Erdogan, Turkey, ISIS, Russia and Syrian mess

After the downing of the Russian Jet when it violated the Turkish airspace, there seems to be a lot of cold war style propaganda against Turkey and its role in Syria. It seems there is a deliberate attempt to take down Turkey using the situation in Syria.

If a liberal and democratic Turkey goes down then it will empower groups like ISIS and create chaos in Middle East and surrounding regions including Europe. Erdogan is not perfect like any other leader of the world but it is stupid to think that he is in bed with ISIS even after ISIS killed hundreds in Ankara blasts. ISIS considers all democratic leaders and their voters as infidels and worthy of being killed including leaders in Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc so it will be really stupid for anyone to support a group which is committed to to kill you, takeover your countries and destroy your system. ISIS is a product of hatred and chaos created after 2003 Invasion, they have no ideological grounds except revenge, hatred and ignorance. They started as a splinter group of Al-Qaida and later joined by Saddam loyalists who were full of vengeance.

If NATO or Russian led alliance want to eliminate ISIS then they need to stop playing super power games in Syria like they played in Afghanistan which resulted in the creation of Al-Qaida type groups.

Before accusing others, Russia first needs to give answers about the downed Malaysian civilian jet and the way they are destabilizing Ukraine.

This whole Syrian game is fishy with no clarity of approach on how to tackle ISIS or Daesh. At the moment Pakistan and China both are doing the right thing by staying out of it despite their own allies pushing them into this mess.

Turkey made a mistake of jumping into this Syrian mess like Pakistan made by jumping into the Afghan mess. Now they are facing similar pressures to do more or accusations of being in bed with the terrorists like Pakistan was facing even after losing a lot of civilians and soldiers in this war.

Many Pakistanis seem to be falling for this game too, mainly due to sectarian or left/right political alignment. Instead of bringing sectarianism from the conflicts between a theocracy like Iran or a family dynasty like KSA, we need to go more towards liberal Muslim democracies like Turkey, Indonesia, Azerbaijan and I hope Pakistan will be in the same or better league too. Things are not perfect in these countries but they seem to go in the right direction with the establishment of democratic processes, strong opposition culture and strong media.

Unfortunately, even in 21st century, we are stuck with theocracies, dictators like Assad or Al-Sissi and backward monarchies.

Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline, sectarianism and conflict of interests

I am in favor of allowing Iran to sell its gas or oil or anything freely in Pakistan to private sector without considering USA but strongly oppose this pipeline project which makes govt. to buy gas from tax payer’s money at 3.5+ times higher (from an average 3.5 $/MMBTU to 13$/MMBTU) rate than they buy today. It seems almost all political parties are afraid to take a stand on this and calling it a good project because of the religious black mailing Iranian sponsored mullahs and their followers do (not all Shias but only those who do it and they include Sunni groups as well).

Interesting to see that after a nice photo session with Khemenei and Ahmedinejad, MWM is also not putting any pressure on Zardari government like they were doing before. It seems establishment or at least those who may have got heavy kickbacks for this project have a boogeyman in the form of LeJ which they used to mobilize Shia population to pressurize political parties and civil society so that they will digest this deal in a hope of sectarian harmony. I have sympathies with those who died in this dirty game but people also need to see who is getting benefits from this game.

Pakistan is going all the way to risk sanctions but Iran is not giving any concessions on oil prices. Zardari government deliberately made sure that fuel mix for Pakistan don’t shift to a much cheaper option like coal and also Iran successfully made sure that Pakistan don’t get direct access to Central Asia gas. Now Iran is buying cheap gas from Turkmenistan and selling expensive gas to Pakistan.

Iran only supports those shias who kneel down to Khomenist regime in Iran otherwise it treats them with same carrot and stick policy which it exercises with Azerbaijan. Iran tried to play Shia card to create tension between Turkey-KSA and Azerbaijan and after failing in that it started to develop ties with Armenia which is the arch enemy of Azerbaijan (Turkey, KSA support Azerbaijan in territorial conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia). Some reports even say that Iran supported Armenian militants in Karabakh war.

We also need to see who should hold high offices in the country to ensure that interests of Pakistan and its people are protected. They have banned the people with dual nationality to take part in elections or to hold high offices of responsibility. But what about those who have their spiritual-political or religious-political affiliations outside Pakistan?

Being a Sunni, Shia, Deobandi, Wahabi, Barelvi etc is another thing but recognizing authority of Waliat e Faqih or Amir ul Momnin position of Mullah Umar or Seestani or any other mullah or sufi which creates a conflict of interest between constitutional duties and these affiliations should be checked as well. Constitution says sovereignty belongs to Allah and talks about Quran and Sunnah not Mullah,Ayatollah, Sufi or some cultism thing.

We need to see whose wars we are fighting? or when we will stop presenting our people as fuel for these useless wars and conflicts serving the interests of ruling elite and their foreign masters?

Syrian issue and Pakistan’s position

Recently in Iran, while attending a conference on Syria, Pakistani foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar has said that Pakistan will not support any kind of foreign government intervention in Syria.

I agree with the decision of not involving Pakistani state but at the same time I will disagree with the govt. if they stop people to help Syrians on their own in terms of money, weapons or any other way they can.

Foreign involvement will turn the focus of movement and will likely to hijack the issue from local Syrian opposition like Iran hijacked the Bahrain movement resulting the failure of the movement. But we can see in Egypt, things are changing in positive direction.

At the same time governments should now stop supporting Assad’s brutal regime by cutting diplomatic and defense ties which is essential to remain neutral as Assad is using these things to strengthen his position in killing innocent people. At the same time I cannot oppose Syrian opposition to accept help from where ever it comes from as they are victim side and prime responsibility lies on the shoulders of Assad who initiated the brutal actions against civilian populations which includes merciless aerial bombings.