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Invade Iran because the Saudis Say So?

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Saudi Arabia, the arch enemy of Iran, claims that Teheran has sabotaged two of its ships, and Donald Trump, who’s been dying for an excuse to attack Iran, is ready to go to war.

Is it too late to make the Saudis impound the ships and get the gashes examined by an incorruptible, neutral party?

Meanwhile, until  the damage is verified by such non-U.S., non-Israeli, non-Saudi and non-Emirati experts, is it too much to ask that all references to such allegations be put in quotes?  As claims, not established facts.

The American people and our best journalists were deceived over the Tonkin Gulf incident in Viet Nam. We were deceived about WMDs in Iraq. Haven’t we learned our lesson?

And what is that lesson? When U.S. government hawks want a war they lie to the American people.  Deplorable, but true.

And nobody wants the Americans to pulverize Iran more than the Saudis do.  So, isn’t it prudent to take their war-mongering allegations with a grain of salt and tons of skepticism?

The Saudis. You know, the Trump family’s ignoble besties in Riyadh. Especially the king-in-waiting, that super charmer who had a Washington Post journalist killed and dismembered, the one who turned a civil war in Yemen into a surrogate war against Iran, the one who throws women into jail for advocating their right to drive, etc. etc.  A real sweetie.

I can’t believe that I’m the  only one to point this out, and I admit I haven’t scoured the web to see who's previously broached the subject,  but it doesn’t matter. In this case, repetition is needed. Shouting in the streets, from the housetops and from the web is needed.  A little tweeting wouldn't hurt either.

In the absence of strong corroboration, DON’T BELIEVE THE HOUSE OF SAUD.

North Korea, Iran and other thoughts on Trump’s Approach to Nuclear Proliferation Deals

By Patricia H Kushlis

Let me get this straight.

President Trump is planning to renege on the Iran nuclear deal but is pressing all steam ahead on a perhaps nuclear deal with North Korea. Is that correct?

Something doesn’t compute.

Look, I have no objection to settling the decades old conflict on the Korean Peninsula between North and South. The South Koreans refused to sign the armistice in the 1950s so a new approach seems to be way past time; and it’s good to see the two Koreas themselves take the initiative.

Good time to talk 

Besides, the North just managed to destroy the mountain which they had been using to test nuclear weapons so it will take them time to adjust to a nuclear reality without their former test site. They likely have completed a testing cycle anyway so now is as good a time to talk – as opposed to test - as any. Whether they can actually pull this off is another chapter in the never-ending Korean Peninsula saga. I hope they can.

But why renege on the Iran nuclear deal? 

But why renege on the multinational Iran nuclear deal which has been in place for a year and to which the Iranians are complying. Well, it seems to me there are two likely reasons:

1) it was negotiated under the Obama administration and Trump had demonstrated time and again his determination to eliminate all that the Obama Administration accomplished and if a deal included more than two parties then all the more reason to forget it; and

2) it’s all about oil and Trump’s fawning relationship with the Saudis especially King Mohammed Bin Salman.

In this case, I’m betting on oil and fealty to Salman. The former explanation seems like thin icing on the cake.

Think about it. The first place Trump stopped on his inaugural trip to Europe and the Middle East in late May 2017 was Riyadh where he was widely photographed stroking some kind of weird mystical greenish colored orb and blaming Iran for most of the problems in the Middle East.

He then went on to Israel to convene with Netanyahu, who also hates Iran, and finally Brussels for a NATO heads of state meeting. Later he sided with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt against the mostly Shiia Qatari government in a spat over funding terrorism.

The major problem for the US is that Qatar houses an important US military base in the Middle East. The only other problem is that it puts the US even more firmly on the Sunni side in this multi-centuries old religious conflict  when the issue of funding terrorists is certainly as much an issue for the Saudis as it is the Shiia Iranians. In fact, much of the Sunni-Shiia rancor and ensuing violence is foremost targeted at each other in particular the two largest protagonists Saudi Arabia and Iran. Siding with the Saudis also inserts the US into the seemingly never-ending Yemen civil war that began with a botched intelligence raid shortly after Trump became president to Trump’s more recent attempts at playing peacemaker.

