Gaza, Dhaka, and the price of moral amnesia

M A Hossain, 

There are moments in a nation’s life when foreign policy stops being a matter of strategy and becomes a test of memory. Bangladesh now stands at such a moment. The Yunus-led interim government expressed willingness to send Bangladeshi troops as part of a so-called “international stabilization force” in Gaza is not merely a diplomatic misstep. It is a moral failure—sharp, unnecessary, and historically illiterate.

Bangladesh was not born in a discussion table. It emerged from a liberation war that cost millions of lives, soaked villages in blood, and etched occupation into the national consciousness. Ours is a country whose very passport is stamped with the memory of genocide and resistance. Gaza today faces an illegally occupied force, collective punishment, mass displacement, and the daily arithmetic of survival under siege. The parallel is not rhetorical. It is structural. To align (directly or indirectly) with a framework that legitimizes occupation under the language of “stabilization” is to forget how Bangladesh itself came into being.

And forgetfulness appears to be the operating principle of this government.

Bangladesh is a Muslim-majority country, but this is not merely a demographic fact. It is a moral reality. Roughly 99 percent of Bangladeshi Muslims sympathize with, and morally support, the Palestinian cause. This support is not driven by only religious perspective but also by historical empathy. Palestinians are seen not as distant abstractions but as people living a version of what Bengalis once endured: checkpoints instead of curfews, bombed neighbourhoods instead of burnt villages, displacement instead of exile. Against this overwhelming national sentiment, the Yunus government has chosen appeasement—specifically, appeasement of a Trump-led American administration that functions as the political shield of Benjamin Netanyahu, a man whose war conduct in Gaza has earned him global condemnation and a docket at international courts.

Let us be clear about the nature of this “stabilization force.” Words matter. Stabilization for whom? For a population reduced to rubble, or for an occupying power seeking international camouflage? Donald Trump’s idea of international stability has always been transactional, theatrical, and cruel. From the Abraham Accords that normalized occupation without justice, to the open endorsement of Israeli maximalism, Trump’s foreign policy record in Palestine is not peacekeeping—it is erasure. To place Bangladeshi soldiers under such a framework is to turn peacekeeping into parody and humanitarian language into a mask.

What makes this decision even more indefensible is its break with Bangladesh’s own diplomatic history. Every government since independence (civilian or military, elected or authoritarian) has refused to recognize Israel and has consistently supported a 'Two-State' solution based on international law. This was not ideological rigidity; it was principled consistency. Bangladesh understood that recognizing occupation before justice is achieved only entrenches injustice. That tradition is now being casually discarded, not after parliamentary debate or popular mandate, but through quiet assurances exchanged in Washington corridors.

Which brings us to the most disturbing aspect of this episode: legitimacy.

The Yunus government is unelected. Interim administrations exist to manage transitions, not to mortgage sovereignty. They are caretakers, not dealmakers. They have no democratic right to deploy the Bangladeshi army into one of the most morally charged and politically explosive conflicts on earth. Such a decision belongs—if at all—to a government chosen by the people and accountable to them. Anything less is not policy; it is presumption.

Why, then, this haste to please Washington?

The answer is uncomfortable but unavoidable. This is not about Gaza. It is about an exit strategy. Unelected regimes know history is rarely kind to them. They understand that accountability eventually arrives, often wearing the uniform of law. Aligning with American strategic interests—especially under a Trump administration—offers protection, legitimacy abroad, and possibly safe passage when domestic reckoning begins. In that sense, Gaza becomes a bargaining chip, and Bangladeshi sovereignty is a currency.

The consequences of this gamble could be severe and enduring. Bangladesh’s standing in the Muslim world is not ornamental; it is economically and diplomatically vital. Alienating Muslim-majority countries risks isolation at a time when global alignments are already volatile. Aid flows from Muslim nations may dry up. Labour markets in the Middle East—where millions of Bangladeshi migrants work and remit lifelines back home—could tighten. Even informal social hostility can translate into formal economic exclusion. Foreign policy is not conducted in a vacuum; it travels through airports, remittance channels, and labour ministries.

Some defenders from interim government of the decision whisper a familiar comparison: Pakistan. They argue that security cooperation with the United States ensures stability, funding, and international relevance. This is precisely the path Bangladesh must avoid. Pakistan’s dependence on American military aid did not strengthen its sovereignty; it hollowed it out. Entrapped in a cycle of extremism, debt, and strategic rent-seeking, Pakistan reached a point of no return. It now needs American money not to grow, but to survive.

Bangladesh is not Pakistan. Our economy, social fabric, and regional position are different. We do not face an existential insurgency that requires foreign military patronage. We have no strategic reason to subcontract our moral compass to Washington. To imitate Pakistan’s failures is not realism; it is negligence.

There is also the question of the army itself. Bangladeshi soldiers have earned global respect through UN peacekeeping missions grounded in neutrality and humanitarian mandate. Gaza, under the current proposal, offers neither. Any force deployed there under American-Israeli terms risks being perceived not as peacekeepers but as enablers. That perception alone would endanger troops and stain an institution that has largely stayed above partisan politics.

Moreover, this decision within the country will create an extreme situation of disorder. On the eve of the upcoming elections, such an impulsive decision could lead the nation to the precipice of a deep political abyss. To think that our historic and unified spirit would bow down to the decision of a few Western-backed individuals is not just a mere fantasy, but outright a wild fantasy. Observing all this, people might wonder: is this yet another part of Yunus’s "meticulous" plan?

Foreign policy choices echo. They linger. They define how a nation is remembered when the noise of press statements fades. Bangladesh once stood proudly on the side of the oppressed, not because it was fashionable, but because it was familiar. The decision to express interest in a Gaza stabilization force—without clarity, mandate, or moral grounding—signals a departure from that inheritance.

A country born of resistance cannot afford the luxury of moral amnesia. An interim government cannot claim the authority to trade history for favour. Gaza does not need another international force that freezes injustice in place. And Bangladesh does not need to prove its relevance by standing on the wrong side of its own story. History will judge this moment. The only question is whether Bangladesh will recognize itself in that judgment—or barely remember why it once mattered.

