News Review 18/09/2021

Biden Forms New AUKUS Alliance with Britain and Australia

On Wednesday, US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison jointly announced through a joint virtual session the creation of a new alliance of their three countries, which they have named ‘AUKUS’ and whose first project will be the provision of nuclear-powered submarines for Australia but, according to the joint statement issued, will “foster deeper integration of security and defense-related science, technology, industrial bases, and supply chains” and in particular “significantly deepen cooperation on a range of security and defense capabilities”; all this in service of a resolve to “to deepen diplomatic, security, and defense cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region”. Even though it was not mentioned, it is clear that the alliance is directed against China. Regarding the announcement, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said, “The nuclear submarine cooperation between the US, the UK and Australia has seriously undermined regional peace and stability, intensified the arms race and undermined international non-proliferation efforts.”

France has also reacted negatively to the announcement. Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said, “This brutal, unilateral and unpredictable decision reminds me a lot of what Mr Trump used to do. I am angry and bitter. This isn’t done between allies. It’s really a stab in the back.” Australia’s decision to build a nuclear-powered submarine fleet is resulting in the cancellation of a giant $40 billion French submarine deal agreed in 2016 that France had at the time described as the deal of the century. France was not even informed beforehand and only heard through rumours in the Australian media that its deal was about to be torn up live on TV. However, more than the deal itself, France is angry about being excluded from discussions of a new alliance. France’s 2016 deal was intended to symbolise a wider Australian-French alliance in the Indo-Pacific extending to weapons intelligence and communications. France later recalled its ambassador from the US for first time in its history, as well as its ambassador in Australia. France did not recall its ambassador to Britain but Reuters reported a French diplomatic source saying angrily, “The UK accompanied this operation opportunistically. We do not need to consult in Paris with our ambassador to know what to think and what conclusions to draw from it.”

The alliance marks a great achievement for Britain. According to the UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, it was Australia that approached the UK in March seeking a submarine deal after concluding it wished to abandon the French deal after a secret year-long study. It seems that the British realised that they could use this opportunity to achieve a major re-alignment in its foreign policy. In March, Boris Johnson stated in parliament that Britain will “engage more deeply in the Indo-Pacific”. Furthermore, America has been promoting the ‘Quad’ alliance that includes Japan, India and Australia along with America. This arrangement is very much against the British strategy for India and Australia, and only became possible because of the arrival of pro-American governments in both countries.

And for the Biden administration, the AUKUS announcement, and the Quad meeting later this month represent initiatives that accord fully with its strategic priorities at this time, which is to fully secure America from the threat of a rising China projecting its power into the Pacific Ocean that America considers to be its own private waters. It is this high priority that led Biden to withdraw from Afghanistan and is leading him to reduce American commitments in the Middle East.

It is incumbent upon the aware within the Muslim Ummah that they closely follow the tensions and conflicts between the world’s great powers, and recognise that these provide the political space for the re-emergence of their state on the international arena. With Allah’s permission, the re-established righteous Islamic Khilafah State on the method of the Prophethood shall, almost from its inception, join the ranks of the great powers on account of its vast size, population, resources, position and Islamic ideology. The Islamic Khilafah State had, for a thousand years, reigned as global superpower, bringing peace, harmony and prosperity to the entire world, with armed conflicts remaining generally limited and well-contained. If unchecked, the deep rivalry and competition between the world’s great powers and their incessant fuelling of conflict and confrontation can only lead to further tragedy for all of humanity.

The West Turns to Crushing Afghanistan Economically

After failing to control the Taliban through military force, the West has turned to apply economic pressure. The American-backed Kabul regime was already near bankrupt through serious mismanagement and internal conflict, while its incompetent head, President Ghani, would academically dream up scheme after scheme, lacking any skill for actual implementation. The Americans spent over $2 trillion on their Afghanistan war, but the bulk of that was simply payments between the American government and the American private sector that involved cash transfers within the borders of the United States. Of the money that actually reached Afghanistan, much of it was drained out through corruption leaving little for the running of the government. On top of this, the US Federal Reserve has frozen whatever Afghan foreign exchange reserves it presently holds, amounting to $7 billion, while the IMF has also frozen Afghanistan’s access to IMF resources. International donors, such as Germany and the World Bank, have also suspended whatever disbursements they were making. Meanwhile, the West is typically portraying itself as humanitarian and supportive, with a UN appeal this week resulting in $1 billion in international aid pledges, whose disbursement the West can more carefully control, instead of allowing the Afghanistan government to have access to its own resources. The real solution to Afghanistan’s problems is not the so-called international community dominated by the West but the rulers of Muslim countries, who possess vast wealth and resources but spend it only in accordance with what the West permits them. With Allah’s permission, the Muslim Ummah shall soon overthrow this entire agent ruling class and establish instead the Khilafah State that shall unify all Muslim lands, liberate all Muslim occupied territories, implement the Islamic sharia, restore the Islamic way of life and carry the light of Islam to the entire world.