Category: Foreign Relations

Zimbabwe Update

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It’s been about 3 weeks since I posted on Zimbabwe, and the news remains remarkably depressing.

While there were indications of some level of dissention within the ZANU-PF at their party congress, Mugabe is still casting all this as an attempt by white farmers to keep their farms, and that was eaten up by the party faithful.

The problem with the land distribution was not that land was seized, but that it was not redistributed, it was simply given to party cronies who have little inclination or interest in farming.

Of course, Mugabe and ZANU-PF are not really to well attached to reality anyway, as evidenced by his claim that he sent invitations for Tsvangerai and Mutambara to further meetings about a unity government, when he hadn’t.

Even if he were to have sent invitations, the meetings would clearly not be in good faith, with mass arrest of opposition and human rights activists, along with his refusal to obey judicial orders to release and/or present them to the court. (also here)

Needless to say, the fact that South Africa is once again covering for this, saying that, this should not delay the formation of a unity government, is depressing.

Both the United States and Britain are now publicly saying that Mugabe cannot be trusted as an honest broker in any unity government.

Finally, Mugabe is saying that he will unilaterally form a new government in February.

On the brighter side, it looks like there is a COPE, the ANC splinter party, calling for sanctions against Zimbabwe.

Given that South Africa supplies much of the power, fuel, and food that Zimbabwe needs, there is a fairly good chance that this stick would have real meaning.

What’s more, Desmond Tutu is suggesting that there needs to be a credible threat of military force against Zimbabwe in order for their to be real change.

When a Nobel Peace Prize winner calls for the Marines…..

The humanitarian nightmare is also continuing unabated, with Cholera still running rampant, and increasing problems with severe malnutrition, particularly among children.

OK, so I Finally Have a Handle on What is Going on in the Ukraine Gas Fiasco

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First, the prior contract on natural gas prices, which covered both gas and transit fees across Ukraine expired.

So Gazprom its Ukranian counterpart Naftogaz were negotiating, and then, because there was no deal on prices, Russia reduced shipments to the Ukraine but shipped more to the EU, on the far side of the pipeline, along with routing as much gas as possible via Belarus.

Russia then shut down the feed Ukrainian pipeline, because they said that the Ukrainians were stealing the gas, which has led to gas disruptions across Europe.

So they are now in negotiations, and there are a number of sticking points:

The first is that Ukraine wants to cut the contracted agent for the gas sales, RosUkrEnergo, because they believe it to be corrupt, which is probably true, but it also gives them the ability to monitor just how much gas enters the Ukraine from Russia.

The next big issues are over price. Ukraine was paying $179.50/tcm (thousand cubic meters) with a transit fee of $1.70/tcm/100 km, and has offered $201/tcm with a transit fee of $2.05/tcm/100km.

When you consider that a lot more gas goes through Ukraine than is used there, it sounds like a wash in terms of cost to the Ukranians.

Gazprom wants to keep the transit fee the same, and charge $480/tcm, which is much closer to the market rate, it’s selling gas to the EU at around $420/tcm.

So the numbers offered by Gazprom seem to be in line with the market, plus about 20% because you always start negotiations that way as the seller.

In any case, the EU has gotten agreement from both sides to act as an independent monitor of gas flows, because they want their gas:

After phone conversations with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin of Russia and his Ukrainian counterpart, Yulia Tymoshenko, on Wednesday, the European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, said both leaders had agreed in principle to allow monitors to verify gas movements. But he also warned both countries — and particularly Ukraine — that failure to help restore supplies could have consequences for their relationships with the European Union.

(emphasis mine)

It turns out that the best guess here is that reductions of gas leaving the Ukraine side were far greater than the reductions that the Russians reported on their side, and the implication is that the Russians are actually telling the truth when they are saying that the Ukrainians are stealing gas from the pipeline.

Also Wednesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany spoke with Putin by phone, and in Moscow, Putin met with a former German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, who now serves as chairman of the board of a Gazprom-controlled company planning to build a pipeline from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea, cutting out Ukraine.

(emphasis mine)

It appears that the Germans certainly think that the Ukraine is taking more than it buys from Russia, and I’m inclined to agree.

Much of recent Ukrainian economic expansion, before the world wide recession hit, was driven by below market gas supplied with the implied quid pro quo that Ukraine would be an ally of Russia, and having to pay fair market value for the gas is a real hardship, particularly now that FSU countries’ economies seem to be in free fall.

Like the chicken said, “You knew the job was dangerous when you took it.”

That being said, we are not seeing a punitive price, and best evidence is that the Ukrainians are stealing the gas.

