3 Crises

3 crises structure the Middle East today: the Levant crisis, centred on the Israel-Palestine conflict and its Lebanese and Syrian extensions; the Gulf crisis, focused on oil and the antagonism between the Arabs and the Iranians, Sunni and Shia Muslims; and the AfPak crisis, where the Taliban threatens NATO troops in Afghanistan and the cohesion of Pakistan.

Each of these crises has its own dynamics, but they are highly interdependent.

The Levant crisis is embodied primarily by the Israel-Palestine stalemate. Benjamin Netanyahu's government rejects a two-state solution and a freeze on settlements, which could split his coalition in the Knesset.

The Palestinians are divided between Fatah, which administers the West Bank, and Hamas, in charge of the Gaza Strip. The leaders of the two Palestinian factions are so weak they are mere pawns in a battle of influence between Egypt and Saudi Arabia on the one hand, and Syria, Qatar and Iran on the other.

The conflicting interests of the Gulf are played out on the front line in Palestine; and they have the financial resources to impose their views. But mainly, the Gulf's own issues are on a scale incommensurable with those of the Levant: the world cannot do without the oil that passes through the Strait of Hormuz.

The resolution of the Iraqi chaos and an orderly withdrawal of US troops lie at the core of Gulf crisis. The reintegration of Iran into the regional security system in exchange for its return to the global economy is US President Barack Obama's riskiest gamble.

After the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2005, the Iranian political establishment saw an opportunity to reap maximum gain from the US's floundering intervention in Iraq.

In symbolic terms, Iran's policy paid off: Ahmadinejad - and Hassan Nasrallah of Lebanon's Hezbollah - have become the champions of anti-Zionism.

But Iran's economy is in tatters; the international embargo compounded by corruption, squandering and record inflation, is impoverishing a weary population.

The third crisis, the AfPak zone, has emerged as an obstacle of unforeseen size. It was the 1980s jihad in Afghanistan, funded by the US and the Arab governments of the Gulf to defeat the Red Army and offer an anti-Soviet, pro-US alternative to the export of the Iranian revolution, which brought this region into the Middle East in the broad sense.

And it was Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, sons of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, veterans of that jihad, who linked, in their own way, Afghanistan, the Gulf and Palestine to the US in the cataclysm of September 11, 2001.

In retaliation, the US and its allies overthrew the Taliban, but instead of consolidating their victory there, they transferred troops to Iraq and became bogged down.

Obama's gamble has been to return to a neglected Afghanistan to finish off the eradication of the Taliban and the al-Qa'ida networks based in the tribal areas on the Pakistani border, thus pacifying the AfPak crisis to free the US's hand for action in the Gulf and the Levant.

An entrenchment of the US and NATO in the AfPak zone would only weaken their capacity for negotiation and action with respect to the other two crises: a weakened interlocutor would be in less of a position to pressure Iran, Israel and the Palestinians into making concessions.

The Obama administration made three initial moves: an outstretched hand to the "people of the Islamic Republic of Iran" last year, the Cairo speech last June aimed at restoring confidence between the US and the Muslim world, and pressure on Israel to freeze settlement building.

Through these steps, Washington hoped to re-engage with the Middle East as a central player, an honest broker.

But the initiatives have backfired: the policy of the outstretched hand to Iran, which sought to galvanise the "reformist" party around Rafsanjani, instead spurred the radicals around the Revolutionary Guard to join forces and ensure the re-election of Ahmadinejad.

Obama did not mince words to urge the Netanyahu government to freeze settlements. Yet Israel has inflicted serious rebuffs.

In this complex configuration, the Middle East is developing into one of the key poles in the new multi-polar world.

Will the region remain close to the West, albeit through a contrasting relationship, or will it turn towards the emerging powers of Asia, particularly China, which are now major customers for its oil?

That is one of the fundamental questions for the international system in the years ahead.

Submitted by Gilles Kepel

Pic "3 Crises" with Laura, Angel and Jennifer

Half Asset

44's new subtle approach to friends, frenemies and enemies is still in it's infancy - way too early to offer a final grade.

"The first days -- literally -- of the administration were defined by sweeping pledges to end torture, close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, and revise the U.S. approach to terrorism detentions. But that early promise is over."