So what about oil?

The price of oil is not rock bottom but it has been higher. Saudi controls OPEC but Iran is a competitor and as international sanctions are removed on Iran the more Iranian oil hits the markets and the price per barrel for all oil producers declines. This is also a problem for states like Russia which is highly dependent upon the sale of fossil fuels internationally as well.

Of course, the development of alternative energy sources would resolve the Middle East and Russian oil dependency question, but American oil companies too have a stake in continued reliance on high global oil and gas prices which is why, from Trump’s perspective, Rex Tillerson with his friendly relations with the Saudis and the Russians, made a logical pick for Secretary of State. When his appointment did not turn out the way Trump had expected, he dumped him and turned to Pompeo. But Trump had also inserted his son-in-law Jared Kushner into the diplomatic stew.

Now that Kushner has been denied a security clearance and the continuing drumbeat of his questionable relations with Russians and Russian money laundering associated with the Kremlin, he seems to be less and less identified as Trump’s number one go-to guy for solving all the world’s problems – or even the Middle East’s thorny bramble thicket. In fact, he has almost disappeared from sight.

With Pompeo on the job less than a week, I see that he has been tapped to venture in that direction. Since Trump really has no Middle East foreign policy or clue as to solving the jigsaw puzzle known as the Middle East, perhaps Pompeo can fashion and implement one. Just as long as he bows, kowtows or genuflects appropriately to the green orb, the Kremlin’s double eagle and the unhinged occupant of the White House.

 

A Not-So-Golden Shower of Missiles

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Donald Trump’s greatest triumph re Syria last weekend was probably the feat of roping the Brits and the French into a fireworks show that didn’t accomplish much.

Let’s begin with the positives.

1. The coordination was impressive. Missiles rained in from all directions and they hit their targets. As good as the Rockettes at their Christmas best!

2. What’s more the hail of incoming wasn’t intercepted by an effective missile defense. This, unfortunately, could mean two things. The defenders lacked the capacity to protect the targeted sites—or they chose not to, thus cannily not betraying the full force of their defensive capacity, given the relative insignificance of the sites at risk.

3. Meanwhile, always a good thing: there wasn’t much “collateral damage” in the way of civilians killed. This could be understood in several ways. The strikes were artfully selected and targeted. Or the people normally on site were evacuated. Or the sites, no longer of critical importance, had been largely abandoned anyway. Also to the good, moreover, none of the losses were Russians, the potential killing of whom had much occupied the planners of the strike.

In sum, the NATO trio had reinforced stern warnings with dramatic, highly visible action, and although the results might have been better, they might also have been much worse.

Does this "mission accomplished" mean that a consistent, coherent, long term Syrian strategy has now been put in place?  Evidently not.   The strike had all the appearance of a caper designed to allow Donald Trump to distract critics, impress the base and allow the impresario-in-chief to take a bow. So let’s examine the three stages of the latest Trump “reality show.”

1. First came the promotion, the days and days of audience-building by bluster and hype. And oh! the suspense! Will he or won’t he?

2. Then came the performance, the rain of missiles, which hit their targets. A great show! “Fire and fury,” initially obscuring the sad futility.

3. Finally came the victory lap, the epic boasting, the strutting, the exaggeration of effect: “A perfectly executed strike last night!” True enough. But the further claim that the American-led strikes had taken the “heart” out of Syria’s chemical weapons program was already being contradicted by Pentagon officials who conceded that Bashar al-Assad probably retained the capacity to slaughter many more Syrians with chemical agents whenever he saw the need.

In short, Trump’s missile strike turned out to be as successful as the Obama/Russia negotiations which also failed to rid Syria of chemical weapons. What an irony!

The Empires Strike Back

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Imagine waking up tomorrow and discovering that Matteo Renzi’s Rome—I mean Italy—had sent several legions—I mean an army—to recapture Brittania—I mean, England—and some triremes—I mean freighters—are heading to Carthage—I mean, Tunis—to confiscate the year’s wheat harvest.

