Water As A Means Or Instrument Of Warfare In South Asia – OpEd

A boat on the Indus River in Makhad, Punjab, Pakistan. Photo Credit: Iqbal Khattak (Pexels)

 September 13, 2025  

By Ali Mehar

Water, in modern India-Pakistan conflict, has become a subject of controversy and dispute, and unfolding events can still turn decades of shared endeavor on its head under the Indus Waters Treaty. The treaty signed in 1960 has been a symbol of India-Pak cooperation untainted by war and crises. India’s ad-hoc reversal of the treaty in May 2025 and spilling of dam water over Pakistan’s border lands have already increased tensions and acted as alarm bells to weaponize water resources. Indus basin is the backbone of Pakistan’s Agri-based economy and rural livelihood.

Tampering with water flows will degrade food security, economic stability, and public health. Pakistan views India’s suspension of the treaty and the flood of August 2025 as acts of willed hostility to international agreements and the law of humanity due to the release of water from dams. Suspension of the treaty to Pakistan is not a political loss but a bare faced danger to millions of people whose very existence is Indus waters. India has justified its move on grounds of security and having to build water facilities for its citizens.

India accuses Pakistan of ignoring rights under the treaty and identifying Pakistani water projects as Indian hostilities. India asserts August releases were carried out as a precaution in anticipation of dam bursts from rain rather than a strategic action intended to cause damage. India’s approach is to find out the need to balance development needs, national security and international obligations in a politically sensitive situation. Both nations are confronted with the monumental task of managed management of shared water resources in the instance of climate insecurity and population pressure. The present floods in Pakistan put us into perspective that water problems are part of existential human security and environmental exposure. Displacement, mortality, and agriculture loss have long-term adverse social and economic impacts. It underlines the necessity of collective flood management as well as coordinated emergency intervention responses.

The global world in general has seen to it that it prioritizes keeping such agreements like the IWT in the process of stabilizing the world. Suspension of agreements acts as a disincentive against the global legal world responsible for contributing towards transboundary water resources and plays a critical role in preventing world wars. Water cooperation has been one of the key pillars of sustainable development and peace building symbolizing the centrality of trust and compliance with rules prescribed.

International organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank can facilitate technical collaboration and exchange between India and Pakistan. Statistical exchange on hydrology, dam operation management, and investment in trans-frontier benefit infrastructure can ease tension and make both nations climate change resilient. All this interaction can be a greater measure of confidence than the normal geopolitical complexity.

Innovation approaches to water diplomacy like people’s participatory governance and transboundary river basin management provide avenues for nonviolent and sustainable sharing of the resource. Association of water professionals, consultation of policy elites, and civil society dialogue can create mutual understanding and overcome distrust barriers.

Water in its nature is not politicized- nor border. It is shared inheritance to be preserved in common trusteeship. Militarization of water disregards not only immediate humanitarian interests but also longer-term prospects of regional peace and prosperity in South Asia. Pakistan and India are both to benefit by re-commemorating Indus Waters Treaty or negotiating new terms on basis of existing realities.

Finally, for the good and survival of millions on both sides of the divide, Indus waters have to be democratically managed, in the open, and cooperatively. It is a test case of how states can transcend politics of rivalry to step into the field of collective responsibility for common resources. The topic of the 80th session, “Better together,” was also very relevant on this score, reminding one and all that unity is strength for peace, human rights, and sustainable development.

Ali Mehar

Ali Mehar is a student of BS International Relations at Quaid e Azam University. He can be reached at @ alimeharmail50@gmail.com

 

Pakistan’s Departure From GSP+ Principles: A Tragedy Unfolding Under EU’s Watch – OpEd

 September 16, 2025  

By Staikou Dimitra

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” With these words from the Gita, Robert Oppenheimer realized that his creation, which began as a promise of scientific progress, had been transformed into an instrument of mass destruction. Something similar is happening today with the GSP+ regime. A European Union tool, created to promote human rights through trade, has been hijacked in Pakistan to cover up and tolerate abuses. Instead of strengthening religious freedom and democracy, it accompanies surveillance, silencing, and persecution of minorities. The irony is that a policy designed to serve human dignity is in practice acting as a silent accomplice to oppression.

