Features

” Against All Odds”: The Enduring Legacy of Louis Armstrong

Published

2 years ago

2024/09/8

by Dahami Samarathunga

During my college days, I had a neighbor who would enthusiastically blast his ‘Louis Armstrong’ AKA ‘Satchmo,’ collection on weekend afternoons. He was eager to share his refined musical taste with the entire neighbourhood. While the noise often tempted me to confront him, I believe it was our friendly small talk and his wife’s warm, endearing smile, which I’d receive just before heading off to class, that managed to dissuade me from taking up the disturbance of the loud music with him. I always thought their house was a testament to a bygone era, with its picket fence and asphalt shingles, resembling a perfectly preserved snapshot of a bygone age.

Although, I appreciates jazz, his loud music often felt like an intrusion into a quiet neighbourhood. Like many of my generation, my exposure to Armstrong’s music was limited to occasional snippets, like bits from ‘What a Wonderful World’ on TV commercials. I couldn’t fathom how someone my age could find relevance in jazz composed nearly a century ago. To make matters worse, with a mountain of assignments, research papers, theses, and exams piling up, I was already at my wit’s end, and was simply in no mood to hear ‘I want a big butter and bread man” every other weekend.

However, after my neighbours’ passing last October, I felt compelled to listen to a lot of Satchmo’s work work and soon I discovered why he peaked as high as he did. He was a trailblazer without an equal, often dubbed as one of the most influential forefathers of jazz and scat singing. Armstrong was a colossus of musical innovation, whose groundbreaking artistry, infectious attraction and enduring legacy have continue to inspire and delight audiences across generations, cementing his status as an iconic legend in the pantheon of American music.

Beyond his mastery of the trumpet, his revolutionary techniques and his much-loved gravelly voice, it was Louis Armstrong’s infectious grin, quick wit, and general demeanour that truly set him apart from others. His was a warm and humorous personality that won him a multitude of fans and captured the hearts of millions worldwide. His ability to connect with people through his music, humour, and charisma has cemented his legacy as a beloved entertainer and a timeless icon in the world of jazz.

Born into dire poverty in 1901, Armstrong grew up mostly under his grandmother’s care. He lacked the simple joys of life as a child and suffered malnutrition. In the early 1900’s despite his grandmother’s ambitions for him, being of African descent was a major setback and at the age of seven, he was forced to work selling newspapers or vegetables on the street. At age 11, he had quit school and joined a quartet of boys who sang on the streets for money. After few months of work, he saved enough to buy a used cornet with which he taught himself to play.

During their street performances, Louis and friends would come into contact with many different musicians who played in ‘Storyville Honky Tonks.’ It was here that one of towns best known trumpeters, Bunk Johnson, noticed Armstrong’s raw talent and taught him a variety of techniques to refine his already impressive skills. Johnson invited Armstrong to attend his concerts, paving the way for the young prodigy’s future success.

During this time, Louis lived with his mother and sister and worked for the Karnoffskys’, a local family of Lithuanian Jews. He often helped the family with their two children, Morris and Alex, and did chores around the house. Many believe his fondness for the Jewish faith came from this connection revealed in his memoir ‘Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, LA’. Working for the Karnoffskys’ and singing Russian lullabies to put the children to sleep inspired him to ‘sing from the heart’.

As a young boy, Louis Armstrong generally steered clear of trouble, but on New Year’s Eve in 1912 an impetuous act of firing a blank into the air with his stepfather’s gun led to his arrest. As a result, he spent the night in a lock-up and the New Orleans Juvenile Court sentenced him to detention at the Colored Waif’s Home the next day. The home, run by the strict Captain Joseph Jones, was akin to a military camp, with discipline enforced through corporal punishment.

Ironically, it was within those walls that Louis discovered his true passion. The home’s brass band captivated him, as he longed to join its ranks. But the band director was initially hesitant, wary of his troubled past and feared the repercussions of accepting a ‘gun-toting kid from Storyville’ into the band. But Louis’ continued persistence eventually worked as he not only became a member of the band but its leader. It was said that Peter Davis, who became Armstrong’s first teacher was highly impressed with not only his ability, but also his creative mind. And with this band, the 13-year-old Armstrong caught the eye of the likes of Kid Ory.