M A Hossain, political and defense analyst based in Bangladesh. He can be reached at: writetomahossain@gmail.com

  This article published at :

1. New Age, BD : 12 January, 26

2. Eurasia Review, USA : 12 January, 26

3. The Seoul Times, S Korea: 14 Jan, 26

4. Asian Age, BD : 15 Jan, 26

5. New Nation, BD : 19 Jan, 26

The new axis without a treaty

M A Hossain, 

The most dangerous moments are not when aggressors announce themselves loudly, but when the guardians of order respond with hesitation, caveats, and procedural throat-clearing. The 1930s taught that lesson at a staggering cost. What made Hitler possible was not merely German revanchism or fascist ideology; it was the slow, almost gentlemanly tolerance of acts that should have been stopped early, decisively, and collectively. Appeasement was not naïveté. It was policy dressed as prudence.

Today’s world is not the world of 1938. Yet the structural similarities are uncomfortable. The reported U.S. seizure of Venezuela’s president, followed by a declaration of American “control,” marks something far more consequential than another episode of muscular interventionism. It represents a frontal assault on the post-1945 consensus that sovereignty cannot be nullified by power alone. What is more alarming is not the act itself, but the reaction to it—or rather, the lack of one.

International law, for all its flaws, survives on enforcement and stigma. When violations occur and are met only with rhetorical scolding, the law does not merely weaken; it dissolves. The response from Europe, the United Nations, and even Washington’s supposed strategic rivals—Russia and China—has been a masterclass in impotence. Condemnations were issued, concerns were voiced, principles were reaffirmed. Nothing followed. In geopolitics, that sequence is another word for permission.

The precedent is corrosive. If a superpower can unilaterally seize the leader of a sovereign state and assert control without consequences, the entire edifice of territorial integrity becomes negotiable. That logic is already familiar. Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territory did not begin with tanks rolling across borders; it began with ambiguity, denials, and carefully calibrated violations that tested the limits of Western resolve. Each test passed. Each response was cautious. The result is a Europe once again haunted by the question of borders settled by force.

China has been watching closely. Beijing’s interest in Taiwan has never been a secret, but its timing has always depended on global conditions. A world in which international norms are openly discarded—and selectively enforced—offers opportunity. When violations are normalized by rivals and allies alike, restraint becomes irrational. The lesson Xi Jinping is likely drawing is not that aggression is condemned, but that it is survivable.

What makes the current moment particularly dangerous is the convergence of interests among powers that are, on paper, adversaries. Washington’s hardening stance against Ukraine, combined with a sudden warmth toward Moscow, suggests a transactional worldview in which spheres of influence are bartered rather than restrained. The idea that great powers might tacitly agree to look the other way while each pursues territorial ambitions is not new. It has a name. It was once called the Axis.

The paralysis of institutions meant to prevent such outcomes is striking. The emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council following the Venezuela episode should have been an occasion for clarity. Instead, it became an exercise in equivocation. Some states questioned the legitimacy of Venezuela’s leadership, as though doubts about governance confer a license for invasion. They do not. International law does not operate on moral approval; it operates on sovereignty. To forget that distinction is to invite chaos.

There were, to be fair, exceptions. France and Denmark articulated what others preferred to mumble. Their diplomats warned, correctly, that violations by permanent members of the Security Council strike at the foundation of the international order. Spain went further, refusing to recognize an intervention that tramples international law and destabilizes an entire region. These statements mattered not because they changed policy, but because they named the problem honestly. Yet moral clarity without leverage is insufficient. History’s verdict on those who warned but failed to act is rarely generous.

More telling was the response of Russia and China. Their condemnations of American behavior were loud, theatrical, and empty. Moscow spoke of “international banditry.” Beijing expressed shock. Neither proposed concrete measures. Neither mobilized allies. Neither risked retaliation. One suspects this restraint is not accidental. A system that tolerates unilateral force today may prove useful tomorrow.

The United Nations, meanwhile, played its familiar role: custodian of norms without the means to enforce them. The secretary-general’s lament that the “power of the law must prevail” sounded less like a principle than a confession. Institutions without enforcement capacity are not neutral arbiters; they are spectators. The tragedy is not that the U.N. lacks an army, but that its authority erodes every time its resolutions are ignored by those most responsible for upholding them.

Compounding the danger is the dismantling of deterrent architectures that once constrained ambition. The suspension of momentum toward NATO membership for Ukraine, and the stagnation of the Quad as a counterweight in the Indo-Pacific, have left strategic vacuums. Vacuums in international politics are never empty for long. They are filled by power, usually the kind least concerned with legality.

The rhetoric emerging from Washington only deepens the unease. Threats of similar actions elsewhere in Latin America, casual references to coercing distant states, and predictions of regime collapse elsewhere suggest an approach to global order grounded not in rules, but in dominance. It is a worldview that sees sovereignty as conditional and legality as optional. That worldview does not remain confined to one capital. It spreads.

None of this requires believing in a formal conspiracy or secret pact among great powers. History shows that alignment often occurs through parallel interests rather than explicit agreements. In the 1930s, the Axis powers did not initially coordinate every move; they learned from one another’s successes. Each unpunished violation emboldened the next. The pattern was visible long before war became inevitable.

The central danger today is not that the world is ruled by autocrats alone. It is that democracies, exhausted and divided, have lost the will to enforce the rules they once wrote. Neutrality in the face of aggression is not balance; it is abdication. The postwar order was built on the painful realization that peace requires more than good intentions. It requires deterrence, solidarity, and the willingness to impose costs.

If the lesson of the twentieth century is ignored, the twenty-first will not be kinder. A world governed by “might is right” does not remain stable; it becomes a marketplace of force where every grievance is an invitation to violence. The erosion of norms rarely announces itself as collapse. It begins with silence, then rationalization, then habit.

The question, then, is not whether a new axis formally exists. It is whether the rest of the world is prepared to act as though one does. History suggests that by the time the answer becomes obvious, the price of response has already multiplied.

