28-02-2021

SUnDAY, FEbRUARY 28, 2021
4
Biden administration sending wrong message to Iran regime
Acting Editor & Publisher : Jobaer Alam
e-mail: editor@thebangladeshtoday.com
Sunday, February 28, 2021
Maintaining food
security
Though the UN has warned that coronavirus protective
measures could jeopardise food security around the
world, Bangladesh is unlikely to face such a problem if the
government can ensure people's access to food as it still has
enough stock of basic foodgrain.
But experts also said the government should not be
complacent with its food stock as it has a big challenge to ensure
its availability at the doorsteps of the affected people through
various social safety net programmes and food ratioing system,
and keep the prices of the essentials affordable through proper
market intervention in a bid to ensure food security.
According to the experts, the government's measures to
provide people with food aid are not sufficient when millions
involved in the informal sector have become temporarily
unemployed with the gradual loss of their buying capacity due
to the varying degrees of shutdown of economic activities. They
also warned that food security will not be ensured even after
having adequate volume of food grains as the system may fail to
ensure its availability at every nook and corner always within
the buying capacity of all.
Contacted, Sarwar Mahmud, the Directorate General (DG) of
Food, said the country is unlikely to face any food crisis even if
the coronavirus situation prevails for a long timed due to
adequate stock of food grains, including rice, wheat, potato and
other essential commodities. "We're not worried about food
security since Bangladesh is not a major food-deficit country.
We got a bountiful Aman and Boro rice production," he added.
Agriculture Secretary Md Nasiruzzaman said coronavirus has
no impact on Bangladesh's agriculture sector and they do not
think the country's food security will be at stake if the corona
situation prolongs."We've got a bumper production of Aman
and Aush crop. We'll also have had a good production of Boro.
We produced almost all crops and vegetables this season much
more than what we did last year. So, we won't face any food
crisis under any situation," he said.
Nasir said farmers produced around 23 lakh metric tonnes of
onion last year while they expect it to be more than 25 lakh
metric tonnes this year. "We got over one crore metric tonnes of
potato last year while the farmers produced around 1. 09 crore
metric tonnes of the crop this year against the local demand for
70,000 metric tonnes."
Besides, he said, farmers also this year produced over 5,000
metric tonnes of vegetables more than what they did last year.
"Agricultural activities remain unaffected amid the coronavirus
shutdown as farmers usually work maintaining social
distancing. Most of our crops, except Boro paddy, jute and
maize, have already been produced. So, there's no reason to be
worried about any food crisis."
Commerce Minister at a recent press confrere said the
government has enough stock of food grains and daily
household items. "There's no scope for shortage of food since
the government has stockpiled about 40 percent more goods
this year than it had last year," he said. The minister said 2.6
lakh tonnes of pulses were imported in 2018-19 financial year,
while 2.1 lakh tonnes pulses have already been imported over
the last seven months.
He said they have also imported enough edible oil and onion
to meet the local demand of the items. The former caretaker
government finance adviser Dr AB Mirza Azizul Islam said the
country may not face any food crisis as the stock looks enough
to deal with the coronavirus situation. "But the main worries are
whether people will have the access to food or the food will be
available for people at affordable prices."
He said people's buying capacity is declining with limiting of
most economic activities to prevent the virus. "Besides, many
people have lost their sources of earning and become
temporarily jobless. So, it's the main challenge to ensure food
for them by widening the social safety net programmes." The
noted economists said the government must strengthen its food
aid support mainly for the day-labourers and those involved in
informal sector alongside the BGF and OMS programmes for
the poor to ensure food safety of all citizens.
He said the government announced a stimulus package of Tk
5,000 crore for the RMG sector, but it did not spell out any such
package for those engaged in informal sector, the source of 85
percent of total employment in the country.
Mirza Aziz said the rich should come forward and corporate
houses should use their CSR funds to stand by the affected
people alongside the government to ensure food security.
Prof Mustafizur Rahman, Distinguished Fellow at the Centre
for Policy Dialogue (CPD), said Bangladesh is in a better
position than may other coronavirus-hit countries in terms of
food production and food stock. "But food security means not
only having adequate food grains. The proper distribution of
food, availability of food and people's purchasing capacity
involves the total food security notion."
He said nearly 1 core day-labourers have lost their jobs while
the overwhelming majority of 2.70 crore people in the informal
sector has become temporarily unemployed and they are
gradually losing their purchasing capacity. "The government
should look into this matter so that these huge number of
people can have food."
