Newsmax Prime | Raymond Ibrahim and Nonie Darwish discuss the latest US airstrike in Libya, Newsmax TV via You Tube, February 19, 2016
Archive for the ‘Foreign policy’ category
Newsmax Prime | Raymond Ibrahim and Nonie Darwish discuss the latest US airstrike in Libya
February 22, 2016Shoigu in Tehran to rescue Putin’s plan from Assad’s Iranian-backed obstructionism
February 22, 2016Shoigu in Tehran to rescue Putin’s plan from Assad’s Iranian-backed obstructionism, DEBKAfile, February 22, 2016
President Vladimir Putin this week mounted a rescue operation to unsnarl his blueprint for a solution of the Syrian crisis from the blockage placed in its path by none other than Bashar Assad. The Syrian ruler won’t hear of Moscow’s proposals for ending the war, or even the cessation of hostilities approved last week in Munich by the 17-member Syria Support Group.
DEBKAfile reports that the strains between Moscow and Damascus this week have blown back onto the working relations between the Russian, Syrian and Iranian military commands running the war in Syria.
US Secretary of State John Kerry, referring to the lack of progress toward a ceasefire during a visit to Amman Sunday, Feb. 21, pointed mainly at the Syrian opposition. Its High Negotiations Committee insists first on an end to the sieges, a halt on Russian bombardment and the inclusion of the jihadist Nusra Front in the ceasefire.
But, according to our sources, the main monkey wrench has been thrown into the mix by Assad.
When Putin discovered that the Syrian ruler had won the secret backing of Tehran in h is refusal, he decided to send the supreme commander of the Russian campaign in Syria, Defense Minister Gen. Sergei Shoigu, to Tehran Sunday, Feb. 21, with a personal message for President Hassan Rouhani.
Gen. Shoigu laid before Rouhani the extent to which Russian intervention had turned the tide of the Syrian war in favor of the regime, and the great advantages of a political resolution that would end the conflict in a way that enhanced Russian and Iranian influence in the region to the maximum.
The Russian general stressed that at the end of the proposed political process, Assad would be required to step down. This concurrence was incorporated in the Putin-Obama deal for working together to solve the Syrian crisis.
But Rouhani was unmoved, according to the statement he issued at the end of the interview.
“The crisis in Syria can only be solved through political negotiation and respect for the rights of the country’s government and people, who are those taking the final decision regarding its future,” he said.
This was taken in Moscow as Iran’s rejection of at least one element of the Putin plan – imposing a solution on Assad – but not the plan in its entirety. This qualified response was meant to nudge Moscow closer to Teheran and Moscow and pull away from Washington.
The Shoigu mission therefore did not lessen the strains between Russia, Iran and Assad – at least for now, according to DEBKAfile’s sources.
Although all the parties concerned agree that the war must be ended by political means, those means are the subject of controversy between Moscow and its allies. The Russians are seeking a staged advance towards the final goal by first scaling down military operations, the while gradually refocusing their efforts on political and diplomatic arrangements.
But Syrian and Iranian leaders want to keep the focus on the military course.
Moscow wants the Assad regime to make concessions for paving the way to a cease-fire, and to accept a transitional government taking over in Damascus with representation for the opposition. The Syrian dictator would then gradually transfer his powers to the stand-ins as they assume responsibility for the various branches of government.
But both Assad and Tehran are adamantly opposed to a transitional government being installed – or any other political steps being pursued – before the rebel forces are totally defeated in non-stop military operations – first in the north and then in the south.
Neither the Syrian ruler nor Iran show any sign of relenting, or appreciating that the dramatic progress achieved in the past month by Syrian army, Iranian and Hizballah forces were down to Russian military support and especially its air campaign against their enemies. They feel safe in their intransigence because they assume that Putin can’t afford to abruptly pull his military support from under their feet to make them bow to his demands.
After five months in which Moscow and the Russian air force have provided the Iranian leadership and Assad with signal victories on the ground, President Putin has been brought up short by the same Iranian-Syrian negative obstructionism, that has defied every effort to end the brutal five-year war, which has cost 470,000 lives, left 1.9 million injured, displaced half the country’s population of 23 million and left a Syria ravaged beyond recognition.
Off Topic | President Donald Trump and Vice President Ben Carson
February 21, 2016President Donald Trump and Vice President Ben Carson, Dan Miller’s Blog, February 21, 2016
(The views expressed in this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
President Trump and Vice President Carson will be an excellent team. Each has qualities the other lacks: Carson is modest and soft spoken, Trump is not. Trump knows how business works and how to negotiate deals. Carson does not. Both love America and want to help us to make her great again.
Donald Trump interview, February 18th:
Not Donald Trump, but how some see him:
Recent speech by Ben Carson:
Not Ben Carson, but how some see him:
All too often, our perceptions of candidates are based, not on what they actually say and do, but on what opposing candidates and their supporters claim.
Oh well.
Here are Newt Gingrich’s remarks on Trump’s future after his South Carolina Republican primary win.
Don’t want Trump/Carson? Then let’s just keep things the way they are because the country’s in the very best of hands. Isn’t it?
Excuse me. I need some medicine.
Libya disaster: Have Western leaders learned anything?
February 20, 2016Libya disaster: Have Western leaders learned anything? Investigative Project on Terrorism via Fox News, Pete Hoekstra, February 19, 2016
(Please see also, Exclusive: Obama Refuses to Hit ISIS’s Libyan Capital. — DM)
That the U.S. has launched airstrikes against ISIS in Libya should demonstrate once and for all the total disaster of the NATO-led adventure to overthrow Muammar al-Qaddafi in 2011.