M A Hossain, political and defense analyst based in Bangladesh. He can be reached at: writetomahossain@gmail.com

  This article published at :

1. New Age, BD : 09 January, 26

যখন জ্বালানি সার্বভৌমত্বকে ছাপিয়ে যায়

এম এ হোসাইন,

মার্ক টোয়েন বলতেন, ইতিহাস নিজেকে হুবহু পুনরাবৃত্তি করে না কিন্তু প্রায়শই ছন্দ মিলিয়ে ফিরে আসে। গত ৩ জানুয়ারি,২০২৬, ওয়াশিংটন সেই পুরোনো সুরেই আঘাত করলো। ৩৬ বছর আগে মার্কিন সেনারা পানামার শাসক ম্যানুয়েল নোরিয়েগাকে গ্রেপ্তার করে শিকল পরিয়ে ফ্লোরিডায় নিয়ে গিয়েছিল। সেই ঘটনার তিন দশকেরও বেশি সময় পর, লাতিন আমেরিকার আরেক রাষ্ট্রপ্রধানকে একই কায়দায় তুলে নেওয়া হলো যুক্তরাষ্ট্রের মাটিতে। এবার লক্ষ্য নিকোলাস মাদুরো—ভেনেজুয়েলার দীর্ঘদিনের প্রেসিডেন্ট। স্ত্রীসহ তাঁকে আটক করে নিউইয়র্কের একটি ফেডারেল ডিটেনশন সেন্টারে পাঠানো হয়েছে। তাদেরকে  মাদক-সংক্রান্ত অভিযোগে বিচারের মুখোমুখি করতে অপহরণ করে যুক্তরাষ্ট্রে আনা হয়েছে।

ট্রাম্প প্রশাসনের ভাষ্য ছিল—আইন প্রয়োগ। কিন্তু আড়ালের পাঠ ছিল—ক্ষমতা। আর উদ্দেশ্য খুব একটা গোপন নয়—জ্বালানি।

মাদুরো অপসারণের কয়েক ঘণ্টার মধ্যেই প্রেসিডেন্ট ডোনাল্ড ট্রাম্প কূটনৈতিক সৌজন্য ঝেড়ে ফেলে সোজাসাপটা বললেন: যুক্তরাষ্ট্র ভেনেজুয়েলার তেলের ভাণ্ডার “ব্যবহার” করবে এবং তা আন্তর্জাতিক বাজারে বিক্রি করবে। এই বক্তব্য আইনি বৈধতার চেয়ে উদ্দেশ্যের স্পষ্টতার গুরুত্ব বেশি। এখানে শাসন পরিবর্তনকে মানবিক হস্তক্ষেপ বা গণতান্ত্রিক উদ্ধার হিসেবে পেশ করা হয়নি। এটি উপস্থাপিত হয়েছে এক ধরনের লেনদেন হিসেবে, শৃঙ্খলার বিনিময়ে তেল, সার্বভৌমত্বের বিনিময়ে জ্বালানি।

এই যুক্তির বংশপরম্পরা দীর্ঘ। ১৯৮৯ সালে নোরিয়েগার পতনের সময় যুক্তরাষ্ট্রের জন্য পানামা খাল ছিল কৌশলগত প্রাপ্তি। তৎকালীন সময়ে, কোনো রাষ্ট্রের শাসকের চরিত্র নয়, বরং একটি চোকপয়েন্টের নিয়ন্ত্রণই ছিল মুখ্য। ভেনেজুয়েলায় প্রাপ্তি মাটির নিচে। দেশটি বিশ্বের সর্ববৃহৎ তেল মজুদের উপর বসে আছে—সৌদি আরবের চেয়েও বড়। দশকের পর দশক ধরে এই বাস্তবতা ভেনেজুয়েলার রাজনীতি গড়েছে, অর্থনীতিকে নিয়ন্ত্রণ করেছে এবং বিদেশি হস্তক্ষেপকে আমন্ত্রণ জানিয়েছে। একই সঙ্গে দেশটিকে প্রয়োজনে অপরিহার্যও করেছে, আবার প্রয়োজন ফুরোলে বর্জনযোগ্যও করেছে।

মাদুরোর প্রকৃত অপরাধ স্বৈরতন্ত্র নয়। ওয়াশিংটন এর চেয়েও নিকৃষ্ট শাসন দীর্ঘদিন সহ্য করছে। তাঁর মারাত্মক পাপ ছিল আদর্শিক অবাধ্যতার সঙ্গে বাস্তব শক্তির সমন্বয়। হুগো শাভেজের পথ অনুসরণ করে মাদুরো মার্কিন ডলারকে নিরপেক্ষ বিনিময়-মাধ্যম নয়, বরং আমেরিকান ক্ষমতার হাতিয়ার হিসেবে চিহ্নিত করেছিলেন। ভেনেজুয়েলা ডলারের বাইরে গিয়ে জ্বালানি বাণিজ্যের উদ্যোগে যুক্ত হয়, বিকল্প পেমেন্ট ব্যবস্থার কথা তোলে এবং ডলার আধিপত্য দুর্বল করতে আগ্রহী দেশগুলোর সঙ্গে কূটনৈতিকভাবে সুর মেলায়।

এখানেই ইতিহাস শিক্ষণীয় হয়ে ওঠে। ২০০০ সালে সাদ্দাম হোসেন ঘোষণা দিয়েছিলেন—ইরাক ডলারের বদলে ইউরোতে তেল বিক্রি করবে। তিন বছর পর গণবিধ্বংসী অস্ত্রের অজুহাতে ইরাকে আক্রমণ হয়, যে অস্ত্র কখনোই পাওয়া যায়নি। ইউরো পরীক্ষার সমাপ্তি ঘটে। ইরাকি তেল ফের ডলারে মূল্যায়িত হয়। ২০০৯ সালে মুয়াম্মার গাদ্দাফি সোনাভিত্তিক আফ্রিকান দিনারের প্রস্তাব দেন—যার মাধ্যমে ডলারের বাইরে তেল বাণিজ্য সম্ভব হতো। দুই বছর পর মানবিক সুরক্ষার নামে লিবিয়ার আকাশে ন্যাটোর যুদ্ধবিমান উড়ল। অক্টোবরে গাদ্দাফি নিহত হলেন। লিবিয়া ডুবে গেল দীর্ঘস্থায়ী অস্থিরতায়। তার তেল আবার ডলারে হিসাব হলো।

