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Amid reports that the Trump administration is likely to adopt a tougher stance on Pakistan for its alleged role in the growing instability in Afghanistan, New Delhi and Kabul have started air cargo operations between the two countries. The move may be seen as an attempt to outflank Pakistan, which is Afghanistans largest trading partner and together with Iran is the principal conduit for its overseas trade.

On the occasion of the inaugural cargo flight, which carried Afghan exports worth $5 million to India, President Ashraf Ghani vowed to change Afghanistan to an exporter country. Here is an objective no one would disagree with. There is a close and reciprocal link between economic revival and political instability in Afghanistan. Years of infighting ravaged the Afghan economy. On the other hand, a feeble economy has thwarted efforts for peace and reconciliation and encouraged corruption as mighty warlords competed for meagre resources. It also reduced Afghanistan to a vassal state, serving the foreign policy objectives which are often mutually incompatible of the key regional and international players.

At present, the $18 billion Afghan economy one of the smallest and the poorest in the world runs almost entirely on assistance from international donors. The country also faces a persistently huge balance of payment problem, as exports (worth $521 million) lag far behind imports (worth $3.3 billion). The Afghans need to narrow the trade deficit and start looking inwards to keep the wheels of the economy moving. As a result, an overwhelming dependence on foreign capital inflows will continue to rob the country of whatever sovereignty it is left with. But this is a case of easier said than done. An economy in tatters that rests on only a handful of agro-based industries and works in the shadow of terrorism, is extremely difficult to shape up.

It is customary for the Afghan leadership to blame Pakistan for all their economic and political problems. Being a landlocked country, Afghanistan has remained dependent on Pakistan for its foreign trade. The access was first provided to it through the Afghan Transit Trade Agreement of 1965 and currently it is granted through the Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA). However, instead of cementing bilateral relations, transit trade has remained a source of friction between both countries.

There are at least three problems with Afghan transit trade. First, it is a conduit for smuggling. This is primarily because import tariffs in Afghanistan are much lower as there is no domestic industry worth mentioning to protect. The tariff gap between Pakistan and Afghanistan countries provides one of the strongest incentives for smuggling. Several products that are sent to Afghanistan eventually find their way back into Pakistan. This affects the local industry. Pakistan has responded by putting a few items on the negative list of transit trade and subjecting the merchandise and the carriers to greater checks than the Afghans would like.

Second, as in the case of India, political issues have cast a pall over Pakistans trade relations with Afghanistan as well. Both countries have incessantly accused each other of patronising anti-state elements. Whenever terrorists strike in Afghanistan, the people at the helm in Kabul invariably point fingers at Pakistan. By the same token, several incidents of terrorism taking place in Pakistan such as the December 2014 Army Public School tragedy in Peshawar have been attributed to militants residing in Afghanistan.

In recent months, the tense bilateral relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have led to the closure of the Pak-Afghan borders at Torkham and Chaman on quite a few occasions including for two weeks between February and March. Even when the borders are open, heightened security measures tend to slow down the movement of traffic. The closure of the borders is seen by the Afghans as an attempt by Pakistan to squeeze them economically.

The third problem stems from the inability to allow Indian exports access to Afghanistan via the land route. The APTTA allows Afghan exports to India through the Wagah border. But it doesnt extend the same facility to the Indian exports destined to Afghanistan. Pakistan has itself restricted trade with India and even fewer Indian exports are allowed through Wagah.

New Delhi has tricked Kabul into believing that by not allowing Indian exports overland access to Afghanistan, Pakistan is hurting the Afghan economy. At present, the total Indo-Afghan trade amounts to $551 million which include exports worth $130 million from Afghanistan and $421 million from India. This is much lower than Pak-Afghan trade worth $1.57 billion (exports worth $1.34 billion from Pakistan and exports amounting to $227 million from Afghanistan).

Any attempt to open up trade with India will, by no means, tilt the balance of trade in Afghanistans favours as the Indians have much more to sell to the Afghans than the other way round. Rather it will drive up Indian exports to Afghanistan and may even exacerbate Afghanistans overall balance of payment situation. This will, in turn, shore up the countrys dependence on foreign assistance including that from New Delhi. As a result, the greater the volume of Indo-Afghan trade, the higher is likely to be the Afghanistans indebtedness to India.

By Indian standards, Afghanistan is a small market. If a purely economic logic is anything to go by, it should not hold much of an attraction for the Indians. But the economy has never been the mainspring of New Delhis overtures towards Kabul. What it has set upon itself and has already achieved a lot through is the strong commercial and political presence in the war-torn but strategically important country. Given the zero-sum game that New Delhi and Islamabad are engaged in, any gains made by India anywhere are seen by both countries as a loss for Pakistan and vice versa. As a result, the growing warmth in New Delhi-Kabul relations are perceived to be an affront to Pakistan.

Speaking in economic terms, Pakistan possibly losing out from stronger Indo-Afghan ties is not a question of mere perceptions. Afghanistan is among the largest export markets for us. It is also one of the few countries with which we run more than a billion-dollar trade surplus. In case Indian exports get overland transit to Afghanistan, they could displace a large chunk of exports from Pakistan and thereby result in the loss of an important market. In addition, Afghan trade is a source of substantial commercial activity in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where economic opportunities are otherwise meagre.

