To end civilian suffering in Ukraine and Gaza, the UK must quit its double standards and apply international humanitarian law equally

In March 2003, President George W. Bush invaded Iraq on the pretext that Saddam Hussain had weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons were ever found, and President Bush lied to the world and the US. This war cost the lives of 4,485 Americans and the lives of 500,000 Iraqis. Moreover, this act of aggression cost the US upwards of two trillion dollars and, to boot, we are still paying the price today. How so? This war left a vacuum in Iraq so that Saddam’s generals formed Daesh or I.S.I.S. a terrorist group that is still active today..

To make matters worse, President Bush had the audacity to say that “Russia’s attack on Ukraine constitutes the gravest security crisis on the European continent since WW II.” Juan Cole notes that George W. Bush laid the foundation in Ukraine by destroying US credibility on enemy intentions and capabilities.

Before Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, there existed ongoing talks among diplomats from NATO, including the US, and Russia. Putin regarded the dissolution of the USSR as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” At a speech in 2021 Putin remarked that he was “extremely concerned about the deployment of elements of the US global defense system close to Russia.

Al Jazeera English Video: “Is the risk of direct conflict between Russia & NATO increasing? | Inside Story”

Antony Blinken, Secretary of State, did not have the wisdom to discuss with Putin the removal of anti-ballistic Tomahawk missiles from Romania, Poland and other NATO countries. Instead, Blinken, taking orders from Biden, discussed “confidence building measures” (CBMs) between Russia and NATO. This angered Putin beyond words.

Presently, we have the NATO allies in D.C., led by President Biden, who are like babes in the woods. There’s no way the Ukraine can overtake Russia. Consider this. First, for Russia’s core agenda NATO’s expansion is more important for Putin than the territorial conquest of Ukraine. Second, when Putin addressed the meeting of the Russian Defense Ministry Board in Moscow, Dec. 21, 2022, he said that “We will continue maintaining and improving the combat readiness of the nuclear triad. It is the main guarantee that our sovereignty and territorial integrity, strategic parity, and the general balance of forces in the world are preserved.”

Russia has developed the K-329 Belgorod nuclear-powered submarine able to carry six-Poseidon nuclear torpedoes. Its innovative design made it the largest submarine in the Russian Navy, circa 584 feet long and about 49 feet across.    The Belgorod submarine tested the mass-dimensional model of the Poseidon torpedo in January, 2023. The Poseidon is an intercontinental, nuclear-powered, nuclear armed autonomous torpedo 24 meters in length and a diameter of 1.6 meters. The Poseidon can travel at a speed of 185 kilometers that makes it unstoppable. It’s a strategic nuclear torpedo weapon that can target naval bases and coastal cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Miami. 

On July 10^th, 2024, the US and Germany announced they would begin “episodic deployments” of the long-range Multi Domain Task Force in Germany starting in 2026. Also, conventional long-range fire units will include SM-6 Tomahawk and developmental hypersonic weapons according to a joint statement of Germany and the US. The US also stated that F-16 fighter jets are headed to Ukraine while at the same time a dozen Ukrainian pilots are learning how to fly these planes in Arizona. NATO and the US are playing with fire and they are asking for a nuclear war with Russia. In my view, the only way NATO can avoid a nuclear war with Russia is to roll back NATO expansion entirely.

National impunity is not inevitable, at least if people and governments of the world are willing to take the necessary actions.

(The Conversation) – As wars grind on in Ukraine and Gaza, another location ravaged by conflict is taking steps to implement a historic peace agreement. From the mid-1960s through 2016, Colombia was torn by conflict between the government, leftist guerrilla movements and right-wing paramilitary groups. Now the government and rebels are working to carry out a sweeping accord that addresses many critical sectors, including environmental damages and restoration.

University of Notre Dame researchers Richard Marcantonio and Josefina Echavarria Alvarez study peace and conflict issues, including their effects on the environment. They currently are advising negotiations between the Colombian government and several rebel factions over wartime damage to soil, water and other natural resources. They explain that while Colombia’s transition from war to peace has been difficult, the accord offers a model for addressing the ravages of war in places such as Gaza and Ukraine.

Is it common for peace settlements to address environmental harm?

Few agreements include environmental provisions, and even fewer see them carried out, even though research shows that many drivers of conflict can be directly or indirectly related to the environment.

We work with a research program at the University of Notre Dame called the Peace Accords Matrix, which monitors the implementation of comprehensive peace accords in 34 countries worldwide. Only 10 of the accords have natural resource management provisions agreements, and these typically have not triggered major steps to protect the environment.

How is the Colombia accord different?

