Syrian Revolution: Everyone’s Ball Game

By Sarah Eleazar
Tacstrat

The world is wary of the likes of John McCain and his trigger happy reactions to anything and everything that flits its wings. We watched and waited apprehensively for a year till Syria, one of the last chess pieces on the board, to become the new Libya; for the west to sanctimoniously step in with/without UN mandate as champions of democracy and its ideals. The great elephant in the room being of course UN’s inability to enforce anything without the blessing of the Big Five in the Security Council, donning imperialism with a whole new garb. So while any hopes of a UN sponsored intervention were dashed at the Security Council on 4^th February following the double veto by China and Russia on invoking Article 6 for ‘pacific settlements of disputes’ several questions now surface in the face of protracted civil war and escalating violence, covert operations and furtive intervention coming to the fore; and a not-so subtle attempt to shift geopolitical dynamics from one tutelary to the other.

The Obama Administration has vehemently denied any involvement or intentions of pushing for an offensive NATO strike or supplying arms to the Syrian National Council or the small factions that exist within the opposition. The death toll in Syria has crossed the seven thousand mark since last year, the past week marking one of the bloodiest so far. The civil war however is contained within three of Syrias largest cities: Derra, Homs and Damascus, with Damascus still being a government strong hold and posts a sizeable support for Bashar Al Assad. America is in a flurry trying to come up with a viable policy regards to Syria, an overt armed intervention seems off the table and economic sanctions haven’t had much of an impact as yet either.

Sibel Edmonds and Philip Giraldi in separate whistle blowing incidents revealed the operative NATO base at Iskenderun on the Turkey-Syrian border, being used to train volunteers from the Libyan Transitional National Council, the militant subset of the Syrian National Council: Free Syrian Army, and supply weapons handed down from the Libyan incursion. According to Giraldi:

‘French and British special forces trainers are on the ground, assisting the Syrian rebels while the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] and US Spec Ops are providing communications equipment and intelligence to assist the rebel cause, enabling the fighters to avoid concentrations of Syrian soldiers.’ Edmonds writes about US forces that vacated Iraq only to be deployed in Jordan and Turkish borders where they are training troops for a possible onslaught from the North of Syria as early as May last year.

Covert support and intervention however is always limited in scope and size; sufficient to keep the flames from dying out but incapable of doing much damage. The fact that the Monitoring Group sent by the Arab League to engender a peaceful conciliation between Bashar Al Assad and the Syrian National Council, ended up negotiating between factions within the dissenting groups says a lot about the unity of the opposition movement in itself. This is nothing but detrimental bloodletting for Syria and secretly equipping the opposition with arms at this point will only ensure instability and violence in the country for a long time.

Declaring Syria a no-fly zone like Libya would do more damage than good. Military options in this case would only serve to spike the mounting death toll and aggravate UN’s image in the region. With two global encampments pitched on the Syrian issue, both with essentially different narratives regarding the what, whys and hows of the Syrian Revolution, the onus is on the dissenting groups within Syria to make their narratives heard. Where Tehrir Square was a cause for pride for the Egyptian Revolt because of the opposition’s pacific stratagem; the converse is true for Libya and Syria would best not go down the Libyan road.

Defending Russia’s veto at the UN Putin criticized the west’s ham fisted foreign policy.

“We of course condemn all violence regardless of its source, but one cannot act like a bull in a china shop,” Mr Putin said. “Help them, advise them – limit, for instance, their ability to use weapons – but do not interfere under any circumstances.”

And that is exactly what Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov did last week on his visit to Syria to try and persuade Bashar Al Assad to move for constitutional reform all the while Homs was being battered for the fifth day in a row. These proposed constitutional reforms were subsequently rejected by the Syrian National Council straight away.

Libya did not try to beat around the bush and ordered Syrian diplomats to vacate the embassy in Tripoli and handed the charge over to the Syrian National Council last week. Libyan head of Foreign Affairs Ashour Bin Khayal went further to state that Libya cannot stop rebel fighters from crossing into Syria to fight against Assad, who sent troops to bolster Gaddafi’s army till the very end. However no official troops will be sent as “Libya now is not going to be a source of trouble,” he said. “It’s going to be a peaceful country.”

All the Gulf Nations recalled their ambassadors from Syria while France, Italy and Spain recalled theirs so as to coincide with Lavrov’s meeting with Assad. United States and UK have recalled their diplomats as well. EU sanctions on Syrian oil and frozen assets and travel bans on regime officials have deprived the government of an important source of hard currency and contributed to widespread fuel shortages.

It seems likely that post UN efforts to sanction diplomatic level talks will give way to more global economic sanctions on Syria and diplomatic pressure and alienation. While this should serve to bend Assad’s back, he still won’t be as hard hit as the 24 million people of Syria will. Diktats of realpolitik suggest that Syria needs to shape up and stop being the stage where Russia and the US battle it out for influence and clout. Syria is a zero sum game for the two blocs at the moment and preservation of status quo in an attempt to stymie the revolution seems to be the key intent. This conflation of regime change with wavering objectives wrapped in humanitarian concerns has stopped fooling even the most gullible anymore. Diplomacy at the highest levels may thus be the only way out of this quagmire- a brainchild of imperialist powers.

Response to Tarek Fatah’s Delusional Midrash

Area 14/8

Comment on a video telecast by Rawal TV Canada featuring Tarek Fatah

“Recently the following video was posted to me. It is a program of a Canadian TV,called Rawal TV. One often sees content that one disagrees with,or there are cases where one does not know enough about the subject to form an opinion about it. But sometimes the content is outrageous. And sometimes it is so outrageous,that it is difficult to simply sit back and not respond.

I am not of the view that the army should not be treated with the stick that it so often deserves. But am of the firm view,that when army bashing assumes the form of a virulent disease,of which some of our “intellectuals”are acute patients,the boot needs being put into their mouths so that objectivity is restored to the debate.

Below is my response to one such video,addressed to Rawal TV.”- Saeed Malik

————————————–

To:The Management
Rawal TV
Canada.

Dear Sirs.

I have some observations to make on your program,“Bialtaqaluf with Tahir Gora Ep 23“.

In this program,Mr Tarek Fatah has sought to educate his listeners. After hearing him it is difficult for me to decide if Mr Fatah is motivated by simple paranoia,or an astounding level of unvarnished ignorance.

Therefore there is a need to set the record straight on some of his benighted assertions. Not doing so would only go to suggest that all among his audience are either equally paranoid,or equally ignorant,and their silence is a token of their endorsement of his views.

