving Iran, Iraq and a cluster of Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia. Since the vital interests (the perceived Soviet threat being the most prominent), of the United States coincided with those of Iran and Saudi Arabia, it considered them to be the “twin pillars” of regional security, or US “surrogates”. According to the position officially endorsed by the Nixon administration in the 1970s, US interests and policy in the Gulf region were, among other things, “Assist[ing] in the modernization of the armed forces of Iran and Saudi Arabia to enable them to provide effectively for their own security and to foster the security of the region as a whole.”11 In the wake of the British withdrawal from the region, the late Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi of Iran, with US backing, made a bid for Tehran’s primacy, and to transform his country into “the policeman of the Gulf”. For

7 Bradley Klapper and Darlene Superville, “Obama on chance of Iran nuclear deal: Not more than 50/50”, WorldNews on NBCNEWS.com., 07 December 2013.8 Ankit Panda and Zachary Keck, “The Iran Nuclear Deal: As Seen From Asia”, The Diplomat, 26 November 2013. 9 Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh, “The Persian Gulf and, Afghanistan: Iran and Saudi Arabia’s Rivalry Projected”, Paper 4 of the PRIO Project “Afghanistan in a Neighbourhood Perspective”, Peace Research Institute Oslo, March 2013, p. 4.10 This decision is currently under review, though not well-articulated, indicating the possibility of Britain’s “return to east of Suez”, in the context of the political volatility in the region and partly due to the US rebalance toward the Pacific. See, Gareth Stansfield and Saul Kelly, “A Return to East of Suez? UK Military Deployment to the Gulf”, Briefing Paper, London: Royal United Services Institute, April 2013. Actually, the US Gulf security was based on the British security policy-paper whose stated long-term goal in the region was to “encourage an indigenous balance of power which does not require our military presence”. This strategy of balancing Iran and Saudi Arabia was subsequently adopted by the United States and came to be known as the “twin pillar” policy. Lee Smith, “For Gulf Allies, Obama’s Turn Away From the Region Looks Like a Gift to Tehran”, Tablet Magazine, 19 March 2014.11 US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Joseph Sisco’s statement before Congress in August 1972. Major Randy M. Bell, US Marine Corps, Expansion of American Persian Gulf Policy By Three Presidents, CSC 1990, available at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1990/BRB.htm, accessed on 21 December 2013.

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the good part of the 1970s, Iran, with armed forces twice the size of Iraq and four to six times larger annual defence outlays,12 a large population and a robust relationship with the United States,13 was the pre-eminent regional power, a fact further bolstered by its capture of three Gulf islands disputed with the United Arab Emirates (UAE): Abu Musa, Greater and Lesser Tunbs. During this period, it also had cordial relations with Saudi Arabia, which was to change in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, when Iran became a challenger to the legitimacy of the Sunni Arab Gulf monarchies, and as such, the greatest perceived threat to regional security. Ever since, Iran and the Gulf states under Saudi leadership have been competing for regional power and influence, with Washington shifting its focus to Riyadh as a security partner. With the onset of the1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, the US-sponsored Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), composed of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain and Oman, was established in 1981, to deal with the twin threats of secular, Ba’athist Iraq and Iranian revolutionary activism.

One of the three big players, Iraq was emasculated by three successive conflicts: the 1980-88 internecine war with Iran; the first Gulf War in 1991; and the US-led Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 which ousted the socialist, pro-Soviet/Russian (Sunni) government of President Saddam Hussein, hitherto a bane for both Iran and Saudi Arabia. With the elimination of Iraq as a power-centre, the Persian Gulf security scenario has been basically reduced to a “bipolar dyad", with regional countries either in the Iranian zone of influence (Syria and Iraq) or that of Saudi Arabian (the GCC members). This binary rivalry actually went beyond both ethnic and religious differences, as well as just Arab-Persian division.14

The overthrow of the Saddam regime led to a strategic regional reordering that was a “natural gift”15 for Iran, which American scholars (almost apologetically), refer to as unforeseen and “unintentional”.16 In Juan Cole’s assessment, in the decade since 2003, “the United States, in a fit of absent-mindedness, made Iran a regional hegemon [emphasis added],”17 with post-Saddam Iraq turning into a battle-ground for Iranian and Saudi strategic contest. Another causality of this changed setting was the till-then politically empowering concept of implicitly anti-Shia pan-Arabism, with profound consequences for the Gulf geopolitical milieu. The second strategic windfall for Iran was the phenomenon of the Arab Spring (2011), which overthrew most of the key Sunni Arab leaders – in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya. In the case of Syria, the fact that President Bashar Al-Assad, an Iranian ally, has apparently survived the onslaught on his regime, is expected to further consolidate Tehran’s influence

12 Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh, op. cit., p. 5.13 Afshin Molavi, “Iran and the Gulf States”, The Iran Primer, Washington D.C., the United States Institute of Peace, 2010, available at http://iranprimer.usip.org/resource/iran-and-gulf-states, accessed on 21 December 2013. 14 Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh, op. cit.,p. 6. 15 Ibid., p. 20.16 See Stephen M. Walt, “The Top 10 Lessons of the Iraq War”, Foreign Policy, 22 March 2012.17 Juan Cole, “The Rise of the Sunnis and the Decline of Iran, Iraq and Hizbullah: The Middle East in 2013”, Informed Comment, 01 January 2013.

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by extending it to the Mediterranean shores. The third crucial “gift” is the recent Iran nuclear deal which, for the Saudis is but another front in a Syria-centered sectarian proxy war that is set to reshape the Middle East, and stoke their rivalry with Iran.18 According to one Saudi commentary, “The Geneva negotiations are just a prelude to a new chapter of convergence” between Washington and Tehran,19 which potentially elevates Iran’s status in the regional hierarchy.

3. US-Iran Relations

It was the convergence of American and Iranian interests rather than the effects of Western economic sanctions20 on the Iranian economy that provided the real impetus for Tehran to negotiate a nuclear deal at this point. How the US-Iran relations evolve over the years would determine the future contour of the regional security environment. While the two countries have historically maintained friendly ties, for various complex reasons these have not always been smooth; it may be mentioned that, even before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, in the hey-day of US-Iran relations during the late Shah’s reign, there was no formal alliance cemented between the two.21 Since the history of US-Iran relations over the last six decades is well documented,22 one can do without recounting it here. For an analysis of the current breakthrough in their bilateral relations, suffice it to say that, for more than a decade Iran had been making overtures to the United States for some sort of rapprochement. Having cooperated with it (despite being handicapped by the Clinton-era “dual-containment” policy), in overthrowing the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001,23 Tehran proposed a peace agreement with Washington, accommodating Iran’s ‘rightful’ political aspirations in the region which, as is well known, was not only spurned by US President George W. Bush, in the 2002 State of the Union address he famously designated Iran as a member of an “axis of evil”, along with Iraq and North Korea, in what appeared to bean apparent failure of Iranian diplomacy. However, on hindsight, it may not have been an unmitigated disaster, since in the interval, Iran’s bargaining position was significantly reinforced.

With a population of 78 million,24greater than the combined population of the GCC countries and Iraq, 9 per cent of global and 12 per cent of Organisation of

18 Robert F. Worth, “US and Saudis in Growing Rift as Power Shifts”, The New York Times, 25 November 2013. 19 Ibid. 20 “Sanctions: How Much is Iran Hurting?”, The Iran Primer, the United States Institute of Peace,18 November 2013.21 Shireen Hunter of Georgetown University laments that, “The US never signed a comprehensive security agreement with Iran, and valued the country only as an export market, a client, and a buffer, not as an ally like Turkey or Saudi Arabia. In the 1970’s, when the Shah demanded to be treated like an ally, America came to see him as a liability, a view that helped shape events in the time leading up to the Islamic revolution there.” Shireen Hunter, “Dealing with Iran”, Commentary, 01 July 2006. 22 See Bryan R. Gibson, “Iran nuclear deal shows hawks that diplomacy actually works”, CNN (online), 25 November 2013.23 Gareth Porter, “How Neocons Sabotaged Iran’s Help on al-Qaeda”, Antiwar.com, 26 February 2006.24 “Iran Overview,” The World Bank, Washington D.C., September 2013, available at http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/iran/overview, accessed on 22 December 2013.

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Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil reserves,25 and with 15.8 per cent of world’s proven natural gas reserves,26 dominating the 615-mile long27 coast-line of the Persian Gulf, through whose Strait of Hormuz 22 per cent of global petroleum is transported,28 and with a “frontage” on both the Gulf and the energy-rich Caspian Sea, Iran has a special place in US strategic calculus. With a capacity for influencing regional and international stability,29 Iran also meets the basic criteria of being a pivotal state for the United States. Susan Maloney of the Brookings Institution argues that, for a successful implementation of US democratisation and liberalisation policy in the Muslim world, engaging Iran is essential.30 It has been variously referred to as “the natural regional hegemon”, a natural ally, (a reality subscribed to by a number of American policymakers and analysts),31 as well as a regional superpower,32 by virtue of which it is considered to be pre-eminently qualified to assume the role of a “pivotal” state. Even the former US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger has acknowledged that Iran’s real national interests actually “parallel” those of the United States.33 Graham E. Fuller, a veteran Iran expert, has urged Washington to “liberate [its] geopolitical imaginations” in order to better understand Iran’s place in the “new” but inchoate Middle East, since it impacts US policies toward Russia, China, Afghanistan, Central Asia, the Caucasus, Turkey, Israel, the Arab world, Pakistan, India, and East Asian energy.34

That Iran under a different political dispensation is slated for a crucial role (even if its long-term cartographic shape is far from assured), is deftly put by Robert D. Kaplan,

A liberated Iran, coupled with less autocratic governments in the Arab world – governments that would be focused more on domestic issues because of their own insecurity – would encourage a more equal, fluid balance of power between Sunnis and Shia in the Middle East, something that would help keep

25 According to Oil & Gas Journal, cited in Independent Statistics and Analysis, US Energy, available at Information Agency, 28 March 2013.26 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, June 2010, p. 22, available at http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/reports_and_publications/statistical_energy_review_2008/STAGING/local_assets/2010_downloads/statistical_review_of_world_energy_full_report_2010.pd, accessed on 22 December 2013.27 Robert D. Kaplan, “The Geography of Iranian Power”, Stratfor, 05 September 2012.28 Juan Cole, “Solar would be Cheaper: US Pentagon has spent $8 Trillion to Guard Gulf Oil”, Informed Comment, 08 December 2013.29 See, Robert S. Chase, Emily B. Hill and Paul Kennedy, “Pivotal States and US Strategy”, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 75, No.1, 1996, p. 33.30 Susan Maloney, Iran’s Long Reach: Iran As A Pivotal State In The Muslim World, the United States Institute of Peace, 2008, p. 6, available at http://bookstore.usip.org/resrcs/frontm/160127033X_intro.pdf, accessed on 22 December 2013. 31 Jeremy Shapiro, “Iran and the US-Saudi Grand Bargain”, Foreign Policy, 05 December 2013; Edward N. Luttwak, “Three Reasons Not To Bomb Iran–Yet”, Commentary, May 2006; Leslie H. Gelb, “Bomb Scare ‘Unthinkable’ by Kenneth M. Pollack”, The New York Times, 05 September 2013.32 Robert Baer, “Robert Baer on US-Iran Relations – Part1/3”, BBC Hard Talk, 24 July 2008.33 Quoted in Robert D. Kaplan, “Living With a Nuclear Iran”, The Atlantic, September 2010; see also, Hossein Mousavian, “An Opportunity for a US-Iran Paradigm Shift”, The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 36, No.1, 2013.34 Graham E. Fuller, “Iran Marks a Watershed in the Middle East”, The Huffington Post, 12 December 2013.

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the region nervously preoccupied with itself and on its own internal and regional power dynamics, much more than on America and Israel[emphases added]. 35

The main US interest in the Persian Gulf region is essentially balance of power rather than governance, and if Iran can be instrumental in maintaining the former, then so be it, goes the intellectual drift in Washington. As an unequivocal matter of policy, the United States would conduct relations there in a “necessarily…transactional rather than strategic” manner, and would desist from taking sides for the sake of historic bonds or lasting friendship.36 According to one particularly insightful observation, the path to Damascus, Baghdad and Asia runs through Tehran, which is thus urged to exercise its premium regional power and “sell it at a high price".37Strategically speaking, the greatest benefit that Washington is set to reap from the interim nuclear deal is the scaling-down of US military presence,38 hence spending, in the Gulf region, thus enabling it pivot or rebalance to the Asia-Pacific, ostensibly to counter an increasingly assertive China, but in reality to consolidate its military, economic and diplomatic presence in a more contested and strategic locale.

US-Iran improved ties will not only facilitate an energy corridor from Central Asia to South Asia and the Persian Gulf, it would also allow mutually beneficial market-access to Iranian oil and natural gas. The US commercial interests too, are expected to be promoted as a result of the lifting of economic sanctions on Tehran, especially in its vital energy sector where at least US$ 200 billion investments are required.39 In brief, the future of their bilateral relations holds enormous promise for American as well as international security and economy. The potentialities of US-Iran rapprochement, which are considerable, however, can reach fruition only if the outstanding challenges in Iran’s neighbourhood, namely Iraq and Afghanistan, are resolved satisfactorily.

3. Regional Ramifications

3.1 Iraq

Hostile rhetoric notwithstanding, the stabilisation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Caucasus (along with the question of elusive energy independence), are the three “lowest-hanging fruits”, where US-Iranian cooperation and partnership are deemed

35 Robert D. Kaplan, “The Geography of Iranian Power”, op. cit.36 Jeremy Shapiro, op. cit.37 Marianna Charountaki, “The increasing importance of Iran”, Your Middle East, 12 December 2013.38 Currently the United States has 35,000 military personnel in the region, of which 10,000 are regular army soldiers with helicopter gunships, 40 naval vessels and an aircraft carrier battle group in the Gulf region. It also has a number bases there, with the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. The US Department of Defense has, since 2007 approved more US$75 billion in arms sales to GCC countries. See, Chuck Hagel, Address at the 9th IISS Regional Security Summit: The Manama Dialogue, delivered on 07 December 2013, in Manama, Bahrain.39 Pepe Escobar, “All in Play in the New Great Game”, Dissident Voice, 23 December 2013.

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to be crucial.40 From the American perspective, military withdrawal from Afghanistan would presumably be “more comfortable” if US-Iran relations are normalised.41 While outlining the scope of future US-Iran dialogue, Hossein Mousavian, the former Iranian nuclear negotiator, stressed the need for forging a broader framework for interaction beyond the nuclear talks. He pointed out the commonalities of interests between the two heretofore estranged countries: “… We have crisis in Afghanistan. US is a big player, Iran is big player, they have many common interests. We have crisis in Iraq. US is a big player, Iran is big player…[sic].”42

Iraq, not nuclear weapons, then is the main issue in US-Iran negotiations.43 Stabilisation of Iraq is a US priority which Iran can do much to advance, and simultaneously consolidate its power and influence there, since as long as it is “a playing-field rather than a player”, it is going to be the regional geopolitical focal-point, as well as a factor in empowering Iran.44 The recent45 recrudescence of insurgency in the sunni-dominated Anbar province has led to Iran offering, jointly with the United States, military assistance to Baghdad,46 even though the long-term prospects of Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki’s hold over that province, thus Iraq’s territorial integrity, is open to question. It was the only country that attacked Iran (during the 1980-88 war), and the key obstacle for Iranian access to the broader Middle East,47 and by the same token, a strategic gateway for Iranian entry into the region, where it’s influence can be further projected, as well as have its western borders safeguarded.48 Gaining strategic depth in Iraq has been a boon for Iran,49 since as a virtual Iranian backyard, the source of its national security is believed to be actually in Iraqi territory, with forward Iranian defence, according to Vali Nasr, beginning specifically in Basra.50 Robert Baer, a former US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official, opines that deeply imbued with a sense of exceptionalism and destiny, and possessing “an imperial

40 Vali Nasr, Symposium on Iran and Policy Options for the Next Administration: Session Three, (video), Council on Foreign Relations, 05 September 2008, available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yd2xfw3-Ro, accessed on 28 December 2013.41 Vali Nasr, quoted in Tracy Tong, “Here’s why the US dance with Iran will ultimately affect Afghanistan and Pakistan”, PRI’s The World, 26 November 2013, available at http://pri.org/stories/2013-11-26/heres-why-us-dance-iran-will-ultimately-affect-afghanistan-and-pakistan, accessed on 28 December 2013. 42 Hossein Moussavian, “The US and Iran: A Breakthrough Moment?”, ( video), New York, Asia Society, 17 December 2013, available athttp://asiasociety.org/video/policy/us-and-iran-breakthrough-moment-complete, accessed on 28 December 2013. 43 George Friedman, “Thinking About the Unthinkable: A U.S.-Iranian Deal”, Geopolitical Weekly, Stratfor, 01 March 2010.44 F. Gregory Gause, “The Emerging Shia Crescent Symposium:Implications for U.S. Policy in the Middle East”, Council on Foreign Relations, 05 June 2006.45 December 2013/January 2014.46 Thomas Erdbrink, “U.S. and Iran Face Common Enemies in Mideast Strife”, The New York Times, 06 January 2014.47 Ibid.48 Reva Bhalla, “The US-Saudi dilemma – Iran’s reshaping of Persian Gulf politics”, Stratfor: Global Intelligence, 23 July 2011.49 Mohsen M. Milani, “Meet me in Baghdad: U.S.-Iran Tensions Flare in Iraq", Foreign Affairs, 20 September 2010.50 Vali Nasr, “Symposium on Iran and Policy Options for the Next Administration: Session Three”, op. cit.