Colombia’s is seen as the most comprehensive peace accord that has been signed to date. It considers issues ranging from security to social justice and political participation, in great detail.

The accord acknowledges that a peaceful postwar society requires not only respect for human rights but also “protection of the environment, respect for nature and its renewable and nonrenewable resources and biodiversity.” More than 20% of the commitments in the agreement have an environmental connection.

They fall into four main categories:

– Adapting and responding to climate change

– Preserving natural resources and habitats

– Protecting environmental health through measures such as access to clean water

– Process issues, such as ensuring that communities can participate in decisions about rural programs and resource management

There also are gaps. For example, many protected areas have been deforested for ranching and coca production in the postaccord period. And there are no provisions addressing toxic pollution, an issue other agreements also neglect.

Often there are power vacuums during transitions between war and peace, when government agencies are working to reestablish their operations. Natural resources and environmental health need protection during these phases.

In Sierra Leone, for example, resource extraction by foreign companies drastically ramped up immediately after the Lome Peace Agreement eventually ended that nation’s civil war in 2002. Companies exploited a lack of governance and support in the rural areas and often mined metals illegally or hazardously without any regulatory oversight. Today these areas still struggle with mining impacts, including contaminated drinking water and fish, the primary protein source in the area.

European Commission: “Ukraine green recovery Conference”

What is the environmental toll of war in Ukraine?

The damage is vast: There’s air, water and soil contamination, deforestation and enormous quantities of waste, including ruined buildings, burned-out cars and thousands of tons of destroyed military equipment. Russia’s destruction of the Kakhovka Dam flooded villages, destroyed crops and wrecked irrigation systems.

The cost estimates are staggering. A joint commission of the World Bank, the government of Ukraine and other institutions currently estimate direct damages at roughly US$152 billion.

In addition, cleaning up sites, rebuilding infrastructure and other repairs could cost more than $486 billion over the next decade, as of late 2023. That figure rises every day that the war continues.

There’s broad interest in a green and sustainable reconstruction that would include steps like using sustainable building materials and powering the electricity grid with renewable energy. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been adamant that Russia must pay for the damage it has caused. It’s still unclear how this would work, although some U.S. and European lawmakers support seizing frozen Russian assets held in Western banks to help cover the cost.

There is a legal basis for holding Russia accountable. In 2022, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a set of principles for protecting the environment during armed conflicts. Among other existing statutes, they draw on a protocol to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 that prohibits using “methods or means of warfare which are intended, or may be expected, to cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment.”

There has been only modest discussion so far of how to integrate these principles into a formal peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia. But a working group that included Ukrainian and European Union officials and former leaders from Sweden, Finland, Ireland and Brazil has recommended a framework for addressing environmental damage and holding perpetrators accountable.

What environmental impacts are known or asserted in Gaza?

Environmental damage in Gaza also is devastating. The U.N. estimated in early 2024 that over 100,000 cubic meters (26 million gallons) of untreated sewage and wastewater were flowing daily onto land or into the Mediterranean Sea.

Gaza’s drinking water system was insufficient before the war and has been further weakened by military strikes. On average, Gazans now have access to about 3 liters of water per person per day – less than 1 gallon.

Thousands of buildings have been destroyed, spreading hazardous materials such as asbestos. Every bomb that’s dropped disperses toxic materials that will persist in the soil unless it’s remediated. Simultaneous environmental and infrastructure impacts, such as water and power shortages, are contributing to larger crises, such as the collapse of Gaza’s health care system, that will have long-lasting human costs.

How can future peace accords address these impacts?

Integrating the environment into peace accords isn’t easy. Resources such as energy, clean soil and water are vital for life, which is precisely why military forces may seek to control or destroy them. This is happening in both Ukraine and Gaza.

Peace negotiators tend to focus on social, political and economic issues, rather than environmental reparations. But leaving environmental damage unresolved until after a peace accord is signed keeps people who have been displaced and marginalized by conflict in precarious positions.

It may even cause fighting to resume. According to the U.N. Environment Program, at least 40% of all wars within states in the past 60 years have had a link to natural resources. In those cases, fighting was twice as likely to resume within five years after conflict ended.

We see some lessons for future negotiations.

First, it’s important for accords to recognize environmental harm as one of war’s main consequences and to acknowledge that a healthy environment is essential for sustainable livelihoods and peace.

Second, connecting environmental provisions with other issues, such as rural reform and political participation, can create better, more sustainable and equal conditions for reestablishing democracy. The Colombia accords are an example.