Libya devolved into a failed state when NATO assisted Qaddafi’s radical jihadist opponents in killing him and then promptly abandoned the country. Left in the wake were two rival governments competing for power, which created space for Islamists to turn Libya into a cesspool of extremism.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continues to call the debacle American “smart power at its best.” Other presidential candidates still argue that it was the right thing to do.
How will the West ever learn anything if it can’t identify its most obvious failures?
Libya has no central functioning government that can provide security for its citizens. ISIS fights to expand its caliphate along the Mediterranean to points as close as 200 miles from Europe’s vulnerable southern border. It controls Qaddafi’s hometown of Sirte. It has imposed Shariah law in the areas under its control. It exploits Libya as a base to export weapons, jihadists and ideology to Europe, other African countries and the Middle East.
Benghazi and Derna, which have long been hotbeds of radicalism, provided more fighters per capita to Afghanistan and Iraq than nearly any other area in the world. The difference between then and now is that Qaddafi kept the lid on the garbage can long before 2002-2003, when he became a reliable U.S. ally against radical Islam. He changed his behavior, gave up his nuclear weapons program, paid reparations to the victims of his atrocities and provided invaluable intelligence that disrupted numerous Islamist terror plots.
It represented a massive foreign policy success, and the U.S. thanked him by facilitating his murder.
Similarly, the West embraced former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in his struggles against Islamist forces, and then it threw him under the bus. Both Qaddafi and Mubarak did everything asked of them, but they ended up dead or in jail.
Any leader would really need to ask why he should trust NATO or the West. Is there any question why Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad does not negotiate an end to his country’s civil war and clings to Iran and Russia to keep him in power?
Iran cheated on its nuclear program for years. As a result, the U.S. gifted it with more than $100 billion – including $1.7 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars – and it hasn’t changed its behavior in the slightest. In addition to its military ambitions, Iran will most assuredly spend the money on supporting Assad and its terrorist proxies throughout the Middle East, Africa and, yes, Europe.
I’m amazed by some of the statements now coming from the coalition. The French defense minister is concerned about ISIS fighters blending in with refugees crossing the Mediterranean. Talk about restating the obvious. The British want troops to identify friendly militias in order to avoid targeting them in future airstrikes. Has something changed where we have improved the vetting of “moderate” militia groups?
NATO failed miserably in Libya and in Syria the first time around. What’s different now?
The only official who seems to make any sense is U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, who said recently, “The Libyans don’t welcome outsiders intruding on their territory.” He was referring to ISIS, but he might as well have been talking about the West. Libyans have not forgotten that NATO all but vanished once Qaddafi was killed.
Western foreign policy is in disarray. The scariest part is that supposed leaders don’t even know it, and therefore they can’t admit to previous mistakes. Allies that brought stability to the region are gone. Former and current antagonists benefited from Western incompetence.
Who would have predicted six years ago that those rulers battling Islamist terror would be deposed and that those committing it would become the West’s new friends?
NATO snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Libya. Refugees flood Europe. Terrorist attacks continue to spread geographically and in lethality. The Syrian civil war rages on. Iran lavishes its newfound wealth on its nuclear program and campaign of global terror.
Is it any wonder that citizens in Western countries are frustrated and angry with those in positions of authority?
‘Senior Official’ of Iran-Russia-Syria Alliance Brags About Subverting U.S. Diplomacy
February 17, 2016‘Senior Official’ of Iran-Russia-Syria Alliance Brags About Subverting U.S. Diplomacy, Washington Free Beacon, Morgan Chalfant, February 17, 2016
FILE – In this file photo taken on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, shakes hand with Syrian President Bashar Assad as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, right, looks on in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia. (Alexei Druzhinin, RIA-Novosti, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
A “senior official” of the military alliance between Iran, Russia, and Syria that is currently waging a ground offensive in Aleppo boasted about subverting U.S. diplomacy in a recent interview with an U.S. newspaper.
The official told the Wall Street Journal that military forces from Iran, Russia, and Syria would use a recent ceasefire deal brokered by world powers—including the United States—not to take steps towards a peaceful resolution of the Syrian war, but to consolidate their military gains.
The Journal reported:
“These allies are together in the same command center, working, planning and coordinating their operations in the battlefield,” said a senior official in the Iran-Russia-Syrian regime military alliance. “Retaking Aleppo will restore the regime’s strength and control over Syria; toppling the regime is now a thing of the past.” A cease-fire as proposed by world powers in Munich last week, he said, would simply be a pause for the Iran-led ground forces to consolidate recent territorial gains.
Thousands of fighters organized by Iran—including Hezbollah, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Shia fighters from Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries—have launched the assault on Aleppo alongside Syrian army forces. Emboldened by Russian airstrikes, the fighters have been able to advance on Syria’s largest city.
There is some doubt regarding whether the ceasefire will be implemented at all. The deal was established by global powers on Friday, though neither Assad nor the Syrian opposition formally signed off on it. The deal was supposed to allow humanitarian aid to be sent to Syria and commence peace negotiations. The United States hoped that the ceasefire would be implemented in a week’s time.
Hours before the ceasefire was announced, Assad vowed to retake Syria in its entirety in an interview published by AFP.
Iran has put billions of dollars toward backing Assad, and Russia has launched a military intervention in Syria to back the Assad regime under the guise of fighting terrorist groups.
While the Obama administration has long said that Assad must be removed from power, the United States has softened that stance since 2011, when the Syrian civil war began. Secretary of State John Kerry said in December that the administration was not seeking a “regime change” in Syria following a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The United States and our partners are not seeking so-called regime change,” Kerry said then, indicating that world powers were focused on achieving a peace process in which “Syrians will be making decisions for the future of Syria.”