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mind-set”, Iranians seek a sphere of influence in Iraq and Afghanistan…,51 granting which is not adverse to US interests. The Iranian strategic priority is to promote an Iraq with a weak central government and strong provinces, in other words, to prevent the emergence of a strong Iraq as a counter-weight to Iran, which Tehran is capable of ensuring.52 The extent of its authority over Baghdad was epitomised recently when the Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshayer Zebari, while condemning the Iranian violation of Iraqi airspace for sending military assistance to the government of Syrian President Bahar Al-Assad, ruefully admitted that, “But we do not have the ability to stop it".53  Disconcertingly for Riyadh, Tehran’s access to Iraqi territories has brought the Islamic Republic in close proximity to the Saudi borders, enabling easier communication with its Shia minority groups.54

3.2 Afghanistan

Regardless of Iraq’s importance, it should be reiterated that Iran’s long-term future is further east and north, that is, economically dynamic South and Central Asia, with which the issues of energy resources, markets, energy transportation corridor, etc. are intertwined. Tehran, moreover, is aware that without stabilising its eastern borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan, its ability to project power towards its west and south is circumscribed.55 In this regard Afghanistan’s position is paramount, where US and Iranian interests have been aligned since 1979,56 with Mohammad Javad Zarif, then chief Iranian negotiator and now foreign minister and a key figure of the nuclear deal, playing a decisive role in the formation of the post-Taliban government of President Hamid Karzai at the November 2001 Bonn Conference.57 The government of President Hassan Rouhaniis expected to play a similar role in the forthcoming April 2014 Afghan elections. Conflating Shia’ism and Iran has produced a particularly remarkable scenario in post-Taliban Afghanistan, where an unprecedented Shia, (hence Iranian) empowerment has made their inclusion in the government positions, and with the new constitution recognising Shia religion and law, for the first time in history a candidate from that sect could actually be the president of Afghanistan.58

The tussle going on between the Obama administration and President Karzai over the issue of a US-sponsored Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA),59 determining the future of American military presence in Afghanistan after 2014, is but one aspect of the

51 Robert Baer, BBC/Hard Talk, part 3, 24 July 2008.52 George Friedman, “Thinking About the Unthinkable: A U.S.-Iranian Deal", Geopolitical Weekly, Stratfor, 01 March 2010. 53 Dr. Ghassan Shabaneh, “Kerry’s Visit to Saudi Arabia and the Saudi American Relations", Al-Jazeera Center for Studies, 09 December 2013.54 Ibid.55 “Iran’s Geopolitical Priorities in South Asia”, Stratfor, 04 December 2013.56 Ray Takeyh, “Symposium on Iran and Policy Options for the Next Administration: Session Three", (video), Council on Foreign Relations, 05 September 2008.57 Mohammed Ayoob, “Consequences of the Iran Deal", Foreign Policy, 28 November 2013.58 Vali Nasr, “Symposium on Iran and Policy Options for the Next Administration: Session Three”, op. cit.59 It would permit the stationing of US troops on a permanent footing in the nine American military bases situated near the borders of China, Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

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looming drama at the intersection of the Middle East and South Asia, which is likely to be transformed into another battleground for Saudi-Iranian contest for power.60 While opposing the idea of a US-Afghanistan security pact, Tehran itself concluded a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), covering mainly security issues, with Kabul in August 2013, some of whose provisions implicitly referred to Pakistan as the regional “menace”61. They have also agreed to sign another broader, long-term cooperation and friendship accord with it soon.62 Although instrumental in ousting the Taliban regime in 2001, Iran has demonstrated its pragmatism and geopolitical acumen by providing “measured” support,63 as well as maintaining a line of communication with it, to the understandable annoyance of the Karzai government.64

A change in the theocratic/ideological pitch in Tehran would also generate greater Iranian soft power in Central Asian republics, whose ethnic Muslim identity is not consonant with the banner of radical Islamism.65

3.3 Multilateral Cooperation and China

An enduring resolution of the Afghan crisis would necessarily require the cooperation of the neighbouring countries including China,66 which all have interests at stake in that embattled territory, involving the real possibility of being “on the menu”, if they are not present “at the table”.67All are keenly cognizant of the fact that the failure to successfully resolve the crisis would intensify the rivalry in Afghanistan between Shia Iran and Sunni (Wahhabi/Salafi) Saudi Arabia on the one hand, and India and Pakistan on the other, with each side extending its support to opposing factions in the ensuing scramble for power, thereby undermining overall regional peace and stability. However, it would indeed be a difficult enterprise, given the number of neighbours involved and their multiple and often conflicting interests in Afghanistan.68 Launched in 2011 with US support by Turkey and Afghanistan, as a prospective “mechanism” for conflict-resolution and confidence-building among

60 One cogent American perspective of the post-2014 Afghan situation is provided by Seth G. Jones and Keith Crane, Afghanistan After the Drawdown, Council Special Report No. 67, Council on Foreign Relations, November 2013.61 Thomas Ruttig, “Can Kabul Carry Two Melons in One Hand? Afghanistan and Iran sign strategic cooperation agreement", Afghanistan Analysts Network, 06 August 2013.62 Hamid Shalizi, “Afghanistan, Iran plan cooperation pact amid tensions with U.S.", Reuters, 08 December 2013. The official Iranian position as enunciated by President Hassan Rouhani is, “All foreign troops should be withdrawn from the region… [The] security of Afghanistan should be entrusted to the Afghan people", Ibid.63 Alireza Nader and Joya Laha, Iran’s Balancing Act in Afghanistan, Occasional Paper, National Defense Research Institute, 2011, pp. 1-5. 64 Ruttig, “Can Kabul Carry Two Melons in One Hand? Afghanistan and Iran sign strategic cooperation agreement”, Afghanistan Analysts Network, 06 August 2013. 65 BayramBalci, “The Myth of Rising Radical Islamism in post-2014 Central Asia", World Politics Review, 30 December 2013; see also, Robert D. Kaplan, “The Geography of Iranian Power", op. cit.66 Indrani Bagchi, “Trilateral helps India air opinion about Afghanistan’s future", The Times of India, 04 March 2013. 67 Sharbanou Tajbakhsh, “The Afghanistan Security Transition: the Role and Importance of Afghanistan’s Neighbors”, (video), the United States Institute of Peace, 06 April 2012.68 Alireza Nader, op. cit.

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Afghanistan’s“ near and extended neighbours”69 beset by common challenges like counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics, poverty, and extremism, the “Heart of Asia”, also known as Istanbul Process or Ministerial, is too fraught with internal tension to be truly successful.70 Besides, the potential contest between Tehran and Ankara for regional influence may prove to be an impediment in its effective functioning.71 It may be mentioned that Beijing, which is hosting the forthcoming “Istanbul process” meeting in Tianjin next August, is poised to emerge as a key player in post-2014 Afghanistan, which has profound geopolitical implications.

3.4 India

The greatest beneficiary of Iranian attention eastward would be India, the fourth largest consumer of oil after the United States, China and Russia, and slated to be the top two energy importers along with China, by 2035. India is actively assisting Iran in developing the Chabahar port (having a role in its construction), for its oil exports, which would also orient the Central Asian states toward Iran by giving the energy-rich but land-locked republics a port access once their rail-links with it are improved.72 Besides, Iran and India maintain a robust defence nexus, whose significance cannot be overlooked. The strategic partnership agreement of 2003 between Tehran and New Delhi provides India with access to Iranian military bases, in return for Indian defence-related products, technology and training. With a convergence of Iranian and Indian interests in Afghanistan, the US-Iran détente could raise Indian geopolitical profile in Afghanistan, and further enhance Indian influence in Central Asia. India, it may be mentioned, not only has a strategic cooperation agreement with Afghanistan, 73 it also maintains an active defence cooperation with Israel,74 which evidently is not in conflict with Indo-Iranian relations.

69 They are Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan; India, Pakistan and Iran; further west, Turkey (which took the initiative) and Azerbaijan; Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates from the Arab world; and Russia and China. See, AstriSuhrke", Towards 2014 and beyond: NATO, “Afghanistan and the “Heart of Asia””, NOREF Policy Brief, NOREF, Norwegian Peace Building Resource Centre, August 2012, p. 2. 70 The full name of the process is, “The Istanbul Process on Regional Security and Co-operation for a Secure and Stable Afghanistan”. For a critical analysis of the Istanbul Process, see S. Reza Kazemi, “Over-Promising, Under-Delivering: The Outcome of the Afghanistan Conference in Kazakhstan”, Afghanistan Analysts Network, 30 April 2013.71 Julian Borger, “Iran expected to block steps towards regional deal on Afghanistan”, The Guardian, 01 November 2011.72 John Daly, “Iranian Sanctions Easing To Benefit India”, The Diplomat, 07 December 2013.73 Abubakar Siddique, “The Afghanistan Security Transition: the Role and Importance of Afghanistan’s Neighbors”, (video),U.S. Institute of Peace, 06 April 2012.74 Alvite Singh Ningthoujam, “India deflects Israel’s Iran warning”, Asia Times Online, 19 December 2013; see also, David Shamah, “Cybersecurity projects next on Israel-India agenda”, The Times of Israel, 24 June 2013; see also, “India to Buy Israeli Barak Missiles", DefenceTalk: Global Defense, Aerospace and Military Portal, 31 December 2013.

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3.5 The Persian Gulf Region

For the Saudi government, the ultimate nightmare is a US-Iran rapprochement which would alter the regional geopolitical dynamics, to Ryadh’s detriment. In the terse observation of one Saudi journalist, when US-Iran relations improve, “We panic”.75And not without reason. While the interim agreement is about Tehran’s nuclear programme, it has implications for the broader regional balance of power which, by unfettering it from the sanctions regime, is clearly empowering Iran, the long-standing rival of Saudi Arabia, as well as paving the way for a Shia Persian political ingress in a predominantly Sunni Arab setting. The Saudi King Abdullah has long been urging the United States to “cut off the head of the snake” by air-striking the Iranian nuclear infrastructure,76 but apparently to no avail, which the controversial deal attests. There is an acute sense of resentment, bordering on betrayal, in the Saudi leadership, since it signals the possible unraveling of Saudi-US relationship, for long considered to be unassailable. Judging the interim accord in zero-sum terms, for Riyadh it is ipso facto “a bad deal”,77 which one Saudi commentator characterised as being “more dangerous than 9/11”.78 It is not realistic, though, to expect an abrupt termination of this long-standing strategic partnership with Washington since, with the core Saudi-US grand bargain, based on the quid pro quo of unimpeded flow of oil and Gulf security remaining vital,79 it’s focus is more likely to gradually shift from being strategic to mutually beneficial “transactional”.80

The basic Saudi insecurity stems from the apprehension that the interim accord could be the beginning of US ratification of Iranian regional primacy, which Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former intelligence chief of Saudi Arabia calls “unacceptable”,81 since it exacerbates Riyadh’s complicated relationship with Tehran, which Mohsen M. Milani views to be “neither natural allies, nor natural enemies, but natural rivals”.82 Informed as it is by antagonism to Tehran’s bid for leadership of the Islamic world,83 it carries disturbing implications for the domestic stability of Saudi Arabia which has a substantial Shia minority(10 per cent), especially in its oil-rich Eastern Province.

75 Frida Ghitis, “Iran Deal Already Shifting Regional Power", World Politics Review, 05 December 2013. 76 Ibid.77 Shadi Hamid, “To Win Arab Trust On Iran, Washington Should Broaden Scope Of Final Deal”, Brookings Institution, 24 November 2013. 78 Ashley Smith, “Why did the U.S. and Iran Make a Deal?", SocialistWorker.Org.,10 December 2013.79 F. Gregory Gause, “Why The Iran Deal Scares Saudi Arabia", The New Yorker, 26 November 2013; see also, GawdatBahgat, “The Changing Saudi Energy Outlook: Strategic Implications", The Middle East Journal, Vol. 67, No. 4, 2013.80 Gregory Gause III, “Saudi Arabia in the New Middle East", Council on Foreign Relations Report, No. 63, December 2011, pp. 23-24, quoted in Tadjbakhsh, op. cit., p. 46.81 Steven Erlanger, “Saudi Prince Criticizes Obama Administration, Citing Indecision in Mideast", The New York Times, 15 December 2013.82 Quoted in Sharbanou Tadjbakhsh, op. cit., p.15.83 Robert F. Worth, “U.S. and Saudis in Growing Rift as Power Shifts", The New York Times, 25 November 2013.

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The improved Egyptian-Iranian relations in the post-Mubarak era has also added to Tehran’s regional clout, what with Iranian ships now traversing the Suez Canal, thus making its presence felt in the Red Sea area, something that could not even be contemplated previously.84

In response to the politically jarring deal, the Saudi government has even contemplated a “new defense doctrine” for the purpose of containing what it perceives to be a resurgent Iran,85 involving a planned Riyadh-based 100,000-strong Gulf command force,86though the implementation of the goal remains uncertain, given the limited options available to it. At the 9th International Institute of Strategic Studies Regional Security Summit, the Manama Dialogue, held in December 2013, the Saudi proposal of political integration of the GCC into aGulf Union was dismissed by Oman,87 a member country with “special ties” with Iran.88 UAE, Kuwait and Qatar too, are said to be skeptical about the merits of a greater regional integration at Riyadh’s behest, which is a testament to Iran’s astute diplomatic efforts to prevent such a union.89 The interest of the individual GCC countries in bilateral dialogue with Iran is essentially advantageous for the latter, which has stymied Riyadh’s efforts to oppose Tehran.90 The intra-GCC rift however, does not bode well for Washington, which prefers unity among its Gulf allies. It needs to be borne in mind that, the evolving US posture, dictated by the current budget crisis, signals a diminished appetite for military role in regional conflicts, thus throwing the question of building local partner capacity for providing security in the Persian Gulf into sharp relief.91

Regardless of Saudi displeasure at the conclusion of P5+1 and Iran accord, the latter’s ascendancy is amply clear, with its ambiguous nuclear status playing a strategic role. And with all regional geopolitical roads leading to Tehran, Riyadh could be pondering the challenges of forging a route in a different direction. Despite initial Saudi indignation about the nuclear deal, there are indications that, it may be exploring a conciliatory move toward its Persian nemesis, a shift discretely fostered by the United States.92 This is nothing surprising given the Obama administration’s stated goal of a “geopolitical equilibrium” in the region by “balancing traditional American

84 Dr. Ghassan Shabaneh, “Kerry’s Visit to Saudi Arabia and the Saudi American Relations”, op. cit.85 “Saudis concerned about spread of Iran influence", Alalam, 26 November 2013; Nawaf Obaid, “Saudi Arabia’s Gulf Union project includes military dimension”, Al-Monitor, 19 December 2013. 86 Habib Toumi, “ GCC to have 100,000-strong joint security force", Gulf News, 21December 2013.87 Wafa Alsayed, “Oman says no to Gulf Union", Manama Voices, 09 December 2013; Reuters, “Saudi Call For Gulf Arab Union Faces Hurdles”, Gulf Business, 10 December 2013; Madawi Al-Rasheed", Omani rejection of GCC union adds insult to injury for Saudi Arabia", Al-Monitor, 09 December 2013.88 “Iranian FM praises HM’s role in promoting peace”, Oman Tribune, 05 January 2014. Oman and Iran are also planning the construction of an overpass bridge connecting them over the Strait of Hormuz. “Oman-Iran plan causeway over Hormuz”, Gulf News, 06 March 2014.89 SharmineNarwani, “Security Arc forms amidst Mideast terror", Al-akhbarenglish, 21December 2013.90 Theodore W. Karasik et al., Saudi-Iranian Relations Since the Fall of Saddam: Rivalry, Cooperation, and Implications for U.S. Policy, Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, 2009, p. xiii. 91 Elizabeth Dickinson, “US looks to allies to secure Arabian Gulf”, The National, 24 April 2013.92 F. Gregory Gause, III, “Saudi-Iranian Rapprochement? The Incentives and the Obstacles", Project on Middle East Political Science, Brookings Institution,17 March 2014, available athttp://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2014/03/17-iran-ksa-rapprochement-gause, accessed on 27 December 2013.

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Gulf allies like Saudi Arabia against Iran”.93 For one thing, changes on Syria policy at the top level of Saudi decision-making may induce a more pragmatic approach toward Iran, as is indicated by the fact that Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, a more moderate figure than Prince Bandar bin Sultan, is now in charge of the Syria issue, a probable sign of waning Riyadh’s enthusiasm for backing the rebels there.94 It may be mentioned that, Syria has been a contentious matter between the two sides, with the Saudi interest being financially and militarily assisting the anti-regime forces there to continue fighting until the overthrow of the government of President Bashar Al-Assad, in contrast to US reluctance for military intervention for political change there. According to Bryan Crocker, a former American diplomat, in the light of the prevailing impasse, the United States needs to work with President Assad, the other available options being even “worse.”95

It is equally significant that the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani too, has expressed his country’s willingness to improve relations with Saudi Arabia, and even referred to the Sunni neighbour as “a friend and a brother”.96 The acceptance by President Rouhani of the recent Saudi invitation to visit Riyadh indeed augurs well for the defusion of the seemingly intractable neighbourhood sectarian discord, as well as a subtle hint of the tempered Saudi view of the nuclear deal.97Besides, Iran also has certain limitations in its quest for playing a dominant role, and is aware of the difficulties it would encounter in this regard without some sort of accommodation with the regional Sunni-powers. On balance, there is yet scope for some sort of “course correction” between the two key regional competitors whose rivalry has often been more “subdued” than overt.

Under the circumstances, the Saudi kingdom may prefer some sort of dialogue within a security framework,98 which would at least have the salutary effect of transforming the regional countries into “stakeholders rather than potential or actual spoilers”.99 Suggestions have even been made to re-create a regional collective security structure on the model of the now-defunct Cold War-era Central Treaty Organisation.100 The Iranians themselves have envisaged a Persian Gulf Security Cooperation Organisation, a regional version of the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), whose expanded scope may ultimately include the

93 Lee Smith, “For Gulf Allies, Obama’s Turn Away From the Region Looks Like a Gift to Tehran”, Tablet Magazine, 19 March 2014. 94 F. Gregory Gause III, op. cit.95 Bryan C. Crocker, “Assad is the Least Worst Option", The New York Times, 21 December 2013. 96 “Iranian president: Saudi Arabia is a ‘friend and brother", Al Arabiya, 19 September 2013.97 “Rouhani accepts invitation to visit Saudi Arabia", The Daily Star (Lebanon), 08 March 2014.98 Richard Youngs and Eric Wheeler, “Iran and the West: beyond the nuclear deal", Policy Brief, No.170, FRIDE, European Think Tank for Global Action, December 2013. 99 Rouzbeh Parsi, Exploring Iran & Saudi Arabia’s Interests in Afghanistan & Pakistan: Stakeholders or Spoilers - A Zero Sum Game? Part 2: Iran, CIDOB, Barcelona Centre for International Affairs, April 2013, p.15; see also, Amir Handjani, “The Saudi dilemma", The National Interest, 02 January 2014.100 James M. Lindsay and Ray Takeyh, “After Iran Gets the Bomb: Containment and its Complications”, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 89, No. 2, 2010.

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entire Middle East.101However, such a security order would be difficult to implement without first resolving the festering Palestine-Israel conflict, another fallout of the deal. For long a top priority of US Middle East policy, it has now been reduced to a “distraction,” having been consigned to the back-burner of regional politics.102 This, in effect, signifies a diversion of attention from the real issue in the Middle East, with Iran instead of Israel being portrayed as the real regional concern.

4. Global Oil Market

While the recent interim Iran deal apparently concerns the nuclear issue, it has far-reaching implications for the global energy market, “a linchpin” of the international order,103 which the relaxation of economic sanctions and the integration of Iran as a legitimate member of the international community is certain to reorder. Since the United States and the European Union (EU) imposed additional sanctions on Iranian petroleum exports in 2012,104 its oil production has dropped to 1 million barrels per day (mbd) from the previous level of 2.5mbd,105 and the high oil price resulting from its full contribution being kept off the market, has basically favoured the Saudis. With Iran now poised to return as a “normal” country, the energy market, along with regional geopolitics, is on the cusp of a major shift. The main Saudi concern is that a resurgent Iran is bound to dominate the OPEC, and thereby jeopardize its strategic position in the cartel as “the world’s de facto central banker for energy”.106

The Rouhani administration is set to introduce structural reforms in the Iranian economy that may ultimately lead to the privatisation of state-run enterprises, amendment of investment and banking rules, easy credit, tax incentives and overall improved labour laws, to boost up the private sector,107 thus inevitably affecting the energy sector. The return of the former oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh,108 is expected loosen the national oil company’s control over Iran’s vast petroleum industry, and open it up for foreign investments. Again in charge of that portfolio, Zanganeh seeks to increase crude-oil production to the pre-2005 level of 4.2 mbd, and focus on the south Pars offshore oil fields, for long lagging behind due to financial and technical difficulties.109 There are also plans to restore oil production to the pre-1979 level of 6 mbd by mid-2015,110 and offer lucrative production-sharing agreements to attract

101 Hossein Mousavian, “An Opportunity for a U.S.-Iran Paradigm Shift", The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 1, 2013, p.141. 102 Elias Groll, “Israel-Palestine Isn’t America’s Top Mid-East Priority Anymore", Foreign Policy, 11 December 2013.103 Thanassis Cambanis, “American energy independence: the great shake-up", The Boston Globe, 26 May 2013.104 “Q&A: Iran Sanctions,” BBC News: Middle East, 08 November 2013. 105 Vali R. Nasr, “Iran’s Economic Crossroads", The New York Times, 04 December 2013.106 Mohammed Bin Nawaf Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, “Saudi Arabia Will Go It Alone", The New York Times, 17 December 2013.107 Vali R. Nasr, “Iran’s Economic Crossroads”, op. cit.108 From 1997-2005 he was the Iranian oil minister.109 “Dreaming of a new golden age", The Economist, 31 August 2013.110 “The Future of OPEC: Saudi, Iraq and Iran", Stratfor, 05 December 2013.

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foreign private investments, which it so direly needs.111 This is evidently aligned to the US policy of “democratisation” of the global oil market by encouraging free interaction of demand and supply unimpeded by government control.112 A seemingly benign shift, it has potentially far-reaching implications not only for the Iranian oil industry, but for the global economy and geopolitics as well, the full shape of which is now only beginning to be delineated.