Third, it is important to clearly define goals, such as what infrastructure and institutions need to be rebuilt, who is in charge of getting those tasks done, and the timetable for doing it. This can help ensure that environmental restoration doesn’t become a secondary goal.

Fourth, the international community has an important role to play in monitoring and verifying environmental restoration and providing financial and technical support. Foreign donors have already pledged $66 billion for rebuilding Ukraine and have said that they will require grantees to follow strict environmental standards in order to receive financing.

Reconstructing nations and simultaneously regenerating communities and ecosystems after wars is a daunting mission, but it’s also an opportunity to build something better. We see Ukraine and Gaza as potential test cases for addressing war’s toll on the environment and creating a more sustainable future.

Richard Marcantonio, Assistant Professor of Environment, Peace, and Global Affairs at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame and Josefina Echavarria Alvarez, Professor of the Practice in International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The latest aid package both opposes and facilitates genocide. How crazy is that?

( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – The process of crafting congressional legislation is often likened to sausage-making. Best not to look behind the scenes at the mechanics of the process, which is a bloody mess.

But the analogy is not apt. Sure, sausage-making can be ugly. The end product, however, is presentable and usually quite tasty.

The legislation that emerges from the U.S. Congress, on the other hand, is often as ugly and unappetizing as the process that created it.

Consider the recent bill that bundled military assistance to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan along with a fourth provision covering more sanctions on Iran, the use of frozen Russian assets, and a potential ban on TikTok in the United States. The bill passed Congress by considerable margins. The vote was 79 to 18 in the Senate and—for the most controversial piece on Ukraine—311 to 112 in the House. The president then swiftly signed it into law.

But the margin of approval belies the months of political infighting that preceded the vote. First came the conflict over immigration provisions that the Dems originally included in the legislation to sweeten the pot for the Republicans only to discover that the Republicans were insisting on harsher measures. President Biden and the Democrats moved further to the right, yet it still wasn’t enough. In the end, the final legislation didn’t address immigration at all.

Meanwhile, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) delayed a vote in the House for months because of opposition from members further to his right who objected to providing additional funding to Ukraine. This determined minority threatened to remove Johnson over the issue, which ordinarily should not have discomfited the speaker, except that this same minority had ousted his predecessor. Moreover, Donald Trump had made his opposition to Ukrainian aid very clear, and Republicans, in this election year, have been tripping over themselves to show fealty to the Man. Even the one Ukrainian-born legislator, Victoria Spartz (R-IN), voted against the Ukraine bill in the House, largely because she is trying to get Trump’s endorsement in her primary race. Earlier, she’d called the Russian invasion a “genocide.”

Johnson managed to satisfy at least some of his critics by splitting the legislation into four distinct bills (Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, kitchen sink). In this way, House members could, for instance, register their support for Israel and their opposition to more arms for Ukraine. Senators had no such luxury since they had to vote on a single bill, which prompted three progressives to oppose the legislation because it didn’t attach any conditions to the aid to Israel (while 15 Republican extremists joined their House compatriots in opposing the Ukrainian provisions).

Progressives were indeed in a quandary over the bill. Imagine a quite different measure that condemned aggressor countries for breaking international law (Russia, Israel) while aiding those forces pushing back against colonial interventions (Ukrainians, Palestinians). It would never have been brought to a floor vote. But who ever said that U.S. foreign policy was principled or coherent? U.S. politics is all about holding one’s nose, averting one’s eyes from the sausage-making, and voting for the lesser evil.

That said, what impact will the bill have? Will it save Ukraine from being overrun? And is there any chance that all the pro-Palestinian and pro-ceasefire protests taking place around the country will force greater coherence upon U.S. foreign policy?

Ukraine

The war has not really been going Ukraine’s way for some time. Even when Ukrainian forces were successfully holding the line against Russian occupiers last year, they were suffering a lot of casualties. As Ukraine’s military supplies began to wane, Russia began to push further westward, potentially threatening large population centers like Kharkiv in the northeast. Russia’s larger pool of recruits, combined with a five-to-one artillery advantage (more in certain spots along the line of fire), was creating great anxiety that a Russian counteroffensive in the late spring or early summer could overwhelm Ukrainian defenses altogether.

“Contradictions,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v. 3, 2024.

Meanwhile, Ukraine couldn’t completely defend its population centers and critical infrastructure further to the west. When Russia fired a barrage of 82 missiles and drones at the Trypilska power plant near Kyiv on April 11, Ukraine could only intercept 18 missiles and 39 drones. It had run out of interceptors. The remaining Russian weapons destroyed the plant.