After being released from detention around 1914, Louis met one of his idols, New Orleans cornet star, Joe “King” Oliver. Oliver was pleased teach and share his skill with upcoming artists and took Louis under his wing, eventually making him his protégé. By 1918, Armstrong had played in brass bands and riverboats in New Orleans, and travelled with the band of Jazz pianist Fate Marable who played on board a steamboat plying up and down the Mississippi River.

Marable was highly impressed with Armstrong’s music and encouraged him and other members of his band to learn sight reading of music. Armstrong would later recounted this time as a crucial part of his career. He described it as his introduction to formal education in music saying it was as though he and his fellow bandsmen were “going to the University” with wider exposure to work with written arrangements.

By the age of 20, Armstrong had already honed his skills to become a proficient sight-reader of music and a pioneering jazz performer renowned for his extended trumpet solos that showcased his unique personality and style. He also began to sing during his performances, adding another dimension to his artistry. In 1922, Armstrong made a pivotal move to Chicago, joining King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band at the prestigious Lincoln Gardens, a blacks-only venue.

Despite his age, Armstrong’s talent earned him a coveted spot as Oliver’s as second cornet artiste, a huge feat considering his amateur status. Shortly after, news of the young prodigy’s performances spread like wildfire, attracting a diverse audience of music enthusiasts, including future jazz legends Benny Goodman and Bix Beiderbecke who would sneak into the dance hall to experience Armstrong’s magic.

After leaving New Orleans in 1922, Armstrong spent three years playing in jazz ensembles in Chicago and Harlem. He was largely content to be a journeyman musician, but his second wife, pianist Lil Hardin believed he was simply too talented not have a band of his own considering his growing popularity. In 1925, while Armstrong was performing in New York, Hardin went behind his back and secured a deal with Chicago’s Dreamland Café to advertise and use him as a featured artiste.

She even demanded his being billed as “The World’s Greatest Trumpet Player.” Despite Armstrong’s’ hesitation, many believed it was a clever entrepreneurial decision on his wife’s part as this marketing gimmick eventually played out in his favour. It turned out to be the best move of his career, as a few days after arriving in Chicago, Armstrong was given the permission to make his first recordings under his own name by ‘OKeh Records’ – a monumental moment in his career.

Between 1925 -1928, Armstrong and his backup bands, the Hot Five and Hot Seven, went on to release over dozen records that introduced the world to his improvisational trumpet solos and trademark scat singing – all commercial successes. The legendary Hot Five and Hot Seven bands captured not only Armstrong’s development as a fine Jazz soloist, but showcased superiority to his peers and many other artists before his time. His “Struttin with Some Barbecue,” “Cornet Chop Suey” and “Potato Head Blues” were often regarded as three masterpieces where he seemingly switched from the mellower-sounding cornet to the trumpet winning the highest critical praise. His efforts at hitting the higher notes was considered revolutionary at the time.

Asked in an interview to discuss the secret of his success and what distinguished him and his peers from the then current crop of artists, Armstrong replied, “I don’t know what they did. I don’t know where they blew it from.” He added, “That’s their business, but if they sounded good I don’t care where it came from.

You understand? Music is music.” Asked about the future of jazz, he expressed confidence that it would remain secure as long as the sanctity of music was upheld. Responding to a question of changing his style to suit younger audiences, he said, “No, why should you change your music, Mozart didn’t change. Bach didn’t change.” When the interviewer stated that some might find that strategy to be a bit regressive, Armstrong countered, “We never did worry about styles, there ain’t no such thing as styles in music. There ain’t but two kinds of music, good or bad. That’s all.”

Despite his phenomenal success, many often-overlooked the chapter of relentless racism in his career which he and fellow artists of colour endured in the industry. This, ironically, was a stark contrast to the joyfulness in his music . Critics noted that he was often singled out among African American artists during the tumultuous 1940s-1950s, with some labelling him an “Uncle Tom” due to his perceived acquiescence of discrimination, in contrast to figures like Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali who vocally denounced the US government’s handling of racial issues. While some believed Armstrong’s restrained approach was driven by a fear of backlash and career repercussions – which was a legitimate concern given the industry’s predominantly white ownership – his actions nevertheless remained a testament to his strength and perseverance in the face of adversity.