"Still, if there is an example of how "engagement based on mutual interests and mutual respect" has succeeded beyond anyone's expectations, it's Pakistan. For years, intelligence professionals and military officers warned that the Afghanistan War could not be successfully concluded while the Pakistani government allowed the Afghan Taliban leadership to operate from its territory, providing resources, guerrillas, and strategic direction for its forces across the border.

"And for just as long, the Bush administration issued directives to the Pakistani military that the Pakistanis promptly ignored. Once Obama came into office, his national-security team absorbed Pakistani complaints that U.S. policy was limited merely to terrorism. Obama opened the aperture, pushing Congress to pass a $7.5 billion, five-year aid package for Pakistani governance and civil society, along with a new military aid package for counterinsurgency support.

"The administration stopped publicly criticizing Pakistani lassitude on counterterrorism and gave it two major pieces of additional support: CIA drones began targeting the leaders of Pakistan's own Taliban, who had killed and terrorized hundreds of Pakistanis, and pressed India to return to diplomatic dialogue.

Actually - that's about as good as it gets for 44's 18 month review - the rest is - to use an ancient corrupted Hillbilly Phrase - Half Asset.

Like the Syrian Suck Up Shiz:

"Engagement in and of itself is not a worthless strategy. The key to engagement is deploying it effectively, using leverage, and making clear to the adversary you are negotiating with that in addition to backchannel messages and high-level diplomatic visits, you have sticks at your disposal as well. This, however, is not the Obama style, at least when it comes to foreign policy."

And that may explain Rocket Rich Gay Free Persia's Preacher Command's Hand Picked Pres - the fiery little Revo Guarder and his recent appreciation for 44's FoPo skill set:

"American materialist politicians, whenever they are beaten by logic, immediately resort to their weapons like cowboys

"Mr. Obama, you are a newcomer (to politics). Wait until your sweat dries and get some experience. Be careful not to read just any paper put in front of you or repeat any statement recommended"

"Mr. Obama is under the pressure of capitalists and the Zionists. American officials bigger than you, more bullying than you, couldn't do a damn thing, let alone you.

Pic "Using all our assets" with Lindsay

Through The Past, Glassly

Hindsight is a useful tool in foreign policy - it allows for the assessment of past events and trends in order to - hopefully - chart the correct future course for nations and states. This December 1958 article from Time Magazine analyzed China's "Great Leap Forward" policy and attempted to predict what Beijing's global position would be in the decades to come. Some items worth noting:

- China's population was projected to grow to a billion people by 1980, and to be at over 2 billion by the turn of the 21st century. That is actually close to the truth - China's one-child-per-family rule, instituted in 1980, resulted in approximately 400 million people not born over the past 30 years. In the absence of this policy, China's population today would be around 1.8 billion people.

- The article quotes British Socialist MP Richard Grossman writing that Chinese Communism is "far the biggest and far the most formidable mass movement in human history - a movement which 'within the next decade' may transfer the center of the world to Peking." The British politician may have been off considerably, but current events are shaping up much in Beijing's favor, as modern China already holds a formidable global power status.

- "As recently as World War II, Winston Churchill could impatiently dismiss as 'unrealistic' U.S. insistence that China have big-power status. Yet today, barely 15 years later, Red China is universally acknowledged as the most formidable military power in Asia. Within the Communist bloc, when China speaks, Khrushchev listens." Back In 1958, Soviet leadership was much more confident of Soviet Union's position vis-a-vis China, but few can deny today that when Hu Jintao speaks, both Medvedev and Putin are listening carefully. Even President Obama listens attentively to what his counterpart is saying in China. And Beijing''s growing military power pushes existing relationships and commitments across Asia to the limit.

- "What the Russians have to fear from Mao's China is not that it will desert to the West or 'pull a Tito,' but that it will one day seize leadership of the Communist world." Well, China does lead the Communist world - or what is left of it - but Beijing did better than "pulling a Tito" (a reference to a Yugoslavian economic and foreign policy that was largely independent of the USSR). Today, China is on track to become the second largest economy in the world, with current Russian economy far behind its vast Asian neighbor.