Gaza Update

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Well, there was a 3 hour truce to deliver supplies, and then the fighting started up again, and the Israeli cabinet has OK’d continued conflict.

On a brighter note, things seem to be developing diplomatically, with a lot of people on both sides in Cairo.

Finally, if you think that the Middle East can make you cynical, you haven’t ever truly experienced real cynicism. Just check out the War Nerd’s latest, it’s on Gaza, and it makes everyone else that I’ve ever heard of sound like Little Orphan Annie.

To paraphrase Paul Hogan in Crocodile Dundee, that’s isn’t cynicism, this is cynicism

Maliki to Bush: Drop Dead

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Nouri al-Maliki is now saying that he will not allow Iraq to be used as a base to threaten their neighbors:

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told Iran’s Arabic news channel on Friday that Iraq “will not let Iraq be a launching ground to threaten any country,” Al-Alam said on its website.

Just in case you are wondering, why yes, we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives to put Iran’s bitch in control of Iraq.

Crazy Misha

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So on the way out, one group of batsh%$ insane people, Bush and His Evil Minions™, are going to saddle us with someone who is even crazier, Mikhail Saakashvili, President of Georgia, because they intend to sign a sign a strategic partnership treaty on January 4.

Just another of those gifts to America from George W. Bush….Because leaving all 300 million of us barefoot and pregnant is logistically difficult.

This is a bad idea because the Georgian state security apparatus has been completely penetrated by the Russians, so any information that we give to the Georgians is heading straight to Moscow, and it’s a bad idea because President Mikhail Saakashvili is simply crazy.

When I say crazy, I’m not speaking metaphorically. We have a report of Saakashvili throwing punches and a telephone at his Prime Minister.

While the above report is Fox News, and should thus be treated as if it came from…well…Fox News, we are seeing similar reports of erratic behavior in the New York Times, which reports his statements of grandiose plans (teaching every Georgian to speak and read English in the next 2 years), and pulling facts out of the air (claiming that the Russians invaded before he attacked).

The article also raises concerns about his increasingly dictatorial grip on the apparatus of the state, and his comparing himself to Georgian King, and Saint, David the Builder and George Washington.

I think that this report is saying, in a low key way, two things, that he’s nuts, and that his continued political survival is in doubt.

Gaza Upate

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First, something we can all agree on, that this clusterf&$% is Bush and Condi’s gift to the middle east.

You remember, first they insisted on elections in the territories, and then when Hamas won, because the PA is corrupt and incompetent at governing even by the standards of the Arab world, they proceeded to encourage Israel and the PLO to go after Hamas, which led to Hamas kicking the PLO out of Gaza, because the PLO is the worst army ever.

In breaking news, it looks like there may be a 48 hour cease fire, though both sides are currently acknowledging any negotiations.

Also I have one report of a ground offensive starting, it’s an eyewitness account, but it has since been corrected to say that tanks are shelling from over the Green Line.

Will Russia Buy the Crimea from Ukraine?

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This is all pure speculation on my part, and my record on predictions is only marginally better than that of the Detroit Lions with regards to football, but I think that there is a distinct possibility that this might happen.

We have a number of developments going on simultaneously, with Medvedev and Gazprom playing hardball on a $2.1 billion debt and warning of a cutoff of gas if there is no resolution.

Then we have Edward Hugh’s amusingly named essay, “As The Politicians Battle It Out Ukraine’s Economy Tunnels South In Search Of Australia,” (H/T, Paul Krugman Blog for the link) which provides us with the included chart pr0n.*

You see industrial production falling by nearly 25%, and inflation and the central banks both topping 20%.

Simply put, this is an economic meltdown that starts looking like something out of Mad Max.

When you juxtapose this with reports that Russian PM Vladimir Putin Ukrainian PM Yulia Timoshenko are holding talks to resolve the issue, it appears to me that the Ukrainians have very little leverage.

About the only thing that I think that the Ukrainians can offer Russia is the Crimea, which is already primarily a Russian speaking province, and had been a part Russia until Khrushchev gifted it to Ukraine in 1954.

I’m not sure whether a “sale” of the Crimea to Russia would involve an actual negotiated transfer of territory. We could see extensions regarding treaty rights for the Russian naval base at Sevastopol, increased autonomy for the region, and perhaps agreements to protect the “heritage” of the province, which would mean that the Russian speaking nature of the the Crimea would be preserved.