For one thing, it is poised to reverse the four decades of state-control over oil production, when in the aftermath of the 1973 OPEC-initiated embargo, two-thirds of international ownership of oil was transferred from American and European-owned private companies to state-owned national oil companies. Inevitably, the denial of the operation of market forces led to spikes in oil prices that was a curse for the countries dependent on imported oil – but a blessing for the oil-producing Middle Eastern ones.113 At the same time, it reinforced US reliance on Saudi Arabia as an assured source of oil supply at a reasonable price, in return for American security guarantee for the Saudi kingdom. Riyadh, (with a spare capacity of about 2-3.5 mbd), in particular has been eminently useful as “a swing producer” in stabilising the oil market, so crucial for the global and American economy.114 The US-Iran rapprochement and the lifting of sanctions may add some 1.5 mbd to the oil market and concomitantly reduce its price.115

Complicating the scenario is the return of Iraq as a major actor in this field, currently producing about 3.5mbd of oil, with plans to further augment it to 9-10mbd by 2020, which however, experts consider to be rather too ambitious for such a short time frame.116 With the sanctions being the main obstacle to increased oil production, Iran may have a relatively easy transition to the pre-2005 production-level once the external constraints are removed.117 During the sanctions-induced Iranian absence, Saudi Arabia and Iraq benefitted the most, making billions of dollars of gains at the expense of the former, thus incurring its displeasure. With its re-emergence as the second largest oil producing country, Iran is poised to play a more assertive role in OPEC decision-making. One delegate, presumably Saudi, to the OPEC meeting held in Vienna in December 2013, expects “…the Iranians to say, ‘We’re coming back to the market and we need some space’”.118 These developments may adversely affect the role of OPEC controlling about 1/3 of global production, in the oil market, with far-reaching geopolitical repercussions. The already tenuous relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran could be affected, since the latter’s addition to the global oil market

111 “Dreaming of a new golden age”, The Economist, 31 August 2013.112 Amy Myers Jaffe and Ed Morse, “The End of OPEC”, Foreign Policy, 16 October 2013.113 Ibid.114 Jeremy Shapiro, “Iran and the U.S.-Saudi Bargain”, Foreign Policy, the Middle East Channel, 05 December 2013.115 Ibid.116 “The Future of OPEC: Saudi, Iraq and Iran", Stratfor, 05 December 2013, op. cit.117 Ibid.118 Peg Mackey and Alex Lawler, “Iran to reassert authority at OPEC after nuclear deal”, Reuters, 02 December 2013.

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may lower the price to a level undesirable for the Saudis, but which it may be unable to offset by curtailing production of its own. Increased shale-oil production119 in the United States (8mbd),120 and elsewhere could make maintaining US$100 per barrel price an added challenge for OPEC.

Last December Zanganeh threatened that, no matter what, Iran will aspire to produce 4mbd, “even if the price of oil falls to US$20 per barrel,” adding, “we will not give up our rights on this issue”.121 This forthright stance was tempered, in the light of reality, by a former National Iranian Oil Company official who stated that, “…the Iranians don’t want to rock the boat and put $100 oil under threat, so they need the cooperation of the Saudis”.122 Although the member states have agreed to produce 30mbd for the first half of 2014, there is a likelihood of an increase in oil supply later by Iraq, Iran and Libya, which elicited the Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi’s nonchalant remark, “Everyone is welcome to put in the market what they can. The market is big and has many variables. When one comes in another comes out”.123

US-Iranian reconciliation is likely to attract massive Western investments in the Iranian energy sector, to Russia’s detriment, that may be further aggravated by Tehran shifting its commercial attention away from Moscow, and importing Western products and technology. It may moreover, be deprived of its role as a mediator between the Islamic Republic and the Western world including the United States.124An Iran free from the sanctions can potentially undermine Russia’s role in the strategically important Caucasus and Turkey. In Armenia it could challenge the entrenched Russian position by enhanced natural gas export to that country, which currently relies predominantly on Russian supplies. While it may not wean Armenia away from Moscow’s sway, it could at least increase Tehran’s leverage over Yerevan. There is yet scope for an assertive Iran to exercise its influence in Azerbaijan where both Turkey and Russia have economic and strategic interests to uphold. Regardless of the final outcome of US-Iran negotiations, an improvement in the investment environment and the expansion in Iranian energy production could reduce Turkey’s dependence on Russia (currently the source of 57 per cent of its natural gas imports),125 and raise Ankara’s geopolitical profile in the Black Sea and the Caucasus.126 Iran’s assumption of the role of a regional super power could

119 Leonardo Maugeri, “The Shale Oil Boom: A U.S. Phenomenon”, Geopolitics of Energy Project, Discussion paper 2013, BelferCenter for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University, 05 June 2013. 120 “The Future of OPEC: Saudi, Iraq and Iran”, Stratfor, 05 December 2013, op. cit.121 Majid Rafizadeh, “Iran aims to regain a global role at OPEC”, Al-Arabiya News, 06 December 2013.122 Peg Mackey and Alex Lawler, “Iran to reassert authority at OPEC after nuclear deal”, Reuters, 02 December 2013.123 “OPEC leaves 2014 oil output steady despite anticipated Iran, Iraq surge”, Deutsche Welle, 04 December 2013.124 Richard Weitz, “Russia and Iran: A Balancing Act”, The Diplomat, 21 November 2013.125 According to Oil & Gas Journal, cited in Independent Statistics and Analysis, op. cit.126 “Turkish Relations with Russia Hinge on Iran”, Stratfor, published in Natural Gas Europe, 17 December 2013.

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possibly challenge Russia’s pre-eminence in its strategic near abroad, and compel it to make contingency planning to deny Iran any zone of influence in the Caucasus and Central Asia.127

Although not so well publicised, the Shia majority government in post-Saddam Iraq has provided significant share of its oil licenses to Chinese firms, “probably upon Iranian requests,”128 which is likely to enhance Beijing’s presence in the region. As currently the largest net oil importer,129 and with a voracious appetite for energy resources for its economic development (which by 2025 could be importing as much as 70 percent of its oil demand, which currently stands at 59 per cent),130 China’s long-term engagement with the Persian Gulf countries is assured, since a preponderant share of its oil imports originate there. China, which played an important role in facilitating the 2013 nuclear deal, is Tehran’s largest buyer of oil, amounting to around 9 per cent of its import.131 Though China enjoyed stable energy cooperation with Iran, the sanctions regime was an impediment in this matter. Being careful about not antagonising Washington, Beijing played a balancing act between the United States and Iran. According to one Chinese scholar, “It would be the end of the world if China had to choose between the United States, Saudi Arabia and Iran”.132In other words, US-Iran detente would benefit China by allowing it to import oil from Iran with greater ease. Historically enjoying harmonious relations, China in modern times has implicitly supported Iran’s destiny to play a pre-eminent role in the Persian Gulf region,133 with Iranian officials emphasising the strategic nature of Sino-Iranian relations.134

Although China currently buys twice the amount of oil from Saudi Arabia than Iran, the latter could play an important role in bolstering its energy security: firstly, Iran has the capacity to be one of China’s major oil suppliers; and secondly, located between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf, it could also offer China a westward source of petroleum that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz.135 Eventually, China’s oil dependence on the Gulf countries may become a challenge or even a liability for it, the strategic compulsions of which it may be unable to overcome. According to one

127 Njdeh Asisian, “Russia & Iran: Strategic Alliance or Marriage of Convenience”, Small Wars Journal, 23 November 2013.128 Brian M. Downing, “Securing the Persian Gulf: After fiscal cliff and ‘pivot’ to Asia, U.S. strategy could change”, World Tribune.com, 4 December 2012.129 “China poised to become the world’s largest net oil importer later this year”, Today in Energy, 09 August 2013.130 Sarah A. Emerson and Andrew C. Winner, “The Myth of Petroleum Independence and Foreign Policy Isolation”, The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 1, 2014.131 Nasser Al-Tamimi, “Why China is still dealing with Iran?”, Al Arabiya News, 10 February 2013.132 John B. Alterman, “China’s Balancing Act in the Gulf”, Gulf Analysis Paper, Center for Strategic and International Studies, August 2013, p. 6.133 See John W. Garver, China and Iran: Ancient Partners in a post-Imperial World, Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2006, p. 294. 134 Scott Harold and Alireza Nader, Iran and China: Economic, Political and Military Relations, Occasional Paper, Center for Middle East and Public Policy, RAND, 2012, p.5.135 Al-Tamimi, op. cit.

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analysis, “… [E]ven if China decides that conservation and diversification are better answers than becoming a Persian Gulf military power, the Chinese military, like any good bureaucracy, will argue for expanded capabilities and deployments as a hedge”.136

5. Nuclear Iran?

Two parallel but contradictory trends can be evinced in the US policy community deliberations regarding Tehran’s nuclear issue: one being the assumption that Iran does have a clandestine weapons programme, which has generated a vigorous debate137 about the pros138and cons139 of the use of force to thwart its nuclear ambition. One side puts forth spirited arguments as to why air strikes should be made, with the other justifying, which equal verve, why it is not prudent to attack the Iranian nuclear sites: (i) that it would not only be hazardous to do so, but would be counterproductive, given the physical obstacles posed by Iran’s territorial size, terrain, nationalism, technological know-how, etc., which would only delay the process of weaponisation, but would not permanently eliminate its nuclear infrastructure, (ii) Iran would block the Strait of Hormuz (even though not possessing the naval capability to do so), (iii) Israel’s air force was deemed to be too small for effective strikes, etc. Arguably, there is no possibility of military strikes against Iran either by Israel or the United States, simply because there is no need, in view of the lack of conclusive evidence from any reliable source, including the UN watchdog IAEA, that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. The Islamic Republic has consistently maintained that it is enriching uranium only for peaceful purposes, in accordance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), while its religious leaders have condemned weapons of mass destruction as “un-Islamic”,140 with Javed Zarif, the current Iranian Foreign Minister, calling their use and development “illegal, immoral and non-human”.141

136 Sarah A. Emerson and Andrew C. Winner, op. cit.137 See Austin Long and William Luers, Weighing Benefits and Costs of Military Action against Iran, New York: The Iran Project, 2012, p. 9. 138 Matthew Kroenig, “Time Time to Attack Iran: Why a Strike Is the Least Bad Option”, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 91, No. 1, 2012,; Michael McAuliff, “Senators Offer License To Strike Iran Nuclear Program”, The Huffington Post, 29 February 2012; Evelyn Gordon, “There’s No More Time to Waste on Iran”, Commentary, 31 July 2013; Jeffrey Goldberg, “The Point of No Return”, The Atlantic, 11 August 2010.139 “Attacking or Threatening Iran Makes No Sense (Key Points)”, American Foreign Policy Project, 2009, available at http://americanforeignpolicy.org/military-option-iran/attacking-iran, accessed on 27 December 2013; James Kitfield, “Power or Persuasion: More Sanctions or Bombs for Iran?”, Defense One, 16 December 2013; Michael Boyle, “The US must stop the strategic blunder of an attack on Iran”, The Guardian, 27 February 2012; “U.S. bombs not strong enough to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, report says”, Ha’aretz, 28 January 2012; Colin H. Kahl, “Still Not Time to Attack Iran: Why the U.S. Shouldn’t Play Chicken with Tehran”, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 93, No.1, 2014; Michael Adler, “News Analysis: Debate Over Iran Shifts Away From Attack”, Arms Control Today, April 2012.140 See President Hassan Rouhani, “What Iran Wants in 2014”, Today’s Zaman, 26 December 2013, 141 “Iranian FM praises HM’s role in promoting peace”, Oman Tribune, 05 January 2014.

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With the debate related to Iranian nuclear question couched in stark, black and white terms, the choice presented is either (i) bombing Iran, or (ii) Iran with a bomb. On closer inspection, there is an apparent inconsistency in the US rhetoric, which claims the alleged Iranian nuclear weapons programme to be “unacceptable” for the United States, and an “existential” threat for Israel.142 In the words of Gary Samore, former White House coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction, “… Obama cannot afford to agree to let Iran have a credible option to produce nuclear weapons – much less possess nuclear weapons – because it would pose unacceptable security risks to the US and its Middle East allies such as the increased likelihood of war and further nuclear proliferation”.143

The other trend involves an equally serious discussion about a post-nuclear Iran,144 containing and deterring145 such an entity, and a consensus that a “nuclear” Iran would be rational, more concerned with its national interests rather than threatening other countries, and not necessarily a threat to the United States or Israel, and as such, both Washington and Tel Aviv could live with it.146 Most importantly, there is concurrence that even in the event of a nuclear breakout in Iran, the likelihood of a nuclear “cascade,” with Saudi Arabia acquiring similar capability, is negligible.147 In the summer of 2012 the late neo-realist international relations theorist, Kenneth N. Waltz created a stir by articulating in a Foreign Affairs piece148 that a nuclear-capable Iran would have a stabilising and salutary effect on regional politics, and redress the power imbalance created by Israel’s military preponderance, both conventional and nuclear. According to him, “Power begs to be balanced” and, in this particular case, by Iran. In his formulation, peace can be established only through nuclear weapons-induced stability, since obtaining nuclear weapons is a sobering event.149

While the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has famously denounced the interim nuclear deal as “a historic mistake”, his assertion does not accord with reality. Even inside Israel, opposition figures have criticised his reaction as “unnecessary panic”,150 and one former Israeli Deputy National Security Adviser even

142 James M. Lindsay and Ray Takeyh, “After Iran Gets the Bomb: Conatainment and its Complications", Foreign Affairs, Vol. 89, No. 2, 2010; see also, Ehud Eiran and Martin B. Malin, “The Sum of All Fears: Israel’s Perception of a Nuclear-Armed Iran", The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 3, 2013.143 Gary Samore’s Address to the 2013 Manama Dialogue, "Iran Matters", Harvard University, 13 December 2013, available at http://iranmatters.belfercenter.org/blog/gary-samore-speaks-2013-manama-dialogue-bahrain, accessed on 27 December 2013. 144 “Vali Nasr on U.S.-Iranian Relations”, (video), Council on Foreign Relations, 25 January 2012.145 See Christopher J. Bolan, “The Iranian Nuclear Debate: More Myths Than Facts", Parameters, Vol. 42, No. 3, 2013.146 See, Alireza Nader, Iran After the Bomb: How Would a Nuclear-Armed Iran Behave? RAND, National Security Research Division, 2013, available at http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR300/RR310/RAND_RR310.pdf, accessed on 27 December 2013;Robert D. Kaplan, “Living With a Nuclear Iran”, op. cit.; Mohammed Ayoob, “Can the world live with a nuclear Iran?", CNN: opinion, 14 December 2011.147 Colin H. Kahl, Melissa G. Dalton and Matthew Irvine, Atomic Kingdom: If Iran Builds the Bomb, Will Saudi Arabia be Next? Washington, D.C.: Center for a New American Security, February 2013. 148 Kenneth N. Waltz, “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb", Foreign Affairs, Vol. 91, No. 4, 2012. 149 P. J. Tobia, “The Upside of a Nuclear Iran: A Chat With Kenneth Waltz", PBS Newshour, 06 July 2012. 150 G. Balachandran and S. Samuel C. Rajiv, “Iran Nuclear Deal: The Fine Print", IDSA Defence Brief, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), 09 December 2013, p. 14.

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considered the deal to be“good for Israel.”151 According to Robert Einhorn, former US nuclear negotiator, it’s a win-win situation: if the negotiations with Iran are successful, it’s fine. If not, that is, if it acquires nuclear capability, then the United States could always strengthen its security ties with the regional countries including Israel, to Iran’s disadvantage.152

Merely having a crude nuclear device or a few, without war-heads, functional delivery systems, reliable testing and a retaliatory second-strike capacity, does not make a country a nuclear power, and as such, is incapable of posing a credible threat to a full-fledged nuclear-armed state. In that case, it is difficult to accept the notion that a “nuclear” Iran would pose an existential threat to Israel (with an arsenal of more than 200 nuclear bombs of its own), as it claims, when that would be clearly suicidal.153 Sharbanou Tadjbakhsh aptly states that, the very fact that Iran’s nuclear dossier is a global rather than only a regional concern, has elevated Tehran’s negotiating position at the international level, which along with the elimination of its neighbouring adversaries in Iraq and Afghanistan have, “upped the ante for Iran”.154

As a matter of fact, the mere reference to Iran as a threshold-nuclear state would suffice it to achieve its political objectives, namely enhancing its security and ensuring regional pre-eminence. Therefore, having what is called “nuclear latency”155 would yield a strategically potent outcome. The recent nuclear deal actually highlights this ambiguity, since Iran’s uranium enrichment activities have not been stopped, but only restricted to a certain level (5 per cent), which will be continued even during the interim period. By conveniently keeping Iran’s right to enrich uranium unclear, the deal tacitly endorses it, which in Ray Takeyh interpretation means that, it is “respected in practice but not acknowledged just yet”.156 Security experts have also been skeptical about the efficacy of the provisional deal, and in so doing they are giving the politically useful message of Iran’s possible nuclear future. No less a personage than Henry Kissinger has expressed his doubts, arguing that it legitimises what was previously denounced as illegal and unacceptable, and the “danger of the

151 Chuck Freilich, “A Good Agreement for Israel", Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, 06 December 2013, available at http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/23722/good_agreement_for_israel.html, accessed on 23 December 2013. 152 Robert Einhorn, “Iran and the Nuclear Issue: The November 7-8 Geneva Round", transcript, Brookings Institution, Saban Center for Middle East policy, 01 November 2013, available at http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/events/2013/11/01%20nuclear%20iran/20131101_iran_nuclear_transcript, accessed on 28 December 2013. 153 Zbigniew Brzezinski, “Schieffer Series: The Iranian Nuclear Deal with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Tom Friedman, and Bob Einhorn", (video), Washington, D.C., Center for Strategic and International Studies, 09 December 2013, available at http://csis.org/event/schieffer-series-iranian-nuclear-deal-new-direction-tehran-west, accessed on 24 December 2014. 154 Sharbanou Tadjbakhsh, “The Persian Gulf and, Afghanistan: Iran and Saudi Arabia’s Rivalry Projected”, op. cit., p. 26. 155 Roland Popp, “Iran’s Real Intention: Nuclear Latency", (audio), ISN: ETH Zurich, 06 September 2012, available athttp://isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Library/Audio/Detail/?param0=Middle+East+%2f+North+Africa&lng=en&id=152990, accessed on 24 December 2014. 156 Quoted in Mark Landler, "Kerry Defends Nuclear Pact with Iran", The New York Times, 24 November 2013.

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present dynamic [being] that it threatens the outcome of Iran as a threshold nuclear weapons state”.157

The bottom-line is that, whether Iran actually has a credible nuclear weapon programme or not, is beside the point since, what matter in this case are the right atmospherics, and the logic of if-there-is-smoke-there-is-fire. According to Stratfor analyst George Friedman,

Assuming the Iranians are rational actors, their optimal strategy lies not in acquiring nuclear weapons and certainly not in using them, but instead in having a credible weapons development program that permits them to be seen as significant international actors. Developing weapons without ever producing them gives Iran international political significance, albeit at the cost of sanctions of debatable impact.158

This is not only convenient for Iran, but safe for both the United States and Israel, since it obviates the risk of actually striking Iran militarily. While the case of an Iranian nuclear weapons programme is largely unsubstantiated, the ratcheting up of the rhetoric of the challenge posed by a nuclear-armed Iran has enabled further consolidation of American naval presence in the Persian Gulf, and significantly enhanced the US role in crafting a stronger Gulf security architecture by providing its Gulf allies necessary missile defences.

