Features

JRJ recounts his famous 1951 speech advocating the Peace Treaty for Japan

Published

2 years ago

2024/09/1

With Prime Minister Yoshida and his daughter at the Japan Peace Treaty Conference in San Francisco, Mr. & Mrs. Jayewardene in 1951

Interlude is post-war Japan en route to San Fransisco

(Excepted from Men and Memories by JR Jayewardene)

I attended the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference, San Francisco, USA, in September 1951 as the representative of Ceylon (Sri Lanka). The Foreign Ministers of the major nations and Prime Minister Yoshida of Japan attended. Yoshida shed tears when I stood up for Japan and made a speech which was hailed as the turning point of the Conference.

As Ceylon’s representative I travelled to America through Japan and the Pacific. During my stay in Japan for a few days, I met leading Japanese Buddhists and gathered impressions of the political post-War conditions in Japan. At the Conference my two speeches made me ‘the Hero of the Conference’, in the words of Mr. John Foster Dulles.

The value of this contribution could be gauged by the tributes paid by the world press. Some of the Press accounts are as follows:

San Francisco Chronicle . “The generalized, philosophical argument for forbearance was ably stated by Ceylon’s Minister of Finance, J.R. Jayewardene”.

The Salt Lake Tribune . “The address of Jayewardene, Ceylon’s articulate delegate, will go down as one of the most historic of the conference. He called Russia’s bluff at every turn and quoted Buddha in an effective plea for a merciful peace for Japan”.

The London Times . “A skillful answer to the case was propounded by Jayewardene. He recalled that the United Kingdom, in face of the Russian request that the Treaty be prepared by the Council of Foreign Minister, with the power of veto in operation, had insisted that the British Dominions be consulted, and he claimed that the case for restoration of a completely independent Japan was first considered at the Colombo Conference”.

San Francisco Chronicle. “There was the Minister of Ceylon–a man of great dignity and keen grasp of subtleties–who stripped the very hide off the Soviet position with his declaration: ‘It is interesting to note that the amendments of the Soviet Union seek to insure to the people of Japan the fundamental freedoms–which the people of the Soviet Union themselves would dearly love to possess and enjoy”.

San Francisco Examiner.

“A darkly handsome diplomat from the seldom considered Island of Ceylon spoke up resoundingly for international decency and magnanimity to a world that has of late known little of either. He was J.R. Jayewardene, the rubber rich Island’s Minister of Finance. Dispassionately and with fine logic he tore Russia’s wrecking crew to pieces in his address”.

Newsweek . “A swarthy Sinhalese named J.R. Jayewardene with a clear Cambridge accent shared honours as the most popular speaker with the fiercely bearded Moslem, Sir Mohamed Zafrulla Khan of Pakistan. To the delight of American officials both spoke eloquently as Asiatics to Asiatics”.

Time. “Ablest Asian spokesman at the conference was Ceylon’s delegate, Finance Minister J.R. Jayewardene, a slim, soft-spoken man with a razor-like tongue”.

Life. “Crucial support for West comes as Ceylon’s J.R. Jayewardene protests against Soviet assumption of a ‘protector’ role in Asia, adds that the eight Asian nations present would speak for themselves”.

New York Herald Tribune.

“Ceylon’s Jayewardene led the spokesmen for 13 of the 52 nations at the conference in proclaiming their intention to sign the Anglo-American sponsored treaty”.

I was to attend the Annual Conference of Governors of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to be held in Washington during the second week of September, 1951. A conference of 52 nations to discuss a Peace Treaty for Japan was also summoned to meet at San Francisco in the first week of the same month, and the American Ambassador was very anxious that the Prime Minster D.S. Senanayake should attend, as the other nations were sending their Foreign Ministers and President Truman was to open the conference.

The Prime Minister was unable to leave Ceylon and instead suggested that I should represent him. I gladly agreed because I had to be in America during this period of time, and as the Peace Conference was to be held at San Francisco it was possible for me to arrive there traveling eastwards, through Japan and the Pacific. After San Francisco I could attend the Washington Conference; cross the Atlantic, represent Ceylon at the Economic Conference which was to be held in September in London, and then return to Ceylon. It was indeed a journey that would put a girdle round the world by air and sea.