I have a bone to pick with the following assertions of Mr Fatah.

1. That there are no Sindhis in Karachi police. If he were to check his facts he will find Sindhis well represented in this force and some thousand strong.
2. That there are no ethnic Sindhis in the Pakistan Army. Again,if he checked his facts,he would find that about 40 years ago the Army started a concerted drive to encourage the people of Sindh to join the army. Mindful of the fact that Sindhis were,by and large,averse to leaving their homes,it was the policy of the army to cut its Sindhi recruits some slack,to help them settle in their new environs with greater ease. Thus,Sindhis were not apt to be as readily court martialed for desertion,as were their counterparts from Punjab or the Frontier,and leave policy in their case was made more liberal. This allowed Sindhi recruits to take to the army with less hesitation. And now there are thousands of them serving in the army.
3. Mr Fatah’s tide of invective against the army worked him up to ask the audience the name of a single Baloch General in the army. If he had heard the name of Lt Gen Qadir Baloch,he probably would have let this one pass.
4. But Mr Fatah is more outrageous both in his vitriol and his ignorance than is normally possible. He goes on to suggest that the only Pathans to have joined the army were the Punjabi speaking ones from Mianwali or Attock. This assertion is so far beneath contempt that it need not being commented upon or corrected.
5. He then gets to grips with the Chief Justice and suggests that by doing his law from a Baluchistan college,he deprived a local of a chance to get the same degree,which was very unfair. This would indeed have been the case,but for the following:
6. • No college in Pakistan has a quota system for various ethnicities. Thus if the Chief Justice did his law from Quetta,he was depriving no one.
   • The Chief Justice did not move to Baluchistan to do his law. His parents were already settled in Quetta,where he was born in 1948. He was thus a domicile of Baluchistan by birth.
7. But Mr Fatah is a far angrier man than the normal range of imagination may suggest. He asserts that Javed Burki,Majid Khan,and Imran Khan played cricket for Pakistan,not on merit,but because they were all related to Gen Burki!! He even suggests that had he been given as many chances to prove himself as Imran Khan got,he too could have bowled a ball or two of great merit!!
8. It may easily be concluded therefore,that this anti-army disease can work wonders in a febrile mind. I have no problem with this. But I do have a problem with Rawal TV i.e if this is the best that Rawal TV could do to bring on air,Canadian “intellectuals”of Pakistani extraction. the network must be very hard up indeed!
9. But as I understand it,Mr Fatah’s real forte is Islam. He would like to pass himself off as a scholar. For the sake of Islam in general,and his acolytes in particular,it is dearly to be hoped that his knowledge on this subject is deeper than it is on cricket,or on the make -up of the Pakistan Army.
10. Whether this is the case or not,one needs to examine the following two claims made by him,and made with such extra-ordinary aplomb,that one is left dizzy groping for a support just to be able to withstand the onslaught of his knowledge,if one is an unsuspecting mind.
11. • He claims that during the time of Khulfa e Rashideen,non Muslim Arabs were allowed to live in Medina,but that non Arab Muslims from “Africa or the subcontinent”had to live outside the city! To make such a statement and to invest the same with the confidence which he brings to it must require total conviction which is utterly bereft not only of scholarship,but of common sense itself. Just consider that the Khilafat e Rashida ended in 661,while the conquest of Sindh took place in 711. Before this conquest,during the time of the Khilafat e Rashida,how many people from the sub continent converted to Islam and came to reside at Medina,he does not indicate. On the other hand,if he has heard of Dr Montgomery Watt,and if he has read him,he will find that Hazrat Bilal was quite happily living in Medina at the time under reference.
    • It is also Mr Fatah’s assertion that the male members of Banu Qurayza were never beheaded in Medina after a sentence for treachery was passed against them following the Battle of the Trench. His contention is that this incident was manufactured and inserted into history 250 years after the Prophet,and the purpose of this revision of history was to stoke up anti-jewish animus among the Muslims,by furnishing historical proof that such animus against the Jews existed from the very beginning.

He has written this in a book,and says he is certain that this assertion is correct because no one has challenged it,though he has welcomed scholars around the world to do so.

I would like to draw Mr Fatah’s attention to “The Life of Muhammad”by Ibn Ishaq. Ishaq was born in A H 85 and died in 151. His book is considered the first authentic biography of the Prophet by most authorities,and is published by the Oxford University Press; ISBN 0 19 636033 1. Pages 461 to 69,should adequately disabuse him of the certainty of his scholarship and his claims thereto. And he might care to concede that Ishaq lived a lot earlier than than the 250 years which Mr Fatah sets as about the time when this incident was “inserted”into history.

I will end now,without attempting to disprove Mr Fatah’s tallest assertion i.e that the Obama Whitehouse is infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood! And while I end,let me just add that Mr Fatah is welcome to his opinions,but must be contradicted when he attempts to manufacture facts in order to introduce them as the truth.

I am attempting to send this to both Mr Fatah and Mr Gora,whose own knowledge seems to be rather restricted,because,as Mr Fatah’s long waffle took wind,he just sat there and praised him for his outspokenness,without realizing that there is a not too subtle a difference between being preposterous and being outspoken.

I request you to please convey this email to both Mr Gora and to Mr Fatah,though I am trying to reach both of them independently as well.

Sincerely yours.

Saeed Malik.

Kashmir- where Indian democracy comes to weep

Sanjay Kumar

The title of one of the sessions in the recently heldJaipur Literature Festival was “Prison Diaries”. Moderated by Sidharat Vardarajan, editor of The Hindu, the three authors of on stage were all from Jammu and Kashmir; Iftikhar Gilani, Anjum Zamarud Habib and Sahil Maqbool. Whether it was by choice or coincidence, all the prison diaries that have been produced in India in recent times have been written by Kashmiris.

Iftikhar Gilani, a journalist by profession who is also well-connected with political circles in Delhi, was picked up in 2002 by security agencies from his Delhi residence on charges of espionage.

The allegation was that he was providing information to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence. He was released only after a gerat media furor but not before spending seven harrowing months in Delhi’s Tihar jail.

He wrote a memoir of his days in incarceration”My Days in Prison“.

Anjum Zamarud Habib, the founding member and patron of Muslim Khawateen of the Hurriyat Conference, was falsely implicated under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), a draconian law that didn’t have provision for bail. She spent five years behind the bar and her book “Prisoner No 100” is a rare and shocking account of tortured years spent in Tihar jail and a critique of the judicial system.