Both Russia and Iran have resisted any effort to oust Assad.
Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the Politicized UN
February 16, 2016Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the Politicized UN, Gatestone Institute, Richard Kemp and Jasper Reid, February 16, 2016
♦ The UN’s assertion that the Saudi-led coalition has committed war crimes in Yemen is unlikely to be true. UN experts have not been to Yemen, depending instead on hearsay evidence and analysis of photographs.
♦ The UN has a pattern of unsubstantiated allegations of war crimes against the armed forces of sovereign states. Without any military expertise, and never having visited Gaza, a UN commission convicted the Israel Defense Force of deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians in the 2014 conflict. It was an assessment roundly rejected by America’s most senior military officer, General Martin Dempsey, and an independent commission.
♦ The Houthis have learned many lessons from Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, groups also supported by Iran. Those lessons include the falsification of civilian casualty figures and their causes. The UN swallowed the fake Gaza figures hook, line and sinker, and are now making the same error in Yemen.
♦ The Houthis exploit gullible or compliant reporters and human rights groups to facilitate their propaganda, including false testimony and fabrication of imagery.
♦ Forensic analysis shows that rather than deliberately targeting civilians, the Saudis and their allies have taken remarkable steps to minimize civilian casualties.
The United Nations, Amnesty International and other groups have accused the Saudi-led coalition of war crimes in Yemen. A leaked UN report claims the bombing campaign against Iranian-supported Houthi insurgents seeking violently to topple the legitimate government of Yemen has conducted deliberate, widespread and systematic attacks on civilian targets.
If the UN’s assertion is true, and the coalition is deliberately and disproportionately killing thousands of innocent civilians, it is a war crime. But it is unlikely to be true. The UN has produced no actual evidence of war crimes. None of their allegations is based on investigation on the ground. Their experts have not been to Yemen, depending instead on hearsay evidence and analysis of photographs.
The UN has a pattern of unsubstantiated allegations of war crimes against the armed forces of sovereign states. Only last year, without any military expertise, and never having visited Gaza, a UN commission convicted the Israel Defense Force of deliberately targeting innocent Palestinian civilians in the 2014 conflict. It was an assessment roundly rejected by America’s most senior military officer, General Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Dempsey’s own findings were confirmed by an independent commission of experienced senior military officers and officials from nine countries. The High Level Military Group found that Israel had not committed war crimes, but had in fact set a bar for avoiding civilian casualties so high that other armed forces would struggle to reach it.
Moreover, last September the UN said that a US airstrike against a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, was “inexcusable” and “possibly a war crime.” Few military forces in the world take greater precautions to prevent civilian casualties on the battlefield than the US. Anyone who has actually experienced combat knows that while such incidents are tragic, when carried out by Western forces, they are far more likely to be the result of human error or the chaos of battle than deliberate war crimes.
There is every reason to believe that the UN is again crying wolf. There is no doubt that thousands are dying in Yemen in horrific circumstances. But we cannot just accept the UN’s figures and its attribution of the proportion of deaths being inflicted by the Saudi coalition. Most of the data comes from the Houthi insurgents, either directly or via non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and is simply accepted as fact. The Houthis have learned many lessons from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, groups also supported by Iran. Those lessons include the falsification and distortion of civilian casualty figures and their causes. The UN swallowed the fake Gaza figures hook, line and sinker, and are now making the same error in Yemen.
As with Israel’s defensive campaign in Gaza in 2014, and the continued U.S. military support to the Afghan regime, the Saudis’ war to defend the government of Yemen and curb Iranian aggression in the region is lawful and legitimate. Therefore, the illegality of civilian deaths must be assessed according to the laws of armed conflict, in particular whether adequate precautions were taken to avoid them, whether they were proportionate to the military objectives and whether they were necessary to achieve legitimate military goals. The UN cannot possibly make such judgements without a more far-reaching and thorough investigation, and especially not on the basis of information provided by Saudi Arabia’s enemies and by interpreting photographs.
Most of us do not like the way that the Saudi regime runs their country according to the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, and we abhor their record on human rights. But the Saudi military ethos is well known and understood by Western military leaders, including from the U.S. and UK, who have worked closely with them for many years. The reality is, as our officers currently serving alongside them will attest, that the Saudis and their allies are not deliberately trying to kill innocent civilians. Indeed, they are doing their best to minimize civilian casualties. The question is whether their best is good enough.
Saudi Arabia and its coalition allies have the most sophisticated Western combat equipment, including planes, attack helicopters, drones and precision-guided munitions. But they lack battle experience. The exception to this is the Emirati forces within the coalition. They have had many years of combat experience alongside Western militaries, including in Somalia, Kosovo, Libya and Afghanistan. Because of that, they have acquitted themselves in Yemen with great professionalism and effectiveness at sea, on the ground and in the air.
But the lack of experience of the other coalition members puts them many years behind our own forces in wielding the highly complex 21st century capabilities of intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, communication and targeting.
Yet the coalition faces the same tough challenges that we face on battlefields everywhere. Their Houthi adversaries fight according to the well-developed doctrine of their backers, the Iranian Quds Force. Like Hizballah, Hamas, the Taliban, Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, their techniques include deliberately killing civilians, fighting from within the population and forcing innocents to become human shields.
Completely ignoring the laws of war, they exploit their enemies’ adherence to them. They lure their opponents to attack and kill civilians. They exploit gullible or compliant reporters, international organizations and human rights groups to facilitate their propaganda, including false testimony and systematic fabrication of imagery. The aim is to instigate international condemnation in order to constrain their militarily superior enemies.