In part, India has sought to get over the problem by helping build the Chabahar Port in south-east Iran and connecting infrastructure in Afghanistan and using it to export merchandise to Afghanistan and beyond that to Central Asia. Though it has been carried out on a much lower scale reflecting the relative economic strengths of the two countries the Indian investment in Chabahar has also been compared with that of China in Gwadar.

Iran is another country in the region which is on excellent terms with the people at the helm in Kabul for being on the same page on security-related matters. Its also one of the largest trading partners of Afghanistan. The coldness that in recent years has characterised Islamabad-Tehran relations for one reason or another has also served to bring Iran closer to India and Afghanistan. But can the Kabul-Tehran-New Delhi nexus help Afghanistan get out of the catch-22? The Afghans must try to answer this question.

The writer is a freelance countributor.

Email: [emailprotected]

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Beyond Afghanistan's catch-22 - The News International

WASHINGTON: A key US Senate panel has asked the Pentagon to identify ways for India to play a larger role in providing increased and coordinated defence-related support to Afghanistan.

US Senator Dan Sullivan presented a resolution in this regard on Thursday and it was passed by the Senate Armed Services Committee as part of the the National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA-2018). The committee authorised $640 billion in critical defence spending for Fiscal Year 2018.

"This provision encourages the Department of Defence to identify ways that India can play a larger role in providing increased and coordinated defence-related support to Afghanistan, a critical part of overcoming the current 'stalemate' in the fight against the Taliban," said a statement by the office of Sullivan.

"Encourage Increased Role for India in Afghanistan" was one of the 24 amendments unanimously passed by the Senate committee.

Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary James Mattis called on NATO allies to "finish the job in Afghanistan" or risk "terrorist revenge" as the alliance confirmed a troop increase to counter a resurgent Taliban.

"The bottom line is that NATO has made a commitment to Afghanistan for freedom from fear and terror, and freedom from terror demands that you can't let this be undone," he added.

The US, which once had more than 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, is preparing a new strategy for a war which has dragged on for 16 years and which even US generals concede is a "stalemate" at best.

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Pentagon asked to identify increased role for India in Afghanistan - Economic Times

Iran is accusing U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson of "a brazen interventionist plan" to change the current government that violates international law and the U.N. Charter.

Iran's U.N. Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo said in a letter to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres circulated Tuesday that Tillerson's comments are also "a flagrant violation" of the 1981 Algiers Accords in which the United States pledged "not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran's internal affairs."

Tillerson said in a June 14 hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the 2018 State Department budget that U.S. policy is to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons "and work toward support of those elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of that government."

"Those elements are there, certainly as we know," he said.

Kohshroo said Iran expects all countries to condemn "such grotesque policy statements and advise the government of the United States to act responsibly and to adhere to the principles of the (U.N.) Charter and international law."

He noted that Tillerson's comments came weeks after President Hassan Rouhani's re-election to another four-year term and local elections in which 71 percent of the Iranian people participated. Rouhani is a political moderate who defeated a hardline opponent.

"The people of Iran have repeatedly proven that they are the ones to decide their own destiny and thus attempts by the United States to interfere in Iranian domestic affairs will be doomed to failure," Kohshroo said. "They have learned how to stand strong and independent, as demonstrated in the Islamic Revolution of 1979."

He said Tillerson's statement also coincided with the released of newly declassified documents that "further clarified how United States agencies were behind the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh, the popular and democratically elected prime minister of Iran on Aug. 19, 1953."

At the June 14 hearing, Tillerson said the Trump administration's Iranian policy is under development.

"But I would tell you that we certainly recognize Iran's continued destabilizing (role) in the region," Tillerson said, citing its payment of foreign fighters, support for Hezbollah extremists, and "their export of militia forces in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen."

U.S. lawmakers have long sought to hit Iran with more sanctions in order to check its ballistic missile program and rebuke Tehran's continued support for terrorist groups, and on June 15 the Senate approved a sweeping sanctions bill..

The bill imposes mandatory sanctions on people involved in Iran's ballistic missile program and anyone who does business with them. The measure also would apply terrorism sanctions to the country's Revolutionary Guards and enforce an arms embargo. It now goes to the House.

Senators insisted the new Iran sanctions won't undermine or impede enforcement of the landmark nuclear deal that former president Barack Obama and five other key nations reached with Tehran two years ago.

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Iran accuses US of 'brazen plan' to change its government ...

Deadly heat waves are going to become more frequent according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change. Ryan Sartor (@ryansartor) has that story. Buzz60

After a high temperature of 129 on Thursday, "cooler" weather is forecast for the next few days in Ahvaz, Iran.(Photo: AccuWeather)

The southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz soared to a brutal 129 degrees Thursday, which is Iran's highest temperature ever recorded.

It's also one of theworld's hottest reliably measured temperatures and the highest June temperature in Asia on record.

The information comes from Etienne Kapikian, a meteorologist with Meteo France, the French national weather service.