The U.S. military package provides $61 billion in assistance, but the vast majority of the funding (80 percent) does not go to Ukraine. Rather, it allows the U.S. military-industrial complex to replenish the pipeline of supplies heading to Kyiv and fund ongoing Pentagon operations like training Ukrainian soldiers. It will take some weeks before those weapons begin to reach their destination, though the Pentagon, waiting for this moment, is shipping some existing supplies from bases in Germany and Poland. Meanwhile, Russia is trying to press its advantage.

Critics of this assistance to Ukraine—a bizarre alliance of the far left and the far right—argue that such shipments only prolong the war, causing needless suffering to Ukrainians. Others see an imperial motive, that the United States is just using Ukrainian bodies like meat puppets to draw the Russians into a quagmire and hamstring an adversary. The more isolationist critics maintain that this war has nothing to do with the United States, which should just stay out of it.

While I am no fan of the Pentagon, the U.S. military-industrial complex, or the obscene amount of money spent globally on what is euphemistically termed “defense”—$2.4 trillion in 2023, a new record—I view these arguments about Ukraine as dangerously naïve.

First, it is Russia that is prolonging this war, by continuing to occupy Ukraine illegally, pushing for more territory, and committing war crimes from torturing prisoners of war to bombing civilian sites. The Kremlin continues to claim that Ukraine is not a legitimate country, that it has always been part of the “Russian world,” that the government in Kyiv is “Nazi.” It is inaccurate to say that Ukraine is simply fighting for this or that scrap of land. Rather, Ukrainians are fighting to prevent the elimination of their country and their collective identity—in other words, against genocide. They know what happens to those who assert their Ukrainian identity in areas occupied by Russian forces (death, deportation, imprisonment). The vast majority of Ukrainians oppose giving up their land for a peace deal with Russia—around 80 percent—and a majority are against peace negotiations with Russia more generally.

Many hawkish voices in the United State would indeed like to see a weaker Russia. But the Biden administration has been clear that it would prefer some kind of settlement to this conflict so that it can focus on other foreign policy priorities. Ukraine is no proxy. It continues to fight not because it is being controlled like a marionette, but because it is exercising its own agency. It fights despite an American ambivalence that is expressed in so many ways—a reluctance to share the most advanced weaponry, a failure to deliver aid in a timely manner, and a large share of the Republican Party unwilling to provide any assistance at all.

Finally, there’s the question of U.S. interests. I generally prefer to avoid discussions of narrow U.S. national interests, which often boil down to maintaining military dominance, upholding dollar supremacy, and securing access to raw materials. I prefer to look at where U.S. interests can or should overlap with global concerns such as strengthening international law, addressing climate change and biodiversity loss, and reducing global economic inequality.

Viewed from this latter perspective, defending Ukraine is squarely in U.S. national interest. Russia’s seizure of Ukrainian territory (2014), the invasion of the country (2022), the maintenance of a military occupation (ongoing): these violations of international law are of such great enormity that a failure to punish the aggressor—preferably in court but on the ground if need be—threatens to overturn the very notion of an international community. Russia is paying for this war by pumping out as much oil and gas as the market can bear: in this way, the war is paid for by pollution. And the invasion has put an enormous burden on the world’s poor by reducing the capacity of Ukraine to produce grain. On the basis of these three criteria, the war in Ukraine is very much in the U.S. interest.

Will the recently passed aid package turn the tide of the war? That’s impossible to say. But a better armed Ukraine will have a fighting chance. And future generations will not blame the United States for standing idly by as Russia attempts to commit an act of ethnic cleansing of epic proportions.

Israel

And yet, in the same bill, the Biden administration is not only ignoring another act of ethnic cleansing but is abetting it. The military assistance bill that the president signed includes $26 billion designed to “help ensure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself against the very real threats it faces from Iran, as well as Iran’s proxy groups.”

This is an extraordinary misrepresentation of the military aid going to Israel. First of all, Iran was previously  urging restraint on its “proxy groups” after an exchange of incidents with the United States earlier in the year. And then Israel assassinated top Iranian military leaders in Syria in early April, which has set in motion another cycle of escalations.

Second, it’s not all about defense. Sure, there’s $5.2 billion for missile defense (Iron Dome, Iron Beam). But there’s also $4.4 billion for Israel to restock its military coffers and $3.5 billion for advanced weaponry—so that the Israeli government can continue to wage war in Gaza.

The Biden administration still believes that its military aid provides leverage over the Israeli government. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is determined to demonstrate the opposite. As soon as the aid package passed, he launched more air strikes on Palestinians in Gaza (again killing mostly women and children) and announced that plans were still on track to invade the southern city of Rafah (over U.S. objections).