The BOAC Constellation Liner took off from Katunayake Airport Negombo, at 6.30 a.m. on Sunday, 26 August. Our delegation consisted of R.G. Senanayake, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of External Affairs, and my Private Secretary, R. Bodinagoda. I thought the plane would first travel along the western coast and after leaving the southern tip of Ceylon charter her course eastwards. I was surprised therefore, on looking out after about half an hour’s flight to see range upon range of mountains.

The plane was traveling over the central hills. In a few minutes I found my bearings, for the summit of Adam’s Peak. with the white building of ,the monastery was easily recognizable. We soon flew over the plains in the south-east corner of Ceylon and headed for the sea and Singapore.

At 4 p.m. we landed at Singapore. Our Commissioner Saravanamuttu, and Malcolm Macdonald’s representative were there to meet us. We dined with Malcolm Macdonald who was the Special Commissioner of the UK Government for South-East Asia. Dinner was served in the magnificent palace of the Sultan of Johore, “Bukit Serene”, where Macdonald was staying.

I had been here on an earlier occasion on my way from Australia after the Colombo Plan Conference in June 1950.1 had met Macdonald at the Ceylon Independence celebrations in 1948, and at the Colombo and Sydney Conferences in 1950, and knew him fairly well. We could not spend much time over our dinner as we had to leave early the following morning.

At 3 p.m. we sighted Hongkong and owing to the absence of rain and mist landed safely in this hill-locked bay. We were able to look round the town which ; built on the side of a hill facing the bay, the side facing the sea not being built upon. A Chinese restaurant where the real Chinese food was served was one of the places we visited.

At the Commonwealth Conference in 1951 where the Colombo Plan was inawaegrated, with Prime Minister D. S. Senanayake sitting in the centre. On his left is Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India, and on his right Ernest Bevin, Foreign Minister of the United Kingdom. J.R.J. is the first figure on the left in t he standing group

Early the next day we were again in the air. In the last stage of our journey while flying over Okinawa Island I could see the hulls of ships sunk during the War. Here was fought one of the bitterest battles in which the Americans and the Japanese were involved; where thousands of lives were lost, yet a few years later the two nations were friends, and the conference at San Francisco was to discuss how Japan could again enter the comity of free nations.

We were now approaching Tokyo, and who does not look out to see the peak of Fujiyama, as we did? I stayed five days in Tokyo. The first two days were spent in paying official calls on the American Representative, the Japanese Prime Minister, Yoshida, and the Supreme Allied Commander, General Ridgeway. I also met the Indian Representative at lunch and the British Representative at dinner. Leading members of the Japanese public life were present at these functions. I was able to gather useful information on Japan’s political and economic state after the War.

In my meetings with the Japanese Buddhist leaders I discussed the possibility of holding the next session of the World Fellowship of Buddhists in Japan as requested by Dr. Malalasekera, its President, before I left Ceylon.

A nation that had enjoyed Independence and an unbroken historical record since the sixth century BC was defeated in 1945. The atomic explosions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki compelled a proud people to surrender though their armies were still unconquered. The Allied Forces landed in Japan in August 1945, and on 2 September, General MacArthur, having assumed duties in Japan as Supreme Commander, accepted the surrender of the Japanese on board the US Battleship ‘Missouri’.

SCAP (Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers) was in charge of the occupation and control of Japan. His main task was to implement the basic policies laid down by the USA, China and the UK in the Potsdam Declaration of July 1945, defining the terms for Japanese surrender. The main terms relevant to the occupation were:

(1) to eliminate the authority and influence of irresponsible militarism,

(2) destruction of Japan’s war-making power,

(3) disarming Japan’s military forces,

(4) stern justice to be meted out to all war criminals,

(5) the revival and strengthening of democratic tendencies among the Japanese people.

