Bangladesh: The US Deep State’s newest victim

By Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury (Approx. 705 words)

In 2003, Washington justified its invasion of Iraq by claiming Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction and ties to Al Qaeda. These allegations -later proven false – enabled the toppling of Iraq’s leadership, replacing it with an externally controlled regime of opportunists and mercenaries. Iraq’s sovereignty was dismantled, and its oil wealth looted under the watch of the US Deep State.

This was not a one-off. It was the first act of a brutal geopolitical blueprint—a regime-change model later repeated in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, and Syria. Western media branded these interventions as part of an “Arab Spring,” masking the real intent: destabilization, economic exploitation, and the installation of puppet governments loyal to foreign interests.

Egypt’s “25 January Revolution” in 2011 was sold as a popular uprising, yet it was driven by Western-backed networks. Mubarak’s ouster led not to stability but to chaos, with the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi – another foreign-backed figure—briefly in power before being overthrown.

In Libya, NATO’s 2011 intervention ended with the gruesome killing of Muammar Gaddafi. The once-prosperous nation descended into lawlessness, its oil and gas reserves falling into the hands of foreign corporations.

The same playbook appeared in Ukraine, where the 2014 Maidan uprising installed a NATO-friendly regime openly allied with neo-Nazi militias. Today, Ukraine’s vast mineral resources and farmland are quietly being handed over to Western companies, while its people pay the price of endless war.

Now, in 2024, Bangladesh has been added to the list of nations reshaped by the US Deep State’s regime-change machinery. On August 5, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina – whose leadership had brought consistent economic growth and stability – was ousted in what bears all the hallmarks of an externally orchestrated coup.

Behind the scenes, Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) acted as the operational partner, while Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus emerged as the public face of the so-called “interim regime.” Just like in Iraq and Libya, the new administration is populated by figures whose loyalties lie not with Bangladesh but with foreign benefactors.

The destabilization of Bangladesh is not happening in isolation. Credible sources suggest that the Deep State has also been working to undermine Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nationalist government, with Indian National Congress leader Rahul Gandhi courting foreign support. Reports indicate that between 2022 and 2024, Gandhi held discreet meetings in the US with regime-change architects such as Victoria Nuland and George Soros – figures notorious for meddling in sovereign nations’ politics.

For Washington’s strategists, a weakened or compliant Bangladesh and India would serve as powerful levers in reshaping South Asian geopolitics.

Since Sheikh Hasina’s removal, Bangladesh’s economy has spiraled downward. Inflation has surged, GDP growth has stalled, and foreign investors are fleeing. Mob violence has become common – over 200 people, many of them Hindus or Awami League supporters, have been lynched.

More ominously, extremist groups like Al Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, and Hizb ut-Tahrir are reactivating their cells. ISI is reportedly overseeing guerrilla and commando training for over 1.6 million Rohingya refugees and nearly a million Bihari “Stranded Pakistanis”, with the aim of exporting terrorism to India, Myanmar, and potentially Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

If these groups succeed, the consequences will ripple far beyond Bangladesh’s borders.

Targeting the Armed Forces

A particularly alarming development is the interim regime’s campaign to weaken the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) – Bangladesh’s premier counterterrorism agency. Former DGFI chiefs are now facing politically motivated charges of “crimes against humanity”.

This move appears designed to dismantle the very institution that has been most effective at containing terrorist threats. Once neutralized, Islamist militants could infiltrate the military, creating conditions for attacks on the scale of 9/11 or the 2008 Mumbai massacre.

Bangladesh’s descent into instability is not just a national tragedy – it is a looming global security crisis. A failed Bangladesh, teeming with jihadist networks, would be a launchpad for terrorism across South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.

The Deep State’s strategy is consistent: destabilize, install loyal proxies, exploit resources, and leave the population in perpetual crisis. The only question is – how long will the international community look away before the flames spread beyond Bangladesh?