After over 18 years as a special correspondent and investigative journalist with one of the mainstream newspapers, Sahil Maqbool – the third author – was arrested as a spy and imprisoned. The time he spent in jail came to be published as a “Jail Memoir”, in which he narrates not only his own ordeal but the pains of other prisoners who have fallen prey to the arbitrary application of laws and rules.

So what do these three stories tell us about the relationship between India and the state of Jammu and Kashmir? They tell us how Kashmir has become a prisoner of the Indian establishment’s paranoia.

Recently, a prominent institute in Pune was barred by the youth wing of a Hindu rightist party from screening a documentary, “Jashn-e-Azadi”, and holding a seminar called Voices of Kashmir. The short film explores the struggle for azadi, freedom, and the conflict in the Kashmir valley. The seminar was an attempt to decipher the voices of the Kashmiri people who feel suffocated by the suspicion and ham-handedness of the security forces.

Not long ago, activist lawyer and leading light of the Anna Hazare Movement, Prashant Bhushan, was thrashed by some extreme right-wing Hindu groups for advocating the cause of the Kashmiri people. The debate that followed largely focused on Bhushan’s so-called transgression rather than the attack on his freedom of expression and violence against him. Even his mentor Anna Hazare didn’t criticise the attackers but repudiated the lawyer for questioning India’s hold over Kashmir. He further added that Kashmir is an integral part of India.

It is this paranoia that has characterised India’s policy towards Kashmir for the last 60 years. The kind of democratic choice and freedom that define other Indian states have been absent from this bordering state. The peoples’ voice has always been perceived as a threat rather than a call to mend ways. By suspecting the intention of our own people, we have been insulting the genuine voices of the masses who want their own democratic rights and freedom of choice.

For other parts of India, democracy has been acting as a catalyst that liberates people from years of political oppression and empowering them to be political stakeholders. But the same democracy becomes a prisoner of tunnel vision in Jammu and Kashmir – we rig our own potent idea in the disputed territory.

In his book “India and Pakistan” Stanley Wolpert writes:

The people of Kashmir themselves must be permitted to choose their own leaders in free and fair elections, as do Indians in every other states in that union, and New Delhi solemnly commit to supporting Kashmir’s provincial autonomy and rights of its people, as it does the autonomy and rights of the people of Punajb,Maharashtra or West Bengal.

But on the contrary, these liberal and democratic values are given a short shrift in the state. And in this crime, the government and the Indian people are complicit. The moral courage and intellectual integrity that is needed to stand up against the brutalities of the forces in the valley is missing. We tend to largely ignore the widespread human rights violation and suppression, and never support their urge for liberation and freedom.

Still, we expect them to stand by us and sing the national anthem at every Independence and Republic Day.

In his book “Until My Freedom has Come”, independent documentary film maker and activist, Sanjay Kak writes:

Today the Kashmir Valley has the highest concentration of soldiers in the world – more than Afghanistan, Iraq or Burma. It is only in the last five years that the shape of this intervention has been dragged out of the guarded penumbra of Indian national interest.

He further writes:

…seventy thousand Kashmiris have been killed since 1989,and 8,000 have gone missing. To this must be added the less visible costs of torture, rape,life long physical incapacities and grievous economic, social, and psychological damage.

Pakistan also cannot absolve itself from bringing trouble and hardship to the Kashmiri people it claims as its own. It cannot escape the blame of radicalising the society and precipitating the crisis by its support to militancy and the destructive elements in the valley. By making Kashmir a prestige issue, Islamabad has forgotten the plight and pain of the people.

Wolpert, an old hand in South Asia and a professor emeritus at the University of California, writes:

(Pakistan’s) failure to sustain a freely elected civil polity and its inability to control the al Qaeda and the Taliban militants who inhabit its entire Afghan frontier, and to end the nurturing of the Pakistani soil of suicide bombers, its demand for a democratic resolution of Kashmir conflict will have little credibility and win scant support.

At the same time the South Asian expert argues that India should stop the military occupation and “praetorian attacks on Kashmir’s Muslim majority”.

More than an issue between India and Pakistan, Kashmir is a challenge to India and its idea of democracy and pluralism.

It is a slap to our claim to be a true democracy.

By not honouring our commitment to our Constitution and its values in the disturbed valley, we are inflicting injustice and injuries to our own idea of India.

Kashmir is the place where Indian democracy comes to weep.

Supporters of Jammu and Kashmir Libration Front (JKLF) shout pro-freedom slogans during a protest.

Can the Free Syrian Army succeed?

By Joseph A. Kechichian

Rebel forces need brigade-sized defections, heavy weaponry and better coordination to defeat Al Assad’s forces.

In the aftermath of the Russian and Chinese UN Security Council vetoes, which essentially called on Syria to adopt Arab League recommendations, Damascus and its handful of allies faced a truly existential moment: Will President Bashar Al Assad step down (or stand aside as Washington prefers that, it may be worth underlining, is not the same thing) in a ‘peaceful’ transition, especially if the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asks him to, or will this uprising transform itself into an all-out civil war?

Lavrov may prefer a diplomatic solution, but assuming that his mission fails, will we then see an escalation and, under the circumstances, can the Free Syrian Army swell its ranks with brigade-size desertions?

Entertaining New York presentations and customary vetoes aside – as few honest commentators dared to compare nearly 100 US vetoes to buttress Israel and its shaky claims over the years – senior officials exchanged classic Cold War rhetoric from a bygone era.

For US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “what happened at the United Nations was a travesty,” while her UN Ambassador Susan Rice used the word “disgusting”. More eloquent perhaps, British Foreign Secretary William Hague accused China and Russia of “betraying the Syrian people”, which did not move Beijing – where distrust of yet another putative western intervention ensured a Pavlovian step – but drew a rebuke from Lavrov who described comments by American and European leaders after the vote as “indecent and hysterical”.

Of course, these convoluted and rather mediocre diplomatic manoeuvres translated in an escalation of the fighting on the ground with an ever growing death toll. In fact, serious combats were under way not just in Homs but also in six of the country’s 14 governorates.

Although loyal units in the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) stood by the Baath regime, the SAA faced serious defections, estimated to hover between 4,000 and 7,000 by the pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near East Policy to upwards of 40,000 by the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

Turkish diplomats at last weekend’s 48th International Security Conference in Munich apparently confirmed the 40,000 figure, which would be significant if true, given that the SAA’s strength stood at less than 270,000 men, only a third of whom were actual combat troops.

