Category: Foreign Relations

How to Deal With Blackmail

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Turkey is (rather successfully) attempting to blackmail Europe over their handling of the refugee crisis:

Shopping in a Turkish bazaar is never wise for the novice.

The EU learned that lesson the hard way when it discovered the carefully crafted refugee deal it believed it had sold to Turkish leaders in the run-up to Monday’s summit turned out to be little more than the beginning of the negotiation.

Turkey made Europe a counter offer early Monday that six months ago would have prompted EU negotiators to get up and walk out. To European eyes, the proposal Ankara put on the table read more like a ransom note: €3 billion in refugee aid in addition to the €3 billion already pledged, full-scale visa liberalization for Turkish citizens in the EU by June, an acceleration of Turkey’s application to join the bloc as well as a pledge to resettle many of the Syrian refugees Turkey takes in.

Turkey’s message to Europe was clear: You need us more than we need you.

That Europe is not just considering the Turkish proposal, but is likely to end up accepting most, if not all of it, is testament to the desperation of the Union and its largest member, Germany, to secure a deal to limit the flow of refugees and end a crisis that is testing EU solidarity like nothing in its history.

Seeing as how Erdogan is trying to turn Turkey into an theocratic dictatorship, you don’t want to do things like speed Turkey’s entry into the EU.

The way I see this, there are two options:

  • Roll over.
  • Start sending large numbers of Turks home to “make space for the refugees”, and  clamp down on remittances, which cripples the Turkish economy.

I recommend that the leaders of Europe choose the 2nd option.

Using Turkish gastarbeiters as human shields is not a particularly laudable thing, but the Turks are using the Syrian refugees as human shields as well, and Turkey continues to support ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliates driving the refugee flow in Syria.

The Turks won’t stop fomenting the civil war in Syria, nor trying to exploit and exacerbate the refugee crisis until the cost to them become prohibitive.

Some Good that Comes from Donald Trump

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It appears that Donald Trump’s shenanigans have blown up Netanyahu’s alliance with Republicans:

In their Super Tuesday speeches, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio tried to use an Israel hammer to bash Donald Trump. Cruz sneeringly lambasted him for saying he would remain “neutral” while Rubio trounced Trump for trying to stay “impartial”, as his audience booed accordingly. And Trump? Trump was racking up victories, amassing delegates and laughing all the way to the top of the Republican presidential field.

In this way, the New York billionaire is decimating the conventional wisdom, one of many, that in 2016, total and unconditional support for Israel is a prerequisite for any aspiring GOP candidate wishing to run for president; that such a pledge of allegiance to Israel, in general, and to Benjamin Netanyahu, in particular, is a threshold requirement for gaining the support of Evangelicals, who set the tone during primary season; and that the flow of sympathy for Israel from liberal Democrats to conservative Republicans is inevitable, perhaps even desirable, and in any case unstoppable.

But exactly a year after Netanyahu took this logic to its extreme and stood on the podium of Congress as Leader of the Republican opposition to President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, the conception is falling apart. The notion that the Republican Party is a monolithic bastion of support that will withstand the test of time is evaporating. The belief that any Republican president who will follow Obama will be better for Israel is eroding with each passing day. Faced with the Trump phenomenon, Netanyahu’s Fortress GOP strategy is collapsing like a house of cards. 

………

Trump not only diverts the Republican leadership from uniform automatic support for Netanyahu, he is destroying the internal coalition that was the lynchpin of the party’s strong pro-Israel stance. Evangelical support for Trump has already sparked an internal rupture, which has some experts declaring the death of America’s Religious Right. Evangelical leaders and many of their supporters in the media are heartbroken that so many Believers are flocking after the thrice married, dirty-talking reality star. They are less perturbed by his deviation from the strict pro-Israel party line, however, and more by the sinful ways for which he has not asked forgiveness.

If Trump becomes their candidate, the GOP will lose its most hawkish, most neoconservative and most pro-Israel secular elements as well. They are repelled not only by his indecipherable positions on Israel but also by his harsh criticism of George Bush and the Iraq War, his undisguised adulation of dictators for Vladimir Putin to Bashar Assad, his all round belligerence and his neo-isolationist vision of making America great again within its hermetically sealed walls. “As president, he would use the authority of his office to act in ways that make America less safe, and which would diminish our standing in the world” according to public letter signed by 50 GOP national security stalwarts, many of them known for their pro-Israel positions. “We commit ourselves to working energetically to prevent the election of someone so utterly unfitted to the office.”

Sometimes, I worry about the future of Israel.

The two things that worry me the most is Netanyahu, who sees no further than the next election, and the Necons whose every action for at least the past two decades has served to diminish the safety and security of Israel, notwithstanding their declared support for the Jewish state.