That would seem pretty weird, wouldn’t it?

But isn’t it equally bizarre to find that Turkey is justifying its participation in the effort to drive ISIS out of Mosul not only on the pretext of protecting itself from potential PKK safe havens in the Kurdish Autonomous region of Iraq but on historic grounds. Once upon a time the Ottoman Turks controlled all the Middle East, including Egypt—Watch out, President Sisi!—and much of southeastern Europe. Meanwhile, says Nensur Akgun, director of the Global Political Trends Center in Turkey: “A century ago [Mosul]was Turkey.” But alas! Turkey chose the wrong allies during World War I, leaving France and The U.K to squabble over the territorial spoils that seem to be up for grabs once again.

Meanwhile, China is belligerently devoted to claiming every islet or outcropping of rock in the South China Sea, plus every cove from which a Chinese fishing boat may have brought up a catch over the past several millenia. So watch out, Indonesia! Some Javan rulers once paid tribute to a Chinese emperor. Of course, Beijing is still trying to digest Tibet and Xinjiang, both of which had the misfortune of coming under Chinese control for various discontinuous periods in the past. But maybe Comrade Xi should be a little more circumspect. Some extraordinarily well-preserved, 4000-year-old Caucasian mummies dressed in European textiles have been disinterred from the Taklamatan desert. Surely the European Union can claim rights to this portion of the old Silk Road.

And need I mention Vladimir Putin’s appetite for reclaiming truant SSRs? Perhaps he forgets that Sweden has an earlier claim to the Baltic nations. Finland, too, was Swedish, once, with plenty of Swedes left to testify. Fortunately Sweden prefers cooperation to annexation these days. Russia, meanwhile, has been nibbling away at Georgia and Ukraine with some success, so when Putin dropped in on Tashkent after the Group of 20 meeting in China, he clearly expected Uzbekistan to behave like a Russian fief again. The feedback I got from the locals: no way! They’ve been corrupted by 25 years of independence, as Moscow no doubt perceives it.

There are some other possibilities that haven’t surfaced yet. Brexit may actually happen, but isn’t it time for the sun never to set on the British empire again? Surely India sees the glory in that.  But wait! There’s a prior claim on India. The Timurid descendants of Mongol conquerer Genghis Khan (b.1163) ruled in Delhi for centuries. In fact, the octopus-like Mongol empire encompassed Russia, took in Persia, threatened medieval Europe and controlled China as well.  Has Mr. Xi forgotten this?

And maybe we shouldn’t wait for ISIS to invade Spain. Since Muslims were ruling much of the Iberian peninsula before Ferdinand and Isabella kicked out the Jews, why not get the re-reconquista over without bloodshed? But wait on that, too. The Romans were in Spain before the Moors.

And this is where we began.  Don’t throw away your old maps and globes.

The American Spring and the Arab Spring

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Hopes were high a few years ago. The Arab street—that’s working people as well as the educated middle class—was waking up and demanding a better shake. Throwing off well-founded fears of brutal retaliation, thousands of people gathered peacefully in public places, calling for justice, for a say in the system, for a better life. The sweet song of “we the people” was heard throughout the Middle East and North Africa—and, oddly enough, a few springs later, during this contentious election year, it’s being heard in the streets of the U.S.

The High Noon of Hope

We in the long democratic West watched the events of the so-called Arab Spring with fingers crossed. People appeared to be waking from a long coma. With dormant talents and energies resuscitated, social and governmental reforms would surely ensue, we thought. We’d soon be welcoming new democracies.

There was one little problem. Those monopolizing the fruits of power let it be known, Mark Twain style, that the announcement of their demise was premature. They fought back with every weapon at their disposal. Blood ran in those streets.