Desertions

Even if Turkish and FSA claims were exaggerated, around 37 battalions composed of approximately 200-250 men each – of which 17 to 23 were fully active – allowed FSA forces to fight and hold territory, something that can no longer be ignored. More important, with an increasing number of soldiers refusing to fire on demonstrators and, in most cases, protecting the latter from SAA units or Shabiha irregulars, Damascus may yet witness more significant desertions.

For 11 months, most of the fighting occurred in Hama, Homs, Rif Dimashq, Dayr Al Zor, and especially Idlib and Daraa, where significant clashes occurred and continue to grow in intensity. During the past two months, however, the Rif Dimashq governorate, including suburbs of the capital itself (e.g., Douma and Saqba), saw heavy action as well.

Fierce battles

To their credit, FSA units held “territory” in Homs, Hama, and Zabadani, and managed to play a cat and mouse game with SAA troops in Douma as well as in Zabadani, which witnessed fierce battles during the past two weeks as the regime committed at least a brigade-size force, including heavy tanks.

Opposition forces filmed non-negligible losses on armoured vehicles and soft-skinned armoured personnel carriers that necessitated an SAA tactical withdrawal. Nevertheless, as long as Damascus and Aleppo do not join the fray – minor assaults on university students notwithstanding – and as long one or more full brigade defection(s) with a complement of heavy armour does not occur, the FSA will not be a match for the SAA.

In fact, FSA forces lacked supplies, and relied on five sources to replenish themselves: 1) Arms from the regular Syrian Army itself, especially whatever can be carried away by defectors; 2) Weapons brought across the border from Turkey, which is hosting dozens of FSA officers who cross back and forth into Syria with relative ease; 3) Donations from Iraqi Sunni tribes in the Al Anbar Province to their kin; 4) Armaments from Iraqi Kurdistan to their Syrian brethren; and, 5) Hand-held guns in much smaller quantities through northern Lebanon. Clearly, this was not enough and while the SAA failed to end attacks on government forces or eradicate the FSA in any one given area after a year long campaign, the current internal military balance was still lopsided and favoured the regime.

For despite the opposition to the fully equipped army, FSA challenges were non-negligible, including the ability to fight in a coordinated fashion, especially since Ankara imposed an iron clad control over commanders in Turkey whose movements were carefully monitored.

Moreover, and until very recently, it was not clear whether FSA leaders coordinated their efforts with the Syrian National Council mired in interminable discussions. Obviously, both ought to change for concrete improvements to occur on the ground, notwithstanding the international community’s huff and puff over the Russian and Chinese vetoes.

In a strange way, and even if Lavrov claimed last week on Australian television that Russia was “not a friend, … not an ally of President [Al] Assad,” the Russian veto highlighted the Al Assad regime’s intrinsic value: the Tartus military port, major arms deals, and Cold War brinkmanship.

Lavrov explained that Moscow “never said that President [Al] Assad remaining in power [was] the solution to the crisis,” although one wondered whether it looked upon Syria as a client state and wished to control it, which is what all major powers do whether clients have sorely needed natural resources or provide other useful services. Yet, and unlike Washington that earnestly invests in regime change to suit its own interests, Moscow pretends that regime change ought to be left to indigenous populations, without outside interference.

Which throws the ball back at the FSA. Regrettably, the killings continue in Syria because the international community is 11 months late in extending genuine support to the Syrian opposition, even if it might not be too late to change course now that the French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé telegraphed his country’s intentions.

Still, and truth be told, Al Assad and the Baath party will only go when two conditions materialise on the ground: 1) The FSA can cajole a few brigade commanders to defect with several hundred tanks and, 2) An alternative western military strategy can be devised to create safe zones for civilian protesters along the Turkey-Syria border.

Otherwise, everyone should hunker down for a long winter, and an even longer spring.

Dr Joseph A. Kechichian is a commentator and author of several books on Gulf affairs.

U.S.-India Ties: Pivot Problems

By David J. Karl

India has already shown that it is starting to carve out its own path in Asia. But it’s one that could create clashes with the United States.

There’s a conundrum at the heart of the Obama administration’s “pivot” toward Asia, at least as it relates to India. The United States is eager to extricate itself from military conflicts in the Greater Middle East (Iraq and Afghanistan) so it can focus on a region where, as President Barack Obama put it, “the action’s going to be.” Shoring up the U.S. strategic posture in East Asia amid China’s ascendance will entail a deepening of geopolitical cooperation between Washington and New Delhi. But the quickening withdrawal from Afghanistan will increase bilateral frictions, pushing relations in the opposite direction.

The Pentagon’s just-released strategic guidance paper calls for “investing in a long-term strategic partnership with India to support its ability to serve as a regional economic anchor and provider of security in the broader Indian Ocean region.” Both Obama during his visit to India in November 2010 and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her trip last summer have called on New Delhi to play a more active strategic role in East Asia.

One of the unheralded stories of the past year is how India has begun to do just that. In defiance of Chinese warnings, New Delhi asserted its rights to hydrocarbon explorations off the coast of Vietnam, laying down its own marker in the South China Sea dispute. It has moved to enhance defense and economic ties with Japan, culminating in Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko’s very productive recent visit to New Delhi. It also solidified security relations with Australia and Vietnam, and bolstered its influence in Burma vis-à-vis Beijing.

Washington and New Delhi hold regular consultations on East Asia policy, and a trilateral U.S.-India-Japan security dialogue was launched recently. A revival of quadrilateral security cooperation among the U.S., Japan, India, and Australia that briefly flowered in 2006-07 also appears likely. The expansion of Chinese power and aspiration will undoubtedly push New Delhi to align closer with the United States, though the process will neither be as smooth nor as speedy as many Americans would like.

Pushing in the other direction is the adverse effect on Indian security concerns caused by U.S. disengagement from Afghanistan. Key differences are bound to emerge between the United States and India regarding the political endgame. Looking to the exits, Washington won’t be overly concerned with the exact details of the makeup of Afghanistan or the viability of the government in Kabul. New Delhi, which has invested heavily in Hamid Karzai’s government, will be all too focused on how the strategic terrain is shifting to its detriment.

India has strong security interests in ensuring that any government in Kabul can be a bulwark against Pakistan, as well as a gateway to trade and energy links in Central Asia. Both goals would be undermined if Islamabad achieved a central role in shaping a political settlement or if a Taliban-influenced regime were to come to power.