এই ধারাটি বুঝতে তেমন নেগ পেতে হয় না। বৈশ্বিক জ্বালানি বাণিজ্যের ডলার ভিত্তিক লেনদেনের যে মুদ্রা কাঠামো, তাকে চ্যালেঞ্জ করলে পরিণতি অবধারিত। কারণের ভিন্নতা থাকতে পারে—সন্ত্রাস, মানবাধিকার, মাদক—কিন্তু ফল প্রায় একই থাকে। মুদ্রা-ব্যবস্থা টিকে যায়; দেশটি টেকে না।

মাদুরো অভিযানের বিশেষত্ব তার উদ্দেশ্যে নয়, পদ্ধতিতে। এই প্রথম যুক্তরাষ্ট্র প্রকাশ্য সামরিক পদক্ষেপে দক্ষিণ আমেরিকার কোনো ক্ষমতাসীন রাষ্ট্রপ্রধানকে অপসারণ করলো। মধ্য আমেরিকা ও ক্যারিবীয় অঞ্চলে হস্তক্ষেপের ইতিহাস দীর্ঘ। দক্ষিণ আমেরিকায় সাধারণত চাপ, প্রক্সি বা অস্বীকারকৃত অভ্যুত্থানই ছিল পছন্দ। কিন্তু, এবার মুখোশ খুলে ফেলা হলো।

এই পরিবর্তন কেবল প্রেসিডেন্সিয়াল দম্ভের ফল নয়। এটি সন্ত্রাসবিরোধী যুদ্ধ-পরবর্তী বিশ্বে মার্কিন কৌশলের পুনঃসমন্বয়ের ইঙ্গিত। জিহাদি নেটওয়ার্কগুলো যখন কেন্দ্র থেকে সরে যাচ্ছে, তখন ওয়াশিংটন তার নিরাপত্তা তত্ত্বকে ‘মাদক-সন্ত্রাসী’ ঘিরে নতুনভাবে সাজাচ্ছে। মাদক ব্যবসায়ীরা এখন আল-কায়েদার জায়গা দখল করেছে—আইন প্রয়োগের সমস্যা নয়, বরং অস্তিত্বগত হুমকি হিসেবে চিত্রিত হচ্ছে, যা তাদের সামরিক অভিযানের তথাকথিত বৈধতা নিশ্চিত করতে সাহায্য করে।

এই কাঠামোয় ভেনেজুয়েলা এক পরীক্ষাগার। আজ কারাকাস, কাল অন্য কোথাও। ট্রাম্পের ভাষা ইঙ্গিতবহ। তিনি পানামা খাল “ফিরিয়ে নেওয়ার” কথা বলেছেন, গ্রিনল্যান্ড সংযুক্তির প্রসঙ্গ তুলেছেন, কানাডাকে ৫১তম রাজ্য বলে ঠাট্টা করেছেন, এবং বারবার বলেছেন, “মেক্সিকো মাদক কারবারিদের দখলে।” এই প্রশাসনে কথাবার্তা প্রায়শ্বই পরবর্তী অভিযানের মহড়ায় পরিণত হয়।

যারা মনে করেন এমন দৃঢ়তা আমেরিকার বিশ্বাসযোগ্যতা ফেরায়, তারা প্রকৃত অর্থে ভুল। বিশ্বাসযোগ্যতা কেবল শক্তি প্রদর্শনে আসে না; আসে ফলাফলে। আর শাসন পরিবর্তনের ইতিহাস আশাব্যঞ্জক নয়। ইরাক স্থিতিশীল গণতন্ত্র হয়নি। লিবিয়া কার্যকর রাষ্ট্রে রূপ নেয়নি। আফগানিস্তান নির্ভরযোগ্য মিত্র হয়নি। প্রতিটি ক্ষেত্রেই শাসক অপসারণ সহজ ছিল; রাজনৈতিক শৃঙ্খলা বিনির্মাণ কঠিন বা পুরোপুরি ব্যর্থতায় পর্যভূষিত হয়েছে।

ভেনেজুয়েলাও একই দ্বিধার মুখে। মাদুরো আটক হওয়ার পর দেশটির সুপ্রিম কোর্ট ভাইস প্রেসিডেন্ট ডেলসি রদ্রিগেজকে ভারপ্রাপ্ত প্রেসিডেন্ট ঘোষণা করে। তিনি সঙ্গে সঙ্গেই মাদুরোর মুক্তি দাবি করেন এবং তাঁকেই ভেনেজুয়েলার “একমাত্র প্রেসিডেন্ট” বলেন। এটি রূপান্তরের চেয়ে বেশি ছিল অচলাবস্থা। যে প্রতিষ্ঠানগুলো আগেই ভঙ্গুর ছিল, সেগুলো এখন চরম চাপে। নিষেধাজ্ঞা, কুশাসন ও অর্থপাচারের ধাক্কায় ক্ষতবিক্ষত অর্থনীতি আরও অনিশ্চয়তার মুখে। যে তেল উৎপাদনকে ওয়াশিংটন লোভনীয় বলে দাবি করছে, তা বলপ্রয়োগে স্থিতিশীল হয় না।

এটিকে গণতন্ত্র প্রসার হিসেবেও ভুল বোঝা উচিত নয়। ট্রাম্প নিজেই স্পষ্ট করেছেন—যুক্তরাষ্ট্র সাময়িকভাবে ভেনেজুয়েলাকে “চালাবে” এবং তেল আয়ের মাধ্যমে ব্যয় মেটাবে। মার্কিন জ্বালানি কোম্পানিগুলো ফিরবে, সম্পদের ক্ষতিপূরণ হবে, চুক্তি নতুন করে লেখা হবে। এটি নেশন-বিল্ডিং নয়; এটি ব্যালান্স-শিট রাজনীতি।