In Sacha Jenkins’ documentary ‘Louis Armstrong’s Black and Blues’ , revealed a rare interview where Armstrong reminisced on the discrimination he faced in the industry, from being heckled by an audience member who yelled ‘I don’t like Negros’ to his face ‘ to being disrespected on a film set in a manner which he believed ,no white artist would ever tolerate.

Armstrong also said in his usual humorous manner how he got last laugh at the encounter he had on the movie set, adding he even harangued them on ‘where to stick their movie’. And as a man who was born less then a half century after the abolition of slavery, it was no less of a miracle that Armstrong reached levels of fame and success that could rival the likes off Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby, who were both studio darlings.

Louis Armstrong also bridged the generational gap by collaborating with younger artists, notably Ella Fitzgerald, with whom he released the iconic album, “Ella and Louis,” in 1956. This masterpiece showcased the duo’s undeniable chemistry and offered a powerful representation of black Americans in the 1950s, emphasizing the importance of unity and solidarity in the face of segregation. In late 1963, Louis Armstrong (and his All Stars ) recorded “Hello, Dolly!”, a title track for an upcoming musical project.

Although Armstrong himself had low expectations for the song, it became a massive hit when the show premiered on Broadway making “Hello Dolly!” reach number one on the charts, surpassing two songs by The Beatles at the height of ‘Beatlemania in 1964’, making Armstrong the oldest musician in American history to have a number one song at 62 years of age. His crossover appeal continued with his starring role in the film adaptation of “Hello, Dolly!” in 1969, where he shared the screen with Barbra Streisand, further cementing his status as a generational icon. Critics believed these projects demonstrated Armstrong’s ability to transcend age and genre boundaries, leaving an indelible mark music and American cultural heritage.

Shorty before his death on July 6, 1971, in February Armstrong played a two‐week engagement at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. When asked about his return to the scene he said, “I’m going back to work when my treaders get in as good shape as my chops.” Showing audiences that the ‘showman’ in him hasn’t died out despite his rapid decline of health.

“If anybody was Mr. Jazz it was Louis Armstrong. He was the epitome of jazz and always will be. He is what I call an American standard, an American original,” Jazz icon Duke Ellington once said. Critics believe it was a testament to his prodigious talent, innovative spirit, and iconic image that were inextricably linked with the genre of jazz, making him an embodiment of that art form. His legacy continues to inspire generations of musicians, from , Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday to modern virtuosos like Jon Batiste. And, though, the state of Jazz is in no state of a disarray, its current state is a far cry from its former glory, leaving many to ponder if there will ever be another artist who can match the success and enduring influence of Louis Armstrong.

Regina Bain, executive director of Armstrong’s house museum in Corona, lauded him for his unwavering perseverance and resiliency in the face of intense backlash from social critics. ‘Despite enduring racial terror that affected his life and well-being, he continued to push forward,’ she said. ‘While no one, including Armstrong, deserves such treatment, his ability to overcome obstacles and achieve legendary status is a testament to his remarkable talent and strength.’

His influence strictly went beyond nearly a century of jazz to include everyone from Leonard Bernstein to the Rolling Stones, and his imprints extended far beyond jazz, with his momentum serving as an inspiration for many artists in popular music still to this day . And as J.D. Allen once aptly put it, ‘All roads lead back to Pops,’ nodding to Armstrong’s enduring impact as a once-in-a-generation icon.

(The writer is a Sri Lankan living in Toronto, Canada. She may be contacted at dahamisamarathunga44@gmail.com)

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Features

The NPP Government is more than a JVP offspring:

Published

4 days ago

2026/04/12

Thilina Walpola

Rohana Wijeweera

It is also different from all past governments as it faces new and different challenges

No one knows whether the already broken ceasefire between the US and Iran, with Israel as a reluctant adjunct, will last the full 10 days, or what will come thereafter. The world’s economic woes are not over and the markets are yo-yoing in response to Trump’s twitches and Iran’s gate keeping at the Strait of Hormuz. The gloomy expert foretelling is that full economic normalcy will not return until the year is over even if the war were to end with the ceasefire. That means continuing challenges for Sri Lanka and more of the tough learning in the art of governing for the NPP.