In the long run though, a full separation of the Crimea from the Ukraine might be beneficial for both sides. For the Russians, the benefits are obvious, the protection of ethnic Russians and national pride, and for the Ukrainians, it creates a less ethnically diverse state, which means that you will likely have real issues of governance, as opposed to the current paralysis which is driven by the Russian minority being largely disengaged.

*I tend to disagree with Hugh’s thesis that demographic issues are at the root of much of this problem. While the Ukrainian population has fallen by a remarkable 11% since 1992, and with the death rate exceeding the birth rate by over 50%, I do not believe that a growing population is necessary for economic well-being.†
†Case in point what happened in Europe following the Black Death, which had a with a mortality rate of around 50%. There was a marked increase in social mobility and wages for the average worker, largely at the expense of the landholders and other members of the economic elite, despite largely ineffective anti-labor laws that were instituted. The lesson here is that if population falls, the total GDP may fall, it certainly did during the black death, but per capita GDP went up, and if you can pry this out of the hands of the economic elites, life can be better for everyone.

Gaza

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OK, Israel has launched a large air strike on Gaza, see here, here, and here, with total reported casualties somewhere in the 225 range.

As to what the eventual death toll will be, FAIR’s report on Jenin noted that similar numbers were initially counted there, but it turned out to be 52, and the original estimates at deaths on 911 were over 6,000, when the final tally was 2974, so the final number is likely to be much lower.

Note that is not meant to minimize what happened, but to note that people who are going to simply spew what are very preliminary numbers by and imply that this constitutes reasoned arguments are ninnies.

I tend to be more hawkish on these things than my other political leanings would indicate, so here is my assessment at this point.

I do not think that this, whether or not it is followed by a ground assault, will solve anything in the long term, but it will have the effect of disrupting the chain of command of Hamas, particularly as the leadership of the organization is likely to go to ground at this point, as they have when similar strikes have been launched against them.

It does not buy peace, but it will buy somewhere between 6 and 18 months of quiet.

I disagree with the rather simplistic assessment at Worldwide War Pigs of, “Don’t like getting bombed? Clean up your act,” particularly when he invokes the rather awful Sly Stallone movie Cobra in the process.

Nothing good ever comes from evoking Sylvester Stallone, and there is no purely military solution.

By the same token, I think that Jeremy Ben-Ami, Executive Director of J-Street is wrong too, where he makes rather mealy-mouthed statements about, “Respecting Israel’s right to defend itself,” but at it’s core is the argument that this will contribute to the, “cycle of violence”, which is such a useless cliche that it borders on the moronic.

Further I disagree with Mr. Ben-Ami’s assertion that, “strong diplomatic intervention by the United States, the Quartet and allies in the region to negotiate a resumption of the ceasefire,” is essential.

The Quartet has been part of the problem, as it has distracted the principals, Israel, the PA, and Hamas, away from dealing with each other, and toward gaming their position vis-a-vis support from the 4 nations. It has taken negotiation, and made it theater.

I believe that the stage given to all parties by the Quartet serves no one except the members of the Quartet, who are allowed to pretend that they are doing something positive.

At this point, the best course is for the rest of the world disentangle themselves from this situation.

As to final status negotiations, I do not believe that Israel can achieve its goals purely through military force, and I do not believe that the Palestinians, either Hamas or the PA are currently able to negotiate in good faith, as any serious good faith negotiations would result in compromises that would delegitimatize whoever made them.

I would also note the lesson of the American Civil War, where ambiguities that were “left for later”, became the basis for conflict. Incrementalism is the enemy of a solution, not a friend.

Russia to Offers to Cancel Some Strategic Weapons Systems Over Euro Star Wars

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The commander of Russia’s Strategic Missile forces, Colonel-General Nikolai Solovtsov is saying that many of the systems currently in development would not be necessary if the US backs off its missile defense installation in Poland:

“If Americans give up plans to deploy the third positioning region and other elements of the strategic missile defense system then certainly we will adequately respond to it,” Colonel-General Nikolai Solovtsov said.

“We will simply not need a number of expensive programs,” he added echoing earlier Kremlin overtures to the new U.S. administration.

This has generally been the knock on various BMD efforts since Reagan’s “Star Wars,” and the installations in Europe, which appeared to be located to challenge Russia more than Iran, just further complicate the matter.

Another Indication of Just How Long the Damage Will Last

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Because this was unthinkable just 5 or 6 years ago:

Latin American and Caribbean leaders gathering in Brazil tomorrow will mark a historic occasion: a region-wide summit that excludes the United States.

Almost two centuries after President James Monroe declared Latin America a U.S. sphere of influence, the region is breaking away. From socialist-leaning Venezuela to market-friendly Brazil, governments are expanding military, economic and diplomatic ties with potential U.S. adversaries such as China, Russia and Iran.

and in addition to China and Russia, guess who’s coming to dinner?