Iraq, and Yemen, and Libya, and Syria, etc. have all been foreign policy disasters that have been created or worsened by Neocons, and all of these have been disasters for Israel.

Another TTP/TTIP Talking Point Shown to be a Lie

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One of the claims made by the supporters of current and pending trade deals is that the US has never been sued through the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) process, with the implication that such a suit will simply never happen.

Not so much:

A $15 billion lawsuit by the company behind the Keystone XL pipeline against the US government shows the serious threat to democracy posed by special privileges for investors, a new report has said. TransCanada is suing under investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) clauses of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to demand damages following rejection of the controversial pipeline due to its climate impact.

Keystone illustrates how the increasingly common ISDS clauses, that are contained in the draft EU-Canada trade agreement (CETA) and the proposed EU-US deal (TTIP), can be used to undermine climate action, the report by T&E, Friends of the Earth Europe and Sierra Club stated.

Last year US president Barack Obama denied permission to build the US-stage of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have transported crude oil from Canada’s tar sands to American refineries, as it was not in the interest of national security and would have undercut America’s climate leadership. TransCanada’s lawsuit is under chapter 11 of NAFTA, which allows multinational corporations to sue governments if they feel they have not been treated as a domestic company would have been.

TransCanada has reportedly invested $3.1 billion in the project but is seeking five times this amount in damages. It will be able to launch its case as early as May 2016. A three-judge tribunal will issue a ruling, which cannot be appealed to any national court. It can award damages but not force the US to grant permission for Keystone to be built.

The ISDS process as currently practiced is a morass of corruption and opacity.

It’s underlying philosophy is that government has no rights to protect the common good, and that any lost profits as a result is a taking.

It is a perverted and evil thing.

F%$# the Mouse

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You know, now that Mickey has stopped palling around with Michael Eisner, Disney has really gone to the dark side:

The Walt Disney Company has a reputation for lobbying hard on copyright issues. The 1998 copyright extension has even been dubbed the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act” by activists like Lawrence Lessig that have worked to reform copyright laws.

This year, the company is turning to its employees to fund some of that battle. Disney CEO Bob Iger has sent a letter to the company’s employees, asking for them to open their hearts—and their wallets—to the company’s political action committee, DisneyPAC.

In the letter, which was provided to Ars by a Disney employee, Iger tells workers about his company’s recent intellectual property victories, including stronger IP protections in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a Supreme Court victory that destroyed Aereo, and continued vigilance about the “state of copyright law in the digital environment.” It also mentions that Disney is seeking an opening to lower the corporate tax rate.

“With the support of the US Government we achieved a win in the Supreme Court against Aereo—an Internet service claiming the right to retransmit our broadcast signals without paying copyright or retransmission consent fees,” writes Iger. “In the coming year, we expect Congress and the Administration to be active on copyright regime issues, efforts to enact legislation to approve and implement the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, tax reform, and more proposals to weaken retransmission consent, to name a few.”

The source who provided the letter to Ars asked to remain anonymous, and they were bothered by the assumption that anyone who worked for Disney would agree with the company’s political positions on tax, trade, intellectual property, and other matters.

“It just seems insensitive to folks that support the company but don’t necessarily support all of its priorities,” the source said. “Especially for something like TPP, which I view as particularly controversial. We do have a company position, but there’s going to be a wide variety of opinion [within the company].”

………
The Disney letter has language explicitly reassuring employees that their jobs won’t be affected by their decision whether or not to give to DisneyPAC.

“Your contribution is important to all of us, but I want to emphasize that all contributions are voluntary and have no impact on your job status, performance review, compensation, or employment,” writes Iger. “Any amount given or the decision not to give will not advantage or disadvantage you.”

If you believe that Disney won’t be making a list and checking it twice, you still believe in Santa Claus.

This isn’t a United Way drive, this is a demand to employees that they give to an organization promulgating Disney’s interest.

As I said at the start, f%$# the mouse.

Have I Said before That Our Policies in Syria Are Completely Incoherent?

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We are now in a situation where our Pentagon supported rebels are at war with out CIA supported rebels:

American proxies are now at war with each other in Syria.

 Officials with Syrian rebel battalions that receive covert backing from one arm of the U.S. government told BuzzFeed News that they recently began fighting rival rebels supported by another arm of the U.S. government.

 The infighting between American proxies is the latest setback for the Obama administration’s Syria policy and lays bare its contradictions as violence in the country gets worse.

 The confusion is playing out on the battlefield — with the U.S. effectively engaged in a proxy war with itself. “It’s very strange, and I cannot understand it,” said Ahmed Othman, the commander of the U.S.-backed rebel battalion Furqa al-Sultan Murad, who said he had come under attack from U.S.-backed Kurdish militants in Aleppo this week.