Washington is now pushing Hamas to accept a 40-day ceasefire. The Palestinian organization has insisted on a permanent ceasefire, though it might be mollified by an Israeli promise of the “restoration of sustainable calm.” Also on the table, reportedly, is “a willingness for full return of displaced Palestinians to their homes in northern Gaza and the withdrawal of the IDF from the corridor that divides the enclave and prevents freedom of movement,” according to Axios.

The Biden administration, pushing this ceasefire proposal, is trying to prove that it’s listening to domestic critics—congressional opposition, voters in swing states, student protestors on campus—as well as the more numerous critics of U.S. policy throughout the world, especially in the Global South. The administration must also take into account the most recent report that the International Criminal Court is on the verge of issuing arrest warrants against top Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, for actions taken in Gaza.

But the aid package to Israel suggests a continuation of business as usual. None of that military aid was conditioned on the behavior of the Israeli military.

Unless and until a U.S. administration applies some real sticks in its relations with Israel, the gulf between evolving U.S. public opinion and stagnant U.S. policymaking will remain huge.

The Rest of the Sausage

The third element of the aid package provides $8 billion to U.S. allies in Asia to counter China, which includes some key military upgrades for countries like Taiwan.

Although China has indeed been more assertive in recent years, the Biden administration is doing little to repair relations with Beijing. As long as Washington and Beijing get along, Taiwan can prosper in the shadows of international non-recognition. So, this money might have been better spent on collaborative projects with China, which are a more sustainable hedge against war.

Finally, in the bill’s fourth basket, the Republicans assembled a hodgepodge of initiatives against China (to ban TikTok), Russia (to use frozen assets), and Iran (more sanctions). How long will it take the United States to figure out that punitive measures like these tend to push adversaries together? By all means, let’s isolate the one country that has invaded a neighboring democracy. But the United States should be much more strategic about how it can woo Iran and China to make Russia’s isolation more complete.

But that would require much smarter sausage-making. And so far, U.S. policymakers don’t seem up to the task.

Via Foreign Policy in Focus

( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – The three major wars or conflicts that are ongoing today demonstrate the volatility of the intersection between the local and the global.

In the Hamas-Israeli conflict, we see how the maintenance of the Israeli settler-colonial state is intertwined with the preservation of the global hegemony of the United States.

In the war in Ukraine, a bloody war of attrition between two countries was provoked by Washington’s push to expand NATO to a country of the former Soviet Union.

In the South China Sea, we are witnessing how disputes over territory and natural resources have been elevated to a global conflict by the U.S. effort to maintain its global hegemony against China, to which it is losing the geoeconomic competition but over which it continues to enjoy absolute military superiority.

In short, the main cause of global instability today lies in the fusion of the local and the global, geopolitics and geoeconomics, empire and capitalism.

Balance of Power, Balance of Terror

What makes current conflicts especially volatile is that they are occurring amidst the absence of any effective multilateral coercive authority to impose a peaceful settlement. In Ukraine, it is the balance of military might that will determine the outcome of the war, and here Russia seems to be prevailing over the Ukraine-NATO-U.S. axis.

In the Middle East, there is no effective coercive power to oppose the Israeli-U.S. military behemoth—which makes it all the more remarkable that despite a genocidal campaign that has been going on for nearly four months now, Israel has not achieved its principal war aim of destroying Hamas.

In the South China Sea, what determines the course of events is the balance of power between China and the United States. There are no “rules of the game,” so that there is always a possibility  that American and Chinese ships playing “chicken”–or heading for each other, then swerving at the last minute–can accidentally collide, and this collision can escalate to a higher form of conflict such as a conventional war.

Without effective coercive constraints imposed by a multilateral organization on the hegemon and its allies, the latter can easily descend into genocide and mass murder. Whether in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Gaza, the Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Genocide, have been shown to be mere pieces of paper.

The Right of Self Defense

Given the absence of a multilateral referee that can impose its will, it is only the development of political, diplomatic, and military counterpower that can restrain the hegemon. This is the lesson that national liberation wars in Algeria and Vietnam taught the world. This is the lesson that the Palestinian resistance today teaches us.

This is why even as we condemn wars of empire waged by the hegemon, we must defend the right of people to resort to armed self-defense.

Al Jazeera English Video: “Overnight attacks hit central Gaza”

This does not mean that efforts at peacemaking by global civil society have no role to play. They do. I still remember how shortly before the invasion of Iraq, The New York Times came out with an article on February 17, 2003, in response to massive mobilizations against the planned invasion of Iraq, that said that there were only two superpowers left in the world, and they were the United States and global public opinion, and that then President George W. Bush ignored this outpouring of global resistance at his peril.

