The Londoner

By Sikander Hayat Trump’s decision to move US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was long overdue. Congress passed the law to move the embassy toJerusalem , but it was being periodically vetoed for last 22 years by every  president of United States . United States was never a trustworthy partner for Palestinians and is the biggest reason that Israel ( despite being a small country with a population of 8.5 million people) receives an annual aid of three billion US dollars . This amounts to United States paying roughly 500dollars to every Israeli citizen. How can Palestinians trust United States as a partner in peace process when it pays American tax payer dollars to support occupation of Palestine which has been declared illegal by United Nations. By moving embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem , Trump has now come out in open and basically declared his intent to support occupation of  East Jerusalem openly rather than just paying for it financi...

America is debating how to respond to the terrorist attacks in Paris. Unfortunately, both President Obama’s current policy and other recent proposals lack a strategic vision for the Middle East once the Islamic State, or ISIS, is actually defeated. There are no answers, or only outmoded ones, to the basic question: What comes after the Islamic State?Before transforming Mr. Obama’s ineffective efforts into a vigorous military campaign to destroy the Islamic State, we need a clear view, shared with NATO allies and others, about what will replace it. It is critical to resolve this issue before considering any operational plans. Strategy does not come from the ground up; instead, tactics flow deductively once we’ve defined the ultimate objectives. Read the full story here

Pakistan's strategically important Gwadar port, being developed by China as part of the $46 billion Economic Corridor linking both the countries, will not pose any military threat to India, Chinese media said today. "The Western and Indian media have tended to exaggerate the threat of Gwadar port to India, pointing to its military functions and claiming that the port will be built into a military base for the Chinese navy in the Indian Ocean. Some Indian reports have even claimed that China's 'takeover' of the port could be a strategic game changer," an article in the state-run  Global Times  said. As part of the Economic Corridor plan, Pakistan has officially kicked off a project last week by handing over more than 2,000 acres of land in Gwadar port on Arabian Sea to Chinese firm for 43 year lease for commercial development. The deal will turn the port into a free port similar to Hong Kong, according to Chinese media reports. China ha...

By Sikander Hayat  Turks must abandon European dream  as they have rejected again and again by  Europeans . They must understand that they are too big and powerful for the EU to allow them in and by this time they must understand that not matter how secular they are or strive to be, the tag of being a Muslim country is hampering their dream. They must leave this notion and try to revive RCD so that  Turkey, Iran and Pakistan  can create an economic and ever closer political union and with 300 million people, this would be the most respected economic zone in the world. There are pre-requisites to this zone being established and must be fulfilled before anything like this could happen.  In Pakistan, military must relinquish the rule  and give the country back to civilians, Iran must get rid of its mullah regime to establish a secular forward looking Islamic country and Turkey must forget about being the member of the EU ( there must be a limit to hum...

By Sikander Hayat  Finally Iran has agreed to conditions set by the West to freeze the uranium enrichment at a level which is below the weapons grade. There will be full international inspection of Iran’s nuclear plants and if Iran goes back on any of the pledges that it has made to the international community, all sanctions will come into action again. This is wise move by Iran but this is not the final agreement and just an initial understanding. Iran also need to stop harassing its neighbours by supporting Shia groups in these countries. It also has to stop trying to export the shia revolution to other countries. Only once these conditions are met, Iran can become a full member of the international community. International community also needs to help Iran to move towards full democracy and loosen the hold of Mullahs on Iranian nation. A democratic Iran will be a less of a danger for the neighbourhood than the current regime in Tehran. If the West had not conspired ag...

By Sikander Hayat Algeria is battling a vicious attack on its oil & gas infrastructure from terrorists whose aims remain unknown. Many foreigners have been taken hostage which includes many western citizens . Given the history of Algeria’s militantpast and two decade insurgency (which started when Islamic Front won the elections but was forced away from taking over the government) , it is not uncommon for the country to face terrorist attacks . But it is the first time that an oil & gas installation has been attacked and such a large number of foreign hostages have been taken hostage. There could be three possible reasons for this and any other attacks that are country happening in Islamic Maghreb . 1.        The installation in question is near the borderbetween Algeria & Libya which gives rise to the possibility that attackers, though thought to be mostly Algerian nationals, came from Libya . Gaffafi’s government was ...

The announcement of significant new Israeli settlement construction in East Jerusalem has put the spotlight on the city, but the changes it has undergone since 2000, when the parties first negotiated its fate, are far broader and have far deeper roots.  Israelis, Palestinians and the international community must adjust their strategies accordingly, or Arab East Jerusalem will continue its perilous decline, with catastrophic consequences for all. A pair of companion reports from the International Crisis Group describes how East Jerusalem has been altered in recent years, physically, but also socially, politically and emotionally. Extreme Makeover? (I): Israel’s Politics of Land and Faith in East Jerusalem , shows how the combination of Israeli settlement construction around and within East Jerusalem and increased religious activism has raised the costs of any future plan entailing partitioning the city. Extreme Makeover? (II): The Withering of Arab Jerusalem descr...