এই পদ্ধতির একটি নাম আছে এবং তা প্রশংসনীয় নয়, যা হলো শোষণ। জ্বালানি নিরাপত্তার নামে রাজনৈতিক আধিপত্যকে বৈধ ভাবা সাম্রাজ্যবাদের মতোই পুরোনো কৌশল। স্থিতিশীলতা খুব কমই এসেছে; বরং এসেছে নির্ভরশীলতা, ক্ষোভ ও প্রতিরোধ। স্থানীয় জনগণ মূল্য দেয়; বিদেশি শক্তি লাভ-ক্ষতির হিসাব মেলাতে না পারলে সটকে পড়ে।

এতে অবশ্য মাদুরোর শাসনকে জনকল্যানকর মনে করার কিছু নেই। তাঁর অধীনে ভেনেজুয়েলা ছিল দমনমূলক, দুর্নীতিগ্রস্ত ও অর্থনৈতিকভাবে বিপর্যস্ত। কিন্তু কুশাসন সার্বভৌমত্ব বাতিল করে না, আর ফৌজদারি অভিযোগ কোনো দেশের সম্পদের মালিকানা দেয় না। এখানে যে নজির স্থাপিত হচ্ছে, তা ভেনেজুয়েলার চেয়েও বড়। এটি জ্বালানি-সমৃদ্ধ রাষ্ট্রগুলোকে জানিয়ে দেয়—স্বাধীনতা শর্তসাপেক্ষ। আর বিশ্বকে জানায়—নিয়ম বেছে বেছে প্রয়োগ হয়।

সবচেয়ে বড় পরিহাস হলো—এই কৌশল এক ধরনের অনিরাপত্তা প্রকাশ করে। আত্মবিশ্বাসী শক্তির তেল নিশ্চিত করতে প্রেসিডেন্টকে অপহরণ করতে হয় না। সে বিনিয়োগ করে, দরকষাকষি করে, প্রতিযোগিতা করে। যে পরাশক্তি অপহরণের আশ্রয় নেয় তার পতন, সরবরাহ শৃঙ্খল ও পুরোনো ব্যবস্থার স্থায়িত্ব নিয়ে উদ্বেগের ইঙ্গিত দেয়।

জ্বালানি আধুনিক অর্থনীতির প্রাণরস। কিন্তু পররাষ্ট্রনীতি যদি কেবল জ্বালানির চশমায় দেখা হয়, তাহলে ভারসাম্য নষ্ট হয়। যুক্তরাষ্ট্র এই পথে আগেও হেঁটেছে। ফলাফল লেখা আছে বাগদাদের ধ্বংসস্তূপে, ত্রিপোলির বিশৃঙ্খলায়। শিগগিরই সেই তালিকায় কারাকাসও যুক্ত হতে পারে। ইতিহাস ছন্দবদ্ধ হতে পারে, কিন্তু সে পুঞ্জীভূতও করে। প্রশ্নটি এই নয় যে আমেরিকা তেল সমৃদ্ধ রাষ্ট্রগুলিকে দখল করতে পারবে কিনা। প্রশ্নটি হলো, তারা কি বারবার এমনটা করার পরিণতি সহ্য করতে পারবে, এমন এক পৃথিবীতে যেখানে এখন আর আগের মতো কেউ একক নির্ভরশীল নয়।

লেখক: রাজনৈতিক ও নিরাপত্তা বিশ্লেষক। 

এই লেখাটি প্রকাশিত হয়েছে :

১. আলোকিত বাংলাদেশ, ঢাকা : ০৯ জানুয়ারী,২৬

২. রূপালী বাংলাদেশ, ঢাকা : ১০ জানুয়ারী, ২৬

৩. দৈনিক সংবাদ, ঢাকা : ১২ জানুয়ারী, ২৬

From Noriega to Maduro

M A Hossain, 

History doesn’t repeat itself, Mark Twain liked to say, but it often rhymes. On January 3, 2026, Washington struck a familiar chord. Thirty-six years after U.S. troops seized Manuel Noriega and flew him to Florida in handcuffs, American forces once again extracted a Latin American leader and deposited him on U.S. soil. This time it was Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s long-serving president, detained alongside his wife and transferred to a federal detention center in New York to face drug-related charges.

The official justification was law enforcement. The subtext was power. The motive, barely concealed, was energy.

Hours after Maduro’s removal, President Donald Trump dispensed with diplomatic euphemism and went straight to the point: the United States would “tap” Venezuela’s oil reserves and sell them abroad. The statement mattered less for its legality than for its candor. Regime change, in this case, was not framed as a humanitarian intervention or a democratic rescue mission. It was presented as a transaction. Oil in exchange for order. Energy in exchange for sovereignty.

This logic has a long pedigree. When Noriega fell in 1989, the Panama Canal was the strategic prize. Control over a chokepoint mattered more than the character of the man who ran the country. In Venezuela, the prize is subterranean. The country sits atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves, larger even than Saudi Arabia’s. For decades, that fact has shaped Venezuela’s politics, distorted its economy, and invited foreign meddling. It has also made the country indispensable and expendable at the same time.

Maduro’s real offense was not authoritarianism. Washington has tolerated worse, and often for longer. His cardinal sin was ideological defiance combined with material leverage. Like Hugo Chávez before him, Maduro framed the U.S. dollar not as a neutral medium of exchange but as an instrument of American power. Venezuela joined efforts to trade energy outside the dollar system, flirted with alternative payment mechanisms, and aligned itself rhetorically and diplomatically with countries eager to weaken dollar dominance.

That is where history turns instructive. In 2000, Saddam Hussein announced that Iraq would sell oil in euros rather than dollars. Three years later, Iraq was invaded on the pretext of weapons of mass destruction that were never found. The euro experiment ended. Iraqi oil returned to dollar pricing. In 2009, Muammar Gaddafi proposed a gold-backed African dinar that would allow oil trade beyond the dollar’s reach. Two years later, NATO planes flew over Libya in the name of humanitarian protection. Gaddafi was dead by October. Libya collapsed into chronic instability. Its oil, once again, was denominated in dollars.