 Furqa al-Sultan Murad receives weapons from the U.S. and its allies as part of a covert program, overseen by the CIA, that aids rebel groups struggling to overthrow the government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, according to rebel officials and analysts tracking the conflict.

 The Kurdish militants, on the other hand, receive weapons and support from the Pentagon as part of U.S. efforts to fight ISIS. Known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, they are the centerpiece of the Obama administration’s strategy against the extremists in Syria and coordinate regularly with U.S. airstrikes.

 Yet as Assad and his Russian allies have routed rebels around Aleppo in recent weeks — rolling back Islamist factions and moderate U.S. allies alike, as aid groups warn of a humanitarian catastrophe — the YPG has seized the opportunity to take ground from these groups, too.

And now we also have the Turks demanding that the US cease aiding the Kurds, who are arguably the most effective opposition to ISIS:

The U.S. said it won’t break off ties to a Kurdish militia that’s fighting Islamic State in Syria, rebuffing the demands of NATO member Turkey, which blames the group for a bombing in the capital Ankara this week.

Turkey says Wednesday’s attack on a military bus, which killed 28 people, was carried out by the PKK and its Syrian affiliates. The U.S. agrees with Turkey that the PKK, which has been fighting for autonomy in Turkey’s Kurdish regions for three decades, is a terrorist group. But the status of the Kurdish fighters in Syria has been straining ties between the NATO allies, as their interests there diverge after more than five years of war.

The U.S. says defeating Islamic State, also known as Daesh, is the overwhelming priority. Turkey has signed up for that goal, but it’s also trying to prop up rebels in northwest Syria fighting against President Bashar al-Assad, whose Russian-backed army threatens to encircle them. The Syrian Kurds are in position to cut off vital supply lines to Aleppo, where the opposition groups are holed up, and their territorial gains may also set an example for Kurds seeking autonomy inside Turkey.

So, we are fighting ISIS, as are the Kurds, and we are allies with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, who have supported ISIS, and oppose the Kurds.

And now Ankara and Riyadh are looking to mount a ground war to “put down ISIS” but is really intend to create a fundamentalist Sunni regime and put down the Kurds.

Confused enough yet?

The House of Saud Surrenders………

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Russia and Saudi Arabil have cut a deal to limit the supply of oil.

Unfortunately, the ball is still rolling downhill:

Several top OPEC producers made headlines with Russia on Tuesday, revealing that a secret meeting between their respective energy ministers led to a deal to “freeze” production in an effort to boost oil prices.

The agreement is monumental in the sense that OPEC and Russia are poised to agree to cooperate, the first OPEC and non-OPEC deal in 15 years. At the same time, the deal is a half-measure and will likely be inadequate to substantially rescue oil prices from their rock bottom lows.

………

The real problem for this deal, though, is with Iran, who is unlikely to sign on to a production freeze when its output is still close to sanctions-era levels. With substantial gains in production expected for this year, the deal would be harder to swallow than it would for other OPEC members. Saudi Arabia would be willing to freeze its output if it meant burdening its rival Iran. As a result, Iran’s acquiescence is an open question. “We have not yet reached our level of pre-sanctions production. So when we get there, we will be on an equal level, then we can talk,” a senior source told Reuters, pouring cold water on the deal. Venezuelan officials believe they can bring Iran on board, but that remains to be seen.

In short, despite Tuesday’s announcement, implementing the deal will be trickier than it sounds.

The current low oil prices are largely an artifact of a Saudi decision to overproduce in an attempt to drive more expensive fracked oil off the market.

Unfortunately for them, with interest rates being near zero, the frackers can still make payments on their loans, and now we have any number of oil producer nations who continue to overproduce because they are too dependent on oil revenues.

It’s a vicious circle.

This Business Will Get out of Control. It Will Get out of Control and We’ll Be Lucky to Live through It.

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Syria, looks to be going to be going completely pear shaped.

With advances by the Syrian government and by the Kurdish YPG threatening to cut off Turkey’s Islamist proxies in Syria, Ankara is shelling the Kurds, attacking what are (for now, at least) US Allies:

France’s foreign ministry has urged Turkey to end its assault on Kurdish fighters in northern Syria.

 In a statement (in French) it said it was “worried about the continued worsening of the situation”.

 On Saturday, Turkey began shelling the militia, which it says is linked to the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

 The fighters, the YPG militia based in Syria, have rejected Turkey’s demand to leave areas it has seized, saying Islamists would return if it left.

 Turkey’s assault is a new thread in an already-complex conflict that has drawn in competing regional powers.

 Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu insisted on Sunday that Turkey “will not permit the [Kurdish militia] to carry out aggressive acts”.