We have seen credible forensic analysis of strikes in Yemen that directly contradict the findings of the UN. Forensic analysis shows that rather than deliberately targeting civilians, the Saudis and their allies have taken remarkable steps to minimize civilian deaths. Of note, they have learned much from Israel’s conduct of operations in Gaza. This has included the use of guided munitions to conduct precision attacks against insurgents while seeking to reduce collateral damage.
Why would coalition forces spend vast amounts of money in a cripplingly expensive conflict firing precision strike munitions, and put their valuable pilots at risk, if they wanted to massacre civilians? Why not use much cheaper unguided munitions or Assad’s indiscriminate barrel-bombs?
The overwhelming majority of civilian deaths caused by the Saudi-led coalition have been due not to deliberate targeting, but to inexperienced pilots and unsophisticated intelligence and targeting capabilities in the face of an enemy that fights from within the civilian population. And to that the friction, confusion, stress and fog of war that leads even the most sophisticated, experienced and restrained military forces, such as American, British and Israeli, to sometimes kill civilians unintentionally. Contrary to the UN’s claim, this is unlikely to amount to war crimes.
Like every conflict in the Middle East, the war in Yemen is almost intractable, takes a heavy toll on innocent civilians, and is unlikely to end in anything approaching a perfect solution. But Saudi Arabia and its allies are making considerable efforts to restore stability to the country and its legitimate government.
Instability in Yemen undermines Western interests, including oil supplies. Instability also allows Al Qaeda and the Islamic State — proven and lethal threats to the US and the West — to flourish there.
By confronting the Houthis in Yemen, Saudi Arabia is also confronting Iran, which represents an even greater threat to the region and to the world. Emboldened by U.S. President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal, enriched by the release of billions of dollars of previously frozen funds, encouraged by the imminent boost in oil revenues, Iranian imperial aggression is today rampant in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.
However unpalatable to many, Saudi Arabia is and will remain a vital ally of the West. We must continue to support them in the fight in Yemen. We must not allow the false, ill-informed and increasingly shrill condemnations by the UN, human rights groups and the media to undermine Saudi’s fighting effectiveness as they have sought to do against other legitimate government forces fighting lawless insurgents in so many other places.
Op-Ed: Contemplating a US/Russia Alliance
February 16, 2016Op-Ed: Contemplating a US/Russia Alliance, Israel National News, Ted Belman and Alexander Maistrovoy, February 16, 2016
Before Donald Trump’s blowout win in New Hampshire he shocked the world by saying he would allow the Russians to do the “dirty work” and would “let them beat the s*** out of ISIS also.”. Trump went further, “I have always felt that Russia and the United States should be able to work well with each other towards defeating terrorism and restoring world peace, not to mention trade and all of the other benefits derived from mutual respect,”
Putin, responded by saying: “He (Trump) says that he wants to move to another level of relations, to a deeper level of relations with Russia. How can we not welcome that? Of course we welcome it.”
The condemnation of Trump for his remarks was immediate but certainly not universal. Many American’s are beginning to see Russia in a new light.
Until the fall of the USSR, the 20th Century was dominated by an ideological struggle between American capitalism and Russian communism. But now that Russia has abandoned communism and the US is embracing socialism, as seen by the Sander’s victory in the New Hampshire primary, the two powers are more alike than ever before.
Now we have a different ideological struggle to contend with, namely a civilizational war between the Christian/Secular West and the Islamic Caliphate. They are inimical to each other. North America, Europe and Russia are natural allies in this struggle as they are different daughters of one civilization.
In the past, both Russia and the US have backed different Arab states or Muslim groups, including radical Islamists. The end result of this US/Russia enmity was to destabilize the ME and Europe and to allow an Islamic fifth column into America and Europe.
The reality is that Russia, Europe and the US desperately need each other. Together they can withstand the hydra of pan-Islamism with its countless heads (ISIS, al-Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra, Salafis, Muslim brothers, etc.), can stabilize the Middle East, the cradle of Islamic fanaticism and can stabilize Europe.
For Russia, the triumph of the Caliphate in any form will be a deadly threat to its “soft underbelly”: the Caucasus and Volga region with Tatarstan.
Penetration of Islamic militancy from Afghanistan into Central Asia means the appearance of the Islamists on the longest and vulnerable southeastern border of Russia.
From Europe’s point of view, a destabilized North Africa and Middle East is resulting in a mass migration of Muslims including radical Islamists which threaten to tear it apart and irreparably change it. This in turn will have dire consequences for both Russia and America.
Both US and Russia are not able to cope with the global “jihad” separately” especially when they are supporting different sides. Russia has no resources for a war against radical Islam made more difficult by western sanctions and pressure. The West, in spite of its material power, lacks the will needed to defeat such a savage and ruthless enemy.
Thus an alliance is imperative.
“New Middle East”
A new Middle East is in the making. It will not look like the “New Middle East” as envisioned by Shimon Peres. Syria, Iraq and Libya are no more. Lebanon looks like it will also fracture due to the influx of 1.5 million Sunnis, either Palestinian or Syrian. Hezbollah Shia have been reduced from 40% to 25% of the population by this influx so expect a power struggle to ensue there.
Alawite Syria, a strong Kurdish state in the north of former Iraq and Syria, tribal unions in Libya, Druze enclaves in Syria, a Christian enclave in Lebanon and perhaps in Iraq, all will appear on the map of the new Middle East. They will all need the support, both militarily and diplomatically, of either the US or Russia. In this way, the west will be empowered to keep the radical Islamists out.