This paradox leads us to a critical question: how effective is GSP+ as a lever for change? In the case of Pakistan, the picture is bleak. Despite the trade privileges it enjoys from its access to the European market, the government continues to enforce strict blasphemy laws, allow attacks on religious communities such as the Ahmadiyya and Christians, and restrict freedom of expression through digital surveillance. Rather than translating into institutional progress, economic cooperation often serves as a safety net for the regime. The GSP+, or Generalized System of Preferences, of the European Union was designed as a means of linking trade preferences to specific commitments in the areas of human rights, labor rights, environmental protection, and good governance. Unfortunately, however, it has not been used in this way, but has been exploited as a tool for controlling the masses.

Enforced disappearances, sometimes by state backed militias and in some cases by the state agencies themselves have left scars on vulnerable communities in Pakistan. This practice, which began during Pervez Musharraf’s military dictatorship, continues with the involvement of the military and intelligence services. More than 5,000 people have disappeared, according to humanitarian organizations. In addition, approximately 80 civilians were convicted by military courts for participating in riots in 2023, which is considered incompatible with Pakistan’s international obligations. The trial of civilians by Military Courts was condemned by the EU at multiple times in the last one year, a cause big enough for the EU to seriously reconsider the GST+ status for Pakistan.

Pakistan’s violation of basic human rights, which GSP+ is designed to promote, is nit limited to enforced disappearances and military trials. It extends to the technical domain as well. 

According to a report by Amnesty International, Pakistan has developed one of the most advanced surveillance systems in the world, using technology from China and the West. The findings of its report are based on a 2024 case in the Islamabad High Court, filed by Bushra Bibi, wife of former Prime Minister Khan, after her private phone calls were leaked online. 

In court, Pakistan’s defense ministries and intelligence agencies denied that they conduct or have the capacity to conduct telephone tapping. However, during questioning, the telecommunications regulatory authority acknowledged that it had already ordered telephone companies to install LIMS for use by “designated services.” This system allows intelligence services to monitor at least 4 million mobile phones simultaneously and block 2 million internet sessions.

The conflict-ridden province of Balochistan in particular faces frequent internet outages and restrictions on freedom of speech. In a recent report, Paank, the human rights department of the Balochistan National Movement (BNM), in a recent report, strongly called on the European Union to review Pakistan’s GSP+ status, stressing that it is unacceptable for Pakistan to enjoy economic advantages while committing severe oppression. The report strongly condemned the Anti-Terrorism Balochistan Amendment Bill 2025, which grants unchecked powers to the military, police, and intelligence agencies to arrest anyone on mere suspicion for up to three months, with the possibility of extension. The report noted that several Baloch leaders, such as Mahrang Baloch, Gulzadi Baloch, Beebow Baloch, Sibghat Ullah Baloch, and Beeberg Baloch, remain in prison even after appearing in court.

Amnesty said it also examined licensing agreements, commercial data, leaked technical files, and Chinese records linking the firewall supplier to state-owned companies in Beijing. It added that the firewall is provided by Chinese company Geedge Networks. The company did not respond to a request for comment. Mobile call monitoring centers are common worldwide, but filtering the internet for the public is rare, said Ben Wagner, professor of human rights and technology at the Austrian university IT:U. Having both in Pakistan “is a worrying development from a human rights perspective” and “suggests that greater restrictions on freedom of expression and privacy will become more common as these tools become easier to implement,” he said. The two surveillance systems work in tandem: one allows intelligence agencies to intercept calls and messages, while the other slows down or blocks websites and social media across the country, the organization said. The number of phones being monitored may be higher, as all four major mobile phone providers have been ordered to connect to LIMS, Amnesty technologist Jurre van Berge told Reuters. Mass surveillance exercise their rights, both online and offline,” the report said.