McArthur, who had the choice of direct or indirect government, chose the latter and utilized the existing government of the country. He issued orders to them or made suggestions as he thought fit. The Japanese Government, which could do nothing contrary to SCAP policy, had also to carry out his wishes. The people, however, looked to the Prime Minister and his government for the elected government continued to function.

After the resignation of the Cabinet that surrendered, a Cabinet headed by Prince Higashikuni assumed office in August 1945. This difficult period of demobilization and food scarcity caused conflict between the SCAP and the Government. On the Prime Minister’s resignation in October, K Shidehara, once Ambassador to the USA was nominated Prime Minister. He accepted and implemented the policy of SCAP which the previous Prime Minister had refused to do, among these being the abolition of the secret police, dismissal of high officials and the liberation of political criminals.

The Shidehara Government functioned until May 1946, and during its tenure of office many measures for the establishment of a democratic constitution were initiated, such as the drafting of a new constitution, a declaration of the sovereignty of the people and the granting of universal franchise. The formation of trade unions was encouraged, and the functioning of political parties resumed. In spite of the liberal measures adopted by the government, the insufficiency of food and its bad distribution caused grave distress, ending in food riots.

In the General Election held in April 1946, the Liberal Party led by Hatoyama was elected with the largest number of members. When Hatoyama was about to be recommended for the office of Prime Minister, SCAP ordered that he should be excluded from office. This was in pursuance of a law which ‘purged’ from office almost two hundred thousand who had militaristic tendencies. The Liberal Party, which was the largest party in Parliament, elected Shigeru Yoshida, the Foreign Minister as its President, and the retiring Prime Minister recommended him to the Emperor as the proper person to succeed him.

The Yoshida Government was constantly faced with labour troubles; strikes were averted only by the intervention of the armed strength of the SCAP; and the Communists and the Left-wing socialists were gaining in strength by clever manipulation of labour troubles. In view of the mounting opposition, the SCAP suggested a General Election, which was held in April 1947, the Socialists becoming the largest party. Yoshida resigned and was succeeded by Katayama, head of the Socialist party, who could not carry on for long owing to dissension in his party. He resigned when a supplementary budget proposal was defeated due to absence of his members from the House during voting.

Speaking at the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference

Ashida, the Democratic Party leader, was voted Prime Minister by the House under the new law which empowered the House of Representatives to elect the Prime Minister by a majority vote. Ashida’s Government was assailed as corrupt from the very first day it assumed office. It was openly stated that Ashida, head of the third largest party was chosen as Prime Minister by the use of money. Financial transactions of members of the Cabinet were investigated into by the police and Ashida unable to face opposition from without, and corruption within his ranks, resigned.

A vote in the House elected Yoshida as Prime Minister for the second time in October 1948. As Yoshida’s’ Liberal Government was a minority-government, a General Election was held in December, when the Liberals won a great victory, securing an absolute majority over all other parties. The people showed their disapproval of incompetence and corruption’, favoured the constitutional methods adopted by Yoshida and approved his plans for removing controls. In spite of opposition from organized labour and the Communists, the government carried through a series of economic reforms.

In spite of initial sufferings which the people had to bear, the government pursued its policy with determination. By the end of 1950, the Yoshida Government could proudly claim that the finances and economy of Japan were established. The government then turned its attention to the problems arising from the Korean war and the preparation of a treaty of peace leading to the freedom of Japan.

The Japanese people felt keenly the occupation of their country by foreign troops but their feelings were not exhibited. In September 1951, the Japanese were not allowed to enter the hotels we stayed in, in Tokyo. They were made to feel that they were a conquered nation. The re-gaining of their ancient freedom was one of the achievements of Premier Yoshida and his Ministers.

The six years of occupation, ending with the Peace Treaty of 1951, saw a revolutionary change in the political, economic and social institutions that existed before the War. The concept of the Emperor as the source of all authority was removed by the new Constitution, which came into operation in May 1947. Parliamentary democracy, similar to that of England, was embodied in the Constitution. The first principle was that ‘sovereign power resides with the people’. The will of the people is expressed through their elected representatives in the Diet who choose the Executive, namely, the Prime Minister and his Cabinet. The Emperor was declared to be ‘the symbol of the state and of the unity of the people’.