The pattern is not subtle. Challenge the monetary architecture that underpins global energy trade, and consequences follow. The stated reasons vary—terrorism, human rights, narcotics—but the outcome is remarkably consistent. The currency regime survives. The country does not.

What distinguishes the Maduro operation is not the motive but the method. Never before has the United States directly removed a sitting South American head of state through overt military action. Central America and the Caribbean have long histories of intervention. South America, by contrast, was usually managed through pressure, proxies, or coups with plausible deniability. This time, the gloves came off.

That shift reflects more than presidential bravado. It signals a recalibration of U.S. strategy in a post–war-on-terror world. As jihadist networks recede from center stage, Washington has rebranded its security doctrine around “narco-terror.” Drug cartels now occupy the conceptual space once reserved for al-Qaeda. Criminal networks are cast not merely as law enforcement problems but as existential threats justifying military responses.

In that framework, Venezuela becomes a test case. Today it is Caracas. Tomorrow it could be elsewhere. Trump’s language has been suggestive. He has mused about reclaiming the Panama Canal, floated the annexation of Greenland, joked about Canada as the 51st state, and repeatedly declared that “the cartels are running Mexico.” His Secretary of State has issued warnings to Cuba. Rhetoric, in this administration, has a way of becoming rehearsal.

Supporters argue that such assertiveness restores American credibility. They are wrong. Credibility does not come from demonstrations of force alone. It comes from outcomes. And the historical record of regime change is not encouraging. Iraq did not become a stable democracy. Libya did not become a functioning state. Afghanistan did not become a reliable ally. In each case, the removal of a ruler was easier than the construction of a political order.

Venezuela now faces the same dilemma. With Maduro detained, the country’s Supreme Court installed Vice President Delcy Rodríguez as acting president. She promptly demanded Maduro’s release and declared him Venezuela’s “only president.” The scene was less a transition than a standoff. Institutions that were already brittle are now under extreme strain. The economy, already battered by sanctions, mismanagement, and capital flight, faces deeper uncertainty. Oil production, which Washington claims to covet, cannot be stabilized by force alone.

Nor should the operation be confused with democracy promotion. Trump made that clear himself when he said the United States would “run” Venezuela temporarily and finance the effort through oil revenues. American energy companies would return, assets would be compensated, contracts rewritten. This is not nation-building. It is balance-sheet politics.

There is a word for this approach, and it is not flattering: extraction. The belief that energy security justifies political domination is as old as empire. It has rarely produced stability. More often, it produces dependency, resentment, and resistance. The local population pays the price, while foreign powers move on once costs exceed benefits.

None of this is to romanticize Maduro’s rule. Venezuela under his leadership has been repressive, corrupt, and economically disastrous. But bad governance does not nullify sovereignty, and criminal charges do not confer ownership rights over a nation’s resources. The precedent being set is larger than Venezuela. It tells energy-rich states that autonomy is conditional. It tells the rest of the world that rules apply selectively.

The deeper irony is that this strategy betrays a certain insecurity. A confident power does not need to seize presidents to secure oil. It invests, negotiates, and competes. A power that resorts to abduction reveals anxiety about decline, about supply chains, about the durability of the systems it once took for granted.

Energy remains the lifeblood of modern economies. But when energy becomes the sole lens through which foreign policy is conducted, imbalance follows. The United States has been here before. The outcomes are written in the ruins of Baghdad and the chaos of Tripoli. Caracas may soon join that list.

History may rhyme, but it also accumulates. The question is not whether America can seize oil-rich states. It is whether it can live with the consequences of doing so, again and again, in a world that is no longer as forgiving—or as dependent—as it once was.

M A Hossain, political and defense analyst based in Bangladesh. He can be reached at: writetomahossain@gmail.com

  This article published at :

1. New Age, BD : 07 Jan, 26

2. The New Nation, Pak : 08 Jan, 26

3. Pakistan Today, Pak : 22 Jan, 26

US operation to capture Maduro sets a dangerous precedent

M A Hossain, 

The U.S. operation that seized Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in the early hours of January 3, 2026, will be defended in Washington as bold law enforcement. Abroad, and in much of the Global South, it looks like something else entirely: a dangerous revival of gunboat justice dressed up as counter-narcotics policy.

Operation Absolute Resolve was not subtle. Delta Force units, supported by more than 150 aircraft, struck Venezuelan air defenses and sites near Caracas before helicopters descended on the presidential residence at 2:01 a.m. Maduro and Flores were arrested while attempting to flee. There was no full-scale invasion, no occupation. This was a unilateral military raid inside a sovereign country, aimed at abducting a sitting head of state.

The U.S. prosecutors in the Southern District of New York accuse Maduro of leading the so-called Cártel de Los Soles, conspiring to import cocaine into the United States, and possessing machine guns and destructive devices. Flores is charged with cocaine importation conspiracy, alleged to have brokered bribes and facilitated trafficking through state channels. Yet even strong accusations do not nullify international law.

If Washington claims the right to launch air strikes near a foreign capital and seize its president because U.S. courts have issued indictments, what principle is left to restrain others? Russia, China, Iran, and Cuba were quick to call the operation a violation of sovereignty. Brazil’s president warned of regional destabilization. These reactions were predictable, but they were not hollow. The UN Charter is unambiguous about the use of force: abducting a sitting president via military action breaches that framework.

Criticism also came from within the United States. Lawmakers such as Bernie Sanders and Rashida Tlaib condemned the raid as illegal military adventurism and a constitutional affront. Their point deserves attention. The U.S. has long argued, rightly, against coups, kidnappings, and regime change by force. That moral authority erodes when the rules are bent for convenience.

The question is not whether Maduro is guilty; it is who gets to decide, and how. By choosing helicopters over courts and force over a multilateral process, Washington may have secured a dramatic arrest. It has also weakened the very norms it claims to defend, and handed its rivals a powerful argument: that American power, once again, answers mainly to itself.