Global civil society did contribute to the ending of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq by eroding the legitimacy of those wars among the U.S. public, making them so unpopular that even Donald Trump denounced them–in retrospect that is–as did many personalities that had voted for war in the U.S. Congress.

The recent decision of the International Court of Justice that has ordered Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza is likely to have a similar impact as global civil society’s resistance to Bush, Jr’s, invasion of Iraq. The ICJ decision may not have an immediate impact on the ongoing war, but it will erode the legitimacy of the project of settler colonialism and apartheid in the long run, deepening the isolation of Israel in the long run.

A Just Peace

We often see peace as an ideal state. But the peace of the graveyard is not peace. A peace bought at the price of fascist repression not only is not desirable but it will not last.

Oppressed peoples like the Palestinians will refuse peace at any price, peace that is obtained at the price of humiliation. As they have shown in the 76 years since the Nakba, their massive expulsion from their lands and homes, the Palestinians will not settle for anything less than peace with justice, one that enables them to recover their lands seized by Israelis, establish a sovereign state “from the river to the sea,” and allow them to hold their heads up in pride.

The rest of the world owes them its wholehearted support to realize such a just peace through all possible means, even as we work to oppose wars of empire waged by hegemons in other parts of the world.

Via Foreign Policy in Focus

Does their nationality have anything to do with their alleged terrorism? Many Russians probably think so.

Tajikistan, a landlocked country of 10 million sandwiched between Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and China, is the most impoverished of the former Soviet republics. Known for its corruption and political repression, it has chafed under the iron-fisted rule of President Emomali Rahmon since 1994.

There are estimated to be well over three million Tajiks living in Russia, about one-third of the total Tajik population. Most of them hold the precarious status of “guest workers,” holding low-paying jobs in construction, produce markets or even cleaning public toilets.

While Russia’s declining population has led to increasing reliance on foreign workers to fill such needs within its labour force, the attitude of Russians towards natives of Central Asia and the Caucasus region is generally negative.

It’s similar to the American stereotype about Mexicans so infamously expressed by Donald Trump in 2015: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

CBC News Video: “Why would ISIS-K attack Russia? | Front Burner

Non-Slavs are systematically discriminated against in Russia, and since 2022 they have been disproportionately conscripted and sent to Ukraine to serve as cannon fodder at the front.

Tajik exclusion

As I have described in a recent book, few nations in history have seen their standing so dramatically reduced as the Tajiks have over the past 100 years.

For more than a millennium, the Tajiks — Persian-speaking descendants of the ancient Sogdians who dominated the Silk Road — were Central Asia’s cultural elite.

Beginning with what’s known as the New Persian Renaissance of the 10th century when their capital, Bukhara, came to rival Baghdad as a centre of Islamic learning and high culture, Tajiks were the principal scholars and bureaucrats of Central Asia’s major cities right up to the time of the Russian Revolution.

The famous medieval polymath Avicenna was an ethnic Tajik, as were the hadith collector Bukhari, the Sufi poet Rumi, and many others.

But as the most significant purveyors of Central Asia’s Islamic civilization, Tajiks were seen by the Bolsheviks as representing an obsolete legacy that socialism aimed to overcome.

The Tajiks were virtually excluded from the massive social and political restructuring imposed on Central Asia during the early years of the Soviet Union, with most of their historical territory, including the fabled cities of Samarkand and Bukhara, being awarded to the Turkic-speaking Uzbeks who were seen as being more malleable.

Only as late as 1929 were the Tajiks given their own republic, consisting mostly of marginal, mountainous territory and deprived of any major urban centres.

Impoverished

Throughout the 20th century, the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic was the most impoverished and underdeveloped region of the former Soviet Union, and it has retained that unfortunate status since independence in 1991.

From 1992-1997, the country was plunged into a devastating civil war that destroyed what infrastructure remained from the Soviet period. Since that time, Rahmon has used the threat of renewed civil conflict to vindicate his absolute rule.

The spectre of radical Islam emanating from neighbouring Afghanistan — where the Tajik population considerably outnumbers that of Tajikistan — has provided additional justification for Rahmon’s repressive policies.

In today’s Tajikistan even those with a university education find it almost impossible to earn a salary that would enable them to build a normal family life.

Disempowered and humiliated by the system, they are easy prey for radical Islamic preachers who give them a sense of value and purpose.

The added backdrop of financial desperation makes for an explosive cocktail: one of the suspects in the recent Moscow attacks reportedly told his Russian interrogators that he was promised a cash reward of half a million Russian rubles (about US$5,300) to carry out his alleged atrocities..