The two-day gathering, called by Brazil at a beach resort in Bahia state, is also a diplomatic triumph for Cuban President Raul Castro, making his first trip abroad since taking over from his brother Fidel two years ago. The communist island was suspended from the hemisphere-wide Organization of American States in 1962 over its ties with the former Soviet Union.

We will be suffering major ill effect is Bush and His Evil Minions™ well after I am dead.

Then Don’t Send Loose Cannons on Diplomatic Missions

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The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, is objecting to Israel’s expulsion of Richard Falk, saying that, “”it is the responsibility of states to cooperate with the independent UN experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council.”

He’s correct, of course, just as, for example members of the UN have an obligation not to appoint people who are batsh%$ insane to be their Ambassadors, so there is an obligation to criticize Bush and His Evil Minions™ for appointing John “The Mustache of Doom” Bolton to the UN.

Unfortunately, Richard Falk has no more control of his tongue than did the ‘Stache.

The man is an agent of a diplomatic organization on a fact finding mission, but he has made public statements which show that he should not be trusted with anything managing a Popsicle stand (or an academic department):

  • Support for the 911 conspiracy theorists.
  • Saying that, “”the depiction of [Khomeini] as fanatical, reactionary and the bearer of crude prejudices seems certainly and happily false … To suppose that Ayatollah Khomeini is dissembling seems almost beyond belief. … Having created a new model of popular revolution based, for the most part, on nonviolent tactics, Iran may yet provide us with a desperately-needed model of humane governance for a third-world country.”
  • Describing Israeli actions in the disputed territories as a Holocaust.
  • Asking to investigate Palestinian abuses, but only to “insulate” the HRC from accusation of bias, which constitutes an explicit admission of bias on his own part.

(And that’s just from a quick glance at his wiki)

Speaking as someone who was, and is, profoundly embarrassed by the fact that John Bolton is still given time in news shows and not relegated to circus acts, and horrified that snake oil salesman Benyamin Netanyahu was, and might be again, PM of Israel, the answer to the question is not to appoint equal and opposite nutjobs.

There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of people who could bring a dedication to the job, what’s more, I’ve searched the net, and found no evidence that he either speaks Arabic or Hebrew, and at the very least, the investigator should be conversationally fluent in Arabic.

If an investigator cannot speak the language, it is very difficult for them to investigate. To rely on representatives of one government or the other to supply translators is to place a filter on on communications by the party supplying the translator.

Because They Would Rat Out Their ISI Handlers

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Well, it appears that Pakistan is refusing to hand over suspects in the Mumbai bombing to India.

Given the level of tension between the two nuclear armed neighbors, there is only reason for this that I can see, that Pakistan knows that if they turn over these guys to India, there is a fairly good chance that some of them will finger their handlers at the Pakistani Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Zimbabwe Update

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Well, it appears that I missed a rampage by Zimbabwean troops who had not received their pay, but caught the story that Mugabe is looking at retribution against those soldiers:

In a clear sign that President Mugabe’s hold on his state security machinery is starting to crumble, his once-loyal soldiers ran amok across the capital on Monday after they failed to access their paltry wages in the cash-strapped banks. The unarmed soldiers fought with heavily-armed police and several were arrested.

It was the third outbreak of such violence since last Thursday. The sight of rampaging soldiers was then unprecedented. Army sources said an inquiry had already begun, with dozens facing courts martial. Unconfirmed reports say three of the 12 soldiers who took part in Thursday’s riot have been killed.

So it appears that the rank and file in the Zimbabwean Army are starting to lose discipline.

In the short term, this is troubling, in the medium term, it may mean that Mugabe is closer to being out than I would have believed, and in the longer term, it does not bode well for a post ZANU-PF nation.

In the mean time, things are getting worse, with cholera deaths increasing, and there have been public protests about this from health care professionals.

It’s not just cholera though, the UN has run out of funds for food aid, so for many, starvation looms.

On the bright side, we are seeing a bit of backbone from the African community, with
Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga calling explicitly for Robert Mugabe’s removal and he and ANC president Jacob Zuma have publicly declared that that will work together on the crisis, which is clearly a disavowal by Odinga of Thabo Mbeki.

It’s also interesting that the Kenyan Prime Minister has called for a military intervention to depose Mugabe, followed by war crimes trials.

Hopefully, this means that there will be some meaningful movement (meaningful means out) by Robert Mugabe, but I have a feeling that he will not leave while he is still alive.