 “Our security forces gave the necessary response and will continue to do so,” Mr Davutoglu said.

 Syria has also condemned the Turkish action as a violation of its sovereignty and asked the UN Security Council to intervene.

What’s more, the Turkey machinations in Syria, along with its heavy handed suppression of the Kurds in south east Anatolia has led to a renewed insurgency inside Turkey:

It was midday on a Thursday at the end of December when Rozerin Çukur left her home, supposedly to pick up class notes from a friend. She never returned.

 Rozerin wandered through the narrow streets of Sur, the tangled old town neighborhood in Diyarbakir, a city of one million in southeastern Turkey. An attractive 17-year-old, Rozerin was wearing her school uniform and carrying a book and a pen in her bag.

 “Just a few hours later,” her father says, “my daughter was inside the war.” She supposedly joined the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H), a group supported by the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and which since September has been fighting against the Turkish army in the streets of Diyarbakir, using Kalashnikovs and booby traps.

 Rozerin was killed by a single shot to the head. Since January 8, her dead body has been lying in the sealed-off old town of Diyarbakir. Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the city’s ancient heart has also long been the hub of Kurdish resistance. Rozerin’s parents are holding a vigil in a community center in the city together with dozens of other parents whose children have been killed in the most recent civil war in southeastern Turkey. The parents say they only want one thing: to be able to provide a decent burial for their children. But the Turkish state, they say, has made it impossible to recover their children’s bodies.

 State officials view the dead young men and women as terrorists — as violent members of the PKK. Parents say they have been told that they can enter the old town in small groups, but that Turkish officials are demanding that they remove the weapons from the hands of the dead. And the parents do not want to touch the weapons. “The soldiers,” they fear, “would shoot immediately.”

 ………

 The state is using extreme force against the PKK. Indeed, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently announced that he intended to annihilate the fighting force and promised to continue the battle “until the area is cleansed of all terrorists.” There is no “Kurdish question,” he said, just a “terror problem.”

 Bitter house-to-house fighting of the kind seen in Diyarbakir is also taking place in other surrounding cities. The PKK focused its earlier attacks primarily on military targets and police stations. But since the state has laid siege to the cities, the radical Kurdish youth movement YDG-H has taken up the fight there as well.

 Until recently, the YDG-H was seen as a collection of disillusioned youth who defended themselves from state violence with rocks and Molotov cocktails. But now that the government has set its sights on ridding the cities of PKK sympathizers, the group has armed and organized itself with the PKK’s help. They are now fighting on the frontlines while experienced PKK fighters are hiding in the Qandil Mountains in Iraqi Kurdistan.

After nearly 50 years of the “Kurdish problem” Turkey seemed to have come to an accommodation with the Kurds in the late 1990s, and now Erdogan has blown it all up.

And now the Turks and house of Saud are threatening to invade Syria:

The Turkish military has hit Kurdish and Syrian regime targets as Ankara considered a ground assault with Saudi troops, further complicating efforts to end the war just days after the US and Russia agreed on a “cessation of hostilities” in Syria within a week.

………

In an interview with AFP released on Friday, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad said he “doesn’t rule out” that Turkey and Saudi Arabia would intervene militarily in Syria, but said his armed forces “will certainly confront it”.

Saudi Arabia and Turkey both staunchly support rebels seeking to oust Assad, and see his overthrow as essential for ending Syria’s five-year civil war that has cost more than 260,000 lives.

They fear the west is losing its appetite to overthrow him on the assumption he is “the lesser of two evils” compared with Isis.

Neither the House of Saud nor Turkey are our allies in Syria.

Riyadh is interesting in extending repressive Sunni hegemony in Syria, and Turkey is interested in reassembling a a sphere of influence in the area of the former Ottoman Empire.

The technical term for the governments in Ankara and Saudi Arabia is f%$#ing nuts.

We should not be on their side in any way shape, or form.

Not Enough Bullets

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It appears that Republican members of Congress made a request to the government of Iran that they not release detained Americans until after the election:

Iran released four US citizens being held in Iran on January 16, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian. In return the US said it was offering clemency to seven Iranians being held for sanctions violations and dropped charges against 14 more.

In his first interview with French media, Admiral Ali Shamkhani, who is secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, told FRANCE 24 that US Republicans – wary of allowing President Barack Obama to win a public relations victory ahead of the US presidential election in November – asked for the swap to be put on hold.

“We were carrying out negotiations with the Obama administration, when representatives of the Republican Party got in touch with us,” Shamkhani said. “As a favour, they asked us to do what we could to hinder the talks and to push them back until after the next US presidential elections – in other words, after President Obama’s departure.”