The implementation of advanced monitoring systems (LIMS, WMS 2.0) with Chinese and Western equipment creates a climate of fear, prevents freedom of expression, and reinforces the repression of opponents. GSP+ does not exercise control over these practices, thus acting as an economic and political safety net for the regime.

Amnesty said the firewall uses equipment from the American company Niagara Networks, software from Thales DIS, a subsidiary of the French company Thales, and servers from a Chinese state-owned IT company. An earlier version was based on Canadian Sandvine.

Pakistan’s secret services can monitor at least 4 million mobile phones simultaneously through the Lawful Interception Management System (LIMS), while a firewall known as WMS 2.0, which controls internet traffic, can block 2 million active connections simultaneously, according to Amnesty. Pakistan currently blocks approximately 650,000 web links and restricts platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and X, according to Amnesty.

The complete disregard for human rights and the continuing persecution of minorities when combined with the pervasive surveillance infrastructure setup with the aid and assistance of one of the oppressive regimes on the planet is a mockery of the very principles that GSP+ was designed to promote and protect. EU leaders can either choose to take a stand for the principles they swore to protect, or risk being accomplices to a tragedy unfolding in Pakistan. 

Immanuel Kant reminds us that “Act in such a way that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in any other, always as an end and never merely as a means.” In the case of GSP+ in Pakistan, this principle appears to be violated in a dramatic way. People—especially minorities and activists in Balochistan—are treated not as ends in themselves, but as means to consolidate political power and control. By granting trade privileges without a meaningful monitoring mechanism, the EU risks becoming complicit, allowing a tool designed to protect rights to become a vehicle for oppression. If GSP+ truly wants to serve humanity rather than exploit it, it must rediscover its purpose: the defense of people as an end in itself, rather than their commercial or political exploitation.

Staikou Dimitra

Staikou Dimitra writes articles for Greece's biggest Newspaper PROTO THEMA. Dimitra graduated from Law School, a profession she never practiced, and has a master's degree in theater and is involved in writing in all its forms, books, plays, and scripts for TV series.

 

Israel’s Attack On Qatar Could Be A Watershed For The Israel-Gaza Conflict – Analysis

 September 16, 2025  

By James M. Dorsey

Israel’s risky strike against Qatar was neither an unmitigated success in Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s terms nor a complete failure, even if it’s too early for a definitive cost-benefit analysis of what could prove to be a watershed.

Hamas was quick to declare that its top leaders had survived the attack on a villa in a lofty Doha neighborhood. Six people were reported killed in the attack. The Hamas statement left open whether any of the leaders were wounded in the attack.

None of the leaders has been seen in public since the attack except for Political Bureau member Suhail al-Hindi, who appeared in an Al-Jazeera interview. Mr. Al-Hindi said the Hamas leadership was “safe and secure,” but added that their “blood was no different from that of any Palestinian man, woman, or child.” It was unclear whether Mr. Al-Hindi attended the Hamas meeting called to discuss the latest Israel-endorsed US proposal for an end to the Gaza war.

What is certain is that the attack, at least for now, has disrupted efforts to achieve a Gaza ceasefire and likely persuaded Qatar to pause its mediation effort, allowing Israel to move forward with its planned occupation of Gaza City.

Mr. Al-Hindi said the Hamas leadership was discussing the latest ceasefire proposal with a “positive outlook” when Israel attacked. He left unsaid what that positive outlook entailed. Even so, the gap between the positions of the United States, Israel and Hamas remained wide.

Ceasefire proposals and sticking points

In the last six weeks, Hamas has largely agreed to proposals put forward by the mediators, Qatar, Egypt and the United States. The latest proposal called for a 60-day ceasefire, the release of the remaining 48 hostages immediately after the ceasefire takes effect, the disarmament of Hamas, whose Gaza-based leaders would go into exile and the installation of a post-war administration of the Strip. The proposal further called for the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, but did not address the quantity of aid, who would distribute it or what types of goods would be allowed in.