At this juncture it would not be unwarranted to add a coda to the narrative of Iran-Israel hostility, which on closer inspection does not appear to be as implacable as it is projected to be, at least, it is not borne out by historical facts. According to Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli Foreign Minister, “[W]e enjoyed really friendly relations with the Iranian people for hundreds, maybe thousands of years”.159 Having accorded a de facto recognition to Israel, a strategic nexus between the two was fostered throughout the late Shah’s reign.160 Despite overt, much-publicised animosity, the post-1979 Islamic

157 Henry A. Kissinger and George P. Schultz, “What a Final Iran Deal Must Do”, The Wall Street Journal, 02 December 2013. 158 George Friedman, “War and Bluff: Iran, Israel and the United States”, Geopolitical Weekly, Stratfor: Global Intelligence, 11 September 2012.159 Quoted in Susan Maloney, “Israeli Foreign Minister on Iran: If You Want To Shoot, Shoot; Don’t Talk", Brookings Institution, 07 December 2013, available at http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/iran-at-saban/posts/2013/12/07-avigdor-lieberman-israel-saban-forum-iran, accessed on 28 December 2013. It is even hypothesised that the true provenance of Judaism was 5th century B.C. Persia. See, “Persia and Creation of Judaism”, 1998, The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies (CAIS), available at http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Religions/non-iranian/Judaism/Persian_Judaism/Persia_created_judaism.htm, accessed on 28 December 2013.160 Iran-Israeli relations received a further boost after the Six-Day War of June 1967, when Iranian oil was shipped to Israel through the Eilat-Ashkelon, or Trans-Israel pipeline. The pipeline, whose construction actually began in 1956, linked the Israeli ports of Eilat on the Gulf of Aqaba, in the Red Sea, with Ashkelon on the Mediterranean Sea. It was used not only for supplying oil from Port Bandar Abbas in Iran to Eilat, but also for transporting Iranian oil to the European market, by-passing the Suez Canal. Yosi Melman, “Secret Talks: Israel and Iran – It’s a Business Arbitration, and It’s Not Friendly", Spies Against Armageddon, 26 July 2013.

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Republic of Iran and Israel have unofficially cooperated with each other in dealing with a number of mutual interests and security challenges.161 The general verdict is that the recent nuclear deal is favourable for Israel, in view of the fact that “both the Jewish state and the Persian Shiite state” are “outsiders” or the “odd-men out”, in a largely Sunni Arab region, and as suggested by Trita Parsi, “tend to view themselves as somewhat superior to their Arab neighbours”.162

Significantly, the Iranian military never participated in any of the Arab wars against Israel, and was assisted by the latter during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war,163 with Iran purchasing more than US$ 500 million worth of arms from Israel between 1980 and 1983.164 The current Iranian administration of President Hassan Rouhani, in contrast to the previous regime of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, actually condemns the Holocaust, and implicitly recognises Israel’s right to exist, with the Iranian Foreign Minister greeting Jews on their new year.165 It has been suggested that the vitriolic anti-Israeli invectives routinely hurled by the Iranian leadership are mainly for conciliating the Arab countries, its support for the Palestinian cause being a tool for advancing Tehran’s goal of leadership of the entire Muslim ummah,166 and generating the perception of Iran being the only regional country capable of challenging the United States in particular and the West in general.167Seen through the Iranian lens, Israel is some kind of “lightning rod” for deflecting Arab militancy toward the latter instead of Iran.168

6. Conclusion

According to an apocryphal story, Chairman Mao Zedong responded, when asked about the impact of the French Revolution, “it was far too early to tell” or something to that effect. Likewise, given the fluidity of the prevailing situation, it may be too early to make a correct prognosis of the ramifications of US-Iran rapprochement, even though there are indications of a geopolitical reconfiguration of epic proportions. While six months down the road, a permanent settlement of the nuclear issue could be attained, in reality there may not be any forthcoming, with the interim accord extended for an indefinite period.

161 Aviv Melamud and Arianne Tabatabai, “An Israeli and an Iranian on the Way Forward", The National Inter-est, 23 December 2013.162 Trita Parsi, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the U.S., London: Yale University Press, 2007, pp. 5-7, quoted in Asya Pereltsvaig, “Israel and Iran Before the Revolution: A Not-So-Secret Marriage of Convenience", Geo Currents, 12 September 2013.163 David Patrikarakos, “Iran, From Enemy to Ally", The New York Times, (op-ed), 08 December 2013.164 Trita Parsi, referred to in Tadjbakhsh, op. cit., p.18. 165 Moussavian, “The US and Iran: A Breakthrough Moment?", (video), Asia Society, 17 December 2013, op. cit. 166 Vali Nasr, CFR, “Symposium on Iran and Policy Options for the Next Administration: Session Three,” (video), op. cit.167 Dr. Ghassan Shabaneh, “Kerry’s Visit to Saudi Arabia and the Saudi American Relations”, op. cit.168 Robert B. Reppa, Sr., Israel and Iran. Bilateral Relationships and Effect on the Indian Ocean Basin, New York: Praeger, 1975, p. 73, quoted in Asya Pereltsvaig, “Israel and Iran Before the Revolution: A Not-So-Secret Marriage of Convenience", Geo Currents, 12 September 2013.

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For one thing, the nuclear deal could complicate the regional security environment by exacerbating Saudi-Iranian tension, though as such, it is not the source. It may render the Persian Gulf zone the virtual epicentre of global conflict by upending the delicate regional order, and empowering Iran at the expense of Saudi Arabia, thus entailing serious repercussions for the global energy market. While the intricacies of international politics are not fully apparent and difficult to grasp, US-Iran normalisation of relations is quietly enhancing China’s role, both economic and military, in the Gulf region, whose energy resources for the foreseeable future would continue to remain crucial for Beijing’s economic development. Interestingly, in tandem with Iran, China is also expected to play a prominent role in post-2014 Afghanistan, whose strategic implications cannot be over-emphasised.

While the dominant (and simplified), narrative currently is the centrality of Shia-Sunni regional tension represented by Iran and Saudi Arabia, reality is far more intricate and multi-dimensional, requiring a more nuanced appreciation of their relationship, which is actually one of “managed rivalry”, involving a mix of conflict, cooperation, pragmatic accommodation and compromise. The exaggerated projection of ethno-religious divisions and weak national cohesion is not particularly helpful since, by underscoring the sectarian differences, it is obscuring the complexity of the situation, and hindering the scope for diplomatic understanding between Riyadh and Tehran, hostility between whom are neither foreordained nor irreconcilable. It needs to be borne in mind that the antagonistic sectarian impulse is not necessarily the sole driving-force in the regional turmoil, where multiple factors, both internal and external, are at play. Nor is the alleged Iranian nuclear ambition the main cause of concern – rather, it is the exponential expansion of Iran’s geopolitical influence itself, with or without nuclear capability that comprises the core threat-perception. That is to say, the goal of Tehran’s nuclear brinksmanship is essentially ensuring its regional primacy, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, which accords with US interests, too. In this context, the hype of a nuclear Iran being an “existential threat” for Israel, as well as the discrepancy between the much-discussed Iranian-Israeli enmity and historical facts, merit further study. Unfortunately, as is apparent from this brief overview of the geopolitical implications of the Iran nuclear deal, further instability may be in the cards, including increasing fracturing of the existing Levant-Mesopotamia area state-system, as a part of the ineluctable political transformation that is underway.

A regional balance of power,minimising the prospects of war, is in conformity withAmerican strategic aspirations suggests that, for the foreseeable future it would be in the US interest to have Saudi Arabia, which yet has considerable strategic relevance for Washington, off-setting Iran, but from a much weaker position, in a replay of the game of balance of power that once upon a time in the not-so-distant past was called the “twin pillars” policy, achieved through sustained geopolitical manipulation, and a smaller American foot-print. In the so-called “post-American” era, Washington continues to possess a wide range of options for managing regional politics to its

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advantage, and ensuring that the reordering of the proverbial chess-board is aligned with its interests. Besides, Iran too, has certain limitations in its quest for exercising a hegemonic role, and is aware of the exigency of some sort of adjustment with the regional Sunni-powers.

A classic example of Realpolitik, the nuclear deal highlights the broader, long-term US-Iran strategic convergence of interests, which is likely to establish Iran as the regional security provider, thus paving the way for the institutionalisation of pax Iranica – and conceivably benefiting Chinese regional investments in the energy sector, too. However, more than a reconciliation between Washington and Tehran, the essence of a real paradigm shift would involve a Saudi-Iranian accommodation, and de facto Saudi acceptance of Iran’s regional pre-eminence.

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Mahbubur Rashid Bhuiyan

PEACE INITIATIVES AND PROSPECT OF PEACE IN AFGHANISTAN

Abstract

After the 9/11 attacks, the US-led coalition launched the global War on Terror, invaded Afghanistan and ousted the Taliban from power. The Karzai government came into power in January 2002. Nevertheless, the war is going on even after twelve years. Peace remains unachievable in Afghanistan while the war has spilled over into neighbouring Pakistan, given rise to several militant groups, continues to create instability in bordering countries. To end this bloody war, various parties have undertaken peace initiatives with the Taliban but the initiatives are facing growing uncertainty for various reasons e.g. the nature of the proposed withdrawal of NATO forces by 2014 is not clear, parties lack consensus, prioritise their individual interests and viewpoints, attach various conditions and change positions before and during peace talks etc. Pakistan, despite being a crucial actor in the current war in Afghanistan, has been experiencing its own security problems and much troubled relations with both Afghanistan and the NATO since joining the war. These have been negatively impacting peace initiatives. The country also remains deeply suspicious about another regional power India’s growing involvement in and relations with Afghanistan. Besides the Afghan Taliban and Pakistani Taliban (TTP), there are several other militant groups active in Afghanistan and Pakistan, such as the Haqqani Network or the Hizb-e-Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (HIG) who pose significant threats. But they are seldom invited in peace talks and similarly, their positions or perspectives on peace process are hardly ever addressed or taken into consideration. Meanwhile, the Karzai government's relations with the US-led coalition are also not working well; this is visible from the increasing disagreements and mistrust plaguing their mutual ties. Owing to these reasons, a long-lasting peace seems unattainable for Afghanistan in near future.

1. Introduction

For centuries, Afghanistan has been a battleground involving several empires and countries: the Greeks, numbers of Persian and Indian empires, Arabs, Turks, Mongols, Russian and British empires (Britain and Russia waged The Great Game, three Anglo-Afghan Wars, the Soviet Invasion of 1979 etc) are to name a few. The US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 codenamed “Operation Enduring Freedom” began with a view to finding and punishing the perpetrators behind the 9/11 attacks, particularly the Saudi billionaire and Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden living in Afghanistan and protected by the ruling Taliban. They refused to surrender him, angered the US and thus the “War on Terror” began.1

Mahbubur Rashid Bhuiyan is Research Officer at Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS). His email address is: [email protected].

© Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS), 2014.

1 Stephen M. Walt, “Reshaping U.S. Foreign Policy”, International Security, Vol. 26, No. 3, 2001-02, pp. 56-57.

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With the Taliban’s fall in November 2001 and assumption of power by the Hamid Karzai government in January 2002, it was expected that Afghanistan would now become peaceful and stable. However, that did not happen. The Taliban increased their insurgency since 2003. Besides, new militant groups e.g. the Pakistani Taliban, Haqqani Network, Islamic Jihad Union, Tora Bora Military Front, Ansar al-Mujahideen etc have emerged in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. There have been various attempts to achieve peace in Afghanistan though stakes are manifold. Up to now, no peace initiative has been welcomed by the Taliban without putting conditions. Other extremist groups show little or no interest in dialogues. At the same time, difference of opinions between the Karzai administration and western powers (especially the US) continues to hinder peace initiatives. Pakistan, a crucial actor in the current war, has been facing its own problems since joining and its role remains quite controversial. Although many NATO and non-NATO nations have withdrawn their own troops from Afghanistan, it is still not clear whether the US will withdraw its forces as it declared earlier about withdrawing within 2014. Now it says about maintaining some military presence. Under these milieus, some questions may arise: What about various peace efforts in Afghanistan and their outcomes? What are the viewpoints on peace by different parties involved in this war? If the coalition really withdraws, will Afghanistan see peace or become more insecure?

This paper seeks answers to such questions. It has six sections including the introduction. The second section states the beginning of the current Afghan war, the change of regime in Afghanistan, human and economic costs incurred and coalition’s planning for withdrawal. The third describes some significant peace initiatives at national, regional and international levels. The fourth talks about different views from different parties on prospects of peace in Afghanistan. The fifth section discusses whether peace initiatives will work or not. The final section contains concluding remarks that end the paper.

2. The Current Afghan War: Background, Costs and Coalition Withdrawal Attempts

Afghanistan was already shattered by gory ethnic conflicts and a dreadful civil war lasting from 1989 (when the USSR withdrew) to 1996. Former Mujahedeen groups assumed new names under their respective leaders while hostility began to grow among them slowly yet steadily. In this struggle for power, the Taliban known for their ultra-orthodox following of Islamic Sharia’a law 2 emerged victorious and assumed power in September 1996. Nonetheless, their rule was not unopposed; anti-Taliban people and militias united under the Northern Alliance, led by several warlords. When the 9/11 attacks took place, the Al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden, thought to be active in Afghanistan, were termed as main suspects. On 20 September 2001, the then US President George W. Bush, speaking at the US Congress,

2 Dennis Abrams, Hamid Karzai, New York: Infobase Publishing, 2007, p. 14.

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demanded that the Taliban must hand Laden over to the US and uproot all Al-Qaeda activities in Afghanistan. 3 On 5 October, the Taliban proposed to hold Laden on trial under Afghan laws; they also asked the US to provide concrete evidence for Laden’s role in the attacks. But the US disagreed and held on to its own stance. Two days later, the US-led coalition invaded Afghanistan. They were also joined by the Northern Alliance. Within 13 November 2001, the combined forces of the coalition and Northern Alliance took over Kabul. The Taliban were deposed from power. Subsequently, the Hamid Karzai government came into power. The US-led coalition kept up its activities after removing the Taliban from power and launched numerous operations to crush them totally. From General Tommy Franks, to current General Joseph F. Dunford – several commanders have been changed to handle the war. But it goes on violently, endangering Afghanistan more and some other countries involved in the conflict.

The economic and human costs of this war have really been massive and may have prompted plan for withdrawal, though amid the global economic slump the war did and does go on. A Harvard University research paper estimates the costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan somewhat between US$ 4-6 trillion.4 Washington based faith-oriented lobby group the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) put the US expenditures at US$ 778 billion from 2001-2012; they predicted the US would spend about another US$ 86.5 billion in 2013 in Afghanistan.5 The UK’s spending stands over US$ 55.5 billion.6 The war continues to take severe human tolls on parties involved. The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the Afghan Independent Human Right Commission (AIHRC)’s joint report of 2011 put Afghan civilian death tolls at 37,208.7 The midyear-2013 UNAMA report added another 5,3248 taking the total number to 42,532. The coalition has lost many soldiers; major loss tallies include the US (2,309) followed by the UK (447) and Canada (158) respectively. 9

3 “President Bush Addresses the Nation”, The Washington Post, 20 September 2001. 4 Linda J. Bilmes, The Financial Legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan: How Wartime Spending Decisions Will Constrain Future National Security Budgets, Harvard University, March 2013, available at https://research.hks.harvard.edu/... /citation..., accessed on 22 December 2013.5 “Costs of the Afghan War: By The Numbers”, the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), available at http://fcnl.org/afghanistan/Cost_of_the Afghan_War_By_The_Numbers, accessed on 22 December 2013. 6 Frank Ledwidge, Investment in Blood: The True Cost of Britain’s Afghan War, London: Yale University Press, 2013. 7 Afghanistan Midyear Report 2011 on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Kabul, Afghanistan, July 2011. 8 “Afghan Conflict Takes Increasing Toll on Civilians in First Half of 2013”, The United Nations, available at https://www.un.org/apps/…/story.asp?...Cr=Afghan, accessed on 20 December 2013. 9 "Fatalities Details of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan”, iCasualties, available at http://www.icasualties.org/OEF/Fatalities.aspx, accessed on 20 December 2013.

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Albeit withdrawal is still uncertain, the US-led coalition began thinking about gradual withdrawal from Afghanistan starting since 2011. On 22 June 2011, the US President Obama in his address to the nation said that he would withdraw 10,000 soldiers by late 2011 and another 23,000 by September 2012.10 Besides the UK, Germany and France withdrew their civilian staffs working in Afghan ministries in 2012.11 In February 2013, at the State of the Union address, Obama said about reducing US forces in Afghanistan from 68,000 to 34,000 by February 2014.12 Canada decided to end its military mission in Afghanistan within March 2014.13 Nevertheless, the US withdrawal still remains indefinite both in nature and timeframe.

3. Notable Peace Initiatives

There have been Afghan, regional and international initiatives to establish peace with Taliban. The London International Conference on Afghanistan (January-February 2006) may be called the first of such efforts where 66 nations and 15 international organisations took part for assisting and rebuilding Afghanistan. The conference focused on enhancement of security e.g. disarmament of all militias by 2007 and cleaning all mine fields, drug trade reduction, promoting effective government in Afghanistan, advancing socioeconomic developments etc.

Major actors in peace efforts have been the Karzai administration, Afghan politicians and tribal leaders, the UN, NATO, the Taliban and their affiliates, Pakistan, and rarely, other armed militias. Taliban and other militias demand total exit of foreign forces, end of aerial and ground attacks on them and common Afghans, release of their group members from captivity, and reject to lay down weapons as conditions for joining peace talks. Pakistan has been an important actor in Afghan peace initiatives and at the same time, continuing its own negotiations with the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), a force to be reckoned with. The UNAMA has been working to promote peace, stability and development in Afghanistan. The US Institute of Peace (USIP), a US congressional body, is engaged in peace efforts in Afghanistan. Some peace initiatives are still being undertaken by different parties involved in this war. Below are some peace initiatives undertaken since 2007 to present day.

10 David Jackson, “Obama to Pull 33,000 Troops from Afghanistan by End of Next Summer”, USA Today, 23 June 2011. 11 Isaac Hock and Paraag Shukla, Timeline: The Afghan Response to the 2012 Koran Burning Incident, Washington D. C.: Institute for the Study of War (ISW), 02 March 2012. 12 Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Obama Wants to Cut Troop Level in Afghanistan in Half over Next Year”, The Washington Post, 14 February 2013.13 Roland Paris, “The Truth about Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan”, Policy Brief, Centre for International Policy Studies (CIPS), University of Ottawa, No. 22, March 2014.

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3.1 National Level

In April 2003, President Karzai showed his willingness to integrate Taliban fighters into Afghan society by distinguishing between moderate and extremist Taliban. Former Taliban commander Mullah Haji Jilani responded by condemning the Taliban’s activities. He and 12 former Taliban then joined the Programme Tahkim-e-Solh (PTS) or the Programme for the Strengthening of Peace in August 2005, led by another former Mujahedeen commander Sibgatullah Mujaddedi. Although this initiative got much publicity, it could not bring any viable result.14 In April 2007, Afghan President Karzai admitted speaking to some Taliban on prospects of peace in Afghanistan.15 In September, he offered talks with them risking his own life.16 In March 2010, his administration arranged talks with the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) who proposed for departure of all foreign forces by 2010; Taliban were absent and refused future participation until foreign forces would completely leave Afghanistan.17 In April 2010, Karzai asked Taliban to drop weapons and address their grievances yet asserting that foreign forces would stay, so long as fighting would go on. 18 In May, he proposed potential safe exile for Taliban leaders into any third country and reintegrating fighters into the Afghan society; he talked about spending around US$ 160 million for them as promised by the international community. Taliban fighters might receive vocational training, have options of being involved in agriculture, construction and infrastructural development, emergency response teams, even joining Afghan security forces.19 The Afghan National Consultative Peace Jirga (NCPJ) held a three-day meeting in June 2010; it discussed proposals to provide support to reformed militants and review all Afghan prisoners in Guantanamo Bay to see whether some of them were wrongly detained. At the Kabul International Conference (July 2010), Karzai endorsed a scheme to reintegrate lower level Taliban soldiers and reap more benefits from higher level leaders in turn.20

14 “Taliban Talks: Past, Present and Prospects for the US, Afghanistan and Pakistan”, in Mona K. Sheikh and Maja T.J. Greenwood (eds.), DIIS Report, Copenhagen, Denmark: Danish Institute for International Studies, June 2013, p. 16. 15 “Afghan President Karzai Admits Seeking Peace Talks with Taliban”, Fox News, 24 September 2007, available at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297819,00.html?sPage=fnc/world/afghanistan#ixzz1swAgkDus”, accessed on 28 December 2013.16 Sayed Salahuddin, “Afghanistan’s Karzai Urges Taliban Talks after Scare”, Reuters, 09 September 2007, available at http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-29427920070909, accessed on 21 December 2013.17 Hamid Shalizi, “Taliban Say not Involved in Kabul Peace Talks”, Reuters, 23 March 2010, available at http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62L0PT20100323, accessed on 21 December 2013. 18 “Karzai Issues Open Invitation to Meet With Insurgents”, Fox News, 11 April 2010, available at http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/10/karzai-casts-doubt-major-kandahar-offensive/, accessed on 21 December 2013. 19 Jon Boone, “Taliban Leaders to be Offered Exile under Afghanistan Peace Plan”, The Guardian, 05 May 2010. 20 Richard A. Oppel Jr., “Karzai Approves Plan for Taliban Reintegration”, The New York Times, 01 July 2010.