………

“It seems that the Republicans relegated humanity to second place after political expediency, which I found very surprising. But we succeeded, and the prisoners were released during Obama’s mandate.”

See also here, here, and here.

Shades of Ronald Reagan’s and GHW Bush’s deal with the Iranian in 1980, the so-called “October Surprise”, where they promised to release military hardware if the Iranians held the embassy hostages until after the elections.

I misspoke in the title though, traitors should be hung, not shot.

H/t JR at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

A Thought on the Democratic Debates………

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I didn’t catch them all, I had to shuttle the Sharon* and Charlie to rehearsal, but I caught a lot of it.

In the foreign policy portion, Clinton spent a lot of time touting her foreign policy bona fides.

Sanders went back to her history, specifically her vote in favor of the Iraq war.

What he did not discuss, and he should have brought up, was her bloodthirsty blunder on Libya, where she was later (in)famously quoted as saying of Qaddafi, “We came, we saw, he died.”

As a result of the overthrow of that government, we now have a country where Libyans are fleeing the country in droves, its educational and healthcare systems demolished, its economy a mess, ongoing genocide against black Africans, and the rise of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh/Whatever in the country.

Also, the overthrow of Qadaffi led directly to the death of ambassador Christopher Stephens in Benghazi.

And yet she continues to brag about overthrowing Libya.

This is not an indication of foreign policy prowess, this is an indication of thoughtlessness and incompetence.

*Love of my life, light of the  cosmos, she  who must be obeyed, my wife.

It Was Inevitable

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It seems that whenever you have a conspiracy theory nutcase, they will eventually descend into antisemitism and/or Holocaust denial.

Case in point, Oscar winning director Oliver Stone:

Jewish control of the media is preventing an open discussion of the Holocaust, prominent Hollywood director Oliver Stone told the Sunday Times, adding that the U.S. Jewish lobby was controlling Washington’s foreign policy for years.

In the Sunday interview, Stone reportedly said U.S. public opinion was focused on the Holocaust as a result of the “Jewish domination of the media,” adding that an upcoming film of him aims to put Adolf Hitler and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin “in context.”

“There’s a major lobby in the United States,” Stone said, adding that “they are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington.”

The famed Hollywood director of such films as “Platoon” and “JFK,” also said that while “Hitler was a Frankenstein,” there was also a “Dr Frankenstein.”

“German industrialists, the Americans and the British. He had a lot of support,” Stone told the Sunday Times, adding that “Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people, 25 or 30 [million killed].”

Referring to the alleged influence of the powerful Jewish lobby on U.S. foreign policy, Stone said that Israel had distorted “United States foreign policy for years,” adding he felt U.S. policy toward Iran was “horrible.”

So not a surprise.

Why Hillary Clinton’s Stint as Secretary of State Is Not a Positive

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Her tenure at State was categorized by mindlessly bellicose rhetoric, and not a whole bunch of major accomplishments.

One of the best examples of this, though it started a few months after Clinton left Foggy Bottom, was the negotiations to open up with Cuba, where the Obama administration had to keep the State Department in the Dark to prevent it from sabotaging negotiations.

It wasn’t Clinton’s direct doings, but it was her people that the Obama administration had to deceive.

The most compelling case on a personal level is how Clinton’s mindlessly bellicose statements  kept US citizens prisoners, detained, and abused in Iran:

I rarely think about being a prisoner in Iran anymore. I’ve been free for more than four years. It’s been a long time since the sounds of hard soles on a cement floor would remind me of my interrogator or I would suddenly need to bolt from a restaurant because I couldn’t take the throngs of people after so much time in a prison cell.

Last Saturday, I was dripping coffee on myself during an early morning drive when I heard that four Americans were being released from Iran as part of a prisoner swap. Suddenly, my eyes welled up. I could feel the knot of excitement and confusion that had turned in my gut when my plane from Tehran hit the tarmac in Muscat, Oman, in September 2011. I pictured the way my and my friend Josh’s families looked small in the distance, their little hands waving, as we taxied toward them. I remembered the force that pulled me—running!—down the stairs of the airplane and how, at the bottom, I laughed and cried at the same time. Everyone else did too.

I was elated for these men and their families.

Later, the joy was tempered by an old, familiar frustration. While scouring the internet for updates on the four Americans, I read that shortly after their release, Hillary Clinton called for new sanctions on Iran for testing two ballistic missiles last year. I was shocked. The prisoners had not yet been let out of the country. Why would she provoke Iran when their freedom was still on the line?

The Omani envoy trying to negotiate our release was repeatedly frustrated by Clinton. “Why can’t your Hillary just keep quiet?” he blurted to me.