One wonders how committed Washington will be to the current regime’s survival or the protection of Indian equities in an accommodation with the Taliban. This is all the more so as U.S. staying power is visibly waning. The security situation is likely to deteriorate as the military withdrawals that Obama announced last summer take hold and as remaining U.S. forces shift from direct combat operations to a back-stop role. A newly-minted National Intelligence Estimate reportedly is filled with pessimism about Afghanistan’s prospects.

Obama has promised to help Afghanistan “move from an economy shaped by war to one that can sustain a lasting peace.” Yet reports by the World Bank and the IMF underscore how formidable a challenge that will be. A recent report by Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffers concluded that U.S. nation-building efforts have largely failed, and warned that with Afghanistan so reliant upon foreign military and development spending it could slide into an economic depression as this funding decreases.

Meanwhile, the transformation of U.S.-Pakistan relations, from the past decade’s broad if dysfunctional security partnership to a more circumscribed, largely transactional arrangement will accelerate U.S. disengagement. Islamabad will be even more stinting in deploying its influence with the Taliban and other militant groups to benefit U.S. objectives in Afghanistan, while the higher transit fees likely to be charged on U.S. military supplies moving through Pakistan will further dampen the Obama administration’s fortitude in Afghanistan.

As the U.S. winds down its involvement, unpalatable circumstances await New Delhi’s policymakers. As a result, India will seek to move closer to Iran, whose interests in Afghanistan are roughly congruent. Both countries may even revive the cooperation that during the 1990s provided critical support to non-Pashtun militias battling the Taliban regime. (Already reports are surfacing that the old Northern Alliance may be reconstituting.) The U.S. will grumble about cozying up with Iran, but the geopolitical logic of the U.S. withdrawal leaves New Delhi little choice.

The interplay of two conflicting dynamics in U.S.-India relations – growing strategic cooperation in East Asia and unfolding differences over the future of Afghanistan – will be a key factor to watch for in the years ahead.

David J. Karl is president of the Asia Strategy Initiative, a political and economic consultancy. He was project director of the Task Force on Enhancing India-U.S. Cooperation in the Global Innovation Economy, sponsored by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry and the Pacific Council on International Policy.

A cynical electoral game at Indian Muslims’ expense

AIJAZ Z. SYED

Why India’s largest minority should treat Congress overtures with reservations

The more things change for India’s Muslims, the more they remain the same. Come elections and political parties invent ever new ways of wooing, using and exploiting them to reap their periodic harvest while the condition of Muslims worsens by the day.

Being the oldest and most experienced of them all, the Congress party has obviously mastered this art of fooling all the people all the time at the expense of some. But it’s not just the Congress; in this public bath, no one has a stitch on. With the crucial battle for five states heating up, the Muslims once again find themselves in the middle of a dirty, cynical game of one-upmanship with every political party using them as a football and a punching bag.

Uttar Pradesh is the big prize. Stakes couldn’t have been higher. Everyone from Mulayam’s Smajwadi to Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party, which first proposed a Muslim quota stealing the Congress’ thunder, is hungering after the pie. The main opposition BJP is in the big game hunt too and is sharpening its knives for the sacrificial lamb.

Adding to the fun is the new breed of party- and channel-hopping “Muslim leaders” parroting their newest party’s latest pitch swearing it to be God’s gift to the community. It gets so gross and nauseating at times you feel like throwing the TV remote at them!

The farce never seems to end. First, the Congress sends up the balloon of 4.5 percent quota for Muslims, rather conveniently, just before the poll dates were unveiled. It’s followed by the joke of a “minority quota” in the still-born Lokpal, the corruption watchdog.

Law and Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid then takes the game to a new level by promising to double the quota to 9 percent. Interestingly, it came at his wife’s poll rally in Farrukhabad, raising a political storm and provoking the poll panel to freeze the quota. The Congress stands to lose nothing though. It could always demand the Muslim vote claiming it was committed to helping the community but its efforts were thwarted by the parties like the BJP and others.

The grand ol’ party has played this cynical game for so long that it knows too well how it’s all going to unfold and how the opposition and media would respond to it. All you have to do is throw those perfect promises and dazzling dreams at Muslims and the rest will follow.

Even if the Congress were serious and sincere about implementing the quota, even the paltry 4.5 percent, it makes little difference to the community in real terms if it is carved out of the existing 27 percent quota marked for the Other Backward Communities. Some Muslim groups like Ansaris (weavers) and Qureshis (butchers) are already covered under the 27 percent quota. It’s the economically struggling sections of the community that badly need hand holding.

And now with the EC staying the quota with courts likely to follow suit as happened in Andhra Pradesh, the Muslims have ended up once again with nothing while earning themselves a lot of ill will and resentment of the rest of the country, especially the OBCs. The cruel joke by a government fighting for its survival hasn’t just further isolated the community; it has ended up pitting it against communities that were once their allies and fellow travelers. But then we have been here before. This is how the Congress has always paid Muslims for their blind, unquestioning support since Independence. Muslims have received nothing but such clever-by-half and often dangerous tokenism from the party. We thought things would be different under Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh because they came from a different background and could transcend the cynical, forever calculating Congress mindset.

Only the blind could have missed the fact that the Muslim vote played a critical role in bringing the party to power in 2004 after long years of wilderness. The feat was repeated in 2009, riding on all the talk of change although the government didn’t lift a finger to implement the bold recommendations of Justice Sachar Committee and Ranganath Mishra Commission.

Both reports, especially the one by the Mishra Commission, make for disturbing reading as they turn the spotlight on the shocking state of a 200-million strong community. This is no time and place to go over them but in short both panels conclude that Muslims are right now at the lowest rung of the hierarchy in every respect. Lowest of the low, they are today stacked even below the Dalits, the long discriminated castes. Only 4.5 percent Muslims are to be found in government jobs. Their representation in other areas is even more pathetic. The credit for this state of affairs goes to the party that has been in power for the longest period of time since Independence. This is why you thought, if not for the wholehearted support it received in 2004 and 2009, this government would have implemented the recommendations of the two commissions it had formed in its wisdom.

If it had been serious about the minority welfare, it wouldn’t have slept on the recommendations of Justice Sachar and Justice Mishra for five years, only to remember the Muslims days ahead of the assembly elections. Personally, I have nothing but respect for Salman Khurshid. He comes from an illustrious family (grandson of the late President Dr. Zakir Hussain) and obviously means well but is condemned by the company he keeps. The mindset of his party being what it is – others are fast catching up – it just cannot help itself to look beyond its petty electoral calculations and permutations and combinations of caste and religion.