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3.2 Regional Level

In Afghanistan related affairs, including the current war, Pakistan’s role has always been vital. In October 2010, Pakistan agreed to assist Afghan initiatives for peace talks with the Afghan Taliban.21 In August 2011, it attended a trilateral peace talk (Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the US) assuring full support to assist Afghanistan for bringing Taliban leaders to join this process. 22 It committed to provide US$ 330 million for reconstruction of Afghanistan.23 In December 2012, it agreed to release eight Taliban prisoners to help the Afghan peace process.24

During 2012, Pakistan with a view to facilitating Afghan peace initiatives, attempted to develop better relations with several leaders of the non-Pashtun Northern Alliance, notably Tajik leaders like Abdullah Abdullah, Ahmed Zia Masood (brother of late Ahmad Shah Masood) and influential Uzbek leader Abdur Rashid Dostum. These attempts were directed at reshape Pakistan’s image as exclusive supporter of Afghanistan’s Pashtun majority, the ethnic group the Taliban belong to. In 2012, senior Afghan and Pakistani delegations met over twenty times to discuss and advance the Afghan peace and reconciliation initiatives. In November 2012, the Afghanistan-Pakistan Joint Peace Commission was restarted after Afghan leader Salahuddin Rabbani visited Islamabad. After this visit, 13 Taliban leaders were released from Pakistani prisons as Afghanistan earlier demanded to help them take part in peace talks. In December 2012, when Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Khalilzad visited Pakistan, 15 more Taliban leaders were freed. Pakistan also agreed to help materialise the Peace Process Road Map prepared by the Afghan High Peace Council (HPC). This plan gave Pakistan a key role in Afghan peace and reconciliation efforts evident in the plan’s first proposal calling for focus on securing the cooperation from Pakistan. It then urged Pakistan to assist in forming direct communication between the Afghan government and known leaders of armed militia groups. Moreover, the plan aimed at having a final peace agreement as well as extension of regional cooperation by 2014.25 In 2013, Pakistan undertook several more attempts to help peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan. Several Taliban detainees were released this year. Pakistan joined the Brussels talks (April 2013) for peace in Afghanistan26 besides the US and Afghanistan. The talks were aimed at resolving Pak-Afghan differences and bringing the Taliban to negotiation. The release of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a top Taliban leader, was expected to boost the peace process. Pakistani Premier Nawaz Sharif said that there had been an agreement for allowing a peace

21 “Pakistan Willing to Assist Afghan Peace Negotiations”, Pajhowk Afghan News, 15 October 2010, available at www.pajhowk.com/.../2010/.../pakistan-willing, accessed on 28 December 2013. 22 Muhammad Tahir, “Pakistan, Afghanistan, US Hold Meeting on Afghan Peace Process”, Xinhua, 03 August 2011, available at http://www.xinhuanet.com>Home>World, accessed on 24 December 2013. 23 “Pakistan’s Role in Afghanistan’s Reconstruction”, Pakistan Today, 15 October 2011.24 Zarar Khan, “Boosting Hopes for Peace Talks, Pakistan Frees Eight Afghan Taliban Prisoners”, The Globe and Mail, 31 December 2012. 25 Ishtiaq Ahmad, “Pakistan’s ‘Regional Pivot’ and the Endgame in Afghanistan”, IPRI Journal, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 6-7.

26 “Kayani Meets Kerry, Karzai for Afghan Peace Talks”, Dawn, 24 April 2013.

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council from Afghanistan to continue talks with Mullah Baradar. 27 He pledged support for Afghanistan-Taliban peace talks in December 2013 as well.

3.3 International Level

In October 2008, former US defence secretary Robert Gates proposed reconciliation with the Taliban for a political solution of the war.28 In March 2009, an international conference on Afghanistan held in The Hague. This conference emphasised on promoting good governance and consolidation of democracy in Afghanistan, enhancing economic growth and development where the UN would play a broader role to support peace and stability. It also proposed gradual transfer of security affairs to the Afghan government. In January 2010, it was reported that some Taliban leaders met Kai Eide (the UN special representative for Afghanistan) in Dubai. Taliban discarded this claim as unfounded.29 At the London International Conference on Afghanistan (January 2010), Karzai expressed high expectations for establishing peace, for example, reaching out to top Taliban leaders, creating a platform for holding peace talks and therefore, inviting them in a grand Loya Jirga composed mainly of important, senior Afghans;30 for these, he recommended for founding an organisation whose name was suggested as the “National Council for Peace, Reconciliation and Reintegration”.31

Throughout 2011, there had been attempts at peace talks: the US covert steps to hold talks with the Taliban, Hillary’s highlighting the need of negotiations,32 the UN proposal for removing sanctions on blacklisted Taliban personnel 33 (an essential requirement from the Taliban) etc. The Bonn Conference (December 2011) emphasised on handing over security affairs to Afghanistan by 2014, international community’s long term engagement and commitment after NATO’s withdrawal, reconciliation and reintegration of Taliban members into the Afghan society. In January 2012, the Taliban sought to open an office in Qatar for potential peace talks with the coalition; Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that release of the Taliban detainees from Guantanamo Bay prison might be set as a prerequisite for peace talks.34 In late March 2013, Jan Kubis, the UN envoy to Afghanistan urged the Taliban to sit for peace talks

27 Patrick Quinn, “Pakistan PM Vows Commitment to Peace with Taliban in Afghanistan”, The Christian Science Monitor, 30 November 2013. 28 “Gates: U.S. Would Support Afghan Peace Talks with Taliban”, CNN.com, 10 October 2008, available at http://articles.cnn.com/2008-10-10/world/gates.taliban_1_afghan-security-forces-afghan-government-afghanistan?_s=PM:WORLD..., accessed on 21 December 2013. 29 Joshua Partlow, “Taliban Maintains Hard-line Stance, Denies U.N. Meeting”, The Washington Post, 31 January 2010.30 Hamid Shalizi and Abdul Malek, “Taliban Say no Decision yet on Karzai Offer of Talks”, Reuters, 29 January 2010, available at http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/01/29/us-afghanistan-idU..., accessed on 11 December 2013. 31 Paul Richter, " U.S. Cool to Karzai Plan on Taliban", The Los Angeles Times, 29 January 2010.32 David Jackson, “Obama Team Talking to Taliban in Afghanistan”, USA Today, 20 February 2011. 33 Rod Nordland, “Afghans Want Sanctions Lifted on Taliban Figures”, The New York Times, 04 June 2011. 34 Matthew Rosenberg, “Taliban Opening Qatar Office, and Maybe Door to Talks”, The New York Times, 03 January 2012.

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and President Karzai also visited Qatar for holding probable peace talks with them. At the London Trilateral Peace Talks (late October 2013) participated by Afghanistan, Pakistan and the UK, dialogue on Pak-Afghan shared interest in maintaining regional peace and stability took place. The UK and Pakistan assured firm commitment for promoting economic development and Afghan-led peace efforts.35

3.4 Key Reasons behind the Failure of Peace Initiatives

To date, no peace initiative for ending the current Afghan war has ultimately been successful. There have been both internal and external factors failing peace initiatives in Afghanistan. For example, the Programme for the Strengthening of Peace (PTS) failed as it lacked necessary political backing and also for administrators’ corruption.36 The Karzai government wants the Taliban to sever all ties with Al-Qaeda which they refuse. The Taliban and the HIG were absent in the NCPJ meeting and condemned it as an excuse to protract foreign military presence. Other militants also condemned the meeting. Some Afghan leaders boycotted the NCPJ. At the Kabul conference of July 2010, Karzai expressed plans for reconciliation and reintegration of Taliban fighters into the society. Those plans suffered setbacks in November 2010 when his requests to the US for stopping nighttime raids and reduction in troops’ numbers37 went unheeded; former NATO commander in Afghanistan General David Petraeus criticised Karzai’s concerns while the then US secretary of state Hillary Clinton supported Petraeus.38 The murder of Burhanuddin Rabbani (chief negotiator then) in September 2011 hammered the ongoing initiatives of that year. Karzai imperiled possibilities for peace talks in February 2012 by rejecting Taliban’s Qatar office proposal saying he would decide the venue instead.39 The Quran desecration at Bagram airbase in late February and the Panjwaii massacre in mid-March worsened this crisis. In May, the killing of senior negotiator Arsala Rahmani (a former Taliban minister) endangered peace talks again.40

Pakistan, a crucial actor in Afghanistan related affairs, has been facing its own problems. Deep mistrust of Pakistan both by NATO and Afghanistan has been a stumbling block for peace initiatives to succeed. Conversely, US aerial assaults on Pakistan have often made Pakistan withdrawing from efforts and also temporarily shut NATO supply lines to Afghanistan. Moreover, Pakistan wants Afghanistan to discontinue ties with India; in the Brussels talks of April 2013, Pakistan raised this

35 “Trilateral Meeting: London Summit Renews Afghan Peace Impetus”, The Express Tribune, 30 October 2013. 36 Thomas Ruttig, “The Other Side – Dimensions of the Afghan Insurgency: Causes, Actors – and Approaches to Talks”, Afghanistan Analysts Network Thematic Report, July 2009, p. 26.37 Chris McGreal and Jon Boone, “US Defends Afghanistan Tactics after Karzai Calls for Troop Reduction”, The Guardian, 15 November 2010. 38 Ibid.39 “Afghan President Says Taliban can not Open Office in Qatar”, Xinhuanet.com, 17 February 2012, available at http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-02/17/c_1314163..., accessed on 11 December 2013.40 Kevin Sieff and Sayed Salahuddin, “Arsala Rahmani, Taliban Leader Turned Afghanistan Peace Negotiator, Slain in Kabul”, The Washington Post, 13 May 2012.

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demand which Afghanistan did and still does not comply with. Many attacks by extremists like the TTP, Afghan Taliban, Haqqani Network in Afghanistan are always blamed as supported by Pakistan. When Pakistan did not join the Bonn conference on Afghanistan (December 2011), Karzai accused Pakistan of hindering peace talks with the Taliban.41 Such mutual mistrust and blame-game have been collapsing talks. Although Pakistan has been supporting these efforts, it is really difficult for the country to fight militants both inside its territory and Pak-Afghan border areas while engaging in peace talks.

The Karzai administration and the Afghan Taliban are highly doubtful of each other. When President Karzai visited Qatar in March 2013 to hold talks with them, Taliban response was cold. 42 In June 2013, they opened their first office in Doha, Qatar which ultimately shut down by July of that year. Because, their sign and flag both were taken down by the Qatar government after the Karzai government expressed dissatisfaction.43

Rifts are apparently widening between Karzai and the US. In fact, NATO attacks on Afghan civilians, for example, the Uruzgan helicopter attack of February 2010 and Helmand airstrike in May 2011, created deep divisions between the Afghan government and the coalition, strengthened militants’ ground who refused to join peace talks, launched attacks and thus led peace process to failure. In addition, peace initiatives heavily focus on economic or social issues e.g. development, women’s rights, reconciliation and reintegration but do not adequately address political ones, although grievances over these remain an effective tool for militants to recruit more members.

4. Different Views on Prospects of Peace in Afghanistan

The current war in Afghanistan includes various parties and everyone has individual viewpoints or interests. The war began between the US-led coalition with the Al-Qaeda and Taliban, but now involves various militia groups from Afghanistan, Pakistan and to some extent, remnants of Al-Qaeda. Furthermore, the war has not remained limited to Afghanistan rather spread to neighbouring Pakistan, making the achievement of peace more complex.

4.1 The Afghan Taliban and Other Militias in Afghanistan

The Afghan Taliban wants complete departure of foreign troops from Afghanistan and has maintained this demand. There have been other conditions as well, e.g., release of Taliban prisoners from different custodies, removing the names of blacklisted Taliban leaders from the UN or other sanctions lists, acceptance as

41 “Hamid Karzai Accuses Pakistan of Stalling Talks with Taliban”, The Express Tribune, 04 December 2011.42 “Karzai in Qatar to discuss Afghan Taliban peace talks”, Dawn, 30 March 2013. 43 “Taliban Close Qatar Office in Protest at Flag Removal”, The Daily Telegraph, 09 July 2013.

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a political entity in Afghanistan 44 etc, some of which have indeed been met. For example, several Taliban members have been freed. The Taliban also want NATO raids on various parts of Afghanistan be stopped. Yet, they refuse to denounce Al-Qaeda and international terrorism. 45 They neither recognise the Karzai government nor the Afghan constitution, whereas believe themselves as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan. In 2012, however, at a discussion in France, Taliban representatives said they did not want to rule the country exclusively.46 One Taliban member even said that many in the group wanted peace but hardliners were prevailing over them. 47

Other Afghan militias have their own views for peace, e.g. the HIG’s 15-point plan in February 2010. This included: foreign forces would withdraw fully by the end of 2010; while in Afghanistan, they should stay within their bases and not in main cities or populated areas; the Karzai government should rule unless new elections would take place; security affairs should be handed over to Afghan authorities; foreign fighters must move out of Afghanistan and elections be held after coalition forces would withdraw; cessation of faction warfare; and forming of a 7-member National Security Council with the consensus of all Afghan factions that would take final decisions on key issues. This council would be centered in a province where Afghan authorities would oversee security issues and there should be no foreign troops etc.48 Most of these demands were not met. The HIG, though a strong ally of the Afghan Taliban, did not support a bilateral US-Taliban peace initiative saying that would not assure peace. 49

Other groups have not made their position clear or are now largely absent from peace talks. This is evident in the fact that groups other than the Taliban or the HIG have not been called in to participate in such initiatives. Warlords remain quite powerful in the country and with the Karzai government in power have been able to secure positions. Some of them are virulently anti-Taliban, e.g. Abdur Rashid Dostum (former leader of a group in the Northern Alliance), served as the defence minister in the Hamid Karzai government, and now heads the National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan, current first Vice-President Mohammad Qasim Fahim etc. Even then, the Taliban and their allies seem to have some advantage, because many groups and people working or speaking against them continue to suffer terribly at their hands. Moreover, only the Taliban or their allies are known to place demands.

44 Mona K. Sheikh and Maja T.J. Greenwood, op. cit, p. 2545 Bill Roggio, “Afghan Taliban Reject US Call for Peace Talks”, The Long War Journal, 19 January 2014, available at http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/01/afghan_taliban_rejec.php. accessed on 27 December 2013. 46 Denis Gray, “Taliban not Demanding Afghan Power Monopoly”, The Washington Times, 23 December 2012. 47 Julian Borger, “Afghan Insurgents Want Peace Deal, Says ex-Taliban Minister”, The Guardian, 20 September 2013. 48 Bill Roggio, “Hekmatyar’s ‘Peace Plan’ Calls for NATO Withdrawal by 2011”, The Long War Journal, 22 March 2010, available at http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/03/hekmatyars_peace_pla.php, accessed on 22 December 2013.49 “Today’s Afghan News Headlines”, The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, 21 July 2013, available at http://unama.unmissions.org/Default.aspx, accessed on 23 December 2013.

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4.2 The West

4.2.1 European Union (EU)’s Views

European views on peace and stability in Afghanistan focus on development and capacity building. The EU has sent a police mission to Afghanistan to train the Afghan police and law officials. The Council of European Union expressed its strong support for state-building and long-term development in Afghanistan. The EU believes that an entirely Afghan-led and Afghan-owned reconciliation and reintegration process would help ensure lasting peace in the country. It encourages the growing participation of Afghanistan and its neighbouring countries in the Istanbul Process on Regional Cooperation and Security,50 and is developing methods/frameworks for promoting regional stability. 51 British MPs suggested that a peace agreement led by legitimate Afghan authorities with the Taliban would help save the country from another civil war. The UK Parliamentary Defence Select Committee said the following measures would help ensure peace and stability in Afghanistan: free and fair elections, adequately trained Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) with necessary funding, functional judiciary with effective oversight of human rights issues, keeping up development assistance, working out viable plans to combat corruption and drug trafficking.52 Germany has been active for promoting peace and development in Afghanistan. At the Bonn Conference in 2011, the International Contact Group (ICG) on Afghanistan and Pakistan headed by Ambassador Michael Koch (German Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan) was formed to address these issues in Afghanistan and in the region. The group met three times in 2012 and members agreed to support Afghanistan, under the Tokyo Mutual Accountability Framework, for initiating effective and transparent strategies for growth and development. Donors would provide Afghanistan with around US$ 16 billion over the next four years in the form of civilian assistance.53

4.2.2 US Views

The US now wants a political solution of this war. The USIP has been working for promoting peace in Afghanistan for long. In 2012, it suggested some measures in this regard which included: ensuring access to information for the US and Afghanistan about the happenings in the latter, supporting analytical work on critical development, peace and stability issues, strengthening of governance

50 The Istanbul Process was established in November 2011 to increase regional cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbours. It emphasises common threats facing these nations: terrorism, drug trade, poverty and militancy. The US and over 20 other nations are supporting members of this initiative. 51 “EN Council Conclusions on Afghanistan”, EN Council, 24 June 2013, available at http://www. auswaertiges-amt.de/.../130624-RSF-AFG.p..., accessed on 21 December 2013. 52 “Afghanistan Peace Deal with Taliban Needed, Say MPs”, BBC News, 10 April 2013, available at http://www. bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22087122, accessed on 28 December 2013. 53 “The International Contact Group”, 07 December 2012, available at http:// www.auswaertiges-amt.de/.../ AfghanistanZentrala…, accessed on 30 December 2013.

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and rule of law; building understanding of and capacity in conflict prevention, mitigation and resolution for Afghan individuals and institutions. 54 In 2012, the US-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement was signed for establishing long-term bilateral relationship. Afghanistan will receive US development aid for next 10 years and should commit itself to promoting effective governance. In return, US personnel will have full liberty to use Afghan facilities even after 2014. Aside from the Karzai government, the US wants to engage the Afghan Taliban for peace deals. But the Afghan government and the Taliban are often not on good terms. The US stresses the active engagement of Pakistan for promoting peace in Afghanistan. Central Asian nations are considered by the US as important for establishing peace and stability in Afghanistan. In 2013, in the joint statement of the 2nd Kazakhstan-United States Strategic Partnership Dialogue, the US lauded Kazakhstan’s role for supporting peace and stability in Afghanistan.55 In Kyrgyzstan, the Manas Transit Centre has long been a US facility for transport and logistics to support peace initiatives in Afghanistan. After the 9/11 attacks, Uzbekistan allowed the deployment of 1,500 US troops in southern Uzbekistan in return for US assistance to deal with its own terrorism problems.56 Still, the US position is different since it wants to maintain some military presence in Afghanistan after the proposed withdrawal by 2014 while other nations have withdrawn theirs.

4.3 Regional Powers

4.3.1 Pakistani Views (Including Pakistani Militant Groups)

Pakistan’s view is quite complex regarding peace in Afghanistan. For instance, Pakistan considers Afghanistan as essential for its own strategic depth in case of an Indo-Pak military conflict. Therefore, a friendly Afghanistan will be greatly helpful for Pakistan, although Afghanistan does not adhere to this. Since the current war began, there have been many ups and downs in Pak-Afghan relations yet Pakistan has shown quite strong support for peace in Afghanistan. It views Afghan participation as necessary in any peace talk and says will not support if those lack Afghan approval.57 The present government of Pakistan has reiterated support for peace in Afghanistan58 and said that for this purpose, wants to engage all stakeholders including militant groups. Conversely, Pakistan considers the growing Indian presence in and relations with Afghanistan as a threat to its own influence and interests there.