Russia already has supported the Kurdish PYD (Democratic Union Party) in northern Syria diplomatically (Kremlin insists on PYD’s participation in negotiations about the future of Syria) and by providing them with weapons. The US is also supportive of the Kurds but bas been restrained by Turkey’s insistence that the Kurds be denied independence. If the US forms an alliance with Russia it no longer needs an alliance with Turkey.
The American embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey must be seen as the aberration it is. Rather than support the Islamization of the Middle East and North Africa, America should fight it. Rather than embrace the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists, as Obama did, the US should embrace Russia.
Pressure could then be brought to bear on Turkey to change its Islamist allegiances and to allow greater autonomy to its 10 million Kurdish citizens who otherwise will want to join the newly formed Kurdistan.
The US, by destroying Qaddafi and Mubarak, greatly destabilized North Africa. By waging war against Assad, the US has destabilized the Middle East and Europe. What is needed now is that the US and Russia come together to strengthen President al Sisi of Egypt to enable him to defeat ISIS in Sinai and Libya. Russia should be invited back into Libya to assist in its stabilization. Europe and Tunisia will also benefit from this stabilization as will African states to the south.
In addition, US and Russia should cut a deal for a political solution for Syria in which Syria is divided into three states based on ethnic lines; Alawite Syria in which Russia holds sway, Kurdish Syria which will join with Kurdistan in Iraq and a Sunni state amalgamating the Sunni areas of both Syria and Iraq.
Such a deal will involve cooperation between Russia, US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. ISIS must be defeated and non-Islamist Sunnis must be put in charge. Saudi Arabia would have a major role in the creation and maintenance of such a state. It is not inconceivable that Jordan would in the end, amalgamate with this state given the number of Sunni refugees it is now host to. This state would serve as a bulwark to an expansionist Iran.
It is in the interest of Russia to placate Saudi Arabia so that Saudi Arabia will cut down on her oil production and allow the price of oil to rise. Saudi Arabia would be agreeable to doing so and to such a division of Syria if Russia would restrain Iran.
Iran
Today, Russia is the de facto ally of Iran and the US is a wannabe. The Iranian star reached its zenith with the total capitulation of the US in the Iran Deal. Since then it’s been downhill all the way. Without the help of Russia they would have lost Syria as an ally and their connection to Hezbollah. But with that help, Russia is now calling the shots.
It wasn’t so long ago that Russia supported the sanctions on Iran and didn’t want to remove them because it meant the addition of Iranian oil to the world market and the weakening the already weak ruble. Kremlin couldn’t betray its ally but in fact (aside from rhetoric) will not object to a renewal of sanctions. This will save Russia from a powerful competitor in the energy market.
Moscow needs Iran primarily as a means to put pressure on the West but it can quite easily sacrifice it for the sake of strategic considerations. Iran is not a natural ally of Russian for it doesn’t have any historical or cultural connection similar to the connection both Serbia and Armenia have for example.
The View from the Kremlin
Since the 16th century, the main threat to Russia came from the West. Moscow was occupied by Poles in the 17th century and by Napoleon in the 19th century. In 1941, the troops of the Wehrmacht came within a few kilometers of Moscow. St. Petersburg was built by Peter Great to resist the invasion of the Swedes.
The collapse of the Soviet Union was a painful blow to Russia and the West took advantage of this collapse. The bombing of Serbia and recognition of Kosovo, the “color revolutions” in the former Soviet Union, NATO’s extension to the Baltic countries, and the constant hectoring of Russia on human rights served to undermine Russia and make her feel threatened. This formed the impetus for the revival of nationalism under the leadership of Vladimir Putin.
The US, Britain and France intervened in Libya in order to both destroy the Gadaffi regime and oust Russia. Accordingly, they refused Russia’s mediation efforts. Similarly they tried to oust Assad. But this time, Russia, who had lost its Mediterranean port in Libya was determined to keep its Mediterranean port in Syria. After many years of death and destruction in Syria brought about by the desire of the US and Saudi Arabia to oust Assad, Assad was on his “death bed”. Russia and Iran doubled down on their efforts to support him. Russia supplied their air force and air defense radar systems and Iran provided more troops. As a result Assad has gained much ground and is in a much better negotiating position today.
During this period, Russia acquired Crimea from the Ukraine and supported an insurgency in eastern Ukraine. A majority of the population of both areas are Russian. The Russians didn’t understand why the West came to the defense of Ukraine. It’s impossible to believe that EU wanted to bring Ukraine into the EU given its large population and systemic corruption. Moscow believes the West didn’t do so in order to protect the sovereignty of Ukraine but to weaken Russia. Ukraine, after all, is the backyard of Russia, as Mexica is backyard of US and Corsica is backyard of France.
Last week Russia’s Prime Minister, Medvedev, urged a “more constructive and more cooperative relationship with Russia… I strongly believe that the answer lies with both more defense and more dialogue.”
Last week Henry Kissinger delivered a speech in Moscow in which he began:
“I am here to argue for the possibility of a dialogue that seeks to merge our futures rather than elaborate our conflicts. This requires respect by both sides of the vital values and interest of the other,”
And concluded,
“It will only come with a willingness in both Washington and Moscow, in the White House and the Kremlin, to move beyond the grievances and sense of victimization to confront the larger challenges that face both of our countries in the years ahead.”
Should the West want to pursue such an alliance, it must recognize Russia’s “Near Abroad” – its traditional zone of influence since the 18th century: Ukraine and Belarus, Crimea, whose history is inseparable from Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Russia also seeks influence in Europe and in the Eastern Mediterranean. This is imperial policy but Russia is no longer obsessed with ideological madness. Thus, it is possible to negotiate a rapprochement and to respect each other’s sphere of influence.
