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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Chaos Diplomacy

Donald Trump has always understood one thing better than most modern politicians that markets respond to perception. In the grinding drama over Iran, the American president appears to have weaponised uncertainty itself. One day he hints at a diplomatic breakthrough with Tehran and signals the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz which causes investors to breathe a sigh of relief. However, hours later, he reverses course by declaring there is “no rush” for a deal and that restrictions will remain...

Chaos Diplomacy

Donald Trump has always understood one thing better than most modern politicians that markets respond to perception. In the grinding drama over Iran, the American president appears to have weaponised uncertainty itself. One day he hints at a diplomatic breakthrough with Tehran and signals the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz which causes investors to breathe a sigh of relief. However, hours later, he reverses course by declaring there is “no rush” for a deal and that restrictions will remain until Iran bends fully to American conditions. The markets wobble again Trump’s defenders may argue that unpredictability is a negotiating tactic. Henry Kissinger once cultivated strategic ambiguity during the Cold War. Richard Nixon perfected the so-called ‘madman theory’ to keep adversaries guessing. Yet Trump’s oscillations differ in both scale and intent. In recent weeks, analysts and ethics experts in the United States have raised uncomfortable questions about whether political messaging is increasingly shaping market volatility in ways that benefit insiders, speculators and politically connected traders. When geopolitical brinkmanship begins to resemble a financial instrument, public trust in democratic institutions erodes. Nearly a fifth of the world’s oil passes through Hormuz. A closure or blockade affects fuel prices in Mumbai as much as manufacturing costs in Shanghai or inflation in Berlin. Trump’s repeated shifts between escalation and reconciliation have had grave implications for India, which imports more than 80 percent of its crude oil requirements. Any prolonged instability in Hormuz translates directly into higher import bills, inflationary pressures and stress on the rupee while ratcheting prices of essentials. India has spent years carefully balancing its ties between Iran, the Gulf monarchies and the United States. Tehran remains important for connectivity projects such as Chabahar Port and for India’s access to Central Asia. But allies and adversaries alike are forced into a perpetual state of recalibration because American policy itself appears unstable. Trump’s Iran manoeuvring reflects a dangerous transformation in global politics, which is the merger of geopolitics with spectacle capitalism. International crises are increasingly consumed like market-moving entertainment. This may generate short-term leverage for him or even produce tactical victories at the negotiating table. Iran, under immense economic strain, reportedly agreeing in principle to surrender its highly enriched uranium stockpile is no small development. Yet diplomacy built on volatility carries long-term costs and lead to the weakening of institutions. Markets become addicted to chaos and chaos, once normalised, rarely remains controllable. The world’s largest economy cannot afford to conduct foreign policy like a reality television script, with cliffhangers designed to manipulate sentiment every news cycle. Great powers are supposed to provide stability, not amplify uncertainty for strategic theatrics. Trump may believe that time is on America’s side. But for an anxious global economy already strained by wars, inflation and fragmentation, time spent trapped in manufactured uncertainty is becoming increasingly expensive.

Faith Under Siege

Updated: Mar 6, 2025

Pakistan’s relentless persecution of the Ahmadiyya is a stark illustration of the state’s wanton submission to extremist groups.

Pakistan

Pakistan’s leaders routinely decry Islamophobia abroad, demanding protection for Muslim minorities in the West. Our neighbour’s hypocrisy is breathtaking, given that within its own borders, Pakistan presides over the relentless targeting of one of its own Islamic sects – the Ahmadiyya.


The latest chapter in this painful saga of persecution is the destruction of a 120-year-old Ahmadiyya place of worship carried out by the police, under pressure from the radical Islamist group Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP). Five Ahmadis were detained for protesting the demolition. The authorities, when questioned, cited complaints that the building’s minarets resembled those of a traditional mosque - an offence under Pakistan’s draconian religious laws.


Pakistan’s Ahmadiyya Muslims have long been subject to systemic repression, but recent events suggest a dangerous escalation. What was once the work of vigilantes has now been institutionalized, as law enforcement authorities have begun tearing down houses of worship with its own hands.


The Ahmadiyya movement was founded in British India in 1889 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who claimed to be a divinely appointed reformer and messiah. His teachings, which diverged from mainstream Sunni and Shia interpretations of Islam, led to immediate backlash. However, under colonial rule, the British largely protected the community from violent repression. That fragile security collapsed after Partition.


In 1974, Pakistan’s Parliament, under Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, officially declared Ahmadis ‘non-Muslims,’ a decision driven by a mix of political expediency and religious orthodoxy. A decade later, under the military dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq, laws were enacted making it a criminal offense for Ahmadis to ‘pose’ as Muslims. Their crime? Using Islamic greetings, calling their places of worship ‘mosques,’ or reciting verses from the Quran in public.


The religious apartheid embedded in Pakistan’s legal framework laid the groundwork for what has followed: mob violence, targeted assassinations, desecration of graves and the demolition of Ahmadiyya religious sites carried out with impunity.


Enter Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, a hardline Barelvi Islamist movement that has weaponized street power and religious extremism. Founded in 2015, TLP burst onto the scene demanding the execution of blasphemy accused and leveraging mass protests to paralyze the government. Time and again, Pakistani authorities have capitulated to its demands.


The group’s primary ideological fuel is the defence of Pakistan’s notorious blasphemy laws, under which minorities - Ahmadis, Christians, Hindus - live in perpetual fear of being accused, arrested or lynched. But TLP’s vendetta against Ahmadis is particularly intense. The movement’s narrative frames the Ahmadiyya faith as an existential threat to Islam, and its leaders have repeatedly called for their complete exclusion from society.


A wave of Ahmadiyya mosque demolitions last month shows how far this ideology has seeped into state institutions. In Lubbay, Sialkot district, the police detained a local Ahmadi leader and then destroyed his community’s mosque. In Pasrur, law enforcement officers stood by as a TLP-led mob razed an Ahmadi place of worship. And in Rahim Yar Khan, the authorities assured Ahmadis of their protection, only to personally demolish their mosque a day before TLP’s deadline.


The targeting of Ahmadiyyas isn’t limited to places of worship. Their graves are vandalized, their businesses boycotted, and their jobs stripped away. Just this year, 91 Ahmadiyya graves were desecrated across Pakistan. Teachers, doctors and engineers have been harassed out of their professions. In public discourse, the word “Ahmadi” is often hurled as an insult.


In the country’s electoral system, Ahmadiyyas are effectively disenfranchised. Unlike other religious minorities who vote under a joint electorate, Ahmadiyyas must register separately, declaring themselves non-Muslims in the process. Many refuse, leaving them politically invisible.


International human rights organizations have long condemned the country’s Ahmadiyya policies but Western governments, preoccupied with security cooperation, have often looked the other way. Pakistan’s refusal to protect its minorities is a major crisis of governance. The more the state succumbs to extremist demands, the more it undermines its own authority.

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