I am not most comfortable with this whole quota business offering special treatment, or affirmative action as the Americans call it, for a particular group or community. Ideally, it should be equal opportunity for all. But we are not in an ideal situation. At times, extraordinary solutions are needed for extraordinary situations. Affirmative action has transformed the lives of millions of the long oppressed Dalits and African Americans, helping them break free of the centuries old cycle of inhumane abuse and exploitation. It could make a difference to Muslims too, if political parties allowed it and stopped looking at the issue from a religious prism. The Muslim empowerment could actually mean lifting of a huge chunk of India’s population out of misery. But even if a quota for the politically and economically dispossessed Muslims becomes a reality, it might end up doing more harm than good thanks to the cut-throat nature of Indian politics, not to mention our Hindutva friends.

Perhaps it’s about time Muslims gave up their fond, innocent hopes of political action to end their political and economic deprivation. Instead of waiting for those crumbs and doles from politicians, they must take charge of their destiny. In the end if anyone is going to help them, it’s themselves.

Aijaz Zaka Syed is a Dubai-based journalist and commentator. Write him at aijaz.syed@hotmail.com

RAW and NATO Uncovered in Sri Lanka

Tacstrat

Now that Oslo had admitted that the Norway-led Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) received intelligence from both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), those running the peace process couldn’t have been unaware of LTTE’s preparations for war, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said yesterday.

He was commenting on the Norwegian peace evaluation report released in Oslo last Friday.

“In spite of foreign intelligence services confirming our own assessment regarding LTTE preparations for war, those spearheading the peace process turned a blind eye to the rapidly deteriorating situation,” Rajapaksa said.

The Norwegian study quoted SLMM head as having said that RAW only reached them through informal channels, therefore they couldn’t be fully trusted.

“They weren’t giving it to us to be nice. We would always ask ourselves why they want us to know this. Intelligence provided by NATO only confirmed what they already knew,” the SLMM Chief was quoted as having said.

However, the Oslo-funded study revealed that the Norwegians had high level meetings in New Delhi with RAW.

The Norwegian-led SLMM comprised men from Scandinavian countries.

The study also cited the SLMM as having alleged that Sri Lanka, the LTTE and India opposed the mission having radar surveillance.

Defence Secretary Rajapaksa said that the Norwegian report only proved the failures on the part of those running the peace process.

In fact, the SLMM could reveal the intelligence it had received from NATO or any other regional or global power, the Gajaba veteran said. He said that the failed Sri Lankan peace process should be a case study for the global community.

Commenting on a query attributed to Hanssen Bauer and Brattskar whether the ethnic and political problems in Sri Lanka could be solved by military means for which he was quoted as having said, ‘yes’, the Defence Secretary emphasized that the crisis caused by the LTTE needed a military response. “What really surprised me is that a section of the global community still seems to believe in a political solution to a terrorist problem,” Rajapaksa said.

The Defence Secretary pointed out that the report also admitted the Sri Lankan military had been denied an opportunity to take part in substantive negotiations, while Norwegian military experts were involved in ‘military technicalities of de-escalation, advanced positions and front lines.’

Former Navy Commander Vice Admiral Daya Sandagiri told the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) the step-motherly treatment given to the Sri Lankan military in the run-up to the finalization of the CFA.

The Defence Secretary asserted that the Norwegian revelations had highlighted the need to re-examine the whole process, particularly military and intelligence aspects.

In the light of Norwegian admission of the involvement of its military in the CFA, the issue was whether a third party had access to SLA deployment plans on the northern theatre, Rajapaksa said.

The LTTE’s focus was on the Jaffna frontline extending from Kilali to Nagarkovil through Muhamalai, where the SLA had some of its most experienced fighting formations backed by artillery and armour deployed.

Can new Prime Minister Mario Monti rescue Italy?

Associated Press

Rome: Economist Mario Monti accepted the monumental task Sunday of trying to form a new government that can rescue Italy from financial ruin, expressing confidence that the nation can beat the crisis if its people pull together.

His selection came a day after Silvio Berlusconi reluctantly resigned as premier, bowing out after world markets pummeled Italy’s borrowing ability, reflecting a loss of faith in the 75-year-old media mogul’s leadership. Berlusconi quit after the Italian parliament approved new reform measures demanded by the European Union and central bank officials – but even those are not considered enough to right Italy’s ailing economy.

“There is an emergency, but we can overcome it with a common effort,” Monti told the nation, shortly after Italy’s president formally asked him to see if he can muster enough political support to lead the country out of one of its most trying hours since World War II.

“In a moment of particular difficulty, Italy must win the challenge to bounce back, we must be an element of strength and not weakness in the European Union, of which we are founders,” he added.

Monti must now draw up a Cabinet, lay out his priorities, and see if he has enough support in Parliament to govern. Rival political parties offered various degrees of support, including one demand from Berlusconi’s party – the largest in Parliament – that his government last only as long enough as it takes to heal Italy’s finances and revive the economy.

The 68-year-old economics professor is no pushover, earning a reputation for staring down challenges as a tough EU competition commissioner. But he’ll have to win a confidence vote in Parliament before he can lead the nation.

Monti told reporters he will carry out his task “with a great sense of responsibility and service toward this nation.” Italy must heal its finances and resume growth because “we owe it to our children, to give them a concrete future of dignity and hope.”

Berlusconi’s party also demanded that only technocrats – not politicians – make up Monti’s Cabinet in exchange for its crucial support.

Monti faces a daunting challenge – preventing an Italian default that could tear apart the 17-nation eurozone and send Europe and the U.S. into new recessions.

Italy’s economy is hampered by high wage costs, low productivity, fat government payrolls, excessive taxes, choking bureaucracy, and an educational system that produces one of the lowest levels of college graduates among rich countries.

In addition, as the third-largest economy in the eurozone, Italy is considered too big for Europe to bail out like Greece, Portugal and Ireland have been.

The next Italian government needs to push through even more painful reforms and austerity measures to deal with euro1.9 trillion ($2.6 trillion) in debt – about 120 percent of the country’s economic output. And many of those debts are coming due soon – Italy has to roll over more than euro300 billion ($410 billion) of its debts next year alone.

Some political forces, including some from Berlusconi’s ranks and that of his allies, have been clamoring for early elections. But President Giorgio Napolitano cited approaching treasury bond auctions – one as early as Monday and other bonds maturing in the next few months – as a main reason he decided to “avoid early elections and the consequent government vacuum” until a new one could be formed.