Terrorism as desperation?

Normal, sane human beings everywhere are horrified by terrorist acts regardless of how they are justified by their perpetrators, and the long-suffering people of Tajikistan are no exception.

But unfortunately, the conditions under which a small number of extremists can perceive the psychopathic murder of innocent civilians for cash or ideology as an attractive option show no signs of abating.

Russia’s laughable attempt to somehow link the Moscow attacks to Ukraine is a clumsy diversion from the consequences of its relations with Central Asia.

Richard Foltz, Professor of Religions and Cultures, Concordia University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Russia is reeling from the worst terror strike on its soil in a generation following an attack on March 22, 2024, that killed at least 137 concertgoers in Moscow.

The attack has been claimed by the Islamic State group. And despite Russian authorities expressing doubt over the claim, U.S. officials told The Associated Press that they believed ISIL-K, a South and Central Asian affiliate of the terrorist organization, was behind the assault.

It comes amid heightened concern over the scope of ISIL-K activities following recent terrorist operations in countries including Iran and Pakistan. The Conversation turned to Clemson University’s Amira Jadoon and Sara Harmouch of American University – terrorism experts who have tracked the activities of ISIL-K – to explain what this latest deadly attack tells us about the organization’s strengths and agenda.

What is ISIL-K?

ISIL-K, short for Islamic State Khorasan Province, is a regional affiliate of the larger Islamic State group.

The affiliate group operates primarily in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, although it has presence throughout the historical “Khorasan” – a region that includes parts of the modern-day nations of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, along with other Central Asian countries.

Established in 2015, ISIL-K aims to establish a physical “caliphate” – a system of governing a society under strict Islamic Sharia law and under religious leadership – in the South and Central Asian region.

What to know about ISIS-K, the group that claimed the Moscow attack • FRANCE 24 English Video

ISIL-K’s beliefs follow the ideology of its parent organization, the Islamic State group, which promotes an extreme interpretation of Islam and sees secular government actors, as well as non-Muslim and Muslim minority civilian populations, as legitimate targets.

The group is known for its extreme brutality and for targeting both government institutions and civilians, including mosques, educational institutions and public spaces.

Following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, ISIL-K’s key objectives have been to diminish the now-ruling Taliban’s legitimacy in the war-ravaged nation, assert itself as the rightful leader of the Muslim community and emerge as the principal regional adversary to regimes it deems oppressive.

Moreover, the Taliban’s transition from an insurgency group to a governing entity left numerous militant factions in Afghanistan without a unifying force – a gap that ISIL-K has aimed to fill.

Why was Russia targeted by ISIL-K?

ISIL-K has long framed Russia as one of its main adversaries. It has heavily featured anti-Russian rhetoric in its propaganda and has attacked Russia’s presence within Afghanistan. This includes a suicide attack on Russia’s embassy in Kabul in 2022 that left two Russian Embassy staff and six Afghans dead.

The broader Islamic State group has targeted Russia for several reasons.

They include long-standing grievances relating to Moscow’s historical interventions in Muslim-majority regions like Chechnya and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Russia’s partnerships with regimes opposed by the Islamic State group, notably Syria and Iran, have positioned Russia as a primary adversary in the eyes of the terrorist organization and its affiliates.

In particular, Russia has been a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since the beginning of Syria’s civil war in 2011, providing military support to the Assad regime against various opposition groups, including the Islamic State group.

This direct opposition to the terrorist group and its caliphate ambitions has rendered Russia as a prime target for retaliation.

Moreover, Russia’s cooperation with the Taliban – ISIL-K’s key nemesis in Afghanistan – adds another layer of animosity. The Islamic State group views countries and groups that oppose its ideology or military objectives as enemies of Islam, including actors who seek to establish relations with the Taliban.

By attacking Russian targets, ISIL-K in part seeks to deter further Russian involvement in the Middle East. But also, such attacks provide high publicity for its cause and aim to inspire its supporters worldwide.

As such, for the Islamic State brand, the Moscow attack serves as retribution for perceived grievances held against Russia, while also projecting global reach. This approach can provide significant dividends, especially for its South and Central Asian affiliate, in the form of increased recruitment, funding and influence across the jihadist spectrum.

What does the attack tell us about ISIL-K capabilities?

The mere association of ISIL-K with this attack, whether it was directly or indirectly involved, bolsters the group’s reputation.

Overall, the attack signals ISIL-K’s growing influence and its determination to make its presence felt on the global stage.

Being linked to a high-profile attack in a major city far from its base in Afghanistan indicates that ISIL-K can extend its operational reach either directly or through collaboration with like-minded militant factions.

