Features

The Republic: Fiftieth Anniversary and Fifty Days of Aragalaya

Published

4 years ago

2022/06/5

by Rajan Philips

Sri Lanka became a Republic on 22 May 1972, and the fiftieth republican anniversary has come and gone largely unnoticed. The only acknowledgement of the occasion so far in the media has been the articles by Dr. Jayampathy Wickramaratne, which were also a reproduction of a chapter on the 1972 Constitution that he wrote for a book felicitating the political life of Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike. Last Sunday, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe addressed the nation for the second time in as many weeks. He spoke of the need to address issues facing the country not only in the economic sphere, but also in the political sphere which would involve constitutional changes.

However, the Prime Minister made no reference to the fiftieth anniversary of the Republic and its implications for the constitutional changes that are being considered now. He is only too well aware that the current impetus for constitutional changes is not due to the age of the Republic – its fifty long years, but it is due to the pressure brought on by 50 days of Aragalaya protests. The 50-day mark of Aragalaya was faithfully marked by the youthful protesters, quite unlike the 50th anniversary of the Republic.

The Republic came into being by virtue of the First Republican (1972) Constitution under the auspices of the United Front Government with Mrs. Bandaranaike as Prime Minister and Dr. Colvin R de Silva as the Minister of Constitutional Affairs. The parliament that was elected in 1970 with a landslide majority for the United Front Government, was turned into a Constituent Assembly to “draft, enact and adopt” a new constitution quite outside the ambit of the Soulbury Constitution and, as Dr. Colvin would often intone, “not merely despite the Queen but in defiance of the Queen.” Thus, Sri Lanka became a Republic with one more formal severing of its colonial cords.

The First Republican Constitution lasted only five years and was quite easily undone by its own exceptionally flexible provision for its repeal and replacement by a future parliament commanding a two-thirds majority of its members. The 1977 election gave JR Jayewardene and the United National Party more than a two thirds majority, which JRJ used not only to repeal and replace the 1972 Constitution, but also foist on Sri Lanka a presidential system of government that had no justificatory rationale in national politics or support in the country beyond JRJ’s idiosyncratic mind and his possession of undated letters of resignation given to him by all newly elected UNP MPs.

The upshot was the Second Republican Constitution that was adopted in 1978. In contrast to the supreme flexibility of the 1972 Constitution, the 1978 Constitution was deliberately entrenched against changes by future parliaments except the long parliament (1977-1988) that JRJ presided over. The 1978 Constitution has been in force for 44 years, and has been Sri Lanka’s most contentious constitution. It has also lasted the longest.

Constitutional Changes

The constitutional changes that are currently on offer are not changes to anything in the First Republican Constitution, but to the Second Republican Constitution. The main constitutional changes that are now being bandied as part of the 21st Amendment (21A) primarily involve significant modifications to the powers of the Executive President. An anticipated sequel to 21A is the abolishing of the presidency itself. Although they are not included in the current proposals for 21A, there are two other matters that will need to be addressed through constitutional changes sooner than later.

The first is electoral reform to modify the current proportional representation system to a blend of the old first-past-the-post system and limited proportional representation. Constitutional changes to bring about electoral reform have had nearly unanimous support among MPs in every parliament since 1994, but every President and her/his government from 1994 has singularly failed to leverage this support and transform the electoral system. And it is not likely to happen even now without pressure and prodding from Aragalaya protests.

The second matter is more controversial and involves the question of devolution of powers and consistently positive implementation of the Thirteenth Amendment (13A). There is no consensus over what needs to be done even though, it is fair to say, the call for repealing 13A has lost any consequential political support that it may have previously had. Gotabaya Rajapaksa himself once called for the repeal of 13A, but it is unlikely that he is harbouring such thoughts now, if he is harbouring any constitutional thought at all. More so, with all the financial bailouts from India without which his presidency will be a goner much sooner than it would eventually be.

The controversy over 13A cannot be settled by taking extreme positions – either calling Provincial Councils a steppingstone to separation, which is simply nuts; or insisting that PCs are unworkable so long as the Constitution calls itself a unitary constitution, which is equally nuts. Federal and Unitary arrangements are not disconnected poles with nothing in between, but are the ends of a continuum with several intermediate possibilities. The fact that the unitary article and the 13th Amendment are part of the same constitution is proof of the co-existence pudding. The trouble is nobody is interested in actually eating the pudding, only complaining about what ingredients in it are too much and what ingredients are missing.

In my view, it would be distractive and counterproductive to expand the scope of 21A to include constitutional changes involving 13A and Provincial Councils. The main task is to make the Provincial Councils system work, first by providing for them to be elected along with the next parliament under a reformed electoral system. Constitutional adjustments can be brought in later based on sincere and honest operational experience of the newly elected Provincial Councils. For now, the focus should be on constitutional changes involving the executive presidency first, and electoral reforms soon after.

PM’s Statement

In his Sunday talk last week, the Prime Minister spoke to the “two major issues in the political sphere.” The first issue, he said, is “the re-introduction of the 19th Amendment,” and noted that “… party leaders, are now preparing the 21st Amendment in this regard.” The second issue “is to work towards the abolition of the Executive Presidency. The timing and methodology must be decided by the Party Leaders.”