Israel is not an ally of Russia nor its enemy. Israel and Russia agreed to respect each other’s spheres of interest in Syria. In addition, Moscow mediated in delicate situations between Israel and Hezbollah. This model can be used on a global scale by the US.
It is of historical note that the Byzantium, otherwise known as the Eastern Roman Empire, fought a sustained battle against the Ottoman Turks, who had invaded, only to finally succumb in 1453. The Turks changed the name of their capital city, Constantinople, to Istanbul. The Ottoman Empire succeeded over the years in conquering more of Europe and finally laid an unsuccessful siege to Vienna in 1529. There followed 150 years of bitter military tension and attacks, culminating in the Battle of Vienna of 1683. This battle was won by the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nations in league with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth thereby saving Europe from Islamic conquest.
What is needed today is a similar resolute stand by both east and west against the Islamic Jihad’s attempt to conquer Europe.
Will the old prejudices and enmity focused on Russia prevail over rational considerations and the instinct for self-preservation?
According to the Munich Accords just signed, perhaps not.
It now appears that Russia and the US have come to an agreement for the implementation of a ceasefire and a division of spheres of influence. The document was signed by 17 nations, including Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubayr for the Syrian opposition and Iran’s top diplomat Muhammed Javad Zarif in the name of the Assad regime.
DEBKA reports:
“The nub of the Munich accord was therefore the parties authorized to name the terrorists. This was spelled out as follows: “The determination of eligible targets and geographic areas is to be left up to a task force of nations headed by Russia and the United States.”
“This puts the entire agreement in the joint hands of the US and Russia. Lavrov emphasized, “The key thing is to build direct contacts, not only on procedures to avoid incidents, but also cooperation between our militaries.”
“The Munich accord therefore provided the framework for expanding the existing US-Russian coordination on air force flights over Syria to cover their direct collaboration in broader aspects of military operations in the war-torn country.
“Lavrov mentioned a “qualitative” change in US military policy to cooperate with Russia in continuing the fight against the Islamic State, but it clearly goes beyond that.”
“This pact as sets out a division of military responsibility between the two powers: The Americans took charge of areas east of the Euphrates, leaving the Russians responsible for the territory east of the river. “
Hopefully, this accord is just the beginning of a new alliance.
Russian-Turkish clash building up over Syria
February 14, 2016Russian-Turkish clash building up over Syria, DEBKAfile, February 14, 2016
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan clearly took a calculated risk when he ordered a two-our cross-border artillery bombardment Saturday, Feb. 13 of Syrian army forces positioned around the northern Syrian town of Azaz and the Kurdish YPG militia units which two days earlier took control of the former Syrian military air base of Minagh some six kilometers from the Turkish border.
Kurdish troops backed by the Russian air force seized that base last week from rebel militias as part of the operation for cutting the rebel groups under siege in Aleppo from their supply routes. The Turkish bombardment was therefore an indirect attack on the Russian forces backing pro-Assad forces against the rebels in the Syria war.
Erdogan knows that Moscow hasn’t finished settling accounts with Turkey for the shooting down of a Russian Su-24 on Nov. 24 and is spoiling for more punishment. After that incident, the Russians deployed top-of-line S-400 ground-to-air missile batteries and advanced Sukhoi Su-35 warplanes to their base in Latakia near the Turkish border. Ankara therefore limited its strike to a two-hour artillery bombardment from Turkish soil, reasoning that a Turkish warplane anywhere near the Syrian border would be shot down instantly.
Emboldened by the delay in the Russian response, the Turks took another step: Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu threatened the Kurdish YPG militia with more attacks if they failed to withdraw from the Menagh air base.
Although the Turkish prime minister had called on “allies and supporters” to back the operation against the Russian-backed Syrian Kurds, Washington took the opposite line by urging Turkey, a fellow member of NATO, to desist from any further attacks.
Washington’s concern is obvious. An outright clash between Turkey and Russia would entitle Ankara to invoke the NATO charter and demand allied protection for a member state under attack.
The Obama administration would have had to spurn this appeal for three reasons:
1. To avoid getting mixed up in a military clash between two countries, just as the US kept its powder dry in the Russian-Ukraine confrontation after Moscow’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in February 2014.
2. To avoid upsetting the secret Obama-Putin deal on the allocation of spheres of influence in Syria: the Americans have taken the regions east of the Euphrates River, and the Russians, the west.
The Kurdish YPG militia forces near Aleppo and the city itself come under the Russian area of influence.
3. Regional tensions were tightened another notch Saturday by Russian comments: Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that his country and the West have “slid into a new Cold War period,” and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said a third World War is actually underway -“I call this struggle a third World War by other means.,” he said.
Washington will avoid any action that risks further stoking this high state of international tension, but will act instead to de-escalate the cross-border Turkish-Russian confrontation over Syria.
All eyes are now on Moscow, Much depends on Russia’s response to the artillery bombardment of its Syrian and Kurdish allies. It is up to Putin to decide when and how to strike back – if at all.
Our Good Islam/Bad Islam Strategy
February 11, 2016Our Good Islam/Bad Islam Strategy, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, February 11, 2016
There is no Good Islam. There is no Bad Islam. There is just Islam.
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Our only hope of defeating Islamic terrorism is Islam. That’s our whole counterterrorism strategy.