The scale and sophistication of the attack reflect advanced planning, coordination and execution capabilities. This only reaffirms unequivocally ISIL-K’s intent, adaptability and determination to internationalize its agenda.

Similar to ISIL-K’s attack in Iran in January 2024 that left over 100 dead, this latest atrocity serves to reinforce ISIL-K’s stated commitment to the broader global jihadist agenda of the Islamic State group, and helps broaden the appeal of its ideology and recruitment campaign.

How does this fit ISIL-K’s strategy?

The attack in Moscow serves as a powerful recruitment and propaganda tool by attracting international media attention to the group. This allows it to remain politically relevant to its audiences across South and Central Asia, and beyond.

But it also helps divert attention from local setbacks for ISIL-K. Like its parent organization Islamic State group, ISIL-K has been confronted with military defeats, loss of territory and leadership and diminishing resources.

In the face of such challenges, ISIL-K’s potential links to the attack in Moscow remind observers of its persistent threat and adaptability.

By targeting a major power like Russia, ISIL-K aims to project a broader message of intimidation aimed at other states involved in anti-Islamic State group operations and undermine the public’s sense of security.

Additionally, operations such as the Moscow attack seek to solidify ISIL-K’s position within the broader Islamic State group network, potentially securing more support and resources.

More broadly, the strategy follows a process of “internationalizing” ISIL-K’s agenda – something it has pursued with renewed vigor since 2021 by targeting the countries with a presence in Afghanistan, including Pakistan, India, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, China and Russia, marking a deliberate expansion of its operational focus beyond local borders.

The Moscow attack, following the January assault in Iran, suggests that ISIL-K is intensifying efforts to export its ideological fight directly to the territories of sovereign nations.

It is a calculated strategy and, as the Moscow attack has exemplified, one that has the potential to strike fear in capitals far beyond ISIL-K’s traditional base.

Sara Harmouch, PhD Candidate, School of Public Affairs, American University and Amira Jadoon, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Clemson University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Terrorism is inexcusable and horrific. It does not, however, occur in a vacuum. The attack likely came in revenge for two of Vladimir Putin’s most important projects. The first was the crushing of separatist Chechens in 1999-2009 and after. In recent years Putin’s government has continued to fight a low-intensity counter-insurgency in south Caucasian territories such as Ingushetia. CNN reports that earlier this month Russian forces killed 6 ISIL guerrillas in the city of Karabulak in Ingushetia, an almost entirely Muslim republic within the Russian Federation.

Al Jazeera English: “ISIL claims responsibility for Moscow concert attack”

The second relevant Putin project is his intervention in the Syrian Civil War to flatten the opposition to the dynasty of Bashar al-Assad. Although the civil war began with demands from a range of Syrian opposition forces for more civil liberties, that initial movement was repressed by the regime using military force on civilians. Many in the opposition turned to the Gulf for funding, and the price of admission was growing beards and adopting Muslim fundamentalist rhetoric. They could not get funding from most liberal democracies. Putin was alarmed that Muslim fundamentalists might sweep into Damascus and take the capital. Syria isn’t that far from Chechnya, and some Russian Muslims from Chechnya and Ingushetia had volunteered to go off to Syria and fight the al-Assad regime.

The Syrian army was unable to defeat the rebels, having shrunk through desertion. In 2015 Putin started flying fighter jets against the rebels, giving air support to the Syrian Arab Army and to the Shiite militias from Lebanon (Hezbollah) and Iraq that were fighting the Sunni rebels. The latter were defeated in much of the country and their remnants were bottled up on the northern province of Idlib. With the effective end of the insurgency, some of the Chechens and Muslims from Ingushetia began returning home. Unless they were known to and could be proved to have committed war crimes, these returnees were allowed to reintegrate into Caucasian society according to the Central Asia- Caucasus Analyst.

The exact identity of the ISIL operatives who committed the atrocity on Friday is not clear. But it is likely that this act of terror is blowback from the Russian leveling of Grozny, Chechnya, in the early years of this century and the Russian leveling of East Aleppo. It isn’t right, and it isn’t fair to the innocent concert-goers who lost their lives or those of their friends and family. It is cowardly to attack soft targets and noncombatants. And like most ISIL operations, it is terminally stupid, since it won’t cause Russia to back off any policies in the Caucasus or Syria and has the potential to make life miserable for the 9% of the Russian population that consists of Muslims. But it did not happen with no context.

Ironically, Russian officials initially intimated that Ukraine was behind the attack. That shows a bad conscience over their indiscriminate bombing of civilians in that country, which is also terrorism.