Today, although Egypt’s ex-president Mubarak is a deposed invalid and a democratically elected representative of the Muslim Brotherhood served briefly as President, the Egyptian army is back in control—and more autocratically than ever. Efforts to reform Yemen have dissolved into a merciless proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia (the latter’s ill-targeted bombs supplied, unfortunately, by the U.S.). Squabbling Syrian moderates with no coherent goals or leadership lost the initiative to scorched earth (but equally squabbling) Jihadis, and Russia’s decision to deploy military force to assist the Assad regime seems to be turning the tide in favor of the status quo ante. Meanwhile, much of Syria has been reduced to rubble, and Yemen’s incomparable Saana has also suffered irreparable damage. As for Tunisia, where it all began, with the suicide of a young man who couldn’t take it anymore, governance teeters between an ambiguous form of democratic Islamism and—well, who knows what? Tunisia’s beaches are tourist meccas no more, and Ennahada’s model for moderate Muslim reformism, Tyyip Erdogan’s Turkey, becomes more authoritarian by the month. As for Libya, where European and U.S. intervention was anything but subtle, the post Gaddafi situation is so torn among rival militias that I.S.I.S. has gained a toehold there. (And, for what it’s worth, only continued U.S. military assistance keeps Kabul from falling to the Taliban, while disaffected Taliban fighters have given I.S.I.S. an opening into the Islamist mix that Pakistan continues to stir up to its own advantage.)

Lessons from Unexpected Places

U.S. President George W. Bush promised to set off a domino effect in favor of liberal democracy when he embarked on the second Iraqi war. The dominos fell, but not as he expected. Saddam Hussain is gone, but in those misruled countries where hope flared and faded, tens of thousands who never touched a gun are dead, many thousands of survivors are ruled by a ruthless I.S.I.S., and only a few have seen hints of the positive changes they clamored for. All of which leaves much room for reflection, especially in the U.S., where a profoundly bitter alienation from existing institutions afflicts a majority of the electorate, although—and this is important—for conflicting reasons.

Here are some of the characteristics of the ungovernability that made democracy unachievable, for now, in the Middle East and North Africa: the powerfully privileged are determined to maintain their prerogatives; ideological, tribal or sectarian loyalties have delegitimized the very notion of broad-based cooperation; weapons are readily accessible to anyone who wants to hold power or change the system by force. We should keep these not exactly unfamiliar obstacles to democracy in mind as we follow the course of presidential politics in the U.S. today. Yes, even the last one. Remember how, just a few months ago, gun-happy militia members took over the Malheur game preserve in Oregon? There are thousands of armed men and vigilantes, some in the South, mostly in the West, ready and willing to overthrow the existing U.S. government. Remember the slaughter of Black people in a church in Charleston—to say nothing of the “legal” murder of Blacks by racist police officers whose ilk have never accepted the legitimacy of the Obama presidency. And how about the people who think they are justified in killing abortion providers?

Rampant Polarization Feeds Distrust

The campaigns of “Democrat” Bernie Sanders and “Republican” Donald Trump are fueled by people passionately convinced that American institutions are failing and that traditional parties no longer represent them, but the ideology of the disaffected camps differs considerably. The Sanders wing is motivated mostly by dreams of economic justice for the 99%. Trump followers are lamenting the loss of a traditional way of life that’s also left them in the economic lurch. For better or for worse, these agendas for change do not massively coincide, which suggests that there will be no coherent majority for reform, no matter who wins the election in November. And which of the likely winners, will have the patience or inclination to locate nuggets of agreement?

So far, in fact, with the exception of Hillary Clinton, there’s not much indication that any of the potential winners of the presidency has much interest in bringing the country together. On the Right the insurgent candidate runs a racist, anti-immigrant campaign and flirts with threats of violence if his route to the presidency is impeded, stirring memories of Hitler and the Munich putsch, earning accusations of fascism. Meanwhile, whatever the outcome of the election in November, the passion for St. Bernard is so intense that profound and dangerous disillusionment is inevitable, because rapid total economic reform is simply not possible in this non-homogenous country. We are, then, in a bad place. It’s not certain that the supporters of several candidates will accept the legitimacy of the nominated candidate of their own party let alone the accession to the presidency of a representative of the other party. Is this a recipe for yet more resentment, anger and deadlock? Does this make the notoriously my-way-or-the-highway ideology of the Tea Party the paradigm for the future? And should the Republicans settle on Paul Ryan at a contested convention, he may be handsomer (oh, those blue eyes!), a bit younger and certainly more sophisticated than Trump, but he’s still a charter member of the Party of No. Let’s hope that the candidates we’re stuck with remember that what often lies at the end of protracted disfunctionality is chaos, lawlessness and despairing prayers for a savior, who usually decides that democracy is too inefficient and cumbersome for his purposes.

