PAKISTAN AND IRAN’S COMPLICATED RELATIONS

January 18, 2024

Pakistan has hit targets in Iran’s south-eastern Sistan-Baluchestan province. According to Tehran, nine people were killed, none of them Iranian nationals. Iranian state media said missiles struck near the city of Saravan, close to the border with Pakistan and its Balochistan province. Iran had targeted that area on Tuesday in an attack that, according to Islamabad, killed two children. Pakistan and Iran have long accused each other of harbouring militant groups that carry out attacks from regions along their shared border. Iran’s recent missile strikes send a message to its enemies – especially Israel and the United States – that it’s more than capable of hitting targets well beyond its border, writes diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams. According to retired Lt Gen Asif Yaseen, a former Pakistani defence secretary, Islamabad would have been under pressure to respond. And, as Adams puts it, each has “perhaps, met the demands of public opinion,.  (BBC, 1/18/2024)

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ITALIAN GOVERNMENT CALLS FOR EU ARMY

ROME, Jan 7 (Reuters) – The European Union should form its own combined army that could play a role in peacekeeping and preventing conflict, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said.

In an interview with Italian newspaper La Stampa, Tajani said that closer European cooperation on defence was a priority for the Forza Italia party that he leads.

“If we want to be peacekeepers in the world, we need a European military. And this is a fundamental precondition to be able to have an effective European foreign policy,” he said in an interview published on Sunday.

“In a world with powerful players like the United States, China, India, Russia – with crises from the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific – Italian, German, French or Slovenian citizens can only be protected by something that already exists, namely the European Union,” he added.

European defense cooperation has risen up the political agenda since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost two years ago.

However, efforts have been more focused on NATO expansion, with EU nation Finland joining the alliance last year and Sweden also on track to become a member.

Tajani also said the 27-nation EU should streamline its leadership and have a single presidency, rather than the current structure of a European Council president and a European Commission president.

The foreign minister became leader of Forza Italia following the death of Silvio Berlusconi last year.

European Parliament elections in June will be the first gauge of the party’s popularity after the loss of its charismatic former leader.   (Reuters, 1/7/2024)

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GERMANY CONSIDERING COMPULSORY MILITARY SERVICE

The Bundeswehr is facing a dramatic shortage in personnel. Now Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has rekindled the debate over reintroducing conscription. (https://p.dw.com/p/4ahmH)

Defense Minister Boris Pistorius is considering the reintroduction of compulsory military service.

At the end of October, the Bundeswehr said it counted 181,383 soldiers in its ranks — that’s still some distance from the target of 203,000 that the German military hopes to reach by 2025. This has given rise to concern in times of Russia’s war against Ukraine, which has once again reminded Germans how quickly conflicts can erupt in Europe.

Since taking office at the beginning of 2023, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has been thinking about ways to make the Bundeswehr more attractive as a career. He said he has received 65 concrete proposals from his ministry on recruitment and reforming training methods.

Even conscription, something Germany ended in 2011, is also up for debate. “There were reasons at the time to suspend compulsory military service. In retrospect, however, it was a mistake,” Pistorius told newspaper Die Welt earlier in December.

He also cited the case of Sweden, where compulsory military service was suspended and then reintroduced. “I’m looking at models, such as the Swedish model, where all young men and women are conscripted and only a select few end up doing their basic military service. Whether something like this would also be conceivable here is part of these considerations,” said Pistorius.  (Volker Witting,  DW, 12/29/2024)

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ISIS calls on Muslims to carry out jihad massacres of ‘Jews, Christians, or their allies on the streets of America’

As well as Europe and the world. Expect the overwhelming majority of peaceful Muslims to rise up and stop these hijackers of the Religion of Peace any day now. “Pro-ISIS Posters Incite Attacks On New York City: ‘Go Get Them, Oh Monotheist,’” MEMRI, January 11, 2024)

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TAIWAN ELECTION MAKES CONFLICT WITH CHINA MORE LIKELY-

Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has won an unprecedented third consecutive presidential victory, in an election closely watched by the world.

President-elect Lai Ching-te is taking over from Tsai Ing-wen, who has served the maximum two terms in the top job, after claiming more than 40% of the vote. “This is a night that belongs to Taiwan,” Lai, currently vice president, told supporters at a rally after his two main opposition rivals both conceded defeat following Saturday’s election. “We managed to keep Taiwan on the map of the world.” 