Israel has repeatedly rejected Hamas’s offer to release the hostages in one go in exchange for an end to the war and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The US proposal suggested that President Donald Trump would guarantee that Israel and Hamas “negotiate in good faith until an agreement is reached.”

Israel has insisted that neither Hamas nor the West Bank-based, internationally recognized Palestine Authority would be part of the post-war administration. Arab countries have rejected any role in a post-war administration without the Palestine Authority and a credible Israeli commitment to a two-state resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, involving the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Hamas has repeatedly conceded that it would not be part of a post-war Gaza administration but has rejected disarmament as long as the Palestinians do not have their own state. Most Arab countries agree that Hamas should not be part of a post-war administration but disagree with Israel’s devastation of Gaza and throttling of the flow of humanitarian aid into the Strip as a way of destroying Hamas and reject Israel’s intention to depopulate Gaza.

US credibility on the line

It is also early days in determining the impact the Israeli strike may have on US relations with Middle Eastern countries. One key determinant is when and how the United States became aware of the Israeli intention to attack Hamas in Qatar.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the US military had informed the Trump administration of the attack but refused to indicate whether Israel had told the military or whether the military was relying on its surveillance capabilities.

It is unclear how much detail Israel gave the military, if it was the military’s source. Qatar hosts the US military’s largest base in the Middle East. Mr. Trump insisted that he had no advance knowledge of the attack. 

What appears to be clear is that the United States knew about the attack only minutes before the Israeli planes released their ordinance. If so, the United States may not have given the green light for the attack. US credibility in the Gulf, which relies on the United States for its security, will likely ride on how it responds to the Israeli attack.

Fresh in Gulf minds is Mr. Trump’s failure to rush to Saudi Arabia’s aid when Iranian-backed Yemeni Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for attacks on the kingdom’s oil facilities in 2019 during the president’s first term in office.

Add to that the fact that Gulf perceptions of Israel have changed as a result of Israel’s wars in the last two years. Once perceived as a potential security partner, Israel today is viewed by many as a rogue state that threatens regional security and stability.

“I’m not thrilled about the whole situation. It’s not a good situation. But I will say this, we want the hostages back, but we are not thrilled about the way that went down,” Mr. Trump told reporters. Mr. Trump said he would be issuing a “full statement” on Wednesday.

Ms. Leavitt’s carefully crafted statement asserted that the Israeli attack served neither US nor Israeli interests. The question is whether and what steps Mr. Trump might take to rein in Israel. Taking steps could be a watershed.

• This article was published at Fair Observer

James M. Dorsey

Dr, James M. Dorsey is an award-winning journalist and commentator on foreign affairs who has covered ethnic and religious conflict and terrorism across the globe for more than three decades. Over his career, Dorsey served as a foreign correspondent for, among others, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor and UPI in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Central America and the US. He is currently a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the Substack, "The Turbulent World."

 

Robert Reich: Trump’s Phase 2 Now Begins – OpEd

Robert Reich

 September 16, 2025 

By Robert Reich

We are now witnessing the start of what might be seen as Phase 2 of Trump’s efforts to eradicate political opposition.

Phase 1 has centered on silencing criticism. It has featured retribution toward people Trump deemed personal “enemies” — not just Democrats who had led the criticisms and prosecutions of him in his first term but also Republicans and his own first-term appointees who subsequently criticized him, such as John Bolton. 

Phase 1 also entailed an assault on universities that utilize so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” harbor faculty members and students who speak out critically against Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocide in Palestine, or offer classes critical of the United States’s history toward Black people and Native Americans. 

Finally, Phase 1 has gone after media that criticized Trump by withdrawing funding for public radio and television and relying on the billionaire owners of The Washington Post, ABC, CBS, and X to suppress criticism of Trump on their media platforms. 

Phase 2, it appears, will entail a more direct attack on all Trump’s political opponents, including the entire Democratic Party. 