If there is one man who deserves the credit for the growing Turkish-Kurd rapprochement , it’s Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani of Iraqi Kurdistan . Five years ago Kurds and foreigners alike laughed in his face when he told them that not only did he want Iraqi Kurdistan to export its own oil , but that he wanted to export it to Turkey , which has had an intractable problem with its own large Kurdish minority . Barzani’s strategy was one of patience: starting with confidence-building with the Turks and then coaxing small oil companies and then larger ones to risk Baghdad’s ire to drill for oil not only in the autonomous region but in territory disputed by both Barzani’s government and the Iraqi central government. Barzani sat down with TIME on December 13 to talk about the Turks, his stormy relationship with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the potential for an independent Kurdish state –and how that would affect members of the non-Arab ethnicity , which lives in ...

After all this misery, how can Syrians live together again? Part of his job was to ensure that religious clerics did not preach outside the government's line. If they did, he would unleash his men to arrest and torture them - and then monitor them for the rest of their lives. "We're fighting Wahhabism whenever we find it," the officer once told a new graduate in Sharia studies , who had visited him to build trust and avoid any future arrest. This young imam , now a commander of an anti-regime faction, says this officer acted with the callous, pathological arrogance characteristic of the Baathist regime . Then in mid-November, Abu Imad and 20 of his crew were killed in a battle with the Free Syrian Army . His body, dumped in the street, lay there for days; no one was willing to bury it. Scenes like that may bring closure to those whose kinsfolk or friends have been killed by the regime's forces in the most brutal ways imaginable. Many hope to ...

Here's the question no one is asking as 2012 ends, especially given the effusive public support the Obama administration offered Israel in its recent conflict with Hamas in Gaza : Will 2013 be a year of confrontation between Washington and Jerusalem ? It's on no one's agenda for the New Year. But it could happen anyway. It's true that the Israeli-Palestinian peace process appears dead in the water. No matter how much Barack Obama might have wanted that prize, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rebuffed him at every turn. The president appears to have taken it on the chin, offering more than the usual support for Israel and in return getting kloom (as they say in Hebrew). Nothing at all. However, the operative word here is "appears." In foreign affairs what you see -- a show carefully scripted for political purposes -- often bears little relation to what you actually get. While the Obama administration has acceded ...

Feeling the Pain in Tehran As sanctions bite, some of Iran's leaders a re signaling a willingness to come back to the negotiating table. Iran'sMinistry of Intelligence did something remarkable last month: It used its website to publish a report (link in Farsi) calling for direct talks with the country's foe, the United States . In the report, entitled " The ZionistRegime's Reasons and Obstacles for Attacking Iran ," the traditionally hawkish ministry highlighted the benefits of diplomacy and negotiations with the UnitedStates : "One way to fend off a possible war is to resort to diplomacy and to use all international capacities." The authors took care to draw a line between the approaches currently taken towards Iran's nuclear program by the U.S. and Israel, Iran's archenemy. President Obama, the report's authors wrote, "hopes to solve this issue peacefully and through diplomacy" -- in contrast to Israel, whi...

The Benghazi Report: How smoothly Washington washes away its scandals You'll be able to hear and read today about the State Department report on the Benghazi consulate sacking and killings. But no matter how much you listen or read, you'll only be getting part of the story. Here's why: The report from the Accountability Review Board, headed by Thomas Picketing and Admiral Mike Mullen, is only one tiny piece of a vast bureaucratic ballet that has evolved in Washington over decades to handle hot issues, even deadly ones like Benghazi, with minimal damage to the politicians and bureaucrats in power at the time. It's an amazingly sophisticated and bipartisan procedure that looks sound to naive eyes. It's built upon powerful self-interest and savvy strategic communications that manages and manipulates information and the timing of its release to minimize damage to incumbents and to dampen ongoing media interest in pursuing an emba...

In his article “The Revolt of Islam in Syria” ( Jerusalem Post , December 12), Jonathan Spyer — senior fellow at the GLORIA Center — points out compelling information about the new Western-backed leadership in Syria. The bottom line: if this is Syria’s new government, then Syria now has an Islamist regime. This is happening with the knowledge and collaboration of the Obama administration and a number of European governments. It is a catastrophe, and one that’s taking place due to the deliberate decisions of President Barack Obama and other Western leaders. Even if one rationalizes the Islamist takeover in Egypt as due to internal events, this one is U.S.-made. As Spyer points out, U.S. and European policy can be summarized as follows: To align with and strengthen Muslim Brotherhood-associated elements, while painting Salafi forces as the sole real Islamist danger. At the same time, secular forces are ignored or brushed aside. The new regime, recognized by the Un...