I remembered sitting in my cell in 2009—I think I was trying to memorize a family tree from Greek mythology or something equally random—when I heard then-Secretary of State Clinton’s voice from a television in a neighboring cell. I ran to the door and pressed my ear into its little window. She was commanding Iran to release us immediately. My heart sank. I imagined my interrogator bringing me into his padded room, blindfolded, and ranting about how Iran would not be bossed around by America, “The Great Satan.” I came to fear the sound of Clinton’s voice. Whenever I heard her publicly slam Iran about something, I would mentally prepare for at least another couple of months in prison.

Though I didn’t know it at the time, I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Many of our family members grew frustrated with their meetings with her and White House officials. My wife, Sarah, who was released a year before Josh and I were, shared this frustration. Once, during a meeting with us in the prison, Swiss Ambassador Livia Leu, who represented American interests in Iran, broke from her usual reassuring demeanor and said, “They will never respond to your government demanding they release you. They need to talk to the Iranians.”

The title of this article, “When I was a prisoner in Iran, I came to fear the sound of Hillary Clinton’s voice,” pretty much says it all.

Clinton’s mindless dick swinging in foreign policy (Yes, I intend the juxtaposition) is not an indication of foreign policy knowledge, it is an indication of her determined and unwavering foreign policy ignorance.

She gives Dick Cheney a run for his money in the incompetence in the foreign policy arena.

F%$# Me, I Agree with Chuck Hagel

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He was generally clueless as a Senator and as Secretary of Defense, but his statement that the US focus on deposing Bashar al Assad is crippling us diplomatically and militarily is spot on:

The US has backed itself into a corner by insisting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad be removed from power before the Obama administration will work with Russia and Iran to fight the Islamic State group, former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said.

“We have allowed ourselves to get caught and paralyzed on our Syrian policy by the statement that ‘Assad must go,’” Hagel said at a Wednesday event hosted by the Atlantic Council.

Russia and Iran have said they are willing to join with the US in fighting ISIS, but not at the expense of Assad, a longtime regional ally for both nations. The US continues to insist that no serious discussions on working with those two nations can occur until Assad is removed.

………

The focus on Assad, Hagel indicated, has clouded the situation.

“Assad was never our enemy. A brutal dictator? Yes. There are a lot of brutal dictators out there. I’m not for brutal dictators. But we should have learned from Saddam Hussein and Gadhafi, you can take a brutal dictator out but you better understand what you may get in return,” Hagel said. “Let’s get to this platform of stability.”

Our policy is incoherent.

Arguably it has been as incoherent under Obama as it was under Bush, notwithstanding their claims of having, “Don’t do stupid sh%$,” as a central tenet.

This is not a problem of any particular Presidential administration.  It is a problem with the commonly accepted foreign policy beliefs, a sort of Council of Foreign Relations consensus, that is dysfunctional and delusional.

What it Means to Have Meaningful and Achievable Goals

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Notwithstanding all the reports from western that the Russians are somehow or other are immersing themselves into a quagmire, a military analysis of the Russian campaign in Syria has concluded that their campaign is well conceived and likely to achieve its goals at a relatively low cost:

Three months into his military intervention in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin has achieved his central goal of stabilizing the Assad government and, with the costs relatively low, could sustain military operations at this level for years, U.S. officials and military analysts say.

That assessment comes despite public assertions by President Barack Obama and top aides that Putin has embarked on an ill-conceived mission in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that it will struggle to afford and that will likely fail.

“I think it’s indisputable that the Assad regime, with Russian military support, is probably in a safer position than it was,” said a senior administration official, who requested anonymity. Five other U.S. officials interviewed by Reuters concurred with the view that the Russian mission has been mostly successful so far and is facing relatively low costs.

………

Yet since its campaign began on Sept. 30, Russia has suffered minimal casualties and, despite domestic fiscal woes, is handily covering the operation’s cost, which analysts estimate at $1-2 billion a year. The war is being funded from Russia’s regular annual defense budget of about $54 billion, a U.S. intelligence official said.

………

Putin has said his intervention is aimed at stabilizing the Assad government and helping it fight the Islamic State group, though Western officials and Syrian opposition groups say its air strikes mostly have targeted moderate rebels.

The western response to the Russian intervention, which, BTW, is actually legal under international law because the sovereign government of Syria has requested the aid, is completely incoherent.

Case in point, the absurd and self contradictory statements by the head of Human Rights Watch: On December 25 of this year he said that the killing of Zahran Alloush is an attempt to eliminate any moderate opposition, while on December 30 of this year, he claimed that the initial release of Alloush from prison in 2011 was an attempt to taint the opposition with a jihadist brush.