- "When Britain's Sam Watson forecast to Khrushchev that the Chinese would one day flood either north into Siberia or south into Australia, Khrushchev's reply was: "I'm all in favor of Australia." Today's Chinese economic expansion is utilizing Russia's eastern economic resources, and many in the Russian political and economic establishment are concerned that their country is becoming a raw material annex to Beijing, while many in Moscow worry that largely empty lands east of the Ural Mountains are slowly being colonized by the ever-increasing numbers of Chinese immigrants.

Submitted by Yevgeny Bendersky, Editor Real Clear World

New Clear Pose 2010

As best understood - way back in the last millennium's Cold War - Great Satan mastered a diplopolititary feat l' hyper puissant.
 
Calculated ambiguity.

Weaponized new clear weaponry with multiple, reliable delivery systems provide
"credible military options to deter a wide range of threats, including WMD and large scale conventional military force.”

That's sooooo 2009, 44's New Clear Pose 2010 strips off the thin sexyful veil of ambiguity:
"...explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyber attack."

Whisko Tangy Foxwhat?

"Months of study led by the Defense Department will declare that “the fundamental role” of nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attacks on the United States, allies or partners, a narrower presumption than the past."

Yay. 

Better than defining Great Satan's New Clear Pose as the sole role of deterring enemy nukes - the "...most serious security challenge..."

Yet still.

One of the charming things about Great Satan is she's crazy and unpredictable.

Ditching calculated ambiguity seems "Unserious"in the conventional world, needless in theory and dangerously provocative. 

Pic - "Great Satan's New Clear Pose 2010" with Piper

Battle Of Kandahar

The particular rattle of NATO's HK G -3 and the world famous M16 hadn't even faded in the Marjah battle as Great Satan trained her sights on Taliban town.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs classifies Mullah Omar's old hood - Kandahar: "...as critical in Afghanistan as Baghdad was in Iraq in the surge, writ large.”

"And so this is a much more transparent operation. We did not swoop in under the cover of darkness. We told the people of Marja and the enemy himself when we were coming and where we would be going. We did not prep the battlefield with carpet-bombing or missile strikes. We simply walked in on time.

The Battle of Kandahar has already began:

"Special Forces and C.I.A. task forces have captured seventy mid-level Taliban commanders in Kandahar Province in raids over the last two months, and they have killed dozens of other mid-level commanders, those of us travelling with Mullen were told.

"This has degraded the Taliban’s provincial leadership, according to U.S. assessments, and created some confusion and mistrust in monitored Taliban communications. However, the replacement commanders are typically younger than their predecessors, and if they are less skilled, they may also be more vicious and bitter.

"In any event, it is a basic precept of revised U.S. strategy in Afghanistan that international forces cannot “capture and kill” their way to victory.

"The basic idea is that if international forces can chase the Taliban out of their heartland and gradually replace the current racketeering-infected provincial government with one that is recognized by Afghans as more inclusive and less corrupt, then momentum in the broader war may swing against the Taliban

Art - "Force should, to the maximum extent possible, be applied in a precise and principled way."

Illicit Drones?

Oh Snap! - Say it ain't so!
Great Satan's Exemptionalism in the "Drones Gone Wild!" series are attracting more funintended consequences than a posse of hotties at the Mall's food court:

Great Satan's willpower, staying power and fire power

"...to use force including lethal force to defend itself including by targeting persons such as high-level Al Qaeda leaders who are planning attacks..."

is totally queering the rap bay bee on

"...the issue raised last October by UN Special Rapporteur Richard Alston that if the targeting of individuals was considered prima facie valid simply under the basis of self-defence then the war in Gaza (documented in the GoldstoneReport)"

"Simply put, if all extra-judicial targeted killings were so easily justified based on the premise of self-defence then any nation could be allowed under the flimsiest of pretexts to encroach on another’s territory to kill individuals they believed were involved in hostile acts against it."


So what?


"The current wrangling over the legality of drone attacks marks the beginning of the development of the legal regimes that will govern warfare in a new era. In standing up for the sovereignty of smaller nations Pakistan can ensure that the existence of borders is not a superfluous exercise noted by superpowers only when convenient, and disregarded when strategic interests dictate otherwise."


Aside from being quite risible in attorney heavy exercises involving non profit jawflapping this is significant.