Besides, Mustafiz said, many people returned to their village
homes during the pandemic but they have no income now. "So,
the government must introduce food rationing system
alongside strengthening other programmes under social safety
net. Food security will be ensured when people will have access
to food." He said the government also must remain alert and
strengthen market monitoring so that unscrupulous
businessmen cannot create artificial food crisis taking
advantage of the situation.
The Iranian regime has begun
testing the Biden administration by
escalating its aggressive and
belligerent policies in the region. A
barrage of rockets on Saturday targeted
an airbase in Balad, north of Baghdad,
where a US defense company is based. A
few days before that, a dozen rockets
struck coalition forces at a US base next
to Irbil international airport, northern
Iraq. Six people were wounded and a
civilian contractor with the American-led
anti-Daesh coalition was killed. The
Kurdish authorities had to close the
airport for a short time and warned
residents to stay at home.
Shiite militant group Saraya Awliya Al-
Dam (the Guardians of Blood Brigade)
claimed responsibility for the attack on
Irbil. It has also threatened to cause
more bloodshed. According to the Site
Intelligence Group, a nongovernmental
organization that monitors the online
activities of armed organizations, the
militia group said in a statement: "The
American occupation will not be safe
from our strikes in any inch of the
homeland, even in Kurdistan, where we
promise we will carry out other
qualitative operations."
The Iranian regime most likely
sponsors this little-known militia group.
It is also likely that Saraya Awliya Al-
Dam launched the rockets in order to
win the approval of the Iranian regime.
Iran is already known to support a
conglomerate of militias known as the
Popular Mobilization Units (PMU).
These groups ratchet up the conflict in
Iraq by engaging in various crimes,
including torture, indiscriminate attacks
and unlawful restrictions on the
movement of people fleeing the fighting.
US aims to 'decolonize,' but does it really mean it?
There is a new administration in the
White House and a new watchword
in US foreign policy:
Decolonization. Imperialism, so the
reasoning goes, is to blame for all the ills
of the world so, to fix it, empires like
America must "decolonize." The US, it is
said, must see things from the
perspective of smaller foreign powers
that it has often been at odds with.
Those words might describe the
worldview of Robert Malley, the new
envoy to Iran (not a universally popular
appointment). But if Iran is one of those
smaller foreign powers, those in the State
Department behind the commitment to
decolonize are not only misguided, they
are woefully misinformed.
If imperialism equals occupying and
bullying neighboring countries, then
Iran, for example, has a long history of it.
In 1936, Tehran annexed the Arab Kaab
emirate in the south and renamed it
Khuzestan. In 1971, Iran occupied three
Emirati islands.
Yet President Joe Biden, Malley and
company don't perceive Iran as a
colonizer, only as colonized, which
suggests either a lack of historical
understanding or flagrant bias.
In his book "The Call from Algeria,"
Malley links the rise of Islamism to the
failure of communism in what he calls
the Third World. Leaving aside his use of
a term that is now deemed offensive,
Malley fails to see that Islamism is in fact
communism mark II. Both ideologies use
populist rhetoric and sanction violence.
Had the Soviet Union not collapsed,
They have also become skilled at using
sectarianism as a tool to gain power and
further Iran's parochial, religious and
political ambitions. The Tehran regime
has even pushed the Iraqi government
into recognizing the PMU members as
"legitimate" groups, incorporating them
into the state apparatuses and making
Baghdad allocate wages and
ammunition for them.
It is important to point out that the
Iranian regime still intends to take
revenge on the US for Qassem
Soleimani's killing. More than a year
after the Quds Force commander's
death, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei
continues to mention him in his
speeches. He warned last month: "Those
who ordered the murder of Gen.
Soleimani as well as those who carried
this out should be punished. This
revenge will certainly happen at the right
time." Taking revenge for Soleimani's
killing is critical for the regime, partially
because Tehran has never faced such a
major humiliation in its four-decade
rule. It wants to show its proxies, militia
groups and hard-line base that it is not
Islamism would have remained a fringe
movement.
If Biden is persuaded by the
decolonization argument, the US will up
sticks and leave the Gulf, which is exactly
what the mullahs have been dreaming of
since 1979. The Iranians have hardly
made a secret of their intentions: With
the US and its military forces gone, the
way would be open for Iran to step in as
the dominant power in the region,
restructuring security and turning
neighboring countries into satellite
states.