While abolishing the executive presidential system has been a constant policy plank across all major political parties from 1994, this is the first time a Prime Minister has addressed the nation indicating that parliament must “work towards the abolition of the Executive Presidency,” and that “the timing and methodology must be decided by the Party Leaders.” There are number of ways of looking at this statement and its implications.

First, it must be acknowledged that such a statement would have been unthinkable, and even more unthinkable that it could be made by someone like Ranil Wickremesinghe, without the ground-breaking effects of the Aragalaya protests. To be sure, it is not only the Prime Minister who is talking about abolishing the presidency as a result of Aragalaya, but even President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has been forced by it to meekly indicate his readiness for abolishing the presidency. This was before May 9, when Aragalaya was in full flight. Now the President seems to be changing his tune, but more on that later.

Second, it is possible to see the Prime Minister’s statement both as a notice to the President, as well as a rallying call for supporting constitutional changes both within parliament and outside. Those within parliament who are committed to enacting 21A and abolishing the presidency must stop using them to make rhetorical points and start focusing on winning support among MPs to obtain the requisite two-thirds majority.

Third, insofar as the PM’s statement might also be meant for the ears of Aragalaya protesters, one can only say that the Prime Minister is being better late than never. I say this because it has been reported that in his discussions with the President before being appointed as Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe has told Gotabaya Rajapaksa that he should resign as President. I say as well that Mr. Wickremesinghe would have strengthened his position immensely, both within and outside parliament, if he had made his position publicly known instead of keeping it as a private suggestion to the President. Belatedly, he has gone public now, but it is too soon to tell if he is too late in publicly stating that 21A must be passed and the Executive Presidency must be abolished. Here is why.

Last week I noted some of the consequences of the deflation of Aragalaya after the tumults out of Temple Trees on May 9. It is not only reactionary politics and Basil Rajapaksa’s antics that have been resurrected by the deflation of Aragalaya. There is also the ministerial resurrection of Wijeyadasa Rajapakse who has been entrusted with the drafting of the 21A Bill. Given his chequered past, no one should be surprised that the draft Bill that he is currently circulating is unacceptable to almost all genuine stakeholders for constitutional reform. In addition, quite a few SLPP MPs and former Ministers are now ganging up against substantive constitutional changes and abolishing the executive presidency.

PMD’s Monkey Business

Above all, the President, either on his own bad advice or that of others, would appear to be keen on consolidating his political position with no apparent interest in addressing the burning issues in either the economic sphere or the political sphere that the Prime Minister has been harping on. While others are talking about separating the Head of State from holding ministerial portfolios, the President is gazetting himself authority over 42 institutions by bringing them under the Defence Ministry. Why should the President be directly bossing over institutions like The Board of Investment, Sri Lanka Telecom and the Port City Economic Commission, and why should such institutions come under the Ministry of Defence?

And why is the President extending the duration of the ‘One Country One Law’ Presidential Task Force headed by the controversial Gnanasara Thero even after the Attorney General has instructed that charges by filed against the monk for using hate speech against religious minorities? Is the Task Force going to be helpful in getting bridge financing from the IMF? Or is there a new credit line from Saudi Arabia that Gnanasara Thero recently visited apparently for enlightenment on religious cohabitation?

If the President seems earnest about consolidating his positions and murky bases, he is also showing himself to be deceptive and manipulative in spreading misinformation about Aragalaya protesters. At least, the President’s Media Division (PMD) is. Last week, the PMD put out a press release that has since been exposed and dismissed as false information. The PMD statement alluded to an organization called “The Confederation of Professionals for a National Policy” and described it as “a group of professionals and youth involved in ‘Aragalaya’ (struggle).” The statement went on to say that this ‘group’ met with the President on Wednesday (June 1), the meeting was held under the patronage of Ven. Prof. Pathegama Gnanissara Thera and Shastrapathi Ven. Vitiyala Kavidhaja Thera, and that the meeting was attended by Dr. Asoka Jayasena and Mr. Nelum Weragoda representing the “group of professionals and youth involved in Aragalaya.”

Unsurprisingly, the PMD statement did not provide the names of Aragalaya youth who allegedly attended the meeting. In fact, there were no names to provide because no one from Aragalaya attended any meeting with the President. The protesters who have been out for over 50 days demanding the resignation of the President have flatly denied meeting with the President as (falsely) claimed by the President’s Media Division. Aragalaya protesters have been quite categorical in denouncing the PMD’s falsehoods: “We don’t want to have any sort of discussion with the President. We just want him to be sent home. That’s the name of our movement “Gota Go Gama” (GGG), meaning for Gota to go.”

Why would the PMD publicly lie about anyone from Aragalaya attending any meeting with the President? The PMD had further stated that the meeting was also attended by the new Minister of Justice Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, and the discussion at the meeting “focused on short, medium and long-term measures that should be taken to address the current political, social and economic crisis and the adoption of a new ‘people-friendly’ Constitution.” Assuming that Minister Rajapakshe did in fact attend a meeting at the President’s House, where was the Prime Minister in all this while the President was leading a discussion on adopting a new “people-friendly” Constitution? And where was 21A in all this? Never mind abolishing the executive presidency. (To be continued)

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Features

The NPP Government is more than a JVP offspring:

Published

5 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

5 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

5 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