At this unhappy point in these reflections, I’m happy to exclude one baleful variable in the sad saga of the Middle East and North Africa, one reason why misrule has not been succeeded by healthy democracies. That’s foreign interference. Outside powers can topple dictators and turn the tide of war, but they can’t rebuild a society. Iraq, Libya and Yemen come to mind. Strong American endorsement hasn’t given the valiant Kurds an independent state, and the shot gun marriage of Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani hasn’t made for productive government in Kabul. Yes, Russia may keep Assad in power, but the likelihood that he will ever again rule anything more than a remnant of the old Syria is nil, something to be noted by those who are now disfavorably comparing Obama, he of the ingloriously ignored Red Line, with Russia’s strongman Putin. Even the well-meant new humanitarian doctrine involving “the obligation to protect” helpless citizens from vicious regimes cannot reconstruct a polity its people are unable or disinclined to rebuild themselves.

So here’s a bright spot as we look at American politics today. No matter how alarmed outsiders may be about the emergence of Donald Trump as a potential president, the U.S. doesn’t have to worry about external interference. We can and will handle things ourselves, thank you very much.

We're Smarter Than We Think

In fact, we already know the formula. The candidates fight hard for contrasting platforms, then move to the center to govern a united country, the consolation prize for cooperation being a certain advantage in nudging policy left or right as the case may be. This works perfectly until some party or faction or individual sets out to force the country to reflect wholly to its own, inevitably, minority image. Granted, pragmatism and  incrementalism aren't glamorous or pure. They offer no fast-acting medicine for what ails us, and something always does, since we’re far from perfect. But already the minimum wage is being boosted around the country, gay rights are irreversible, and the health system is working better for a lot of people.  Would I like faster progress?  Of course.  But we really don't need another civil war.

In short, instead of aping the take-no-prisoners approach to leadership transition that makes such a mess of so many countries in the Middle East and North Africa, instead of tearing America apart by increasingly militant polarization to fulfill pundits' decades old yearning for ideological clarity, we should be proudly, busily, selling our own miracle potion for stable evolutionary change—and selling it by example, I suggest.

A little more emphasis on we the people might be a good start.

 

Russia and Syria: What pull-out?

By Patricia H Kushlis

I know it may be hard to believe after reading multiple media reports about Putin’s latest “surprise pull out from Syria” but the Kremlin did not, repeat, not, really pull its military out of Syria last week. The Russian Air Force is still flying bombing missions against ISIS in Palmyra. The Russian Navy has not pulled up anchor or set sail from its facilities at Latakia, euphemistically designated by the Russians as a Material-Technical Support Point and not a “military base,” and the Russian Air Force has not disappeared from Hmeymim, its airbase at Latakia, as Dmitry Gorenburg and Michael Kofman pointed out in a March 18 analysis in “War on the Rocks.”

What did happen was that Vladimir Putin sent some fighter jets home from the Latakia region north of Damascus, apparently pushed the pause button on the bombing campaign against non-ISIS insurgents in and near Aleppo in advance of the latest round of negotiations but kept the attacks on full-throttle elsewhere. 

Most significantly, Putin also held a distinctly  highly visible Hitlerian/Stalinist style propaganda ceremony in the Kremlin in which he awarded medals to the Russian military all the while claiming Mission Accomplished or more likely Mission Nearly Accomplished to those assembled including and most particularly the media.

Always with the threat of return left on the table if the Assad regime becomes in danger of capitulation yet again.