Note that the Russians are also supporting the Kurds, while the NATO forces are both supporting the Kurds (most of NATO) and bombing them (our NATO “allies”the Turks)

The Russian strategy appears to be effective because their goals are limited, and not self-contradictory:

Rather than pushing back the opposition, Russia may be settling for defending Assad’s grip on key population centers that include the heartland of his minority Alawite sect, said the U.S. intelligence official.

Russia is taking advantage of the operation to test new weapons in battlefield conditions and integrate them into its tactics, the intelligence official said. It is refining its use of unarmed surveillance drones, the official added.

“The Russians didn’t go blindly into this,” said the U.S. intelligence official, adding that they “are getting some benefit out of the cost.”

………

Vasily Kashin, a Moscow-based analyst, said the war is not financially stressing Russia.

“All the available data shows us that the current level of military effort is completely insignificant for the Russian economy and Russian budget,” said Kashin, of the Center for Analyses of Strategies and Technologies.

“It can be carried on at the same level year after year after year,” he said.

Compare this to the US policy:

  • Support regime change in Syria with a goal of a democratic and secular replacement.
  • Support for Saudi and Turkish efforts supporting Sunni Salafist Jihadi forces,which included the creation of ISIS.
  • Opposition to ISIS, the declaration that they are of a significant threat to the US, and supporting a massive air campaign against them.
  • Support of Kurdish forces fighting ISIS.
  • Allowing Turkish attacks against those same Kurdish forces by Turkey.
  • Supporting “moderate” rebels that collapse as soon as they end up in conflict with Jihadi rebels.  (Said support ends up in ISIS hands)
  • Demanding the removal of the Assad regime.
  • Demanding that government remains intact in some form.

This is the stupidest big of mind f%$#ery since Johnson and Kennedy’s “Best and Brightest” believed that they could win the war in Vietnam.

Basically, the Russians are following Barack Obama’s stated policy, “Don’t do stupid sh%$,” and Barack Obama is ignoring ignoring this policy, which is why their strategy appears to be gaining traction, and ours does not.

H/t Moon of Alabama.

Another Glorious Saudi Foreign Policy Triumph

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The House of Saud has announced a new Muslim coalition to fight terror.

One small problem though, 2 of the more important members of the coalition, Pakistan and Lebanon, have denied being members of the coalition, while Indonesia and Malaysia have indicated that their roles would be far more circumscribed than announced:

Earlier this week Saudi Arabia announced a new 34-country coalition of Muslim nations to fight terrorism, but two of the key countries have said they had no idea they were involved.

The countries from Asia, Africa and the Arab world were combining their efforts to combat extremism, according to the Saudis, who have faced mounting pressure to step up efforts in addressing the threat of extremism.

………

But following the statement at least two governments have claimed they were not aware of their own involvement. Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary, Aizaz Chaudhry, has been quoted as saying he only learnt of his country’s inclusion in the alliance from news reports.

He is said to have phoned the country’s ambassador in Saudi capital Riyadh – where a joint operations centre is planned – for clarification. Senior officials claimed they were not consulted beforehand.

………

Lebanon was also equally baffled country following the announcement, according to Lebanese media outlet Naharnet. The Prime Minister Tammam Salam reportedly welcomed the news, saying: “Lebanon is at the forefront of the confrontation with terrorism.”

In contrast the Foreign Ministry was adamant they had no “memo or phone call mentioning this coalition.” They added they had :”No knowledge whatsoever of the issue of forming an Islamic anti-terror coalition.”

The office also questioned whether the move encroached on their ‘constitutional jurisdiction on foreign affairs’.

Indonesia was also said to be still deciding whether to join, while Malaysia ruled out any military intervention.

This is not surprising.

The non-Arab Muslim nations have very little interest in being part of an endeavor directed by the House of Saud, and majority Shia Lebanon would not be a big supporter of this initiative, since it would likely involve efforts to extend Sunni hegemony in the region.

I Think that We Just Had an Outbreak of Sanity at Foggy Bottom

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In a major policy shift Secretary of State John Kerry has just specifically stated that regime change in Syria the US is not seeking regime change in Syria:

Secretary of State John Kerry pressed ahead on Tuesday in the effort to organize a new round of talks aimed at ending the Syrian civil war that could also align the United States and Russia more closely in strategies for fighting the Islamic State.

After an extended trip to Paris for climate talks, Mr. Kerry met for nearly four hours on Tuesday evening with President Vladimir V. Putin in the Kremlin, in talks intended to smooth differences over a planned round of Syria negotiations scheduled to take place in New York on Friday.

The United States and Russia have long been at odds over Syria, with Russia standing firmly by President Bashar al-Assad and the United States backing the rebels seeking his ouster. A previous attempt to broker a solution to the conflict failed, and it remains unclear whether the two sides will reach a compromise this time.