Asked by journalists if he thought Monti could form his government by week’s end, Napolitano responded positively.

The yield on Italian 10-year bonds fell to 6.48 percent Friday, below the crisis level of 7 percent reached earlier last week, a level that forced the three other EU nations into international bailouts.

Centrist and center-left parties in the opposition during Berlusconi’s rule offered their support for Monti.

“Italian parties are at fork in the road. Either they speculate on the situation, hoping that they can get some campaign capital from it, or they take up their responsibilities to save the country,” said centrist opposition leader Pier Ferdinando Casini.

The leader of Italy’s largest labor confedation, the left-wing CGIL, Susanna Camusso, expressed hope that Monti could pull together a government capable of “giving back the international credibility that we have lost in these years.”

Union leaders, along with industrialists, have accused Berlusconi of doing virtually nothing to create jobs during his tenure.

Berlusconi’s main ally in his 17 years of politics, Umberto Bossi, said his Northern League, a regional party with its power base in the affluent north, would stay in the opposition and insisted early elections are the true solution.

“We won’t give him any blank check,” Bossi said of Monti.

Warmly welcoming the new prime minister-designate were European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy.

“We believe that it sends a further encouraging signal,” following Italy’s final passage Saturday of new austerity measures, they said in a statement, adding that the EU will keep monitoring Italy’s implementation of the measures “with the aim of pursuing policies that foster growth.”

The measures that were passed Saturday include raising the retirement age to 67 by 2026 and to 70 by 2050 and selling off state property.

Some analysts expect the return of the property tax on primary residences, a tax that Berlusconi had abolished.

A crowd of supporters applauded Berlusconi on Sunday at his private residence in Rome – in sharp contrast to the hundreds Saturday night who heckled and jeered him and popped open bottles of sparking wine to toast his departure.

It was an ignoble end for the billionaire media mogul, who came to power for the first time in 1994 using a soccer chant “Let’s Go Italy” as the name of his political party and selling Italians on a dream of prosperity with own transformation from cruise-ship crooner to Italy’s richest man.

While he became Italy’s longest-serving postwar premier, Berlusconi’s three stints as premier were tainted by corruption trials and accusations that he used his political power to help his business interests. His last term was marred by sex scandals, “bunga bunga” parties and criminal charges he paid a 17-year-old girl to have sex – accusations he denies.

Berlusconi appeared on TV in a recorded message Sunday, pledging to stay a vigorous political force in Parliament, where he is still a lawmaker.

“(I) resigned out of a sense of responsibility and of state, to ward off more speculative financial attacks on Italy,” he said.

Looking somber, Berlusconi said he was sad that his “generous gesture” of resignation was greeted by “hoots and insults” from the crowds.

The Arab Spring in Pakistan?

by M. REZA PIRBHAI

Tunisians, Egyptians, Bahrainis and Yemenis are occupying the streets and blogging furiously. Europeans and North Americans have followed suit to create their own Liberty Squares. To varying degrees, all are middle and working class movements that appear to recognize the manner in which the current global order serves a select few at the expense of the many, world-wide.

The middle and working classes of Pakistan are occupying an altogether different space. Political parties from so-called Liberals to Islamists have arranged spectacular rallies across the country of late, both pro and anti-government. But they were mostly of the rented variety – a plate of biryani, as they say, for every man, woman or child ready to chant party slogans. Those who don’t need the free food have stayed home.

That is not to say that Pakistanis are oblivious to the ‘Arab Spring.’ Although Pakistanis are not Arabs, journalists and bloggers have ensured that at least the middle class is well-informed. The papers and TV channels continue to report on daily events in the Arab World. Editorialists and bloggers offer a dizzying array analysis. Neither the distance of ethnicity nor a dearth of exposure can be assumed to explain why similar movements have not risen in Pakistan, when they have in New York or Madrid.

Nor can lack of empathy with the ideals of the Arab Spring be considered a constraining factor. In a recent study of Pakistan’s middle classes, Iftikhar Malik found “increased clarity and unity…regarding democracy…accountability, and a vocal criticism of Talibanization and the American militarist interventionism” (Pakistan: Terrorism, Democracy and the Building of a Nation (2010), 122). Malik adds that mobilization as a class has been historically inhibited by the tendency to cleave along liberal and conservative, pro- and anti-military, ethnic and sectarian lines, only incidentally coming together to protect “against encroachment from the lower classes” (112-22). Yet, the Arab Spring itself illustrates that such fissures do not necessarily prevent anti-imperialist, pro-democracy activism. The alienation of the Pakistani middle and working classes from the activism of the Arab Spring requires further explanation.

One contributing factor seems to be Pakistani attitudes and relations with the Arab World. For example, a widely read Dawn-blogger, Nadeem Paracha, advises those admiring of Arab activism to remember that “Pakistan was actually the first Muslim country (in the post-colonial world) to have a ‘revolution’ like the ones we are celebrating today.” From 1968 to 1970, the mobilization of the “urban bourgeoisie…pushed the country out of a dictatorship and towards democracy.” It was a failure in the long-run, he admits, due to the same types of cleavages identified by Malik, but only to offer the Arabs “lessons” on the pitfalls ahead of them. He does not take-on the differences between the activism of the 1960′s and the present, and makes no argument for or against ‘revolution’ in Pakistan today.

Sidra Jafri goes a step further in New Pakistan. She views calls for a “Pakistani Spring” as an invitation to “anarchic mayhem.” She explains that people in Arab countries “have to build institutions. We already HAVE institutions. We have the office of the President, Prime Minister, a number of Ministries, a National Assembly. We have the executive, legislative and judicial branches, each with its own catalog of powers and jurisdiction.”

Paracha and Jafri’s attitudes, which resonate more broadly through Pakistan’s middle class, illustrate the role of nationalist chauvinism, a naive appraisal of Pakistan’s political institutions and utter ignorance of Arab history in shaping Pakistani responses to the Arab Spring. That this is an apologetic pride has been implied by various measures, the latest being 107th place (out of 110 states) on the 2011 Legatum Prosperity Index. Needless to say, the assumptions of such indexes leave room for error, but it cannot be ignored that all of the Arab countries included measured higher, despite their supposedly late moves “out of dictatorship and towards democracy.”