Global leaders have congratulated Lai, “drawing ire” from China, which had hoped to see the pro-sovereignty DPP ousted, said The Guardian. In a statement issued after the election result was announced, Beijing insisted once again that “Taiwan is part of China.”

While most foreign policy experts are speculating about the future of the island’s fractious relationship with the mainland as tensions increase, others are focusing on what the election reveals about the changing face of Taiwan. 

Identity is “a hugely sensitive issue for this island of 23 million people,” wrote NPR’s international correspondent Emily Feng from capital Taipei. Although more than 90% of the population “can trace their roots to mainland China,” the majority “now identify in polls as Taiwanese only,” which is “a huge shift from just 30 years ago.”

A generational divide exists, however, with younger people more likely to be turning their backs on the mainland.

Taiwan’s “burgeoning identity” is being “tested” by the election, wrote Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, the BBC’s Taipei-based Asia correspondent. This was the first election in which all three presidential candidates were of Taiwanese descent, rather than from families that arrived from China in 1949 after losing the Chinese Civil War. 

Beijing’s “persistent claims” of sovereignty are “making a bristling, younger generation rethink how they see themselves,” he continued.  (The Week, 1/15/2024)

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BRIEFLY

The German Armed Forces are facing a possible forced withdrawal from Iraq. This situation follows last Thursday’s US drone assassination of the commander of an Iraqi Shiite militia. Responding to the attack, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al Sudani declared that he is determined to end the presence of the US-led military coalition in Iraq, which includes a Bundeswehr contingent. Unauthorised US operations on Iraqi territory such as the recent murder would, he said, no longer be tolerated. The foreign military presence has been under attack for years, especially from organizations of the Shiite majority, which include forces aligned to Iran. Western governments, on the other hand, insist on keeping units in Iraq, saying their troop deployments are legitimized by the ongoing fight against IS. A military presence is also seen as useful in the ongoing tussle over Tehran’s influence. The build-up of tensions is also occurring in the wake of Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip. Any withdrawal would result in a significant loss of influence, also for Germany, in the Middle East.   (German Foreign Policy, 1/12)/2024

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The Tories are heading for an “electoral wipeout” on the scale of their 1997 defeat by Labour, according to a poll.  The YouGov survey is “the most authoritative opinion poll in five years,” said The Telegraph, and it found that the Tories will retain just 169 seats, while Labour will “sweep to power” with 385. Every Red Wall seat won from Labour by Boris Johnson in 2019 will be lost, it predicted, in the “biggest collapse in support for a governing party since 1906.”  (The Week, UK, 1/15/2024)

Six people have been arrested across the UK on suspicion of a conspiracy to disrupt the London Stock Exchange. According to the Metropolitan Police, activists from the Palestine Action group were intending to target the exchange today, with plans to cause damage and “lock on” in the hope of stopping trading from opening. It may have been “one part of a planned week of action,” claimed Detective Superintendent Sian Thomas.   (The Week, 1/15/2024)

The US military said its fighter jets shot down an anti-ship cruise missile fired from Houthi militant areas of Yemen towards a US destroyer operating in the Red Sea. The “mid-air interception” is the latest episode in the Red Sea where the Houthis have been attacking international shipping to support Palestinians under siege from Israeli forces in Gaza. A leading Houthi supporter, Hussain Al-Bukhaiti, told the BBC that fighters would target US and UK battleships if strikes on Yemen continued.  (The Week, 1/15/2024)

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SOME THOUGHTS

“And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.” (Matt. 24:6-7)

It seems like there’s a proliferation in the number of wars being fought around the world.

We’ve gotten used to the war in Ukraine.   In the last three months a potentially more dangerous conflict in the Middle East has replaced Ukraine on our TV screens.  In the last few days, we’ve had to add another Middle East trouble spot, as the Houthis have become a target of the US and UK. And it’s still possible that Lebanon could open up another offensive against Israel.

Now, there’s increasing violence in the Red Sea as Western shipping is a favorite target for pirates.

Slightly east (but only slightly), Iran and Pakistan are in dispute, in a war that could go nuclear.

And we haven’t even mentioned Taiwan and China.   The Taiwanese elected to power a government that is guaranteed to provoke China.

We are also seeing more of “famines, pestilences and earthquakes in diverse places.” 

So, does this all bring us closer to the end? 

“But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”  (Matt 24:36-37)

All we can do is wait.    Wait for the second coming of our Messiah.   We have God’s assurance of that soon-coming day!