Trump has vowed to order troops into cities run by Democrats — Washington, D.C., Chicago, Memphis, and New Orleans. 

He posted a video last week assailing Democratic mayors on crime, although crime rates have fallen sharply in recent years. “For far too long, Americans have been forced to put up with Democrat-run cities that set loose savage, bloodthirsty criminals to prey on innocent people,” he says in the video.

Meanwhile, he’s sending disaster relief to states run by Republicans and that he won in 2024, most recently announcing $32 million in aid for North Carolina, “which I WON BIG all six times, including Primaries,” suggesting that states run by Democrats will not receive such relief. 

He has taken off the gloves with Democratic states and their representatives in Congress, virtually ordering the governors of Texas, Missouri, Indiana, and Ohio to redistrict in order to come up with more Republican seats. 

Another aspect of Phase 2 is his willingness to describe Democrats as “evil.” In a Fox News interview last week in which he complained about so-called “excesses” by the left, he referred to Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist and front-runner for mayor of New York, as a “communist.” 

In calling the entire Democratic Party the “radical left,” Trump seems eager to use the murder of Charlie Kirk to go after Democrats and liberals. Within hours of the murder, he declared that “we just have to beat the hell” out of “radical left lunatics,” and he has hammered Democrats and liberals as “vicious and … horrible.” 

Trump’s Phase 2 thinking can be seen most vividly in the remarks of his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, who is turning Kirk’s murder into a political cause. As Miller wrote on Saturday:

“In recent days we have learned just how many Americans in positions of authority — child services, law clerks, hospital nurses, teachers, gov’t workers, even DOD employees — have been deeply and violently radicalized,” calling them “the consequence of a vast, organized ecosystem of indoctrination.”

Miller continued: 

“There is an ideology that has steadily been growing in this country which hates everything that is good, righteous and beautiful and celebrates everything that is warped, twisted and depraved. It is an ideology at war with family and nature. It is envious, malicious, and soulless. It is an ideology that looks upon the perfect family with bitter rage while embracing the serial criminal with tender warmth. 

Its adherents organize constantly to tear down and destroy every mark of grace and beauty while lifting up everything monstrous and foul. It is an ideology that leads, always, inevitably and willfully, to violence—violence against those [who] uphold order, who uphold faith, who uphold family, who uphold all that is noble and virtuous in this world. It is an ideology whose one unifying thread is the insatiable thirst for destruction.”

Miller has vowed to use the power of the government against MAGA’s political enemies, calling his political opponents “domestic terrorists” and warning: 

“[T]he power of law enforcement under President Trump’s leadership will be used to find you, will be used to take away your money, take away your power, and, if you’ve broken the law, to take away your freedom.”

Phase 2 must be understood against the backdrop of Trump’s rapidly declining popularity. The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, from September 9, shows that only 32 percent of Americans support Trump’s deploying armed troops to large cities. 

His economic policies are similarly unpopular. Only 36 percent approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, 30 percent approve of his handling of cost of living, and 16 percent support Trump’s having the power to set interest rates or tell companies where to manufacture products.

Other polls show similar declines in support for Trump. 

Trump’s Phase 2 aims to overcome these declining poll numbers by demonizing the Democratic Party, liberals, and all other political opponents in an effort to divide the nation into those who are with Trump and those who are against him. 

The overall goal is to make loyalty to Trump a litmus test of American patriotism. 

I believe he will fail. Americans won’t fall for it. To the contrary: Trump’s Phase 2 will reveal the depths of his anti-democratic authoritarianism, from which even more Americans will recoil.

• This article was published at Robert Reich’s Substack

Robert Reich

Robert B. Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, and writes at robertreich.substack.com. Reich served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written fifteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock", "The Work of Nations," and"Beyond Outrage," and, his most recent, "The Common Good," which is available in bookstores now. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary, "Inequality For All." He's co-creator of the Netflix original documentary "Saving Capitalism," which is streaming now.