The concomitants of this change were also seen in the reform of the government machinery, the independence of the judiciary and the extension of the local government. As stated earlier, the grant of universal franchise to men and women and the liberty allowed for the formation of trade unions took the mind of the people away from the disgrace of defeat and turned it towards a desire to better their conditions, worsened by the collapse of the economy after the close of the War.

Signing the Japanese Peace TreatyAgreement in San Francisco in 1951

Another major and useful step was the attempt at agrarian reform. A large-scale transfer of land ownership from owners to tenants was carried out over a period of years. The principle applied was that he who tills the land must be its owner. These reforms, as well as the breaking up of monopolies and trusts, and the reform of the banking system, convinced the masses that the SCAP did not intend to use its victory for the benefit of a few. Japan was thus ready to regain her freedom in 1951. Her stability, politically and financially, was due to the wise leadership of the SCAP and the elected governments that co-operated with it.

I had read about and published a short essay on, ‘Buddhism in Japan’. I was afforded an opportunity of meeting some of the leading scholars and wished to make the best use of the time available to me. A common friend, an Englishman residing in Colombo who had recently visited Japan, contacted Christmas Humphreys, one of the leading British Buddhists, and provided me with a list of those whom I should meet. Humphreys who had spent some time in Japan a few years back as the prosecuting counsel in the International War Trials, had in his book Via Tokyo published his impressions of Buddhist Japan.

I was anxious to meet some of the distinguished Buddhist leaders, and to visit the historic places mentioned there. Professor Malalasekera, President of the World Fellowship of Buddhists, a newly-formed international Organization whose first convention was held in Ceylon in 1950, proposed to hold the second convention in Japan in August 1952. He requested me to discuss with the Buddhist leaders this proposal and find out their views.

Owing to the difficulty of corresponding with the Japanese directly, I contacted them through the British Embassy in Japan. On the second day after my arrival in Tokyo I was able to meet many of the Japanese leaders at the house of one Mr. Redman of the British Embassy. On this day, and during the course of the next few days, I met Mr. Yoshimuzu and Professor Kumura, Managing Editor and Editor of a well-known Buddhist journal, The Young East; Dr. Tachibana, the well-known author, and Dr. Miyamoto, Professor of Buddhism at the Tokyo University.

I also met Dr. Nagai, ex-Professor of the Tokyo University, and Mr. Tomamaisu who was taking the keenest interest in the forthcoming conference. Preparations were being made to hold the conference in September or October, and I realized that owing to the conditions that then prevailed in Japan much work would have to be done to organize it successfully. The attainment of freedom made this work easier, and the conference held in 1952 was very successful.

With these Japanese friends and the two Englishmen interested in Buddhism, I visited as many places as I could. I was also able to visit and spend some time with Dr. Suzuki one of the great minds of Japan, and the leading scholar of the Zen sect which he introduced to the world outside Japan. On the third day of our stay, I received a message from the British Embassy that Professor Suzuki would receive us at 3 p.m. the next day at the Matsugaoka Library at Kamakura, which is 70 minutes drive from Tokyo.

The world famous bronze statue of the Buddha is also situated in this town; so we were doubly pleased. The temple (Ji) of Full Enlightenment, Engaku-ji, was the present home of Dr. Suzuki. The library was on the opposite side of the valley and was reached by a steep climb. I had heard and read of Dr. Suzuki. He was now eighty years of age; had written several major works on the Zen sect and was renowned for his learning as well as his piety.

The name of the sect is an abbreviation of Zenna, a transcription of the Sanskrit word ‘Dhyana’, meaning meditation. The sect traces its origin to Bodhidhamma (520 AD) himself. The Zen philosophy appealed specially to poets and artists and became the religion of the Intrepid Samurai of yore. The sect owned 20,000 temples, monasteries and chapels. It had more than 7,800 abbots, 36,000 monks and 800,000 perpetual members. Training centres for monks were attached to the principal temples.

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Features

The NPP Government is more than a JVP offspring:

Published

11 hours 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

12 hours 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

12 hours 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