Given the demoralization of Assad’s troops and the fact that they do not control most of the country or represent most of the population (the most recent statistics – 1960 was the last time Syrian population statistics were recorded by religion – indicate that only 11% of the majority Muslim population was Alawite), this is not out of the question. Unless, that is, the US and the UN can help the Putin government impose a face-saving way out that leaves the Alawites and other minorities in some sort of control over the small parts of the country that they call home and exempts them from a potential militant-led Sunni blood bath.

Chances are, however, if such an agreement were to transpire it would not involve anything more than a veneer of Alawite control over the rest of a fragmenting country. The choice at best is a loose federal state or at worst a Yugoslavia-style break-up of seismic proportions that negatively impact the rest of the neighborhood.

So what were Putin's motives?

To send a message to Assad that the Kremlin had other fish to fry as opposed to mindlessly propping up a recalcitrant uncompromising failed regime because the Russian military “had its back?”

To send a message to Ankara that the Syrian Kurds - especially the PKK which would have had relations with the Russians when the country was the Soviet Union - had powerful anti-Turkish friends so not to mess with them as they consolidate power in the provinces closest to the Turkish border?

To telegraph to the West that Moscow still had enough military power to protect its interests beyond Eastern Ukraine and most importantly still longs to be treated as a "Great Power"?

To give the Russian military a testing ground for its newest toys and simultaneously show the rest of the world that Russia is back in the military hardware sales game?  After all with oil prices scraping the bottom of the barrel and the economic sanctions still on, the Russian economy is in trouble and foreign military sales could help the coffers – at least a bit.

Most likely all of the above.

The Syrian Civil War has now entered its sixth year. Not much has been accomplished - aside from keeping the Assad regime in power and in control of a slice of the country near the Mediterranean, all the while forcing half the population into what seems to be becoming permanent exile thereby impoverishing most Syrians, destroying the country’s economic viability all the while placing a tremendous burden on its neighbors, the Europeans and the international donor community.

Then there’s the added “achievement” of providing a breeding ground and safe-haven for Sunni militants from Iraq and elsewhere as well as allowing Kurdish nationalists in the north to extend control over ever more territory forming, in effect, an internationally unrecognized Kurdish buffer state along the Turkish border.

By the way, please don’t show me one more article claiming that Russia and Turkey have a long standing friendship which is just now fraying because of Syria.  That’s just specious:  these two neighbors have been at each others throats – fighting over the same territory - for the better part of several centuries.

Turkey – Russia

By Patricia H Kushlis

The Turkish military’s downing of a Russian SU-24 was no accident but neither was the Kremlin’s overflight of Turkish territory nor its attacks on Turkmen living in regions of Syria close to the Turkish border. 

Russian violations of Turkish airspace have been multiple.  The Turkish government has issued numerous warnings to the Kremlin privately and publicly including ten to the SU-24 – corroborated by US military intelligence soon after the Turkish announcement that one of its F-16s had shot down a Russian fighter jet – before firing the missile that downed the plane. 

The Turks’ response should not have come as a surprise.  Turks tend to anger slowly but watch out when they reach that boiling point.  This time Moscow pushed that envelope too far.

Were there other alternatives?

Especially since the SU-24 reportedly flew over Turkey’s Hatay Province for only 17 seconds? Erdogan – after cooling off - now suggests there may have been.

But what were Turkey’s options since Moscow had consistently ignored its neighbor’s repeated warnings? 

With Russia a permanent member on the UN Security Council and wielding veto power over resolutions what chance would the Turks have had there?  The OSCE of which both are members is too weak an arms control organization to consider or enforce a decision of this import.  And invoking Article 5 of the NATO Charter would have simply been too drastic an action.

More of Putin's improvisational geopolitics

Although New Yorker columnist and foreign affairs expert Steve Coll described Vladimir Putin’s shaping of geopolitics as “improvisational” this season in the November 30, 2015 edition of the magazine, he did not so likewise characterize Erdogan's.  Could the Turkish downing of the jet have simply been meant as a “shot across the bow,” so to speak, but the heat seeking missile  just too accurate and the F-16 too fast for the much slower SU-24 designed for low altitude ground attacks?   Doubtful. 