54 “Progress in Peacebuilding: Afghanistan”, US Institute of Peace (USIP), December 2012, available at http:// www.usip.org/category/countries/afghanistan, accessed on 21 December 2013. 55“Joint Statement of Second Kazakhstan-United States Strategic Partnership Dialogue”, US Department of State, 10 July 2013, available at http://www. state.gov ›...›Press Releases: July 2013, accessed on 29 December 2013. 56 Elizabeth Wishnick, Strategic Consequences of the Iraq War: U.S. Security Interests in Central Asia Reassessed, Carlisle, Pennsylvania: Strategic Studies Institute (SSI), May 2004, p. 2. 57 Julian Borger, “Pakistan Will Not Support Afghan Talks Until Kabul Backs Them, Says Minister”, The Guardian, 21 February 2012.58 “Peaceful, Stable Afghanistan is in Pakistan’s Interest: Sharif”, Dawn, 30 November 2013.

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The Haqqani Network, a key ally of the Taliban, in 2011 expressed support for peace in Afghanistan; their condition was that the talks should be conducted by the Mullah Omar-led Quetta Shura.59 But deaths of several Haqqani leaders either within Pakistan or by US drone strikes in Pak-Afghan border areas have resulted in its withdrawal from peace process, while the group has not launched or tried any attack after 2012.

The TTP is not related to the Afghan Taliban, but has close ideological affinity with them. It demands that for successful peace talks, all its prisoners must be freed from captivity. Another demand is to end all drone strikes in Pak-Afghan tribal areas.

4.3.2 Indian Views

India neither participated in the Afghan war nor is directly involved there unlike Pakistan, but is becoming quite important for varied reasons. When the Taliban (whom Pakistan supported) were ruling Afghanistan, India supported the Northern Alliance. Presently, India has been expanding cooperation with Afghanistan. It opened medical and educational centres there. It agreed to train Afghan security personnel. There have also been efforts to raise military cooperation. India’s main goal of promoting peace in Afghanistan is to reduce the threat possessed by Muslim militant groups from Afghanistan and Pakistan who are often alleged to be backed by Pakistan. Here, India has deep worries indeed; although there are Muslim militants in India, the TTP recently threatened to spread their activities into Indian Kashmir. 60

While the porous Pak-Afghan border helps these extremists travel between these two countries, if they can create mutually useful contacts with their Indian counterparts, that will create more difficulty for India. Another goal of India is trade expansion. India participated in the Istanbul Process in 2011 and endorsed the New Silk Road plan. This plan is meant to increase trade and integration of South and Central Asia.61 At the same time, it also intends to transform Afghanistan into a business hub for these two regions.62 A peaceful and stable Afghanistan will promote India’s trade with resource-rich Central Asian states and vice-versa.

59 Dean Nelson, “Feared Haqqani Network Announce Support for Taliban Peace Talks”, The Telegraph, 17 September 2011.60 “Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan Pledges to Fight in Kashmir, Implement Sharia in India”, The Indian Express, 08 January 2013.61 Robert O. Blake, Jr., “The New Silk Road and Regional Economic Integration”, the US Department of State, available at http:www.state.gov /p/sca/rls/rmks/2013/206167.htm, 13 March 2013, accessed on 22 December 2013.

62 Abhimanyu Chandra, “Prospects for Future Peace in Afghanistan: India as a US Partner”, February 2012, available at: http:// yris.yira.org/comments/267, accessed on 20 December 2013.

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4.3.3 Iranian Views

Iran’s view on peace in Afghanistan involves political and religious perspectives. An important country in global and regional politics, Iran will not surely be comfortable with Western presence (particularly US) on its eastern frontiers though it is recently holding talks with them on its nuclear programme. However, this country supported the Northern Alliance during the Afghan civil war of the 1990s and was one of the first nations to back the US invasion of Afghanistan. 63 There remains also the drug trade concern for Iran coming from Afghanistan. The country did not recognise the Taliban regime, welcomed their removal and helped establishing the Karzai government whom the Northern Alliance was not willing to share governance power with at first. But at the Bonn Conference of 2001, Iran pressed them to reach a compromise.64 Therefore, a peaceful Afghanistan, friendly groups like the Karzai government and the Northern Alliance will be in Iran’s interest. Besides, a secure eastern border will enable Iran to act more effectively against insurgency within its own territory. These insurgents are Sunni and Shiite Iran will not prefer the Sunni Taliban to come and assist them.

4.3.4 Chinese Views

China, after the fall of the Taliban, has been broadening relations with Afghanistan. Under the Sino-Afghan security and economic cooperation agreement of 2012, Afghan security personnel will receive training from China. China has secured rights to engage in mining and oil businesses in Afghanistan.65 Chinese view of promoting peace in Afghanistan has been summarised as the “Five Supports”: supporting an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace and reconstruction process, helping Afghanistan improve its capacity building, promoting a national reconciliation through Afghan efforts, and helping develop the economy, assistance for improving relations with neighbours.66 Another aim of Chinese support for a peaceful and stable Afghanistan may be from security perspectives, i.e. the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a Muslim separatist group active in China’s Xinjiang, Central Asia and North Waziristan in Pakistan has been an ally of the Afghan Taliban. Albeit China has no border with Afghanistan, in the changed circumstances, Afghan militants may try to establish broader support for the ETIM traveling through Pakistan, whom China has borders with.

63 S. Enders Wimbush, “Great Games in Central Asia,” in Ashley J. Tellis, Travis Tanner, and Jessica Keough (eds.), Strategic Asia 2011–12: Asia Responds to Its Rising Powers – China and India, Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2011, p. 262.64Manoj Kumar Mishra, “Iran’s Changed Perception Concerning its Role in Afghanistan Following Soviet Disintegration”, Afro Eurasian Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2012, pp. 76-96.65 Zhao Huasheng, “Chinese Views of Post-2014 Afghanistan”, Asia Policy, Seattle, Washington: National Bureau of Asian Research, No. 17, January 2014, p. 38. 66 Zhao Huasheng, China and Afghanistan: China’s Interests, Stances, and Perspectives (CSIS Reports), Washington: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), March 2012, p. 5.

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4.3.5 Karzai Government’s Views

The Karzai government wants to hold dialogues with all relevant parties. It views the Afghan Taliban and neighbour Pakistan as two crucial actors for peace in Afghanistan despite grave mistrust about them. Many times, President Karzai has stressed a constructive role of Pakistan in peace talks regarding Pakistan’s significant influence on the Taliban and other Muslim militants in the region; he even agreed to allow Mullah Omar to compete in the upcoming Afghan presidential elections of 2014,67 believing that will facilitate the proposed reconciliation and reintegration. For this, he urged the Taliban to give up weapons or violence. Besides, talks are going on about signing a bilateral Afghanistan-US agreement for helping ensure peace and security in Afghanistan after the NATO withdrawal in 2014.

5. Whether Peace Initiatives will work or not?

As days go by, situations are becoming increasingly complicated in Afghanistan. Differences between today’s global, regional and internal situations of Afghanistan with those when this war began are vast. Many attempts have been directed at peace and reconciliation at various levels but peace has not been achieved in Afghanistan. There are many actors and issues involved here that continue to put the peace talks/process into deep uncertainty.

5.1 Afghanistan’s Internal Situations

The notion that internal situations are now better in Afghanistan is not beyond question. For instance, the infamous Bagram prison still is a thorny issue between the militia groups and the coalition. The Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) is reported to be involved in seriously abusing detainees.68 Afghanistan retains the label of the top producer of opium in the world, a business the Taliban depends on substantially and does not want to give up. Several programmes to eliminate this business have failed. Afghanistan, despite having recently discovered minerals worth trillions of dollars, is a least developed country with large number of unemployed people and human lives are often at risk there. The Karzai government has various allegations on itself and shown little/no efficiency in dealing with militias (mainly the Taliban) as well. Afghan security forces have attacked and killed western forces several times. All these can, and in many cases are already badly endangering prospects of peace in Afghanistan.

67 “Mullah Omar can Run for President in Afghan Elections: Karzai”, The Express Tribune, 02 April 2013. 68 “Report Lifts Lid on Torture in Afghanistan Prisons”, Gulf Times, 20 March 2012.

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5.2 Regional Situations

These have changed a lot since the war began in 2001 and continue to take more intricate turns. Pakistan has been in a great dilemma since joining this war where its role remains both important and controversial. In recent past, Pakistan security forces have clashed with Afghan, even NATO forces on Pak-Afghan borders. Drone strikes in those areas keep on killing civilians as well as Pakistani soldiers albeit US claims that strikes are intended to kill militants and staunchly defends the strikes. Pakistani militant groups sustain close links with Afghan ones and have proved equally lethal to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Western forces in Afghanistan damaging peace prospects. With a new government assuming power in Pakistan in May 2013, it was expected that peace process in Afghanistan would gain a new momentum. This is yet to happen despite strong pledges from Pakistan which views the growing Indo-Afghan relations with suspicion. Pak-Afghan relations now show mounting mutual distrust which did not exist in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. At present, they continue blaming each other for aiding extremists and failure of peace efforts, making the Afghan transition towards stability more precarious.

5.3 The Proposed 2014 Withdrawal of NATO and Possible Consequences

NATO’s plan for withdrawal from Afghanistan can be traced back to November 2010 when it stated plans for withdrawal by the end of 2014.69 In June 2013, NATO handed over the charge of security to Afghanistan. NATO Chief Anders F. Rasmussen said they would carry on assisting Afghan security forces but not engage in preparation, leading or execution of plans, and complete the combat mission by the end of 2014. 70 The US wants to maintain a certain number of troops after 2014 for training Afghan forces and maintain operations against extremists. It is trying to sign an agreement with Afghanistan to that end. President Karzai remains cautious about signing and endorsing such an agreement saying he will not sign it until elections take place in April 2014. The bulk of NATO troops in Afghanistan is from the US and without the Afghan-US security agreement signed, NATO will not retain military presence there. 71

The coalition’s withdrawal from Afghanistan will have extensive implications. Firstly, the Karzai government will be in profound trouble holding onto power. The Taliban, Al-Qaeda, TTP, other Afghan and Pakistani militia groups will have more liberty in conducting their activities. Afghan forces will face militants from their own country, Pakistan and Central Asian republics – all of whom share borders, generally similar

69 James Kirkup, “Lisbon: NATO Leaders Endorse Afghanistan 2014 Withdrawal Date”, The Telegraph, 20 November 2010. 70 “Bomb Blast Hits Afghanistan on Security Handover Day”, Deutsche Welle, 18 June 2013, available at http:// www.dw.de/bomb-blast-hits-afghanistan-on-security-handover-day/a-16888374, accessed on 12 December 2013.71 Adrian Croft, “U.S.-Afghanistan Pact Failure Would Force NATO to Pull Force Out of Country”, Rasmussen Says”, The Huffington Post, 02 December 2013.

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demographics and culture with Afghanistan. If militants from these countries enter and start operating in Afghanistan, then containing them will be highly challenging for Afghan and the remaining foreign troops.

Regional scenarios will be affected substantially. The Taliban and most other Afghan militants are largely Sunnis. In contrast, Afghanistan’s neighbour Iran is a Shiite nation. If Iran tries to influence the overwhelmingly Shiite Hazara Afghans whom the Taliban used to torture ruthlessly, that will generate ethnic clashes. Pakistan also has large Shiite population and Shiite-Sunni clashes are not uncommon there. Once begun, none of the three nations will be immune. Pakistan has been competing with India to secure its own influence in Afghanistan. In the absence of western forces in Afghanistan, Indo-Pak rivalry will spread there and become more intense, which will not be good at all for this war-ravaged country. Besides, the discovery of large reserves of minerals in Afghanistan, competition to explore and utilise those can instigate conflicts among different powers.

The US' post-2014 plans for keeping troops in Afghanistan can also give rise to security concerns. There is lack of trust between forces of the coalition and Afghanistan. There have been mutual killings committed by soldiers of both sides. This raises safety questions of the remaining US troops and civilian personnel. If such killings occur after the withdrawal, that will produce more harmful results. On one hand, the US may reduce or even cancel assistance programmes for Afghanistan and on the other, anti-US sentiments will continue to grow in Afghanistan.

The Afghan peace process can be impacted deeply. Militia groups who are not interested in peace talks and even if do, then may place harder conditions. When with superior military capabilities, the coalition has had difficulties in eliminating these groups, their withdrawal and maintaining smaller military presence in Afghanistan will create more insecurity. Afghanistan is a country of diverse ethnic groups with Pashtuns being the largest. The Taliban belong to this group. The absence/smaller presence of Western forces will encourage them to intimidate other groups or take over other areas in Afghanistan, as they did before their ouster. If they try that again, opponent groups and people will not remain quiet and Afghanistan may again slide into turmoil like the Civil War of 1996-2001. Anti-Taliban elements in the Karzai administration may also oppose talking to the Taliban for peace due to their inherent enmity. These differences will be a severe blow to peace efforts of the administration. Afghan militants do not like the proposed Afghan-US security agreement to be signed as it provides for US military presence after 2014. If it is signed, militants will gain more reasons for rejecting peace process, as their demand for total departure of foreign forces will not be met. This might lead peace talks to failure.

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6. Concluding Remarks

Western powers’ view of peace in Afghanistan implies many complexities. While they want peace with the Taliban and other militants, they want their own model of democracy in the country which these groups completely disagree. Whenever peace efforts have been taken or at least are under process, unexpected events occur, various conditions are attached either in Afghanistan or outside, by different parties jeopardising the efforts.

Despite a political solution being necessary and sought after by both the US and the Taliban, the US decision to maintain troops after 2014 may focus more on the military aspect. The Taliban are thinking of forming a political party but also emphasising about preserving their core ideals. 72 Their rivals like the Northern Alliance, will not welcome the Taliban either as a political party and ensuing antagonism can put possibility of peace and stability in Afghanistan at stake.

For peace and stability in Afghanistan, cooperation from Pakistan is indispensable, what Afghanistan repeatedly emphasises despite mutual distrust. In October 2011, the country openly criticised Pakistan for supporting the Taliban and other militias yet sought Pakistani assistance. 73 Current Pakistani Premier Nawaz Sharif said he wanted to hold talks with the TTP, but nothing about the Afghan Taliban or other extremists, e.g., Haqqani Network, Al-Qaeda, Laskar-e-Taiba etc. Pakistan is alleged to have considerable influence on these militants though has itself been their victim, denies allegations of aiding them or subverting peace process. Being agitated by allegations and attacks, if Pakistan withdraws support from the peace efforts, Afghanistan will be in more danger, let alone peace and stability.

Gaps between Afghanistan and the US are widening. The pending security agreement says military presence will be for indefinite time but President Karzai opts for 10 years, from 2014 when the US proposes to withdraw. 74 Afghanistan’s decision to release 65 prisoners from Bagram prison angered the US who termed them as dangerous terrorists.75 US' plans to retain military presence in Afghanistan after 2014, may also displease common Afghans besides the Karzai goverment and damage the peace process. For example, after Burhanuddin’s assassination, some young Afghans expressed willingness to join the Taliban and fight the US for many years.76 This war has produced a lot of refugees and despite existing provisions of care, many are falling

72 Tahir Khan, “War-weariness?: Taliban may Launch Political Party”, The Express Tribune, 04 March 2013.73 Joshua Partlow and Karin Brulliard, “Afghan Government Seeks Pakistan’s Help in Stalled Peace Process”, The Washington Post, 09 October 2011. 74 Tim Craig and Karen DeYoung, “Afghan President Hamid Karzai Says He’ll Delay Signing of U.S. Accord on Troops”, The Washington Post, 21 November 2013; also see Karen DeYoung and Tim Craig, “U.S., Afghanistan Agree on Language of Security Accord, Kerry Says”, The Washington Post, 20 November 2013. 75 Mathew Rosenberg, “Afghans’ Plan to Release Prisoners Angers U.S.”, The New York Times, 31 December 2013. 76 Kevin Sieff, “Young Afghan Fighters Eager to Rejoin Taliban”, The Washington Post, 16 September 2011.

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prey to inhuman living conditions. Without proper rehabilitation, they may become extremists themselves sooner or later.

Groups or parties involved in the Afghan peace process often alter their stances, e.g. Afghan and Pakistani Taliban keep up attacks notwithstanding assurances for ending these; Pakistan sometimes opens the NATO supply routes and suddenly closes them protesting the drone strikes, withdrawal or assistance plans change nature and conditions etc. Disagreement among parties about demands or proposals of each other in peace process, leads to deadlock, confrontation and eventually, cancellation of peace talks. While a viable political solution is necessary for the present Afghan war, there are military, humanitarian, economic and governance concerns as well. There is no guideline how challenges to these as well as peace process should be handled, e.g. convincing the militias to drop weapons and agree to unconditional peace talks is proving difficult. Moreover, parties possess different viewpoints for ending the war and disagree to compromise individual interests. Thus, it seems quite likely that peace initiatives will go on besides violence but a durable peace may not be achievable in Afghanistan in near future.

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Saima Ahmed

OVERCOMING THE RWANDA FAILURE: THE IMPACT OF R2P ON THE PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS

Abstract

This paper discusses two norms that the United Nations led humanitarian interventions have been practicing since the 1990s: the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and the Protection of Civilians. Both are very important agenda setters for future humanitarian interventions. The objective of this paper is to provide critical insights about how these two norms are applied on a limited scale during humanitarian interventions. The paper begins by reflecting on the failures of the United Nations in stopping and providing timely response during the genocide in Rwanda in 1993. It is argued that the causes of the Rwanda failure are the United Nations (UN), the United States (US), and the international community’s inaction and unwillingness to spend resources to stop or prevent violent conflicts and/or gross violations of human rights in an impoverished region like Africa. These regions are of little value and pose little threat to the United States and other great powers. A human catastrophe in Rwanda or any other economically poor countries of the world seems distant to them, and would require long term engagement that the great powers think as would be a burden on them. They judge international prohibitions and take pivotal decisions of humanitarian interventions on a case by case basis when they think it is appropriate and necessary. Most often the great powers and/or the permanent members of the Security Council reflect their domestic decision makers’ positions instead of the interests of justice, and often only uphold their national interests and other criteria. The paper then discusses the central challenges to operationalise the doctrine of Protection of Civilians – the very reason the concept of R2P was coined. Here the paper argues that the principle of R2P suffers from several important limitations when it aims at implementing the doctrine of Protection of Civilians. In the final section, the 2001 report on R2P of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), which was independently launched by the Canadian government, and the Outcome Document of the 2005 World Summit is analysed. It is suggested in the paper that many important recommendations of the ICISS were sidelined in the Outcome Document and this imposed limitations on the effectiveness of R2P’s implementation. It is also argued that the primary causes of Rwanda failure were not reflected in these initiatives.

1. Introduction

The 1994 genocide in Rwanda epitomised the horrifying systematic killing1 of innocent civilians and unspeakable violation of human rights because of collective

Saima Ahmed is Assistant Professor at the Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka. Her e-mail address is: [email protected]

© Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS), 2014.

1 Having, showing or involving a system, method or plan.

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inaction by the international community. Since then, there have been stormy debates within the United Nations (UN) and in the academia on how the international community can stop any such human catastrophe from taking place in the future. The Genocide Convention, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Chapter VI, Chapter VII and Chapter VIII provisions of the UN Charter relating to humanitarian intervention and practice of peace operations had already been there. Despite that, the international community was reluctant to apply these mechanisms in Rwanda and even refrained themselves from characterising the systematic mass killings of Rwanda as genocide. Perhaps if we had a well defined set of norms and institutional structure for humanitarian intervention, the international community would have been able to stop the genocide in Rwanda, and prevent any such atrocities to happen in the future. From 1999 onwards, a significant number of doctrines, operational strategies, new mandates, and new norms have been coined in the UN with the objective to overcome the Rwanda failure. Among them, Responsibility to Protect and Protection of Civilians are two concepts that quickly pervaded the political discourse.