Iran has often pressed for admission to
the Gulf Cooperation Council, which
currently comprises Saudi Arabia, the
UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman.
In fact, Iran would like to go further and
replace the GCC with something bigger -
which would include not only the Gulf
but also the Red Sea and the Eastern
Mediterranean, which sounds more like
expansionism than decolonizing.
The Biden administration is dressing
up its decolonization policy as the
ditching of Donald Trump's "America
First" unilateralism. In reality, the US is
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh
Hussain Abdul-Hussain
weak. Furthermore, taking revenge
against the US would deter Washington
and other parties from targeting Iranian
officials in the future.
What is now crucial for the ruling
clerics of Iran is how the new US
administration will respond to these
attacks. Unfortunately, not only has the
Biden administration not taken a firm
stance, it last week announced that it
would not be pursuing the previous
administration's efforts to reimpose UN
Shiite militant group Saraya Awliya Al-Dam (the
Guardians of blood brigade) claimed responsibility for
the attack on Irbil. It has also threatened to cause more
bloodshed. According to the Site Intelligence Group, a
nongovernmental organization that monitors the online
activities of armed organizations, the militia group said in
a statement: "The American occupation will not be safe
from our strikes in any inch of the homeland, even in
Kurdistan, where we promise we will carry out other
qualitative operations."
being very choosy about just how
multilateral it wants to be.
Biden rejoined the Paris agreement on
climate change on his very first day in
office. But the US also plans to revive the
nuclear deal with Iran, which would
allow Tehran to export more than 2
million barrels of oil a day. How does that
In his book "The Call from Algeria," Malley links the rise
of Islamism to the failure of communism in what he calls
the Third World. Leaving aside his use of a term that is now
deemed offensive, Malley fails to see that Islamism is in fact
communism mark II. both ideologies use populist rhetoric
and sanction violence. Had the Soviet Union not collapsed,
Islamism would have remained a fringe movement.
KHALED AboU ZAHR
sanctions on the Iranian regime. This
move outraged several American
lawmakers, including Republican Sen.
Marco Rubio, who said: "Not long after
Iranian-backed forces attacked
Americans in Iraq, President (Joe) Biden
is desperately trying to re-enter a failed
deal and provide sanctions relief to the
Iranian regime. The president must
make clear that he understands that
Khamenei cannot be trusted to honor
international agreements, and that the
United States will not play into the hands
of the Iranians for the next four years."
By reversing the Trump
administration's call to reimpose UN
square with reducing fossil fuel energy,
one of the commitments enshrined in the
Paris agreement?
The Biden team has been selective at
the UN too, breaking with multilateral
decisions to pursue its own unilateral
policy. Security Council Resolutions 1559
and 1701 call for all militias in Lebanon to
disarm and disband. For "all militias,"
read Hezbollah in particular. Yet the
White House - especially when occupied
by the Democrats - prefers to talk to
Hezbollah rather than enforce UN
resolutions.
Similarly, on Yemen, the UN Security
Council has passed no fewer than nine
resolutions imposing an arms embargo,
travel ban and asset freeze on any
individual or entity connected to the
Houthi militia, which is accused of
sanctions, Biden also appears to be in
agreement with the lifting of the arms
embargo on Iran. Tehran's leaders
scored a major political victory against
the US, its allies and regional powers
when the UN Security Council in
August voted down a proposal to extend
its 13-year-old arms embargo on Iran.
The embargo was lifted in October in
spite of the fact the regime was violating
all of the restrictions of the nuclear deal,
according to the International Atomic
Energy Agency. The Biden
administration has also lifted
restrictions on Iranian diplomats
traveling to the UN headquarters in
New York.
By turning a blind eye to its
aggression, the US is only empowering
and emboldening Tehran.
In addition, after the first attack in
Iraq, the Biden administration
announced that it was ready to meet
with the Iranian leaders to discuss reentering
the 2015 nuclear deal. In a
statement, State Department
spokesman Ned Price said: "The United
States would accept an invitation from
the European Union High
Representative to attend a meeting of
the P5+1 and Iran to discuss a
diplomatic way forward on Iran's
nuclear program."
By turning a blind eye to Iran's
aggression, the Biden administration is
only empowering and emboldening the
Tehran regime, which will further
escalate its military adventurism and
destructive behavior in the Middle East.
obstructing the delivery of humanitarian
assistance. Yet new US Secretary of State
Antony Blinken has had the Houthis
removed from the US list of Foreign
Terrorist Organizations because, he
argued, the war in Yemen can only be
resolved by talking to the Houthis.