The NPP government has been doing what most governments in Asia have been doing to cope with the current global crisis, which is also an Asian crisis insofar as oil supplies and other supply chains are concerned. What the government can and must do additionally is to be totally candid with the people and keep them informed of everything that it is doing – from monitoring import prices to the timely arranging of supplies, all the details of tender, the tracking of arrivals, and keeping the distribution flow through the market without bottlenecks. That way the government can eliminate upstream tender rackets and downstream hoarding swindles. People do not expect miracles from their government, only honest, sincere and serious effort in difficult circumstances. Backed up by clear communication and constant public engagement.

But nothing is going to stop the flow of criticisms against the NPP government. That is a fact of Sri Lankan politics. Even though the opposition forces are weak and have little traction and even less credibility, there has not been any drought in the criticisms levelled against the still fledgling government. These criticisms can be categorized as ideological, institutional and oppositional criticisms, with each category having its own constituency and/or commentators. The three categories invariably overlap and there are instances of criticisms that excite only the pundits but have no political resonance.

April 5 anniversary nostalgia

There is also a new line of criticism that might be inspired by the April 5 anniversary nostalgia for the 1971 JVP insurrection. This new line traces the NPP government to the distant roots of the JVP – its April 1965 founding “in a working-class home in Akmeemana, Galle” by a 22-year old Rohana Wijeweera and seven others; the short lived 1971 insurrection that was easily defeated; and the much longer and more devastating second (1987 to 1989) insurrection that led to the elimination of the JVP’s frontline leaders including Wijeweera, and brought about a change in the JVP’s political direction with commitment to parliamentary democracy. So far, so good, as history goes.

But where the nostalgic narrative starts to bend is in attempting a straight line connection from the 1965 Akmeemana origins of the JVP to the national electoral victories of the NPP in 2024. And the bend gets broken in trying to bridge the gap between the “founding anti-imperialist economics” of the JVP and the practical imperatives of the NPP government in “governing a debt-laden small open economy.” Yet this line of criticism differs from the other lines of criticism that I have alluded to, but more so for its moral purpose than for its analytical clarity. The search for clarity could begin with question – why is the NPP government more than a JVP offspring? The answer is not so simple, but it is also not too complicated.

For starters, the JVP was a political response to the national and global conditions of the 1960s and 1970s, piggybacking socialism on the bandwagon of ethno-nationalism in a bi-polar world that was ideologically split between status quo capitalism and the alternative of socialism. The NPP government, on the other hand, is not only a response to, but is also a product of the conditions of the 2010s and 2020s. The twain cannot be more different. Nothing is the same between then and now, locally and globally.

A pragmatic way to look at the differences between the origins of the JVP and the circumstances of the NPP government is to look at the very range of criticisms that are levelled against the NPP government. What I categorize as ideological criticisms include criticisms of the government’s pro-IMF and allegedly neo-liberal economic policies, as well as the government’s foreign policy stances – on Israel, on the current US-Israel war against Iran, the geopolitics of the Indian Ocean, and the apparent closeness to the Modi government in India. These criticisms emanate from the non-JVP left and Sinhala Buddhist nationalists.

Strands of nationalism

To digress briefly, there are several strands in the overall bundle of Sri Lankan nationalism. There is the liberal inclusive strand, the left-progressive strand, the exclusive Sinhala Buddhist Nationalist (SBN) strand, and the defensive strands of minority nationalisms. Given Sri Lanka’s historical political formations and alliances, much overlapping goes on between the different strands. The overlapping gets selective on an issue by issue basis, which in itself is not unwelcome insofar as it promotes plurality in place of exclusivity.

Historically as well, and certainly after 1956, the SBN strand has been the dominant strand of nationalism in Sri Lanka and has had the most influential say in every government until now. Past versions of the JVP frequently straddled the dominant SBN space. Currently, however, the dominant SBN strand is in one of its more dormant phases and the NPP government could be a reason for the current dormancy. This is an obvious difference between the old JVP and the new NPP.

A second set of criticisms, or institutional criticisms, emanate from political liberals and human rights activists and these are about the NPP government’s actions or non-actions in regard to constitutional changes, the future of the elected executive presidency, the status of provincial devolution and the timing of provincial council elections, progress on human rights issues, the resolution of unfinished postwar businesses including the amnesia over mass graves. These criticisms and the issues they represent are also in varying ways the primary concerns of the island’s Tamils, Muslims and the Malaiyaka (planntationn) Tamils. As with the overlapping between the left and the non-minority nationalists, there is also overlapping between the liberal activists and minority representatives.