M.A. Hossain, Dhaka, Bangladesh 

This article published at :

1. South China Morning Post, HK : 07 Jan,26

Multilateralism Still Matters

M A Hossain,

As the calendar edges toward 2026, gloom has become the default mood of international affairs. Wars burn across dozens of countries. Trade, once the lingua franca of cooperation, has turned into a blunt weapon of tariffs and counter-tariffs. Economic growth limps along at rates that would have shocked policymakers a generation ago. Climate disasters feel less like rare calamities and more like seasonal rituals. Pandemics, supply-chain breakdowns, and financial tremors have blended into a kind of permanent global background noise.

From this vantage point, it is tempting to declare multilateralism dead—another noble postwar idea crushed under the weight of nationalism, geopolitics, and distrust. That conclusion is understandable. It is also wrong.

The truth is more uncomfortable and more interesting: multilateralism is not finished, but it is no longer automatic. Cooperation still matters, but it must now justify itself in a harsher, more skeptical age. The real crisis is not global interdependence—people experience that daily—but confidence that cooperation can still work.

To understand why the world feels so unstable, one must look beyond headlines to the deeper shifts reshaping the global order. The first is the end of unipolarity. The brief post–Cold War moment, when American power seemed unrivaled and liberal norms appeared destined for universal adoption, has faded. Power today is dispersed among major states, rising regional players, and non-aligned actors who resist choosing sides. Multipolarity does not automatically mean chaos, but it does mean that coordination is harder and consensus rarer.

The second shift is the erosion of the rules-based order. International law, arms-control regimes, and multilateral agreements increasingly yield to raw power and transactional diplomacy. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was not just a regional war; it was a declaration that force can still redraw borders. The slow collapse of arms-control frameworks sends a similar signal: restraint is optional.

The third transformation is economic. Politics now drives economics, not the other way around. Hyper-globalization has given way to protectionism, industrial policy, and strategic decoupling. Governments prize resilience over efficiency, control over openness. Trade is securitized, technology restricted, and interdependence rebranded as vulnerability.

Together, these trends have produced a fractured world—one where old assumptions no longer apply, but no coherent replacement has emerged.

The institutions built after 1945 are feeling the strain. Democratic norms have weakened; autocracies now outnumber democracies. Humanitarian systems are underfunded, climate pledges routinely missed, and global bodies paralyzed by rivalry among major powers. Environmental stewardship is sacrificed to short-term politics even as climate shocks intensify.

This unraveling has coincided with the rise of a muscular, authoritarian nationalism that has displaced neoliberalism as the dominant global mood. Zero-sum thinking has returned with a vengeance. Borders are securitized, identities hardened, and compromise treated as weakness. The consequences are visible not only in Ukraine, but in brutal internal conflicts from Sudan to Ethiopia, where humanitarian norms are casually violated.

Seen from late 2025, the decade already feels cursed: a pandemic, Europe’s first major interstate war since 1945, devastating violence in the Middle East, and accelerating climate breakdown. It is a grim ledger.

History, however, warns against despair masquerading as realism.

In 1941, the world looked far darker than it does today. Fascism was ascendant. Democracies were on the defensive. The outcome of the Second World War was uncertain. Yet in that bleak moment, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill articulated the Atlantic Charter—a document that spoke of self-determination, economic cooperation, and freedom from fear and want. It seemed wildly aspirational at the time. It became the foundation for the United Nations, the Bretton Woods system, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Marshall Plan.

None of this was inevitable. It required imagination, leadership, and the recognition that cooperation was not charity but enlightened self-interest. The question now is whether such imagination is still possible in an age of fragmentation. The answer depends less on institutions than on people.

Contrary to fashionable narratives of a world split between globalists and nationalists, public attitudes are more pragmatic. Large-scale global polling suggests most people are neither starry-eyed cosmopolitans nor hardened isolationists. They are realists.

Majorities understand that decisions made abroad shape their lives at home. COVID-19 taught that viruses ignore borders. Climate change links distant emissions to local disasters. Food prices, energy costs, and job security are all shaped by global forces. This awareness is not ideological; it is experiential.

Support for cooperation, however, is conditional. People ask a simple question: does it work?

Broadly speaking, three groups form a potential majority for multilateral action. Moral multilateralists support cooperation to alleviate suffering, even when national gains are indirect. Pragmatic multilateralists demand results, accountability, and transparency; they will back cooperation only if it delivers measurable outcomes. Self-interested multilateralists support engagement when it clearly benefits their own communities—by stabilizing prices, preventing conflict, or ensuring access to food and energy.

What unites these groups is not altruism, but practicality. Cooperation is acceptable if it produces tangible benefits.

Hardline nationalists—those who see global politics as a zero-sum struggle—remain a minority, even if they punch above their weight in the media and elections. In regions most exposed to insecurity and inequality, support for cooperation is strongest. Even in societies skeptical of globalization, few genuinely believe isolation is a viable strategy.

Trust in multilateral institutions, while battered, is more resilient than critics assume. Global bodies often command more confidence than national governments. No major power enjoys widespread trust, a reflection of deep suspicion toward unilateral dominance. Legitimacy today flows not from power, but from performance.

That is the central lesson of this moment.

If multilateralism is to survive, it must be rebuilt from the ground up. Grand declarations are no longer enough. People judge cooperation by whether it improves daily life—by preventing pandemics, stabilizing food supplies, reducing energy volatility, and mitigating climate risks. Framed as enlightened self-interest rather than moral abstraction, cooperation has a fighting chance.

The danger lies in failure. If multilateral efforts are seen as wasteful, ineffective, or detached from ordinary struggles, public support will evaporate. But success—even modest, visible success—can restore confidence.

What the world ultimately needs is not blind faith in institutions, but a renewed global vision—a modern counterpart to the Atlantic Charter. One that articulates shared principles without demanding uniform ideology. Human rights, rule of law, democratic accountability, environmental sustainability, and peace are not Western luxuries; they are universal necessities.

Polling suggests people are not asking their leaders to retreat from the world. They are asking for directions. Vision, not dominance, is increasingly seen as the mark of effective leadership.

Multilateralism today is wounded, contested, and unfashionable. But it is not obsolete. In an era defined by uncertainty and rivalry, cooperation remains not a sentimental ideal, but a practical necessity. The choice is not between globalism and nationalism. It is between managed interdependence and unmanaged chaos. History suggests that the former, however difficult, is still worth fighting for.