Russia’s response – to bar Russian tourists from visiting Turkey and Turkish produce from entering the country will hurt the Turkish economy but it will also decrease the importation of yet more foreign food from entering Russia just as the winter bites – as a part of Putin’s bizarre anti-foreign and support domestic agriculture campaign.

Much of what the Turks import to Russia is fresh produce – and Turkey has a much longer growing season that Russia does.  The Kremlin’s edict will also deprive Russian middle classes of sun, sand, sea and mud treatments at Turkish resorts near and on the Mediterranean but it is already getting late in the season for that. (photo above left:  Russian mudbathers at Sultaniye (near Dalian) by PHKushlis, 2006)  

The Kremlin’s denials of wrong doing – including its near immediate release of the SU-24’s supposed flight plan that steered clear of Turkish airspace was all too true to form as was the later denial by the navigator - after rescue by the Russians  - of even hearing one warning.

More Russian disinformation that stretches credibility beyond the limits

But here’s the problem:  Moscow’s terrible credibility record.  Vladimir Putin has repeatedly used alternative history as a signature of the Kremlin’s multiple disinformation campaigns, a kind of information warfare aimed mostly at the West but also for his domestic audience. The Kremlin's information warfare has been spinning at record speed at least since Moscow’s invasion of Crimea in 2014.

The Russians now say that they will accompany their SU-24s (ground attack planes and no match for F-16s) with fighter jets to protect them - but maybe the Kremlin should consider striking ISIS targets and steer away from bombing non-ISIS groups supported by the Turks, the US and others that oppose Bashir Assad.

It was, after all, an ISIS affiliated group – not the Turkmen – that blew up the Russian passenger plane filled with mostly Russian families returning from Egypt’s Sharm-el-Sheik on October 31.  Yet the Russian air war still appears to be focused on protecting the Assad regime come hell or high water. 

Actually, it would be easy for the Russians to keep their two bases on the Mediterranean if that's their bottom line - as it should be.  However, it would mean a focus on real ISIS targets while dropping their fealty to Assad (and other such dictators) in return for retention of those bases.  Moreover, Moscow could offer Assad and family a safe haven somewhere in Russia – complete with a luxurious villa on a coast – and turn the Russian military's attention to and fire power on its real enemy - and I don't mean Ukraine.   

 

ISIS De-Demonized: A Review Article

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

So the Obama administration has finally fessed up to what’s long been clear to more than a few mere citizens: the millions (or billions) spent to whip allies or elements we like into effective anti-Assad, anti-ISIS (or anti-Taliban) fighters has been a failure, an ill-conceived exercise in  militaristic hubris.  

Actually, it’s always been clear that the key to winning wars (as opposed to battles) in Syria (or Iraq or Afghanistan) must reside in the answer to this question: why do Islamist militants manage to achieve cohesion and  fight superbly without five star assistance from the U.S. or any modern military machine?  (The Kurds do pretty well, too, for that matter.)  And here’s the corollary question: why does that very same  training turn American recruits into really good soldiers?  

Obviously it’s not just the drilling and technical stuff that counts—though there’s plenty of documentary and observational evidence (much indeed in the book under review) to prove that Islamist militants get strenuous training to go along with their zeal.  Yes, zeal, the sine qua non which is rigorously, religiously and continuously bolstered by the ISIS leadership.  Islamists know what they are fighting for.  They are fighting for a very specific (this is important), entirely intelligible (however unsavory to outsiders) goal that ISIS, above all other Islamist militias, has brilliantly set forth: the reestablishment of the Muslim Caliphate and the imminent fulfillment of apocalyptic Muslim prophecies.  Similarly, the Kurds fight for Kurdistan (whether independent or “autonomous”).  And Americans, too, are fiercely patriotic when America is under threat.  

Sad to say, elements of American leadership have abused this loyalty and trust.  Ever since the astonishing events of 9/11, Americans have been encouraged to wallow in their emotions, to live in fear, to muddle around in helpless confusion over “mindless, senseless violence,” when exactly the opposite is true: Islamist violence is precisely targeted to achieve easily articulated, coherent ends.  And, thus, Americans have been turned into sheep, pathetic creatures incapable of measured intelligent response, easy prey for demagogues.    