The two concepts together are envisioned as a mobiliser to awaken the world’s conscience to avert, prevent, and stop mass killings. The concept of Responsibility to Protect or more commonly known as R2P though is still an ongoing debate and widely discussed topic of current times. But one has to admit that this concept is changing, redefining, and reconstituting the norms, laws and practices that constitute the relations between citizens and states. R2P is probably the most dramatic normative development in recent times. It challenges the UN’s most sacrosanct principle of respecting territorial sovereignty and non-intervention enshrined in Article 2 (7) of the UN Charter, and makes states look through the human rights norms and laws. However, there are elements and issues in R2P as well as Protection of Civilians norms that require further research to improve global governance and make it more effective.

In the last couple of years, humanitarian intervention has received considerable attention of scholars on ethical, legal and political grounds. The issues of legitimacy and legality of humanitarian interventions have mainly been studied in international law and politics literatures. Though no one completely supported non-intervention, there were debates throughout the literature over if and why humanitarian interventions are justifiable, and questions were raised over the basic assumption of states pursuing their national interests. These issues were discussed in the works of Alex J Bellamy2, Anne Orford3, Simon Caney4, Iain Atack5, Mohammed Ayoob6, David Chandler7 and 2 Alex J. Bellamy, Responsibility to Protect: The Global Effort to End Mass Atrocities, London: Polity, 2009; “Whither the Responsibility to Protect? Humanitarian Intervention and the 2005 World Summit”, Ethics and International Affairs, Vol. 20, No. 2, 2006, pp. 143-169; and Alex J. Bellamy and Paul Williams (eds.), Peace Operations and Global Order, London: Routledge, 2005.3 Anne Orford, Readig Humanitarian Intervention: Human Rights and the Use of Force in International Law, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 4 Simon Caney, Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.5 Iain Atack, “Ethical Objections to Humanitarian Intervention”, Security Dialogue, Vol. 33, No. 3, 2002, pp. 279-92.6 Mohammad Ayoob, “Humanitarian Intervention and State Sovereignty”, International Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2002, pp. 81-102. 7 David Chandler, From Kosovo to Kabul: Human Rights and International Intervention, London: Pluto Press, 2002.

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Simon Chesterman8. There is widespread support for the view, though not complete agreement among the academia, that humanitarian intervention can be justifiable in exceptional cases to tackle large-scale human suffering. Currently, the concern has shifted more towards who should undertake humanitarian intervention and when it is justifiable for them to do so; also whether humanitarian intervention is justifiable only when undertaken by a multinational force with the authorisation of the UN Security Council and in response to genocide or mass killing; or, whether it is permissible for a single state to undertake humanitarian intervention without the Security Council authorisation and in response to severe oppression; and finally, who is going to define or measure the severity of oppression.

There are gaps in the literature on the approach of states towards the notion of humanitarian intervention and implementation of the Responsibility to Protect within the UN framework. There are insufficient discussions on how or whether the notion of moral responsibility plays a role in the international community’s responses to cases of humanitarian catastrophe. There are gaps in exploring capacity and capability issues, other than national interest, which are constraining states in taking action based on moral motives. This paper will try to focus on covering these gaps.

The Paper will examine the following two questions:

• Why did the UN and the international community fail to prevent or end the genocide in Rwanda?

• To what extent are the norm of Responsibility to Protect and the doctrine of Protection of Civilians impacting civilians in conflict areas and whether these norms have been effective in meeting the problems of the Rwanda failure?

The discussion will proceed in three parts: first, the reasons for the failure of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) to end genocide will be identified; second, how effective the Protection of Civilians doctrine was as a response to the reasons of failure identified in the first section will be discussed; and finally, the concept of Responsibility to Protect, how it is impacting protection of civilians in conflict areas, and whether it has been able to address the core problems identified in the first two sections will be discussed.

It will be argued in the paper that, the way the principle of R2P developed and now practiced by the community of states retains the same problems that existed at the very beginning of humanitarian interventions. The concept of R2P brought little change in the prevention of humanitarian crisis. It is doubtful whether this principle can stop future Rwanda-like situations. It is also doubtful whether this principle enhances civilian protection or encourages states to provide protection to its people

8 Simon Chesterman, Just War or Just Peace? Humanitarian Intervention and International Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

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or helps avert human rights violations. Powerful states still do not feel obliged to protect citizens of other states especially of the poorer regions. Even when they do agree to take action, humanitarian operations suffer from hundreds of problems related to funds, military personnel, cost and commitment for force application etc coming from the contributing states. It is argued in the paper that the principle of R2P fails to meet the very reason the principle was first initiated that is to create an obligation among states to carry a military operation to save or protect civilians of a distant state.

2. Background of the Genocide in Rwanda

Historically ethnic tension and bitterness existed between the minority Tutsi population (15 per cent) and the majority Hutus in Rwanda (around 85 per cent).9 The Tutsis constituted the pastoral monarchy and were favoured by both German and Belgian rulers during the colonial era. It was a German colony from 1884 to 1916. There were racial rankings in all social strata. German colonists considered the Tutsis superior to Hutus. The Tutsis enjoyed better jobs, key positions, and better education opportunities than Hutus.10 The Hutus had been categorised as brutish and innately inferior. These dichotomies were not real, rather imaginary. There were centuries of intermarriage between the Hutus and the Tutsis. The identity difference existed more in their minds than in their ethnic or kinship origin.11 However, every Rwandan had very rigid or inflexible adherence to each of the two ethnic identities that were institutionalised since colonial times. Belgian colonists, when arrived in Rwanda in 1916, used to issue ethnic identity cards classifying people according to their ethnicity.12 The Tutsi domination in the Rwandan society persisted until 1959.

In 1962, Rwanda became independent and a new Hutu leadership emerged. Tutsis were persecuted during that time and about 20,000 Tutsis fled to neighbouring countries in 1963, and then followed by many thousands more in 1966 and 1973.13 In 1990, soon after President Major General Juvenal Habyarimana, who came to power in 1973 after an army coup, announced plans to initiate multiparty electoral democracy, violence and hostilities broke out. According to UNHCR, in 1990, there were 900,000 Tutsis living in Uganda, Burundi, Zaire and Tanzania for fear of persecution and had been denied their right to return to their country of origin by the Rwandan government. About 7,000 members of Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) comprised of

9 "Rwanda: A Brief History of the Country”, available at http://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/rwanda/education/rwandagenocide.shtml, accessed on 29 December 2013. 10 “UNAMIR Background”, the United Nations, available at http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/unamirFT.htm#HISTORICAL, accessed on 29 December 2013.11 Mahmud Mamdani, “The Racialisation of the Hutu/Tutsi Difference Under Colonialism”, in When Victims become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism and Genocide in Rwanda, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2001, pp. 76-102. 12 "UNAMIR Backgroud”, the United Nations, op. cit. 13 Ibid.

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the Tutsi refugees in Uganda launched attack across Rwanda-Uganda border at that time.14

A number of ceasefire agreements were followed after the outbreak of fighting in 1990 including the Arusha agreement of 22 July 1992 in the United Republic of Tanzania. The agreement called for the establishment of a 50 member Neutral Military Group 1 (NMOG1) by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU).15 The Arusha agreement aimed at the rapprochement between President Habyarimana’s government, the civilian opposition and the RPF and five other political parties that formed the coalition government of April 1992 until a proper election could be held.16 However, the negotiation between the government and the RPF stopped because of outbreak of hostilities in the Northern part of Rwanda in February 1993. The extremist Hutu Coalition for the Defence of the Republic (CDR) strongly opposed sharing power with the RPF and difficulties started at the initial stage of signing the accords.17 Evidence showed that the Hutu extremists, unhappy with the power sharing arrangement with the RPF, were in fact planning to exterminate the Tutsis and the moderate Hutus who supported the accord.18 However, in the midst of all this, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 846 in June 1993 establishing the United Nations Observer Mission in Uganda-Rwanda (UNOMUR). It started working in August 1993 under the command of General Dallaire.19 When the Arusha agreement was signed, the Security Council established a United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) in October 1993 to monitor the agreement’s implementation.20 The UNOMUR came under the command of the new mission at that time.21

In early April 1994, President Habyarimana was killed when his plane was shot down. In Kigali, the presidential guards immediately started a campaign of retribution against opposition political party leaders, and soon started murdering them, both the Tutsis and the moderate Hutus. Early organisers of the murders were military officials, politicians and businessmen. Others joined soon. Encouraged by the presidential guards and radio propaganda, an unofficial militia group called Interahame (meaning those who attack together) was mobilised. The group comprised of about 30,000 Hutus.22 Soon the horror of genocide engulfed Rwanda. Beginning in Kigali the killing quickly spread to the rest of the country primarily targeting all men, women and children of the Tutsi minority and the moderate Hutus.

14 “Rwanda: A Brief History of the Country”, op. cit. 15 "UNAMIR Background”, op. cit. 16 “Rwanda: Who Is Killing; Who Is Dying; What Is To Be Done”, African Rights, May 1994, p. 9, available at http://www.francerwandagenocide.org/documents/WhoIsKillingMay1994.pdf, accessed on 29 December 2013. 17 Ibid.18 “Rwanda: A Brief History of the Country”, op. cit. 19 “UNAMIR Background”, op. cit.20 Ibid.21 Ibid.22 Ibid.

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3. The Failure of the UNAMIR

At the request of the governments of Uganda and Rwanda, the UN Security Council established the United Nations Observer Mission in Uganda and Rwanda (UNOMUR) in June 1993 to observe and prevent the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF)'s military use of the common border area between Uganda and Rwanda. After the Arusha agreement, the Security Council adopted Resolution 872 establishing the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) to observe the agreement and provide assistance to the transitional government.

The UNAMIR had been given a very limited mandate,23 though the situation on the ground demanded more. No intelligence data was gathered or provided about the precarious nature of the Arusha agreement to the UN Security Council or to Major General Dallaire who was leading the mission. Rwanda had already fallen back to violence when the UNAMIR went there, and the peace talks were about to stop at any moment because the extremist Hutus were opposing the talks. Before UNAMIR was established in 1993, several thousand Rwandans were already killed and 9,000 Rwandese were detained. The Hutu extremists rejected the peace agreement and set out to terrorise both the Tutsi and the Hutu politicians who supported the agreement. In short, as Samantha Power described, there was no peace to keep when the UN peace keepers arrived.24

The UNAMIR was established initially for six months with a provision to be renewed by the Security Council. Without any real assessment, the mission was set up with 2,500 peacekeepers lightly armed with a mandate to monitor and implement the Arusha agreement and the mission was supposed to end after the national election which was scheduled to take place between October to December 1995. Despite that, General Dallaire did not know about the dangerous and violent situation in Rwanda and he made an estimate of a force of 5,000 simply to implement the Arusha agreement initially.25 But when he was suggested that such a force would not be available, he asked for 2,500 in the written request. It took about five months to establish the mission.26

Not only the mission was smaller than required, it was poorly equipped and lacked minimum force projection. Only 80 out of 300 vehicles were usable; only 400 Belgian peacekeepers were well armed;27 there was constant shortage of logistics supply and was hard to find in one of the poorest countries of Africa; even more so, no help was coming from the UN headquarters. Samantha Power noted that General Dallaire was spending 70 per cent of his time battling over the UN logistics.28 Overall,

23 Samantha Power, “Bystanders to Genocide”, Atlantic Monthly, September 2001, p. 5. 24 Ibid., p. 5.25 Ibid.26 Ibid.27 Ibid., p. 6.28 Ibid.

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the mission was not capable of fighting against a genocide that was about to happen, not even to act in self defence.

During that time, the UN peacekeeping budget increased from US$ 600 million to 3 billion dollars and 30 per cent of the funds was coming from the United States.29 And in 1994, the United States had US$ 900 million unpaid for regular UN and peacekeeping expenses.30 About 70,000 peacekeepers were on 17 missions around the world. Rwanda had very little importance in view of all these.31

When General Dallaire came to know by a Hutu informant in January 1994 that local militias were arming rapidly, receiving training from the government, have had plans to kill all the Tutsis in Kigali, and even Belgian peacekeepers were targeted too so that the UN mission would come to a halt, General Dallaire informed the UN headquarters immediately. In his fax he asked for a permission to track the arms cache deploying his force.32 The UN headquarters did not pay attention to that, and did not try to realise the gravity of the problem. General Dallaire was told that the UNAMIR did not have mandate to take any action and he was suggested to inform what he had learnt from the informant to the Rwandan government.33

Within 5 days after President Habyarimana was killed, by 11 April 1994, about 20,000 Tutsis were killed.34 On 07 April Prime Minister Urilingiyimana and her family, who took refuge in the UN camp, had been killed along with 10 Belgian UN peacekeepers. Their bodies were brutally mutilated. Despite General Dallaire’s repeated urge for reinforcement, the UN could not respond in face of political unwillingness among the Permanent-5 members of the UN Security Council to take robust action in the brutal ethnic civil war in Africa.

In view of such inaction and unwillingness to act, Belgium started to demand to withdraw its forces. The Department of Peace Keeping Operation (DPKO) came up with two options for the Security Council to consider: to keep the UNAMIR for about 3 more weeks without the Belgians or to immediately reduce the UNAMIR and maintain a symbolic UN presence.

29 Brian Urquhart, “A UN Volunteer Force – Four Views”, The New York Review of Books, 24 June 1993, available at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1993/jun/24/a-un-volunteer-military-forcefour-views/, accessed on 27 December 2013. 30 Ibid.31 Samantha Power, op. cit. 32 Ibid., p. 6.33 Ibid.34 Organisation of African Unity, Rwanda: the Preventable Genocide Report of the OAU’s International Panel of Eminent Personalities to Investigate the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda and the Surrounding Events, 07 July 2000, available at http://www.internetdiscovery.org/forthetruth/Rwanda-e/EN-14-CH.htm, accessed on 10 January 2014.

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By 19 April 1994, Human Rights Watch reported that about 100,000 Tutsis were slaughtered and for the first time used the word genocide.35 Disregarding the news of genocide, the Security Council unanimously took Resolution 91236 on 21 April 1994 stating that the UNAMIR would be reduced to 270 personnel and its mandate would limit likewise because of appalling large scale violence in Rwanda. Following this decision, the genocide in Rwanda went on unabated and in 4 months 800,000 had been systematically murdered, 250,000-500,000 women raped and 47,000 children orphaned.37

There is allegation that the United States government deliberately avoided the use of the word genocide and because of that the UN Secretariat was hesitant to provide all the information about the genocide in Rwanda in front of the Security Council.38 The United States had also been accused of and widely criticised for not stopping the genocide when it had all the means and equipment to do so. It is argued that the United States could have jammed the radio broadcasting in Rwanda which the killers were using to give instructions of killing.39

The UN, the United States and the international community are still largely accused of the inertia to prevent such egregious violation of human rights. In March 1999, the Security Council authorised an independent inquiry to explore the reasons for the Rwanda failure. The inquiry concluded that lack of political will, resources, as well as errors of judgment was responsible for the UNAMIR’s failure. Many scholarly publications40 have explored the reasons for the UN inaction in Rwanda. One of the major reasons accounted for is the United States’ unwillingness to send troops or at least provide fund for reinforcement. The Somalia syndrome was still very severe in the United States. The Clinton administration had just passed Presidential Decision Directive (PDD 25) which had imposed a long list of conditions on the engagement for peacekeeping. PDD 25 entailed that unless there was clear US interest at stake, clear threat to world peace and security, acceptable costs, congressional and public support, clear command and control management and exit strategy, the United States should not be involved in peace operations.41

35 Samantha Power, op. cit., p.16. 36 Available at http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/unamirM.htm, accessed on 10 January 2014.37 Samantha Power, op. cit., pp. 17 and 32.38 Ibid., p. 15.39 Ibid., p. 24.40 There are books, such as, Mahmud Mamdani, When Victims become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism and Genocide in Rwanda, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2001; Frederik Grünfeld and Anke Huijboom, The Failure to Prevent Genocide in Rwanda: the Role of Bystanders, The Netherlands: Transnational Publishers, 2007; Alan J. Kuperman, The Limits of Humanitarian Intervention: Genocide in Rwanda, Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1997 etc. 41 Samantha Power, op. cit., p. 10.

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There were deliberate efforts among policy makers in the US and also among UN officials to avoid using the word genocide in the case of Rwanda because this demanded the UN and the international community to take military action. Rwanda posed little threat to the United States or any other world powers. Therefore, anyone who had the capability to avert the genocide avoided engagement in the conflict.

4. Protection of Civilians

The failures of UN missions to provide protection in complex crises, such as Somalia, Rwanda and Srebrenica, raised questions and concerns about the fundamental principles and capabilities of UN peacekeeping operations and demonstrated that reform was urgently required. The first mission after the tragic events of mid 1990s was the UN peacekeeping operation in Sierra Leone, the UNAMSIL, authorised in 1999 with a mandate to protect civilians ‘under imminent threat of physical violence’.42 Later on, some UN operations added on the mandate: “within the capabilities and within the areas of deployment”.43 By 2009, nearly 100,000 UN peacekeepers had been deployed on various missions with such mandates.44

Many scholars and academicians have noted that there has been a normative shift regarding peace operations and humanitarian intervention where international community has assumed greater responsibility to protect and uphold the principles of the UN Charter and international law. Protection of civilians has become the centre of gravity of peace operations because of this normative shift and support for R2P.45 It is realised that a UN operation will lose its support from the locals if it fails to address issues related to civilian protection and this in turn will undermine both legitimacy and credibility of a peacekeeping operation. At the same time, a political peace cannot be established when civilians are subject to violence and insecurity. In 1999, the UN Secretary General provided a report on the protection of civilians and later on the Security Council adopted Resolutions 1265 and 1296 that contained the concept of Protection of Civilians. The Brahimi report46 and the Capstone doctrine provided further detailed reason and exploration of the concept at the operational level. It is widely acknowledged now that peacekeepers cannot and should not stand by and watch thousands of people killed simply because they did not have mandate to use force as it happened in Rwanda. At present, every Security Council resolution explicitly provides the mandate of protection of civilians where civilian lives are at stake.

42 Victoria Holt and Glyn Taylor with Max Kelly, “Protecting Civilians in the Context of UN Peacekeeping Operations: Successes, Setbacks and Remaining Challenges”, Independent Study commissioned by the United Nations Department of Peace Keeping Operations (DPKO) and Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 17 November 2009, pp. 2-3. 43 Ibid.44 Ibid., p. 3.45 Ian Johnstone, “Dilemmas of Robust Peace Operations”, Annual Review of Global Peace Operations, 2006, p. 2.46 Lakhdar Brahimi, “Report of the Panel on the United Nations Peace Operations”, the United Nations, 2000.

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Though the doctrine of Protection of Civilians has become accepted and established now, putting the doctrine into practice is encountering many challenges and dilemmas because the UN peacekeeping missions increasingly have become more complex, multidimensional and robust. In addition, there is often lack of guidelines about the mandate of UN missions about exactly in what circumstances to use military force on the ground that often creates confused and ad hoc execution of the mandate. There is no clear knowledge of how to protect civilians or vulnerable population on the ground in a violent conflict where the society is ethnically fractious.

The Capstone doctrine brought into light the increasingly blurry boundaries among the concepts of conflict prevention, peacekeeping, peace enforcement and peace building that make it very difficult to determine distinctions among them on the ground. The report argued that peace operations were usually not limited to only one type of activity. It is argued in the report that the definitions of these terms were different and required different kind of engagement from the international community and international organisations.47 In addition, a distinction now is made between ‘robust’ peacekeeping and peace enforcement. Peace enforcement means use of military force at the strategic or international level with the authorisation of the UN Security Council because Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter prohibits the UN member states to use force against any other state.48 In robust peacekeeping, use of force is allowed when the host authorities or the conflicting parties give consent on that.