Officially, he said the temperature was53.7 degrees Celsius, which is128.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Irans previous hottest temperature was 127.4 degrees.

Another weather source, the Weather Underground, said Ahvaz hit 129.2 degrees Thursday afternoon. The heat index, which also takes humidity into account, hit an incredible 142 degrees.

Fortunately, the weather forecast for Ahvaz on Friday is for "cooler" weather, with a high of only 119 degrees, according to AccuWeather.

The official all-time world record temperature remains the 134-degree temperature measured at Death Valley, Calif, on July 10, 1913. However, some experts say that temperature isn't reliable. Weather Underground weather historian Christopher Burt said in 2016 that such an extreme temperature was "not possible from a meteorological perspective."

Scorching heat is one of the most expected outcomes of man-made climate change, according to a 2016 report from the National Academy of Sciences and a 2015 study in Nature Climate Change.

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Ahvaz, Iran, reached 129 degrees: Earth's hottest temperature ...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Once expunged from its official history, documents outlining the U.S.-backed 1953 coup in Iran have been quietly published by the State Department, offering a new glimpse at an operation that ultimately pushed the country toward its Islamic Revolution and hostility with the West.

The CIAs role in the coup, which toppled Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh and cemented the control of the shah, was already well-known by the time the State Department offered its first compendium on the era in 1989. But any trace of American involvement in the putsch had been wiped from the report, causing historians to call it a fraud.

The papers released in June show U.S. fears over the spread of communism, as well as the British desire to regain access to Irans oil industry, which had been nationalized by Mosaddegh. It also offers a cautionary tale about the limits of American power as a new U.S. president long suspicious of Iran weighs the landmark nuclear deal with Tehran reached under his predecessor.

It exposes more about what we know about this milestone event in Middle East history and especially U.S.-Iran history. This is still such an important, emotional benchmark for Iranians, said Malcolm Byrne, who has studied Iran at the non-governmental National Security Archive at George Washington University. Many people see it as the day that Iranian politics turned away from any hope of democracy.

The 1,007-page report , comprised of letters and diplomatic cables, shows U.S. officials discussing a coup up to a year before it took place. While America worried about Soviet influence in Iran, the British remained focused on resolving a dispute over the nationalization of the countrys oil refinery at Abadan, at the time one of the worlds largest. Many also feared further instability following the 1951 assassination of Premier Ali Razmara.

Nationalization of the oil industry possibly combined with further assassinations of top Iran officials, including even the shah, could easily lead to a complete breakdown of the Iran government and social order, from which a pro-Soviet regime might well emerge leaving Iran as a satellite state, one undated CIA analysis from the report warned.

Out of that fear grew TPAJAX, the CIA codename for the coup plot. Papers show the CIA at one point stockpiled enough arms and demolition material to support a 10,000-man guerrilla organization for six months, and paid out $5.3 million for bribes and other costs, which would be equivalent to $48 million today. One CIA document casually refers to the fact that several leading members of these (Iranian) security services are paid agents of this organization.

The CIA also described hoping to use powerfully influential clergy within Shiite Iran to back the coup, something that would be anathema by the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It offers no definitive proof of that, though several documents show American officials in contact with Ayatollah Abol-Ghasem Kashani, an anti-British leader in the Iranian parliament who turned against Mosaddegh.

The agency faced problems, however, chief among them Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi himself. Diplomats and spies referred to him as a weak reed and petulant.

His inability to take decisions coupled with his tendency to interfere in political life has on occasions been (a) disruptive influence, the U.S. Embassy in Tehran warned in February 1953. Ultimately, his twin sister Princess Ashraf and a U.S. general helped convince him.

Mosaddegh was tipped off about the coup, and it appeared doomed as the shah fled to Baghdad and later Italy. But protests supporting the shah, fanned in part by the CIA, led to Mosaddeghs fall and the monarchs return.

The report fills in the large gaps of the initial 1989 historical document outlining the years surrounding the 1953 coup in Iran. The release of that report led to the resignation of the historian in charge of a State Department review board and to Congress passing a law requiring a more reliable historical account be made.

Byrne and others have suggested the release of the latest documents may have been delayed by the nuclear negotiations, as the Obama administration sought to ease tensions with Tehran, and then accelerated under President Donald Trump, who has adopted a much more confrontational stance toward Iran.

Byrne said the new administration needed just two months to agree to release the documents. That kind of speed is unheard of in the government unless there is some sort of political foundation, he said.

Die-hard opponents of Irans current government might look to 1953 as a source of inspiration. But the Americans involved in the coup acknowledged at the time they were playing with fire.

Widespread Iranian anger over the heavy-handed Western intervention lingered for decades, and fed into the 1979 revolution, when Iranians seized control of the U.S. Embassy and held those inside captive for 444 days. To this day Irans clerical leaders portray the U.S. as a hostile foreign power bent on subverting and overthrowing its government.

As President Dwight Eisenhower wrote in his diary in 1953, if knowledge of the coup became public, We would not only be embarrassed in that region, but our chances to do anything of like nature in the future would almost totally disappear. (AP)

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Declassified files show US hand in 1953 Iran coup - The Philadelphia Tribune