But Islamic terrorism is not a separate component of Islam that can be cut off from it. Not only is it not un-Islamic, but it expresses Islamic religious imperatives. Muslim religious leaders have occasionally issued fatwas against terrorism, but terrorism for Muslim clerics, like sex for Bill Clinton, is a matter of definition. The tactics of terrorism, including suicide bombing and the murder of civilians, have been approved by fatwas from many of the same Islamic religious leaders that our establishment deems moderate. And the objective of terrorism, the subjugation of non-Muslims, has been the most fundamental Islamic imperative for the expansionistic religion since the days of Mohammed.
Our strategy, in Europe and America, under Bush and under Obama, has been to artificially subdivide a Good Islam from a Bad Islam and to declare that Bad Islam is not really Islam. Bad Islam, as Obama claims, “hijacked” a peaceful religion. Secretary of State Kerry calls Bad Islam’s followers, “apostates”. ISIS speaks for no religion. It has no religion. Which means the Islamic State must be a bunch of atheists.
Our diplomats and politicians don’t verbally acknowledge the existence of a Bad Islam. Even its name is one of those names that must not be named. There is only Good Islam. Bad Islam doesn’t even exist.
This isn’t just domestic spin, which it is, but it’s also an attempt at constructing an Islamic narrative. Our leaders don’t care what we think. They just want us to keep quiet and not offend Muslims. They do care a great deal about what Muslims think. And so, in their own clumsy way, they try to talk like Muslims.
They are attempting to participate in an Islamic debate without the requisite theological credentials. They want to tell Muslims that they should be Good Muslims not Bad Muslims, but they’re too afraid to use those words, so instead they substitute Good Muslims and Not Muslims. All Muslims are Good Muslims and Bad Muslims are Not Muslims is their Takfiri version of the No True Scotsman fallacy.
Our counterterrorism strategy has been constructed to convince Good Islam to have nothing to do with Bad Islam. And any of us who criticize Good Islam or argue that the artificial distinction between Good Islam and Bad Islam, between Saudi Arabia and ISIS, between Iran and Hezbollah, between Pakistan and the Taliban, is false are accused of provoking Good Islam to transform into Bad Islam.
Nothing so thoroughly proves that the difference between Bad Islam and Good Islam is a lie as the compulsive way that they warn that Good Muslims are capable of turning into Bad Muslims at any moment. Offend a Good Muslim, criticize his religion, fail to integrate him, accommodate his every whim and censor what he dislikes and he’ll join ISIS and then he’ll become a Bad Muslim.
After every terror attack, the media painstakingly constructs a narrative to determine why former moderates like Anwar Al-Awlaki, the Tsarnaevs or the San Bernardino killers turned bad without resorting to religious explanations. Their efforts at rationalization quickly become ridiculous; Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood killer, contracted airborne PTSD, Anwar Al-Awlaki, the head of Al Qaeda in Yemen, became an “extremist” because he was afraid the FBI had found out about his prostitutes and the Times Square bomber turned into a terrorist because his “American Dream” was ruined.
Nobody, they conclude, becomes an Islamic terrorist because of Islam. Instead there are a thousand unrelated issues, having nothing to do with Islam, which creates the Muslim terrorist. Even the term “Radical Islamic Jihadist”, an absurd circumlocution (is there a moderate Islamic Jihadist), has become a badge of courage on one side and a dangerous, irresponsible term that provokes violence on the other.
But what is the distinction between Good Islam and Bad Islam? It isn’t fighting ISIS. Al Qaeda and the Taliban do that. It isn’t terrorism. Our Muslim allies, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey and Qatar, are hip deep in the terror trade. It isn’t equality for non-Muslims. No Muslim country under Sharia law could have that. Equality for women? See above.
What are the metrics that distinguish Good Islam and Bad Islam? There aren’t any. We can’t discuss the existence of Bad Islam because it would reveal that Bad Islam and Good Islam are really the same thing.
Our Good Islam allies in Pakistan fight Bad Islam’s terror, when they aren’t hiding Osama bin Laden. Bad Islam in the Islamic State beheads people and takes slaves and Good Islam in Saudi Arabia does too. Qatar is our Good Islam ally helping us fight Bad Islam terrorists by arming and funding Good Islam terrorists who sometimes turn out to be Bad Islam terrorists so we can’t figure out if the Islamic terrorists the CIA is routing weapons to are Good Islam terrorists or Bad Islam terrorists.
The moderate Muslim Brotherhood wins democratic elections. The extremist Muslim Brotherhood then burns down churches. The moderate Palestinian Authority negotiates with Israel and then the extremist Palestinian Authority cheers the stabbing of a Jewish grandmother. The moderate Iranian government signs a nuclear deal and then the extremist Iranian government calls for “Death to America”.
Like the saintly Dr. Jekyll and the mean Mr. Hyde, Good Islam and Bad Islam are two halves of the same coin. When Dr. Jekyll wanted to act out his baser nature, he took a potion and turned into Mr. Hyde. But the nasty urges were always a part of him. When a moderate Muslim pulls a Keffiyah over his face and starts stabbing, bombing or beheading, he doesn’t become an extremist, he just expresses his dark side.
Good Islam borrowed all sorts of noble sentiments from Judaism and Christianity. But when non-Muslims didn’t accept Islam, then Mohammed stopped playing nice and preached murder. Bad Islam is not something ISIS invented on a website. It’s always been a part of Islam. We attempt to separate Good Islam and Bad Islam because we don’t like being beheaded. But Muslims don’t make that distinction.
Our counterterrorism strategy is based on empowering Good Islam, on building coalitions with Muslims to fight terrorism and enlisting their cooperation in the War on Terror. But we’re trying to convince Dr. Jekyll to help us fight Mr. Hyde. And Dr. Jekyll might even help us out, until he turns into Mr. Hyde.
