Middle East boils and bubbles
Yemen is the latest tragedy in the swelling woes of the Middle East. The ongoing evacuation of its Indian community to India and their searing tales of disorder and carnage as warring parties strive to establish exclusive control of a deeply divided country. Shia Huthi rebels have overthrown the US and Saudi-backed Sunni regime are bringing into play an overarching Arab military, with Egypt as its hub. The bombing campaign of Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies is an exercise in futility. Contributing to this escalating violence is the ever present might of the United States and its Nato allies. Washington’s efforts to bolster the old Yemeni political order having failed, the US has closed down its embassy and its military base in the country, with no clue as to the whereabouts of the $500 million that had been allocated to their failed client. The Obama administration’s policies in the region have compounded the follies of the George W Bush era. The entire region is awash with American arms, supplied with lunatic profligacy to factions and groups deemed to be ‘moderate,’ who have mostly turned out to be extremist jihadis. The so-called Islamic Caliphate or ISIL has spread its murderous wings across Syrian and Iraq. Aerial bombardment has had limited effect on ISIL; more effective has been the intervention of the Shia Hezbollah militias. It brings into focus the regional role of Iran. In an indirect way, Iran is helping its sworn enemy the United States to stem the further advance of their common enemy, ISIL. This may have lubricated the negotiations between Iran and the United States, Russia, Germany, Britain, France and China to monitor Iran’s nuclear technology development and prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear bomb. A framework agreement to this end has been reached, but the final deal will only be sealed and delivered in June, when the remaining differences between the parties are ironed out.
Meanwhile Israel has thrown a spanner in the works, claiming the agreement thus far is seriously flawed, that Iran remains an existential threat to the State of Israel and the peace of the world. The Obama administration and the Netanyahu government are at loggerheads on this issue, with the US Congress and its Republican majority siding with the Israeli prime minister against the American government, an astonishing state of affairs leaving confusion worse confounded. Double standards are much in evidence: US sensitivity on the acquisitions of nuclear weapons by Iran was previously matched by its passive acquiescence to Pakistan’s covert acquisition nuclear weapon technology from a Dutch reactor. China’s subsequent delivery of a fully tested nuclear bomb to Pakistan has to date evoked no public response from Washington.
Squaring the circle is the calamitous Saudi-led intervention in Yemen. Saudi Arabia is a febrile society with a significant Shia population in its eastern oil belt, which seethes with discontent. Dispatching ground troops to Yemen will court a disaster similar to the one which impaled Egypt’s Nasserite regime in the mid-1960s, when it lost 40 per cent of its expeditionary corps in Yemen, leaving the Egyptian military open to a devastating defeat by Israel in the Six Day War of June 1967. The contending parties in the present Middle East imbroglio would do well to take pause and consider the fraught lessons of the past.
Christian anxieties: Appeals for calm
The anxieties of sections of India’s Christian community, while understandable in the light of recent events and the hostile utterances of fringe elements in the Sangh parivar, should not be overblown. Julio Rebeiro, a former senior police official of high standing, said he felt uncertain about his own future and the future of the Christian community to which he belonged in the new India that was taking shape. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said he was deeply saddened by Mr Rebeiro’s statement and had raised the subject with Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was “very sensitive, equally concerned” about “this perception.” Speaking to the Indian Express, Minister Gadkari referred to Mr Rebeiro as “a national icon,” that he had told the “Prime Minister that he saw Mr Rebeiro as a “role model for the entire country….there was no honest and efficient officer like him in Mumbai….” Mr Ribeiro’s perception that the peaceful community of Christians were being targeted needed to be corrected. Every community was equal before the law, said Mr Gadkari, and the rule of law would be upheld.
The internationally acclaimed economist Professor Jagdish Bhagwati, a long respected teacher at Columbia University has pitched with an appeal for calm and reason in the opinion page of Mint (March 30). Professor Bhagwati referred to his credential to speak out on the subject. His wife Padma Desai, a noted scholar on Russia, was a Christian and two of his nephews were married to Christians. He was also an alumnus of St Xavier’s High School, where had received his early “excellent education” and had recently been honoured by it. Exaggeration and hyperbole is best avoided the common interest. The perpetrator of the rape of the 74 year old nun is now found to be Bangladeshi Muslim. (see scrutator page 12)
The subject has engaged prominent Christians. Supreme Court judge Kurien Joseph was offended that the court conducted normal business on Good Friday. A former Supreme Court judge K.T.Thomas disagreed. He was a churchgoer, but believed that life must be lived normally even on days sacred to one’s faith. Elsewhere, sitting Christian High Court judges, Paul Vasanthkumar In Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarkhand Chief Justice K.M. Joseph were in court disposing justice on Good Friday in keeping with their right to do so.
Australia a beacon for others
Australia’s fifth win in cricket’s World Cup was achieved with lordly ease in its defeat of New Zealand in the final before a packed stadium at Melbourne. In the semi-final the Australians dispatched India without fuss and bother. They were thoroughly professional as they went about their work, bowlers, batsmen and fieldsmen answered the call when it mattered most. India were over hyped, their weaknesses concealed in encounters with minnows of the tournament. Against Australia, the poor shot selection of India’s top order batsmen and the wayward offerings of their fast bowlers were cruelly exposed. Hopefully the right lessons will be learned.