A third category includes what might be called oppositional criticisms and they counterpose the JVP’s past against the NPP’s present, call into question the JVP’s commitment to multi-party democracy and raise alarms about a creeping constitutional dictatorship. This category also includes criticisms of the NPP government’s lack of governmental experience and competence; alleged instances of abuse of power, mismanagement and even corruption; alleged harassment of past politicians; and the failure to find the alleged mastermind behind the 2019 Easter bombings. At a policy and implementational level, there have been criticisms of the government’s educational reforms and electricity reforms, the responses to cyclone Ditwah, and the current global oil and economic crises. The purveyors of oppositional criticisms are drawn from the general political class which includes political parties, current and past parliamentarians, as well as media pundits.

Criticisms as expectations

What is common to all three categories of criticisms is that they collectively represent what were understood to be promises by the NPP before the elections, and have become expectations of the NPP government after the elections. It is the range and nature of these criticisms and the corresponding expectations that make the NPP government a lot more than a mere JVP offspring, and significantly differentiate it from every previous government.

The deliverables that are expected of the NPP government were never a part of the vocabulary of the original JVP platform and programs. The very mode of parliamentary politics was ideologically anathema to the JVP of Akmeemana. And there was no mention of or concern for minority rights, or constitutional reforms. On foreign policy, it was all India phobia without Anglo mania – a halfway variation of Sri Lanka’s mainstream foreign policy of Anglo mania and India phobia. For a party of the rural proletariat, the JVP was virulently opposed to the plantation proletariat. The JVP’s version of anti-imperialist economics would hardly have excited the Sri Lankan electorate at any time, and certainly not at the present time.

At the same time, the NPP government is also the only government that has genealogical antecedents to a political movement or organization like the JVP. That in itself makes the NPP government unique among Sri Lanka’s other governments. The formation of the NPP is the culmination of the evolution of the JVP that began after the second insurrection with the shedding of political violence, acceptance of political plurality and commitment to electoral democracy.

But the evolution was not entirely a process of internal transformation. It was also a response to a rapidly and radically changing circumstances both within Sri Lanka and beyond. This evolution has not been a rejection of the founding socialist purposes of the JVP in 1968, but their adaptation in the endless political search, under constantly changing conditions, for a non-violent, socialist and democratic framework that would facilitate the full development of the human potential of all Sri Lankans.

The burden of expectations is unmistakable, but what is also remarkable is their comprehensiveness and the NPP’s formal commitment to all of them at the same time. No previous government shouldered such an extensive burden or showed such a willing commitment to each and every one of the expectations. In the brewing global economic crisis, the criticisms, expectations and the priorities of the government will invariably be focussed on keeping the economy alive and alleviating the day-to-day difficulties of millions of Sri Lankan families. While what the NPP government can and must do may not differ much from what other Asian governments – from Pakistan to Vietnam – are doing, it could and should do better than what any and all past Sri Lankan governments did when facing economic challenges.

by Rajan Philips

Features

A Fragile Ceasefire: Pakistan’s Glory and Israel’s Sabotage

Published

4 days ago

2026/04/12

Thilina Walpola

Smokes over Beirut: Israel’s Ceasefire Attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon

After threatening to annihilate one of the planet’s oldest civilizations, TACO* Trump chickened out again by grasping the ceasefire lifeline that Pakistan had assiduously prepared. Trump needed the ceasefire badly to stem the mounting opposition to the war in America. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu wanted the war to continue because he needed it badly for his political survival. So, he contrived a fiction and convinced Trump that Lebanon is not included in the ceasefire. Trump as usual may not have noticed that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Shariff had clearly indicated Lebanon’s inclusion in his announcement of the ceasefire at 7:50 PM, Tuesday, on X. Ten minutes before Donald Trump’s fake deadline.

True to form on Wednesday, Israel unleashed the heaviest assault by far on Lebanon, reportedly killing over 300 people, the highest single-day death toll in the current war. Iran responded by re-closing the Strait of Hormuz and questioning the need for talks in Islamabad over the weekend. There were other incidents as well, with an oil refinery attacked in Iran, and Iranian drones and missiles slamming oil and gas infrastructure in UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar.