Such chauvinistic and apologetic attitudes are complemented by a more insidious silence on actual relations with the Arab World. The Pakistani political elite is, in fact, working to undermine the Arab Spring and its global ripples. President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani have been busy shuttling between Pakistan and the US-backed Gulf Arab states most threatened by the voices of change. The expansion of ties with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain is a matter of public policy, no matter the party in charge of Pakistan. Although framed in economic and cultural terms, these relations are not restricted to jobs, foreign exchange remittances and Muslim brotherhood. It should be recalled that Saudi Arabia and the UAE have provided refuge for two former Pakistani ‘democrats’ in self-imposed exile: Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, respectively. Military cooperation is no less important. In the case of Bahrain, Pakistani police and army personnel have been exported to shore-up the beleaguered monarchy’s security forces. Little else can be expected from a Pakistani establishment that is no less autocratic and no more sovereign than Gulf emirs. The Pakistani middle and working classes’ scant regard for these realities speaks of different problems altogether.

The failure of Pakistan’s political elites – military and civilian, secular and Islamist – to provide even sufficient electricity and water for the needs of the country’s people clearly augments the appeal of Gulf Arab states for many Pakistanis. No matter the abuses of labor and discrimination faced, hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis of all classes are already residents of the Arabian Peninsula. For the middle classes, apart from jobs and pay commensurate with their educations, the Gulf further compensates with a stable infrastructure and the amenities of a consumer lifestyle. Although the experience exposes these Pakistanis to Arabs from Morocco to Yemen, the Arab World relayed to Pakistan passes through the lens of Riyadh and Dubai. There are no substantial Pakistani communities in Tunis or Beirut. Economic reliance on the these Gulf states, along with a distorted image of the broader world of Arabic-speakers, undoubtedly promotes chauvinism and apologetics, while playing a part in crushing coordinated activism with Arab protestors in Egypt or Syria. In fact, the Pakistani middle class seems to be on the same page as the country’s political elites on this issue, perceiving interests to lie with the very Arab monarchies under fire.

Finally, the power of fear must be considered. While Islamist “terrorism” dominates global headlines associated with Pakistan, non-Islamist and state terrorism largely pass under the radar. The Asian Legal Resource Center reports that between May 2010 and 2011, over 120 people have been extra-judicially killed by the state, while thousands have been subjected to arbitrary arrest, abduction, torture and disappearance. According to the World Association of Journalists and Newspaper Publishers, Pakistan topped the list for journalists killed in 2010, and is running second only to Iraq in 2011. This year alone, Karachi’s millions have been caught in the crossfire of running street battles between the armed militias and hired thugs of major political parties, including members of the ruling government. More than 1,500 innocent lives have been lost so far. The state has provided no accountability or justice in any of these cases. Not just livelihoods are at stake. Far too many lives have already been taken.

The bottom-line is that middle and working class capitulation of the streets of Pakistan to the country’s politicos, in the rare moment that so many Arabs, Africans, Europeans and Americans are occupying their own, is ultimately explainable in socio-economic terms. That it is so belies the realization among Pakistanis of that which throngs from Cairo to New York have come to appreciate. The problems of the world’s middle and working classes are the rooted in the current global order – one long dominated by the West, but facilitated by its client political elites in the rest of the world. Pakistan is no exception. Yet, whether as a result of nationalism, the economy or psychology, Pakistanis do not appear to recognize themselves in the people occupying streets and blogging furiously against the incumbent order’s global grip.

M. Reza Pirbhai is an Assistant Professor of South Asian History at Louisiana State University. He can be reached at: rpirbhai@lsu.edu

‘I can’t stand him any more, he’s a liar’: Sarkozy, Obama in G20 slip

smh.com.au

Quite frank … US President Barack Obama and his French counterpart Nicholas Sarkozy. Photo: AP

French President Nicolas Sarkozy called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “liar” in talks with US President Barack Obama, who then complained of having to deal with him daily.

The private conversation, held during the G20 summit in the French city of Cannes last week, was overheard by a number of journalists after it was inadvertently transmitted over a system used for translation, media website Arret sur Images reported.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Photo: AFP

“I can’t stand him any more, he’s a liar,” Mr Sarkozy said in French during the talks.

“You may be sick of him, but me, I have to deal with him every day,” Mr Obama replied in comments that were translated into French.

A number of journalists have confirmed hearing the remarks.

Without providing further quotes, the website said Mr Obama had also chastised Mr Sarkozy for not having informed the United States of France’s plans to vote in favour of Palestinian membership in UN cultural agency UNESCO.

Journalists were able to hear the conversation after they were given translation devices for a press conference but told they would receive headphones later, the website reported.

Plugging their own headphones into the devices, they realised they could hear the French translation of the conversation between the two leaders.

The website quoted a number of journalists saying a group decision was made not to report the conversation as it was considered private and off-the-record.

When asked about the incident, French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero told journalists that it was “hype”.

“I’ve heard about the hype … I don’t want to talk about it. It’s hype,” MrValero said, telling journalists to ask Mr Sarkozy’s office to confirm the remarks.

“Ask the Elysee to confirm or deny [the reported quotes],” Mr Valero said.

“All this is getting us away from what’s essential. All we want is to keep working so that things move forward because things aren’t moving forward [on the Middle East]“, he said.

French officials have been increasingly critical of Mr Netanyahu’s ongoing Jewish settlement building on occupied Palestinian land, saying such moves prevent the resumption of peace talks.

The story of the remarks was carried on the websites of most major Israeli newspapers.

The Prime Minister’s office had no immediate reaction to the report and the foreign ministry refused to comment.

Israel public radio correspondent Gidon Kutz, who covered the Cannes summit, said journalists who overheard the private conversation had agreed not to report the story due to “correctness and in order not to embarrass the presidential press service”.

Speaking to Parliament on Tuesday, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe insisted that France and Mr Sarkozy had a balanced position on the Middle East conflict, but he did not mention the undiplomatic incident in Cannes.

“We have a balanced position,” Mr Juppe said during a discussion of his ministry’s budget for 2012.

“In his speech at the United Nations General Assembly the President said very clearly that if Israel’s security was in question, we would be on Israel’s side,” Mr Juppe said.

“But he also said that after so many decades it was no longer possible to accept that the Palestinian Authority is not little by little being recognised as a state.

France confirmed last week that it would abstain from a Security Council vote on full Palestinian membership of the United Nations, calling instead for Palestine to be given non-member observer status.

The White House sidestepped questions about the matter.

“I don’t have any comment on a reported conversation that apparently took place in a bilateral [meeting],” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters on Tuesday.