The antidote to this state of dangerous malleability is reliable information, which is sufficiently available is this paradoxically short book: The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State, by William McCants, a distinguished scholar who directs the Brookings Institution’s Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World.  He is “a guide proficient in Islamic theology and history, modern jihadism, clandestine bureaucracies and Arabic”  and his promise is this:

“I am going to take you on a tour of the Islamic state.  We will explore its origins, meet its leaders, boo its fans and cheer its detractors.  You will read its propaganda, study its strategies, eavesdrop on its internal debates and follow its tweets.  Along the way I will explain its obscure allusions to Islamic history and theology so you can understand the ways the Islamic State uses and abuses Islam.  You will be able to appreciate how the Islamic State thinks of itself, how its self-understanding has affected its political fortunes, and what will happen if those fortunes change again.”

In short, for all the cruelty and violence of their methods, the leaders and members of the Islamic State behave like members of any other human group.  They thrive under certain circumstances, languish under others.  What can be understood can also be thwarted by the judicious application of that understanding.   

To further that process of understanding, let’s contemplate those alarming words “apocalypse” and “doomsday.”  Let’s bring them into the ambit of Western, especially American, experience involving fringe groups utterly convinced that the “end times” of the Christian apocalypse are nearly upon us.  Christians expecting to be lifted up into the heavens show as little pity for those doomed to a harrowing eternal death as Islamist jihadists  display for those who fail to accept their salafist principles.  The main difference?  The Christians who gaily desert the unsaved can claim to have unbloodied hands; Islamists feel obliged to render the punishment themselves. 

Maybe I should clarify something here.  I have no liking for the methods or goals of ISIS and related Islamist militias.  But I also oppose theocracies of any kind, their intolerance, their cruelty, their joylessness, their appetite for tyranny.  John Calvin's Geneva would have held no charm for me either.

To return to the repercussions of 9/11, that day of infamy used so blatantly to impose a secretive, ever-prying national security state on the American population:  McCants structures his discussion, to a very large extent, by contrasting a fading but once triumphalist Al Qaeda with a burgeoning Islamic State.  He does not stress the ironies, but they are massive.  Again and again we're treated to passages from communications in which Bin Ladin and his successors  berated ISIS leaders for being too impatient and too territorial, for using too many sticks and too few carrots.   Bin Laden, of course, was communicating from his rabbit hole in Abbotabad, while the Islamic State was attracting followers from around the world.  ISIS politely disagreed and, as of today, according to  McCants, “the Islamic State has demonstrated that a modern caliphate is possible, that doomsday pronouncements and extreme violence attract bloodthirsty recruits, and that cutting out the hearts and minds of a population can subdue them faster than trying to win them over.” 

But that cruelty has also created an inner resistance that sooner or later will erupt.  Just as Al Qaeda proved to be less than irresistible, ISIS has sown the seeds of its own destruction. ISIS leaders have admitted among themselves that that brutal methods have more than once led to a loss of control over conquered terrain.   Even so, McCants warns, nothing will fatally “sap the Islamic State’s base of support” until “the Shi’a governments of Iraq and Syria [make] the hard political compromises with their Sunni populations.”   

Nevertheless, McCants is “confident that the Islamic State’s governments in Syria and Iraq will crumble.”  For one thing, “no modern jihadist statelet has provoked international intervention and survived.”  BUT, “the disappearance of a jihadist statelet doesn’t mean the disappearance of the jihadists.  They will continue to wage insurgencies, taking advantage of the political instability and social unrest that gave rise to their statelets in the first place,” since ‘the current political conditions in the Arab world all but ensure that some jihadists will follow the Islamic State’s playbook.”

In sum, as American policymakers should note, only tolerant, honest, responsible governance  will deprive ISIS and its clones of life-sustaining nourishment.  Until then, the U.S. may win the odd battle, but the Middle East will remain in turmoil.   And the shocking scale of the 9/11 tragedy notwithstanding, terrorism in the U.S. will continue to be predominantly locally grown, a product of our own gun-happy culture.