After all, if "...any nation..." can sweetly annihilate their enemies anywhere on earth then the burden may fall on entire regimes to actually do their gigs as regimes and ensure non state actor outers are nowhere near their precious turf.

Case in point? Land of the Pure.

New America Foundation's fully crunk (caution - it's smoking hot!) "Drones Gone Wild! - the Box Set" faithfully details all the naughty hottie details on Stuff and Strikes in Pakistan from 2004 - 2010.

At a sextimated 32% of all targets hit were innocent folks going about their daily life does have results - though certainly not what the attorney brigades are looking for!

"It is in this context that they would welcome anyone, Americans, Israelis, Indians or even the devil, to rid them of the Taliban and al Qaeda. Therefore, they welcome the drone attacks.
"Secondly, the people feel comfortable with the drones because of their precision and targeted strikes. People usually appreciate drone attacks when they compare it with the Pakistan Army’s attacks, which always result in collateral damage.


The homegrown natives of drone striking impact areas are generally


"...appreciating the precision of drone strikes. People say that when a drone would hover over the skies, they wouldn’t be disturbed and would carry on their usual business because they would be sure that it does not target the civilians, but the same people would run for shelter when a Pakistani jet would appear in the skies because of its indiscriminate firing.


"They say that even in the same compound only the exact room — where a high value target (HVT) is present — is targeted. Thus others in the same compound are spared.

"The people of Waziristan have been complaining why the drones are only restricted to targeting the Arabs.


"They want the drones to attack the TTP leadership, the Uzbek/Tajik/Turkmen, Punjabi and Pakhtun Taliban.


Zooming out of AFPAK and considering the world at large perhaps Drones should be done with the four L's:


Lethality, legality, legitimacy, and likelihood


Pic - "A good plan violently executed today is better than a perfect plan executed tomorrow."

Poll This

Alas! Despite tons of K'Ssam rockets, suicide bombers, rowdy resistence movements, sweet neckerchiefs, settlements, Arab League and the undeniable thirst for justice of anywhere from 200 million to 300 million members (physical or spiritual) of Arab League - for whatever reasons - Americans do NOT get it.

They still don't sympathise with Palestine - or Arab League.

"These abysmally low numbers on the Palestinians are due to their continuing failure to engage public opinion in the US.

"While the Israelis aggressively project their story, the Palestinians, the Arabs in general, do not.

"Fault certainly can be placed on the unbalanced way major US networks and press cover the Israeli-Palestinian story, but in this age where “new media” provide new possibilities and where many sectors of the US public (young people, women and minority communities) are more open than ever before to hearing a counter-narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this continuing decline in Palestinian ratings is worrisome and inexcusable"

Really? Au contraire mon frer!

"Arabs, whatever their medieval achievements (as best I can understand, they were mainly achievements of transmission — "Arabic" numerals, for example, came from India) are politically hopeless.

Who can dispute this?

"Look at the last 50-odd years, since the colonial powers left. What have the Arabs accomplished? What have they built? Where in the Arab world is there a trace or a spark of democracy? Of constitutionalism? Of laws independent of the ruler's whim? Of free inquiry? Of open public debate? Where in your house is there any article stamped "Made in Syria?"

"Arabs can be individually very charming and capable, and perform very well in free societies like the U.S.A. There are at least two recent Nobel prizes with Arab names attached. Collectively, though, as nations, the Arabs are no-hopers.

So, what is magically about the two Palestines?

"Everywhere you look around the Arab world you see squalor, despotism, cruelty, and hopelessness. The best they have been able to manage, politically speaking, has been the Latin-American style one-party kleptocracies of Egypt and Jordan.

"Those are the peaks of Arab political achievement under independence, under government by their own people. The norm is just gangsterism, with thugs like Assad, Qaddafi, or Saddam in charge. It doesn't seem to be anything to do with religion: the secular states (Libya, Syria) are just as horrible as the religious ones like Saudi Arabia.

"We are all supposed to support the notion of a Palestinian state.

"Why?

"We know perfectly well what it would be like. Why should we wish for another gangster-satrapy to be added to the Arab roll of shame, busy manufacturing terrorists to come here and slaughter Americans in their offices?

A Palestinian state?

"I think I'd be crazy to want that."

Pic - "Road Map To Nowhere"