Since peace operations involve more than one task and are multidimensional in actions, it is difficult to label them according to the categories described above.49 Further adding to the complexities are more conditions enumerated as guidelines and principles in the Capstone doctrine. The peace operations are deployed with the consent of all the conflicting parties and the host government at the local level so that peacekeepers can have freedom of action to carry out their mandate. Peacekeepers are also supposed to carry out their responsibility with impartiality meaning that they do not hold any prejudice or favour to any conflicting party and carry out the operation without discriminating any individual.50 At the same time, peacekeepers are supposed to prevent militias, criminal gangs, or spoilers, or whoever works against the peace process thinking it is undermining their power and interest, or try

47 Department of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Principles and Guidelines, 2008, pp.17-19. Conflict prevention means application of structural or diplomatic means so that a dispute, or tension within a state, or between states do not escalate into violent conflict or war. Peacemaking means deployment of diplomatic means to bring parties in a conflict to the negotiating table for peace agreement. Such an initiative could be undertaken by the UN, governments, non-governmental groups, or even a prominent personality. Peacekeeping takes place to assist and observe conflicting parties to implement peace agreements or ceasefire agreements when fighting has been halted. And peace enforcement takes place when the UN Security Council decides that there is need to deploy coercive military measures to restore international peace and security and also when a conflict situation has arisen that threatens peace, and there is a possibility of breach of peace or act of aggression.48 Ibid., p.19.49 Ibid., pp.18-19.50 Ibid., pp. 21-23.

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to breakdown the peace initiative, or pose a threat to civilian population. However, peacekeepers are supposed to use force only with the Security Council authorisation in self-defence and defence of the mandate meaning that peacekeepers deter any party or individual who would disrupt the peace process, protect civilians from physical attacks and assist to maintain law and order. In addition, peacekeepers are supposed to have consent of the host government to use force in case of robust peace operation. But if the operation is for enforcement, then peacekeepers will be able to act under Chapter VII of the UN Charter and with the authorisation of the Security Council.51

All these complex conditions make actions of the peacekeepers very limited, complex and difficult in situations of violent conflicts. If peacekeepers are given the mandate to use force only in self defence and defence of the mandate, with consent from the parties in conflict and upholding impartiality, then how they are going to act if they get information of an imminent attack on civilians, as did General Dallaire in Rwanda five months before the genocide; and how to deal with such a vulnerable situation if or when peacekeepers do not hold mandate for pre-emptive attack. When they do use force, they inevitably risk taking sides and becoming a party to the conflict and jeopardising the whole peace process. If force is used as a last resort, spoilers also have the temptation to resort to violence. If peacekeepers use pre-emptive force, then there is a possibility that the conflict might escalate to an unmanageable range. In Rwanda, 10 Belgian peacekeepers were targeted and eventually killed because the spoilers wanted Belgium to withdraw their forces making the UN mission completely ineffective. The problem with spoilers has not changed. Often this is creating a blurry line between robust peacekeeping and war fighting. The UN forces deployed in Eastern Congo periodically required proactive use of force and a combat stance to defeat an opposition force.

Protection of civilians mandate simply does not help or it becomes ineffective in conflict zones which are partly pacified, or when the peace process is not supported by all conflicting parties, or when the conflicting parties fall back into violence when the peace process breaks down. In addition, there is a gap between the expectation of the local population and the UN’s capacity in terms of personnel, resources and logistics. Mandate without capacity simply just fails to meet expectations. At times, it has been called ‘the impossible mandate’52 for the UN peacekeeping missions owing to the mismatch of resources for and expectations of protection of civilians by the UN peacekeepers. The United Nations Organisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) was simply insufficient in scope for an area four times the size of Western Europe. And finally, though Somalia syndrome is no longer there, powerful countries still are not showing willingness to contribute troops in peacekeeping, and are rather more involved in unilateral efforts or coalitions of the willing countries, such as,

51 Ibid., pp. 21-23. 52 Victoria Holt and Tobias Berkman, The Impossible Mandate? Military Preparedness, the Responsibility to Protect and Modern Peace Operations, Washington D.C.: The Henry L. Stimson Center, 2006.

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the US led War on Terror against the Taliban of Afghanistan and the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The dilemmas and difficulties of the application of the concept of Protection of Civilians bring forth the question whether there has been any change in the situation that existed before the Rwanda genocide and whether the concept has made peace operations more effective. This leads this paper to discuss the emergence of the Responsibility to Protect norm and its impact on protection of civilians in view of inherent problems of peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention in Rwanda in the next section.

5. The Responsibility to Protect

In the aftermath of the conscience shocking atrocities and genocide in Somalia (1993), Rwanda (1994) and Srebrenica (1995), and in face of incomplete, unreliable and often counterproductive international response, there were stormy debates over the issue of continuing resonance of the concept of sovereignty and non-intervention. An essential need was realised amongst everyone to think about and comprehensively reassess devices and approaches that would help avert such human catastrophe. In 2000, the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan made a plea to the General Assembly to respond to situations like Rwanda, Srebrenica or any other future gross and systematic violations of human rights anywhere else, even though humanitarian intervention is an unacceptable assault on sovereignty.53

After a decade has passed since the Rwanda failure, world leaders reached a consensus about the Responsibility to Protect at the 2005 World Summit. At the Summit, the member states included R2P in the Outcome Document and placed them in Paragraphs 138 and 139.54 In April 2006, the UN Security Council reaffirmed the provisions of Paragraphs 138 and 139 in Resolution 1674 on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict. The Outcome Document described R2P as having three pillars. The first one says that the responsibility to protect from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity, and from their incitement lies on the state.55 Secondly, the responsibility lies on the international community to assist states in meeting their obligations to protect their population.56 Thirdly, the responsibility to protect lies on the UN member states to respond in a timely and decisive manner when a state manifestly fails to provide such protection.57

53 Aidan Hehir, “The Responsibility to Protect: Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing?”, International Relations, Vol. 24, No. 2, 2010, pp. 218-239. 54 Alex J. Bellamy, 2006, op. cit., pp.143-169. 55 Edward C. Luck, “The United Nations and the Responsibility to Protect”, Policy Analysis Brief, The Stanley Foundation, Iowa, 2008, p. 1. 56 Ibid.57 Ibid.

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It was mentioned at the beginning of the paper that the concept of R2P brought some little changes which are seen in both the first and second pillars that the Outcome Document brought forth. The customary international laws, humanitarian laws and treaty laws, such as the Genocide Convention, the Geneva Convention, the Rome Statute, the Torture Convention, already set forth some standards for states and imposed obligation on states to follow those standards to protect their population from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. The Outcome Document of 2005 brought it in written form that imposed an obligation on all states to uphold their responsibility to protect and end impunity of state leaders by saying that the international community will assist states to uphold their responsibility.

Interestingly, after the Rwanda genocide, when there was a lot of discussions going on about R2P, Belgium caught global attention as it declared its individual responsibility for human rights atrocities and to protect people even if they are located in another state. Belgium enacted a statute in 1993 that gave the Belgian Court the jurisdiction to try and convict accomplices to human rights atrocities even if the convicted were from other countries.58 In 2001, the Belgian Court tried two Rwandan nuns and two Rwandan men for participation in the genocide in Rwanda.59 From 2000-2002, it took criminal complaints against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Cuban President Fidel Castro, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, former Foreign Minister of Democratic Republic of Congo Abuldaye Yerodia and former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani.60 Then in 2003, 7 Iraqi families brought charges of war crimes against former American President George H. W. Bush, former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, and the Secretary of State Colin Powell.61 The United States reacted furiously against these convictions saying that Belgium was not respecting the sovereignty of other countries and almost immediately retaliated by threatening Belgium of taking away its status of a diplomatic capital and the host state for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Belgium quickly changed its Statute regarding universal jurisdiction in 2003 under American pressure and the Belgian Court is now enabled to hear cases on genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity but only when the convicted and/or the victims are Belgian citizens.62 This incident brought forth an entirely new debate on how to implement the norms of R2P when application of universal jurisdiction is so problematic in front of the power politics of the great powers.

Implementation of the third pillar of R2P is even more problematic. Before the Outcome Document came, the Canadian government supported by Chicago’s

58 Steven R. Ratner, “Belgium’s War Crimes Statute: A Postmortem”, American Journal of International Law, Vol. 97, No. 4, October 2003, pp. 888-897.59 Ibid.60 Ibid. 61 Ibid.62 Ibid.

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MacArthur Foundation, generated an independent commission named the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) to provide better clarification and understanding of R2P. The commission produced a report in 2001 titled The Responsibility to Protect.63 The ICISS report had three objectives64:

• to build a broader understanding of the problem of intervention for human protection and sovereignty, and to establish clearer rules, procedures and cri-teria for determining whether, when and how to intervene;

• to provide politically credible doctrine not to be rejected by either north or south, the Permanent-5 members of the Security Council, or any other major international constituency;

• and to make a compelling message to motivate action and mobilise support when a situation demands such a response so that future Rwanda or Kosovo be prevented.

In its attempt to set out the concept of Responsibility to Protect, the ICISS tried to interpret state sovereignty as responsibility stating that sovereignty is not only territorial freedom but also recognition of a people’s equal worth and dignity, a protection of their unique identities and their right to shape and determine destiny. Article 2.1 of the UN Charter recognises this, and the principle that all states are equally sovereign under international law.

Though the ICISS acknowledges Article 2.4 that prohibits all states from threatening or using force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, and also Article 2.7 that prohibits the UN to intervene in matters within the jurisdiction of any state with the exception of application of Chapter VII, it argues that when there is a just cause like a population suffers serious harm, mass killing or ethnic cleansing because of internal war, insurgency, repression or state failure, and when the state in question is unwilling or unable to halt or avert the situation, the principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect. The Responsibility to Protect norm upholds three basic responsibilities: the responsibility to prevent, the responsibility to react and the responsibility to rebuild.65

The military intervention must meet four precautionary principles: right intention, last resort, proportional means and reasonable prospects.66 According to

63 Gareth Evans et. al., The Responsibility to Protect, Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, The International Development Research Center, Canada, 2001, available at http://responsibilitytoprotect.org/ICISS%20Report.pdf, accessed on 12 January 2014. 64 Ibid., pp. 2-3. 65 Ibid., p. XI. According to the ICISS report, the responsibility to prevent means addressing the root and di-rect causes of conflict; responsibility to react means responding with appropriate coercive measures, such as sanctions, international prosecution, and/or military intervention; and responsibility to rebuild means giving full assistance for reconstruction, rehabilitation and reconciliation in post conflict situations.66 Ibid., p. XII. According to the ICISS report, right intention means that the purpose of the intervention must be to stop or prevent human suffering. There could be various motives though behind the intervention

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the ICISS, the ‘right authority’ to act robustly to a crisis is the international community and the Security Council, and an obligation exists on the part of all member states of the UN not to use force unilaterally without the UN sanction. The ICISS criticised the Security Council’s record on humanitarian intervention and use of the veto power of the Permanent-5, and suggested a ‘code of conduct’ whereby ‘a permanent member, in matters where its vital national interests were not claimed to be involved, would not use its veto to obstruct the passage of what would otherwise be a majority resolution’.67 Though all humanitarian intervention should seek the Security Council authorisation, the ICISS further suggested that alternative sources of authority, such as the consideration of the matter by the General Assembly in Emergency Special Session under the Uniting for Peace resolution and action within the area of jurisdiction by regional or sub-regional organisations under Chapter VIII of the Charter, should not be completely discounted.

By defining the circumstances in which the Security Council should assume responsibility for preventing, halting and rebuilding after a humanitarian emergency, and placing limits on the use of the veto, the commission aimed to make it more difficult for the Security Council members to escape their responsibilities. It assumed that a common benchmark for intervention would make it difficult for any Permanent-5 members to publicly avert from its responsibility to act in humanitarian crisis and also would enable the UN members and domestic people to insist the Permanent-5 to take on their responsibilities.

In case of any ‘abuse’ or in circumstances when Security Council would reject a proposal or would be paralysed to take any effective action in reasonable time, the ICISS, in its recommendations, left the possibility for ‘unauthorised’ action open by saying that: “the Security Council should take into account in all its deliberations that, if it fails to discharge its responsibility to protect in conscience-shocking situations crying out for action, concerned states may not rule out other means to meet the gravity and urgency of that situation”,68 though there will be risks that such an intervention might be carried out without the right reasons or the right commitment. The ICISS further made a plea to the Security Council to act by saying that if concerning state or states themselves would carry out such an intervention successfully with wide spread public support and by fully observing the criteria and reasons stated by the ICISS following Security Council’s inaction, then this would seriously undermine the credibility of the United Nations.69 All these recommendations of the ICISS were aimed at creating a mechanism that would create an obligation on the international community to act effectively in face of humanitarian emergencies and prevent a future Rwanda.

effort. Last resort means military intervention is justified only when all non-military options have been explored and failed. Proportional means that there must be a minimum necessary capability to carry out human protection objective. Reasonable prospects means a reasonable chance of success. 67 Ibid., pp. XII-XIII. 68 Ibid., p. XIII.69 Ibid., p. XII.

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Alex J. Bellamy noted in 2009 that R2P had been “changed in important respects from the way it was originally conceived by the ICISS”70, and the most innovative aspects of the ICISS report had been gradually abandoned. Concessions were made in three major areas:

First, the ICISS’ proposal that the Permanent-5 should agree not to use their vetoes and the creation of the ‘code of conduct’ was discarded. The notion of legitimate intervention without explicit Security Council approval was also sidestepped.

Second, the just cause threshold included in the Outcome Document limited the criteria for intervention only to ‘genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity’.

Third, while the ICISS stated that the responsibility to protect transfers from the state to the international community when the host state was deemed ‘unable or unwilling’ to exercise its responsibilities, in the Outcome Document this was amended to cases where the host state was guilty of a ‘manifest failure’. This change in the language raised the threshold for international action and further limited the scope of R2P.

The two major initiatives proffered by adherents of R2P – that of securing a commitment from the Security Council members an obligation to act whenever necessary and the agreement to remove the veto – were not incorporated into the Outcome Document. Rather the endorsement of the basic tenets of R2P was made conditional on the restatement of the Security Council’s primacy. The consensus reached was achieved by conceding key aspects of the original variant of R2P proposed by the ICISS. According to Thomas J. Weiss, the Outcome Document is ‘a step-backward … R2P lite’.71

The just cause threshold included in the Outcome Document actually restricted the instances when the Security Council could legitimately intervene. The Security Council's practice in the 1990s had substantially broadened its remit to act under Chapter VII. With authority being once again vested in the Security Council and the criteria for intervention limited to ‘genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity’, the scope for intervention was restricted when compared to Chapter VII action in the 1990s.72

R2P received mixed reaction from the international community. It was favourably received by Canada, the UK and Germany. In addition, Argentina, Australia, Colombia, Croatia, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, the Republic of Ireland, Rwanda, South

70 Alex Bellamy, 2009, op. cit., p. 195.71 Thomas G. Weiss, Humanitarian Intervention: Ideas in Action, New York: Polity, 2007, p. 177. 72 Aidan Hehir, “The Responsibility to Protect: Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing?”, Inernational Relations, 2010, pp. 218-239.

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Korea, Sweden and Tanzania all expressed broad support.73 East Asian countries were ‘more cautious’ in their response. But strikingly, the UN Security Council was quite negative. The United States was concerned with two issues: publicly committing to R2P might compel it to deploy its forces in ways that were inimical to its perceived national interests; and that the just cause thresholds and precautionary principles would limit its flexibility in deciding when and where to use force to protect the common good,74 while China and Russia opposed any diminution of the Security Council’s monopoly on the legitimisation of the use of force.

The primary cause of the collective inaction or ineffective action in Rwanda was lack of political will. The United States and also other major powers in the Security Council were not willing to send forces to Rwanda. The ICISS recommendations on the R2P concept were directed toward persuading states to assume their responsibility to provide protection to civilians when such human catastrophe would take place, particularly those states that had the capability to act. But from the very onset of the report, the ICISS did not identify the lack of political will as the root cause for inaction and incomplete action in humanitarian situations in places which were less important to great powers. Instead, the foundational principle was directed toward bridging the gap between traditional concept of sovereignty and humanitarian intervention. But sovereignty considerations never determine (during the genocide in Rwanda as well) whether or not states carry out humanitarian intervention. Political will has been the imperative to assume responsibility for protection of imperilled people by the Security Council members. Humanitarian intervention will not take place if members of the Security Council do not feel obliged to intervene, whether for humanitarian reasons or self interest. The failure of the ICISS report to acknowledge this raises the question whether R2P is the right response and also an effective response to overcome the problems that lead to the failure in Rwanda.

With the objective of avoiding future Rwanda like catastrophes and creating a norm of Responsibility to Protect, the ICISS report in fact stated that if a state failed to meet its own responsibilities, the responsibility to protect automatically would transfer to the international community, but it failed to provide any detail on how this responsibility could be actualised. No concrete reforms were suggested that would compel the Security Council to act. It suggested a voluntary code of conduct in the use of veto by the permanent members of the Security Council in matters of grave humanitarian concern which leaves one to wonder about its effectiveness. Even worse, the code of conduct was dropped off from the Outcome Document of 2005 due to lack of consensus.

The ICISS proposal of strengthening the capacity of states to legitimately act outside of the Security Council was very ambiguous as on one hand it argued that there should be a right unauthorised intervention when there would be a grave

73 Ibid. 74 Ibid.

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humanitarian crisis. On the other hand, it said that this undermined the UN’s credibility, without further clearly explaining what should be done. There is grave consequence if any state wants to utilise this to conquer another state; especially this is a concern after the United States’ Iraq invasion. The ICISS report was not clear about who is or who are going to define that the just cause threshold and other criteria for humanitarian action were met in case of such unauthorised intervention. In any event, the ICISS did not succeed to ensure the incorporation of right of a state or the international community as a whole to intervene in humanitarian crises following politicised Security Council’s inaction in the Outcome Document due to lack of consensus.

In the Outcome Document, reaction to a crisis is not a fall-back responsibility of the international community as was suggested by the ICISS. In all events, primacy of authority was given to the Security Council, and it was decided that collective action would be on a case-by-case basis, and no reference was made to the criteria for intervention leaving it on the judgment or the political will of the Security Council members. This again raises a question then what new did the R2P norm as negotiated in the Outcome Document and subsequently adopted in Resolution 1674 give us. Does R2P then have any impact at all on protection of civilians in catastrophic situations? The Security Council was taking many decisions applying Chapter VII criteria in order to meet the demands for humanitarian intervention when the catastrophic collective inertia in the face of genocide in Rwanda happened. The Security Council during the 1993 genocide of Rwanda was not willing to provide a robust mandate or reinforce the UN mission there.

6. Conclusion

The entire critique of the practice of R2P is not about questioning the necessity of R2P or humanitarian intervention as such. It is about the incoherent and rather ad hoc applicability of the norm that is preventing it from becoming international law. The R2P as adopted in Resolution 1674 does not make it clear how this norm could be better implemented to stop mass killings, genocide or large numbers of innocent civilians in future. It is not clear whether the R2P norm has been able to create any obligation on those states which are reluctant to accept and take upon the responsibility to stop gross human rights violations and whether R2P is able to dissipate this reluctance. The adoption of the R2P norm did not bring any substantive change (either legal or institutional regarding who is going to intervene) to address the dilemma of humanitarian intervention caused by a highly politicised Security Council, and therefore, it is not possible to comprehend the actual level of commitment from the Security Council members even when they accept the responsibility to protect and take vows to act in accordance, or to take collective action timely and decisively. This is because the Outcome Document does not answer the fundamental question of what should happen if the Security Council is unable or unwilling to authorise the use of

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force to prevent or end a humanitarian tragedy, and who then ultimately has the responsibility to protect.

In order to make R2P a must obligation that states cannot avoid, there should be serious discussion and public commitment among the great powers, members of the UN Security Council and the General Assembly about setting clear standards and criteria of carrying out a humanitarian intervention. There should also be a discussion so that the Security Council members come to a consensus that they develop a universal standard on when a humanitarian invention including military operation must be carried out. The Security Council members would also require to agree and make a commitment or rule that they would not be able to use veto whenever there is a humanitarian crisis and they do not judge each humanitarian crisis case specifically on ad hoc basis. In order to make humanitarian interventions, there should also be more concentration on the capacity building of the peace missions of the UN; a mechanism should be developed for early warning to prevent humanitarian crises and conflicts; and there should be preparedness on the part of the UN for responding timely and decisively to these humanitarian crises.

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