Among the issues to be decided in the run-up to the proposed talks is which of the dozens of militias fighting in Syria should speak for the Syrian opposition, and which should be designated as terrorist organizations.

On Tuesday, the diplomats said they had narrowed a gap on defining which Syrian militias belonged on a terrorist list. A final list may be ready Friday, Mr. Kerry said.

………

Mr. Kerry appeared, more carefully than on previous occasions, to couch America’s insistence that Mr. Assad leave office as a recondition of any settlement.

The United States, he said, was not seeking Mr. Assad’s ouster per se, but rather considers it unlikely that he could preside over a successful settlement.

“The United States and our partners are not seeking regime change in Syria,” Mr. Kerry said. Syrian opposition groups arriving for talks Friday in New York should not demand as a condition of sitting down that Mr. Assad depart immediately, Mr. Kerry said, a position Russia calls a nonstarter for negotiations.

“We see Syria fundamentally very similarly,” Mr. Kerry said. “We want the same outcomes, we see the same dangers, we understand the same challenges.” He added that the countries are “honest with differences.”

(Emphasis mine)

It’s nice that the US is finally distancing itself from the destructive and dangerous agenda of the House of Saud and the rest of the petty Persian Gulf monarchs, if only a bit.

There is No Moderate Opposition in Syria

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In looking for rebels to supply, the government seems to be unable to fine forces that are not affiliated with terrorists:

Last July, an ultraconservative Islamist rebel group made a splash by publicly offering to work with Western powers to resolve the Syrian civil war and build “a moderate future,” a surprising overture from a force that regularly fights alongside al Qaida loyalists.

But the very next month, the same rebel group eulogized Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban chief who sheltered Osama bin Laden before and after the 9/11 attacks, as a steadfast warrior who embodied “the true meanings of jihad and sincerity.”

The mixed messaging from Ahrar al Sham poses a serious dilemma for the Obama administration and its allies as they determine which rebel militias are acceptable partners in a revived diplomatic effort to resolve the Syrian conflict.

Ahrar al Sham is one of Syria’s largest and most effective rebel forces, and its involvement in – or exclusion from – peace negotiations could determine the viability of any settlement hatched from a new series of negotiations in Vienna. The group is too important to exclude from talks on the country’s future, say officials and analysts who monitor the conflict.

We have created a situation where the government of President Bashar Assad is the closest we have to a non terrorist non jihadi alternative.

We have lost.  Let’s cut our losses and get the f%$# out.

I Think I Understand What Turkey is Doing

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This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we’ll be lucky to live through it.

Things in Syria are out of control, had have been since Turkey and Saudi Arabia founded ISIS to take down the Assad regime.

While silliness, like the brouhaha over a (hopefully soon to be court martialed and discharged) Russian soldier who brandished a rocket launcher while transiting the Bosporus, people are ignoring the fact that Turkey just invaded Iraq:

Turkey said on Monday it would not withdraw hundreds of soldiers who arrived last week at a base in northern Iraq, despite being ordered by Baghdad to pull them out within 48 hours.

The sudden arrival of such a large and heavily armed Turkish contingent in a camp near the frontline in northern Iraq has added yet another controversial deployment to a war against Islamic State fighters that has drawn in most of the world’s major powers.

Ankara says the troops are there as part of an international mission to train and equip Iraqi forces to fight against Islamic State. The Iraqi government says it never invited such a force, and will take its case to the United Nations if they are not pulled out.

Washington, which is leading an international coalition against Islamic State that includes Turkey, Arab states and European powers like Britain and France, has told Ankara and Baghdad to resolve the standoff, and says it does not support deployments in Iraq without Baghdad’s consent.

The Turkish troops’ presence is an embarrassment for Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar Abadi, under strong pressure from powerful Iran-backed Shi’ite political groups to kick them out.

I have made the point numerous times that evidence indicates that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is determined to remake Turkey, and Syria, into Islamic states.

This neglects some of his other behavior, where he has attempted to efface the memory of Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) and to hearken back to the Ottoman Empire.

His attempts to recreate Ottoman buildings in Gezi Park, which led to massive protests, is one of the more prominent example of this.

I am now thinking that he is not just interested in Islamizing his neighborhood.  I think that he wants the return of something like an Ottoman Empire, or at least something very much like it using spheres of influence.

As a historical note, what is now Mosul was captured by the British after the armistice, and Turkey disputed its allocation to Iraq ferociously in the early 1900s.

I will note that my thesis is “Out there”, and that other folks are suggesting that this is a way to sabotage the Kurds autonomy in Iraq (likely), or a way to extort a route for a Qatar Turkey natural gas pipeline to replace the now moribund plan to run such a pipeline through Syria.

In either case, this is getting really ugly really quickly.