The US tried to insist that Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire, with the argumentative US Vice President JD Vance, who was in Budapest, Hungary, campaigning for Viktor Orban, calling the whole thing a matter of “bad faith negotiation” as well as “legitimate misunderstanding” on the part of Iran, and warning Iran that “it would be dumb to jeopardise its ceasefire with Washington over Israel’s attacks in Lebanon.”

But as the attack in Lebanon drew international condemnation – from Pope Leo to UN Secretary General António Guterres, and several world leaders, and amidst fears of Lebanon becoming another Gaza with 1,500 people including 130 children killed and more than a million people displaced, Washington got Israel to stop its “lawn mowing” in southern Lebanon.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to “open direct negotiations with Lebanon as soon as possible,”. Lebanese President Joeseph Aoun has also called for “a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, followed by direct negotiations between them.” Israel’s involvement in Lebanon remains a wild card that threatens the ceasefire and could scuttle the talks between the US and Iran scheduled for Saturday in Islamabad.

Losers and Winners

After the ceasefire, both the Trump Administration and Iran have claimed total victories while the Israeli government wants the war to continue. The truth is that after more than a month into nonstop bombing of Iran, America and Israel have won nothing. Only Iran has won something it did not have when Trump and Netanyahu started their war. Iran now has not only a say over but control of the Strait of Hormuz. The ceasefire acknowledges this. Both Trump and Netanyahu are under fire in their respective countries and have no allies in the world except one another.

The real diplomatic winner is Pakistan. Salman Rushdie’s palimpsest-country has emerged as a key player in global politics and an influential mediator in a volatile region. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Defence Field Marshal Asim Munir have both been praised by President Trump and credited for achieving the current ceasefire. The Iranian regime has also been effusive in its praise of Pakistan’s efforts.

It is Pakistan that persisted with the effort after initial attempts at backdoor diplomacy by Egypt, Pakistan and Türkiye started floundering. Sharing a 900 km border and deep cultural history with Iran, and having a skirmish of its own on the eastern front with Afghanistan, Pakistan has all the reason to contain and potentially resolve the current conflict in Iran. Although a majority Sunni Muslim country, Pakistan is home to the second largest Shia Muslim population after Iran, and is the easterly terminus of the Shia Arc that stretches from Lebanon. The country also has a mutual defense pact with Saudi Arabia that includes Pakistan’s nuclear cover for the Kingdom. An open conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia would have put Pakistan in a dangerously awkward position.

It is now known and Trump has acknowledged that China had a hand in helping Iran get to the diplomatic table. Pakistan used its connections well to get Chinese diplomatic reinforcement. Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar flew to Beijing to brief his Chinese counterpart and secured China’s public support for the diplomatic efforts. The visit produced a Five-Point Plan that became a sequel to America’s 15-point proposal and the eventual ten-point offer by Iran.

There is no consensus between parties as to which points are where and who is agreeing to what. The chaos is par for the course the way Donald Trumps conducts global affairs. So, all kudos to Pakistan for quietly persisting with old school toing and froing and producing a semblance of an agreement on a tweet without a parchment.

It is also noteworthy that Israel has been excluded from all the diplomatic efforts so far. And it is remarkable, but should not be surprising, the way Trump has sidelined Isreal from the talks. Prime Minister Netanyahu has been enjoying overwhelming support of Israelis for starting the war of his life against Iran and getting the US to spearhead it. But now the country is getting confused and is exposed to Iranian missiles and drones far more than ever before. The Israeli opposition is finally coming alive realizing what little has Netanyahu’s wars have achieved and at what cost. Israel has alienated a majority of Americans and has no ally anywhere else.

It will be a busy Saturday in Islamabad, where the US and Iranian delegations are set to meet. Iran would seem to have insisted and secured the assurance that the US delegation will be led by Vice President Vance, while including Trump’s personal diplomats – Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Iran has not announced its team but it is expected to be led, for protocol parity, by Iran’s Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and will likely include its suave Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Vice President Vance’s attendance will be the most senior US engagement with Iran since Secretary of State John Kerry negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal under President Obama.

The physical arrangements for the talks are still not public although Islamabad has been turned into a security fortress given the stakes and risks involved. The talks are expected to be ‘indirect’, with the two delegations in separate rooms and Pakistani officials shuttling between them. The status of Iran’s enriched uranium and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz will be the major points of contention. After Netanyahu’s overreach on Wednesday, Lebanon is also on the short list

The 2015 nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan) took months of negotiations and involved multiple parties besides the US and Iran, including China, France, Germany, UK, Russia and the EU. That served the cause of regional and world peace well until Trump tore up the deal to spite Obama. It would be too much to expect anything similar after a weekend encounter in Islamabad. But if the talks could lead to at least a permanent ceasefire and the return to diplomacy that would be a huge achievement.