Our moderate Afghan Muslim allies, when they’re aren’t raping young boys (one of their cultural peculiarities we are taught to ignore), sometimes unexpectedly open fire on our soldiers. The Muslim migrants who arrive here to “enrich” our societies sometimes start shooting and bombing. The head of Al Qaeda was hanging out near the West Point of Pakistan. The mastermind of 9/11 was saved by a member of the Qatari royal family. The call is coming from inside the house. Mr. Hyde is Dr. Jekyll.
When we “empower” and “build coalitions” with Good Islam, we’re also empowering and building coalitions with Bad Islam. Just ask all the Muslim terrorists running around with our weapons.
Our leaders want Good Islam to shield us from Bad Islam. If Good Islam is out front, then Muslims won’t see a clash of civilizations or a religious war, but a war between Good Islam and Bad Islam. But the Muslim understanding of Good Islam and Bad Islam is very different from our own.
Sunnis see their Jihadis as Good Islam and Shiites as Bad Islam. Shiites look at it the other way around. The Muslim Brotherhood, that our elites were so enamored with, saw secular governments as Bad Islam. To win them over, we helped them overthrow more secular governments because our leaders had adopted an understanding of Good Islam in which giving Christians civil rights was Bad Islam.
To win over Good Islam, we censor cartoons of Mohammed and criticism of the Koran, open our borders, Islamize our institutions and then wait to see if we’re on the good side of Good Islam. We adapt our societies and legal systems to Islamic norms and hope that it’s enough to let us join the Good Islam Coalition. If we go on at this rate, the experts will tell us that the only way to defeat Islamic terrorism is for us to become Muslims. Only then will we become members in good standing of Good Islam.
There is no Good Islam and no Bad Islam, as Muslim leaders occasionally trouble to tell us. The distinction that our leaders make between Good Islam and Bad Islam is not theological, but pragmatic. They dub whatever is shooting at us right now Bad Islam and assume that everything else must be Good Islam. That is the fallacy which they used to arrive at their Tiny Minority of Extremists formula.
There is no Tiny Minority of Extremists. Behind the various tiny minorities of extremists are countries and billionaires, global organizations and Islamic banks. Outsourcing our counterterrorism strategy to the countries and ideologies behind the terrorists we’re fighting isn’t a plan, it’s a death wish.
Islamic terrorism is just what we call Islam when it’s killing us.
The Jihad isn’t coming from some phantom website. It’s coming from our Muslim allies. It’s coming from Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. It’s coming from the Muslim Brotherhood and its front groups. It’s coming from the moderate Muslim leaders that our leaders pose with at anti-extremism conferences. And it’s coming from the mosques and homes of the Muslims living in America.
There is no Good Islam. There is no Bad Islam. There is just Islam.
Between Putin and Obama
February 7, 2016Between Putin and Obama, Israel Hayom, Boaz Bismuth, February 7, 2016
The tide has turned in Syria: Aleppo, the rebel stronghold, is on the verge of falling to President Bashar Assad’s army. Hezbollah’s Shiite militias, the Iranian army and the massive Russian air strikes have been the difference.
In contrast to the rebels, Assad can count on his partners. On the Syrian dictator’s side, backed by Russia, action is being taken. On the rebel side, backed by the Americans, there has been a lot of talking. This perhaps explains why in January 2017 U.S. President Barack Obama will exit the White House, and Assad will still be in power. We can add this legacy to the American president’s splendid list of achievements.
And we haven’t even mentioned the millions of Syrian refuges, the terrible migrant crisis in Europe (leading to the rise of far-right parties across the continent), and the escalation of hostilities between Shiites and Sunnis. It’s not a short list.
Since last Monday, Aleppo has been under heavy attack from Assad’s forces. The gains on the ground have been considerable. Russia’s intervention has tipped the balance of power. No one can say this was unexpected. Washington, meanwhile, continues to grumble. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry lambasted Moscow on Friday for the large number of dead Syrian women and children. Moscow isn’t exactly heeding his criticism. Washington still fails to understand that instead of talking, maybe it would be better to take action already. In August of 2013, however, after Assad had attacked his own people with chemical weapons for the 14th time, the Americans did nothing (red lines, remember?). Why should things be any different today?
Washington, you will say, has worked hard to find a diplomatic solution. This is a good time to remind everyone that the peace talks in Vienna have again hit a dead end. The talks aren’t likely to succeed for a number of reasons, namely that the two main players — Saudi Arabia and Iran — have reached a point of open hostilities, thanks to American foreign policy. Instead of cooperating to resolve the Syrian crisis, these two regional powers are closer than ever to a full-fledged military conflict. Riyadh is threatening to send ground forces into Syria to support the rebels. The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has already vowed that any such intervention would result in immense casualties for the Saudis. This is where things stand.
Over the weekend Turkey’s foreign minister discussed opening his country’s borders to the steady stream of refugees, but the crossings remain as shut as they were in September, 2014, when thousands of Kurds tried to flee the border town of Kobani. The European Union is trying to remind the Turks that they were given $3 billion for the expressed purpose of absorbing these 2 million refugees. But who expects agreements to be kept in today’s Middle East?
Who does have faith in agreements?
The refugee issue is becoming the hot button topic of the Syrian civil war. “The markets solved the economic crisis, the voters will solve the refugee crisis,” a French lawmaker said a few days ago. In the meantime, as Assad solidifies his power the far-right parties in Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Holland, and of course in France, are all growing in strength. It appears that everyone outside the Obama camp is thriving. And here is yet one more legacy to tell the grandchildren about.
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