M A Hossain, political and defense analyst based in Bangladesh. He can be reached at: writetomahossain@gmail.com

This article published at :

1. The Nation, Pak : 05 Jan, 26

2. Asian Age, BD : 07 Jan, 26

Cooking gas held hostage by cartels

M A Hossain, 

There are shortages born of nature and markets, and then there are shortages manufactured by human design. Bangladesh’s ongoing liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) crisis belongs firmly to the second category. For nearly two weeks, LPG cylinders have vanished from large swathes of the country. Where they are available, a government-fixed price of Tk 1,253 for a 12-kilogram cylinder has morphed into Tk 1,800, Tk 2,000, even Tk 2,100. This is not volatility; it is daylight robbery dressed up as market logic.

LPG today is not a luxury fuel. It is the backbone of Bangladesh’s urban and semi-urban kitchens, the fallback option in cities where pipeline gas has long been unreliable, and the primary energy source for millions of middle- and lower-income households after new gas connections were halted. Restaurants, roadside eateries, small food producers—all depend on it. When LPG becomes scarce or unaffordable, the shock ripples outward, quietly feeding inflation, squeezing household budgets, and raising the cost of daily survival.

The official explanation is familiar and convenient: supply shortages, import bottlenecks, LC complications, seasonal spikes in global demand during winter. Each of these factors carries a grain of truth. None explains why a cylinder imported at yesterday’s price suddenly costs Tk 700 more today. None explains why gas disappears from the market days before the regulator announces a new price. None explains why the same cylinder sells at wildly different prices across neighborhoods. Markets do not behave like this on their own. Cartels do.

At the center of this dysfunction sits Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC), an institution that dutifully announces prices every month and then retreats from the field as if enforcement were someone else’s problem. Price-setting without price-policing is not regulation; it is performance art. The law gives BERC the authority to fine, penalize, even jail violators. Yet violations are routine, penalties rare, and fear nonexistent. Predictably, syndicates have learned that rules in Bangladesh’s LPG market are suggestions, not constraints.

This is hardly unprecedented. Bangladesh has seen similar patterns in rice, onion, edible oil, and fertilizer markets. A commodity becomes essential. Supply chains concentrate in a few private hands. Oversight weakens. Artificial shortages emerge. Prices spike. Public outrage flares—and fades—until the next crisis. LPG is simply the latest chapter in a long book of regulatory abdication.

What makes this crisis more troubling is its structural nature. Unlike pipeline gas, LPG distribution is overwhelmingly private. There is no state buffer stock to stabilize supply, no public distributor to set a credible benchmark, no emergency release mechanism to cool prices. Consumers are scattered across cities and villages, their grievances diffuse, their voices easy to ignore. Pain, when evenly distributed, is politically invisible.

Importers blame dealers. Dealers blame companies. Companies blame global markets. In this choreography of evasion, accountability dissolves. Yet the core issue is not scarcity alone; it is opacity. No one outside the industry knows how much LPG is imported, how much is stored, where it is held, or how quickly it moves through the supply chain. In such darkness, hoarding thrives.

Globally, LPG markets are volatile, but functional regulation cushions the blow. India, for instance, treats cooking gas as a quasi-public good, combining private distribution with state oversight, digital tracking, and targeted subsidies. Price shocks are managed, not outsourced to consumers. Bangladesh, by contrast, has embraced liberalization without building the regulatory muscle liberal markets require. The result is not efficiency, but exploitation.

The human cost is real. Lower-income families cope by cutting protein from meals. Middle-class households reallocate money from education or healthcare. Small food businesses raise prices or shut down temporarily. Inflation creeps upward, not because of global shocks alone, but because an essential input has been allowed to spiral unchecked. An LPG crisis does not stay in the kitchen; it travels to the marketplace, the classroom, the clinic.

So where are the regulators? Why is market monitoring so weak? Why are mobile courts sporadic, inspections predictable, penalties symbolic? Why does BERC communicate with trade bodies through polite letters instead of enforcement notices? These are not technical questions. They are questions of will.

The solutions are neither radical nor mysterious. First, LPG must be formally treated as an essential commodity, not merely another tradable product. That designation should trigger heightened surveillance during peak demand seasons. Second, the entire supply chain—from importer to distributor to retailer—must be brought under real-time digital monitoring. If banks can track money instantly, regulators can track gas cylinders. Third, enforcement must be visible and painful. A few high-profile penalties would do more to stabilize prices than a dozen press releases.

Fourth, consumer protection agencies must be empowered to act swiftly, with functional hotlines and rapid response teams. Complaints that vanish into bureaucratic drawers only embolden cartels. Finally, the government should consider mandating designated fair-price outlets run directly by major importers, allowing consumers to bypass dealer syndicates altogether.

None of this requires reinventing the state. It requires using the state that already exists.

There is a deeper lesson here. Markets do not fail because they are private; they fail because rules are optional and enforcement is selective. When regulation is weak, the strongest players will always exploit necessity. LPG dealers are not uniquely immoral; they are operating in a system that rewards manipulation and punishes compliance.

Cooking gas is not a privilege. It is a basic input into daily life. Allowing syndicates to hold it hostage is not merely an economic failure; it is a moral one. If the government cannot enforce its own prices on an essential commodity, it sends a dangerous signal: that power, not law, determines outcomes.

The LPG crisis will pass, as all such crises do. Supplies will return. Prices may soften. But unless the underlying regulatory emptiness is addressed, the cycle will repeat—with gas today, electricity tomorrow, something else the day after. Stability is not achieved by announcements. It is achieved by enforcement.

The choice before Bangladesh is simple. Either essential markets are governed in the public interest, or they will continue to be governed by syndicates. In the kitchen, as in the economy, someone always pays the price.

M A Hossain, political and defense analyst based in Bangladesh. He can be reached at: writetomahossain@gmail.com

This article published at :

1. New Age, BD : 5 Jan, 26

2. Asian Age, BD : 08 Jan, 26