(*As of 2025–2026, Donald Trump is nicknamed “TACO Trump” by Wall Street traders and investors as an acronym for “”. This term highlights a perceived pattern of him making strong tariff threats that cause market panic, only to later retreat or weaken them, causing a rebound.)

by Rajan Philips

Features

CIA’s hidden weapon in Iran

Published

4 days ago

2026/04/12

Thilina Walpola

We are passing through the ten-day interregnum called a ceasefire over the War on Iran. The world may breathe briefly, but this pause is not reassurance—it is a deliberate interlude, a vacuum in which every actor positions for the next escalation. Iran is far from secure. Behind the veneer of calm, external powers and local forces are preparing, arming, and coordinating. The United States is unlikely to deploy conventional ground troops; the next moves will be executed through proxies whose behaviour will defy expectation. These insurgents are shaped, guided, and amplified by intelligence and technology, capable of moving silently, striking precisely, and vanishing before retaliation. The ceasefire is not peace—it is the prelude to disruption.

The Kurds, historically instruments of Tehran against Baghdad, are now vectors for the next insurgency inside Iran. This movement is neither organic nor local. It is externally orchestrated, with the CIA as the principal architect. History provides the blueprint: under Mohammad-Reza Shah Pahlavi, Kurdish uprisings were manipulated, never supported out of sympathy. They were instruments of leverage against Iraq, a way to weaken a rival while projecting influence beyond Iran’s borders. Colonel Isa Pejman, Iranian military intelligence officer who played a role in Kurdish affairs, recalled proposing support for a military insurgency in Iraq, only for the Shah to respond coldly: “[Mustafa] Barzani killed my Army soldiers… please forget it. The zeitgeist and regional context have been completely transformed.” The Kurds were pawns, but pawns with strategic weight. Pejman later noted: “When the Shah wrote on the back of the letter ‘Accepted’ to General Pakravan, I felt I was the true leader of the Kurdish movement.” The seeds planted then are now being activated under new, technologically empowered auspices.

Iran’s geographic vulnerabilities make this possible. The Shah understood the trap: a vast territory with porous borders, squeezed by Soviet pressure from the north and radical Arab states from the west. “We are in a really terrible situation since Moscow’s twin pincers coming down through Kabul and Baghdad surround us,” he warned Asadollah Alam. From Soviet support for the Mahabad Republic to Barzani’s dream of a unified Kurdistan, Tehran knew an autonomous Kurdish bloc could destabilize both Iraq and Iran. “Since the formation of the Soviet-backed Mahabad Republic, the Shah had been considerably worried about the Kurdish threat,” a US assessment concluded.

Today, the Kurds’ significance is operational, not symbolic. The CIA’s recent rescue of a downed F-15 airman using Ghost Murmur, a quantum magnetometry system, demonstrated the reach of technology in intelligence operations. The airman survived two days on Iranian soil before extraction. This was not a simple rescue; it was proof that highly mobile, technologically augmented operations can penetrate Iranian territory with surgical precision. The same logic applies to insurgency preparation: when individuals can be tracked through electromagnetic signatures, AI-enhanced surveillance, and drones, proxy forces can be armed, guided, and coordinated with unprecedented efficiency. The Kurds are no longer pawns—they are a living network capable of fracturing Iranian cohesion while providing deniability to foreign powers.

Iran’s engagement with Iraqi Kurds was always containment, not empowerment. The Shah’s goal was never Kurdish independence. “We do not approve an independent [Iraqi] Kurdistan,” he stated explicitly. Yet their utility as instruments of regional strategy was undeniable. The CIA’s revival of these networks continues a long-standing pattern: insurgent groups integrated into the wider calculus of international power. Israel, Iran, and the Kurds formed a triangular strategic relationship that terrified Baghdad. “For Baghdad, an Iranian-Israeli-Kurdish triangular alliance was an existential threat,” contemporary reports noted. This is the template for modern manipulation: a networked insurgency, externally supported, capable of destabilizing regimes from within while giving foreign powers plausible deniability.