Interesting Juxtaposition in the Media Coverage of Africa

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We have this story alleging that Rwanda is behind the insurgency in the east of Congo, and we have this story discussing negotiations between the governments of Rwanda and Congo to disband the FDLR militias.

The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), are the genocidal criminals who massacred a significant portion of the Rwandan Tutsi population, and once driven from the country, set themselves up in “refugee camps” where their basic food and nature needs are provided for by the UN and NGOs, and have continued to wage genocidal campaigns against Tutsis, both in Congo and Rwanda.

A first step to fixing this is to close down the camps, and considering that the Tutsis have not engaged in mass reprisals in the 18 years since the genocide, these camps are not needed.

As to how to close down the camps? That’s simple, just stop delivering supplies.

It’s Become a Much Less Friendly World for Secret Bank Accounts

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I don’t know who found pictures of Lichtenstein’s royal family engaged in unnatural acts with a sheep, because, they have announced that they have, “agreed a landmark deal with the U.S. to drop bank secrecy in cases of tax evasion and could make similar concessions in the European Union.”

They now have to show evidence of likely tax evasion, as opposed to proving that there is deliberate tax fraud, which, you know, you generally cant without having access to the accounts in the first place.

You are going to see a whole bunch of people paying back taxes soon.

Iraq’s Parliament Approves SOFA

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Im not sure how I missed it, but it appears that the Iraqi parliament approved the status of forces agreement with the US in a rather raucous session.

The final capitulations required of Bush and His Evil Minions™ to get this passed are an indicator of just how weak Bush is. He gave away the store, because to do otherwise would require him to admit that Iraq was a mistake, and he’s to narcissistic to do that.

NATO Meeting Finds Compromise at Meeting

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So NATO agrees to resume limited ties with Russia while also allowing for better ties with Georgia and the Ukraine without any road map to NATA membership.

Obviously, it makes sense to resume ties with Russia. They are geographically and historically very important in dealing with Iran and Afghanistan.

As to kicking NATO membership down the road for the two former Soviet Republics, that’s just stupid, but the best that could be had with Bush and His Evil Minions™ still in power.

NATO does not need expansion, and the idea that a nut job like Georgia’s Mikheil Saakashvili, or a man who seems to be actively in the running for nut job like Ukraine’s Viktor Yushchenko to have the ability to mandate actions on the part of three nuclear powers is absurd.

One of the great diplomatic missteps of the 1990s was the expansion of NATO.

Just imagine how bad it would have been if Georgia had been a NATO member when it launched its assault on civilians. Do governments in the rest of Europe want to be held hostage by someone like Mikheil Saakashvili?

Do the militaries in the rest of Europe want to have to share data with a country whose military was so completely penetrated by Russian intelligence?

The expansion of NATO has been driven by 3 things:

  1. The US desire for new markets for defense equipment.
  2. The desire by some players to treat Russia as a conquered nation, and to use NATO rub their face in their current status.
  3. The European goal of continental union.
  4. Dick Cheney and His Evil Minions™ want to recreate the bad old Russian bear, because it gets Republicans elected, so they keep poking Russia with a number of sticks, of which NATO expansion is one.

I will note that the rapid expansion of the EU, which is, after a civilian institution hasn’t gone well either.

One need only look look at Bulgaria, a virtual Mafia state whose accession to the EU was driven by pan European triumphalism, to a lesser degree places like the Baltic republics, which are engaging in genteel ethnic cleansing, and that whole “twins” thing in Poland.

Both the EU and NATO have over expanded because of this, and the possibility of adding Ukraine and Georgia gives me the willies.

If the road to a unified Europe is inevitable, and I think that it is near inevitable, then expansion can take part at a measured pace.

The greatest threat to a real European super-State policy is the EE’s collapse from overambitious expansion.

Obama National Security Team Named

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President elect Obama rolled out his new national security team: (cut and paste from the Washington Independent)

  • Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, as secretary of state.
  • Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, to remain in his current position.
  • Eric Holder, a former federal prosecutor and deputy attorney general, as attorney general.
  • Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, as secretary of homeland security.
  • Gen. James L. Jones (Ret.), as national security adviser.
  • Susan Rice, national security adviser to Obama’s presidential campaign, as ambassador to the United Nations.

An interesting side story on all this is that
Hillary Clinton will not resign until she is confirmed.

My guess is that notwithstanding the famous collegiality of the Senate, she figures that there is at least one Republican willing do pull the secret hold crap, either to screw with her or Bill, and she just sent a message to them that if they do, she will be in the room with them for a long time.