Pursuing decolonization and
combating climate change appear to give
the US the moral high ground. The
reality, however, is that foreign policy is
never cut and dried or black and white,
but rather a frayed mess of gray areas and
compromise.
The administration does not perceive
Iran as a colonizer, only as colonized,
which suggests either a lack of historical
understanding or flagrant bias.
The Biden administration seems set to
put on a show of "fixing" the world by
pursuing decolonization - a term it clearly
does not fully understand but will still use
to put a gloss on the fact that the US, like
all governments, has its own agenda. It
will embrace multilateralism when it is
expedient. It will "see things from the
perspective of smaller foreign powers"
when it is advantageous.
Under Biden, the US will pick and
choose where to dispense its largesse, as
all empires do. Impartiality has nothing
to do with it.
Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the
Washington bureau chief of Kuwaiti daily
Al-Rai and a former visiting fellow at
Chatham House in London. Copyright:
Syndication Bureau.
Gulf : News
Lebanon needs idealism, not pragmatism
Lebanon has long been described as
the Switzerland of the Middle East;
however, it actually has more in
common with France. Lebanon, like
France, is more than a country - it is an idea
and a history, an idea of exceptionalism
and a love story, but it is also a story of war
that unfortunately ends badly. Above all, it
will never be a neutral country. This
Greater Lebanon, whose centenary is
commemorated on Tuesday and which
was so criticized, nevertheless gave a lot
and enlightened the Middle East and the
Arab world with its diversity and openness.
A whole generation of prominent figures
from the Arab world will tell you that they
traveled for the first time to Lebanon and
there learned for the first time about
political ideologies, among many other
firsts.
That was Lebanon - a first for the Arab
world after hundreds of years under
Ottoman rule; a first bustling lesson in
living together and accepting diversity and
the exchange of opinions and ideas.
Unfortunately, it is now turning into a final
lesson as it plunges into darkness. There is
no need to tell this story (many know it and
would tell it much better than I) or to look
back on the civil war, whose echoes
strongly resound today. The stabbing of
this small country that is bigger than its
borders never ceased. The Syrian
occupation, with its extraction of freedom
and wealth, was followed by the current
occupation by Hezbollah. This is an armed
militia that holds hostage a country of
innovators, creators, entrepreneurs,
scoffers, cynics, and chauvinists, but
builders and good people.
Today, French President Emmanuel
Macron's visit is very symbolic, not only by
its date but also given the state of the
country. He seems to have a deep will to
help Lebanon. But what does he really
hope to accomplish in the land of the
cedars? Does he really think he can save it?
The reality is that Lebanon cannot be saved
by any pragmatic policy, which seems to be
a description of Macron's foreign policy.
Lebanon can only be saved by an idealistic
policy that nears wishful thinking. To help
Lebanon before saving it, we must begin by
As the date of the US presidential elections approaches
and the Europeans seek to renew their relations with the
Iranian regime, with the aim of resuming the trade
exchanges of the years the nuclear agreement was in
force, the risks are great for France to accompany
Lebanon on its profound change. There are fears that
Lebanese exceptionalism will disappear forever.
re-establishing its sovereignty. It does not
require a new government to provide
temporary stability. Even if all its ministers
did not belong to the old parties, once the
government is formed, how would it lead
the country into reforms when a parallel
state exists; when all the sensitive decisions
go against the interests of the state that is
Hezbollah?
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvardeducated
Iranian-American political
scientist. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh
The Lebanon that the Lebanese dream of
- a Lebanon that is open to all religions and
ideas and where trade flourishes - cannot
exist as long as Hezbollah and its allies hold
power. For the country to start a new page
of prosperity, this militia must be
disarmed. Indeed, Lebanon needs to be
saved, but first it must be rescued from this
armed group that holds it hostage and
pursues policies of assassination and
violence. We will not be able to build a new
Lebanon until the use of force is the monopoly
of the state. Today, violence and even
barbarism is the monopoly of an armed group
supervised by the Iranians. I am afraid
Macron will end up choosing pragmatism
over the ideal. The Lebanon that the Lebanese
dream of cannot exist as long as Hezbollah
and its allies hold power. As the date of the US
presidential elections approaches and the
Europeans seek to renew their relations with
the Iranian regime, with the aim of resuming
the trade exchanges of the years the nuclear
agreement was in force, the risks are great for
France to accompany Lebanon on its
profound change.
Source: Arab news