Iran today faces fragility. Years of sanctions, repression, and targeted strikes have weakened educational and scientific hubs; Sharif University in Tehran, one of the country’s leading scientific centres, was bombed. Leaders, scholars, and innovators have been eliminated. Military readiness is compromised. Generations-long setbacks leave Iran exposed. Against this backdrop, a Kurdish insurgency armed with drones, AI-supported surveillance, and precision munitions could do more than disrupt—it could fracture the state internally. The current ten-day ceasefire is a mirage; the next wave of revolt is already being orchestrated.

CIA involvement is deliberate. Operations are coordinated with allied intelligence agencies, leveraging Kurdish grievances, mobility, and ethnolinguistic networks. The Kurds’ spread across Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria provides operational depth—allowing insurgents to strike, vanish, and regroup with impunity. Barzani understood leverage decades ago: “We could be useful to the United States… Look at our strategic location on the flank of any possible Soviet advance into the Middle East.” Today, the calculation is inverted: Kurds are no longer instruments against Baghdad; they are potential disruptors inside Tehran itself.

Technology is central. Ghost Murmur’s ability to detect a single heartbeat remotely exemplifies how intelligence can underpin insurgent networks. Drones, satellite communications, AI predictive modeling, and battlefield sensors create an infrastructure that can transform a dispersed Kurdish insurgency into a high-precision operation. Iran can no longer rely on fortifications or loyalty alone; the external environment has been recalibrated by technology.

History provides the roadmap. The Shah’s betrayal of Barzani after the 1975 Algiers Agreement demonstrated that external actors can manipulate both Iranian ambitions and Kurdish loyalties. “The Shah sold out the Kurds,” Yitzhak Rabin told Kissinger. “We could not station our troops there and keep fighting forever,” the Shah explained to Alam. The Kurds are a pivot, not a cause. Networks once acting under Tehran’s influence are now being repurposed against it.

The insurgency exploits societal fissures. Kurdish discontent in Iran, suppressed for decades, provides fertile ground. Historical betrayal fuels modern narratives: “Barzani claimed that ‘Isa Pejman sold us out to the Shah and the Shah sold us out to the US.’” Intelligence agencies weaponize these grievances, pairing them with training, technological augmentation, and covert support.

Geopolitically, the stakes are immense. The Shah’s defensive-offensive doctrine projected Iranian influence outward to neutralize threats. Today, the logic is inverted: the same networks used to contain Iraq are being readied to contain Iran. A technologically augmented Kurdish insurgency, covertly backed, could achieve in months what decades of sanctions, diplomacy, or repression have failed to accomplish.

The operation will be asymmetric, high-tech, and dispersed. UAVs, quantum-enhanced surveillance, encrypted communications, and AI-directed logistics will dominate. Conventional Iranian forces are vulnerable to this type of warfare. As Pejman reflected decades ago, “Our Army was fighting there, rather than the Kurds who were harshly defeated… How could we keep such a place?” Today, the challenge is magnified by intelligence superiority on the insurgents’ side.

This is not a temporary flare-up. The CIA and its allies are constructing a generational network of influence. Experience from Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon proves these networks endure once operationalised. The Shah recognized this: “Iran’s non-state foreign policy under the Shah’s reign left a lasting legacy for the post-Revolution era.” Today, those instruments are being remade as vectors of foreign influence inside Iran.

The future is stark. Iran faces not simply external threats, but a carefully engineered insurgency exploiting historical grievances, technological superiority, and precise intelligence. The Kurds are central. History, technology, and geopolitical calculation converge to create a transformative threat. Tehran’s miscalculations, betrayals, and suppressed grievances now form the lattice for this insurgency. The Kurds are positioned not just as an ethnic minority, but as a vector of international strategy—Tehran may be powerless to stop it.

Iran’s containment strategies have been weaponized, fused with technology, and inverted against it. The ghosts of Barzani’s Peshmerga, the shadows of Algiers, and the Shah’s strategic vision now converge with Ghost Murmur, drones, and AI. Tehran faces a paradox: the instruments it once controlled are now calibrated to undermine its authority. The next Kurdish revolt will not only fight in the mountains but in the electromagnetic shadows where intelligence operates, consequences are lethal, and visibility is scarce.

by Nilantha Ilangamuwa