How US Blunders Strengthened Iran
By Jonathan Marshall | Consortium News | November 5, 2017
Behind only North Korea, Iran is the country the Trump administration vilifies most. The White House endorses Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s injunction that “We must all stand together to stop Iran’s march of conquest, subjugation and terror.”
Parroting Netanyahu’s claim that Iran is “busy gobbling up the nations” of the Middle East, CIA Director and conservative GOP stalwart Mike Pompeo warned in June that Iran — which he branded “the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism” — now wields “enormous influence . . . that far outstrips where it was six or seven years ago.”
In an interview with MSNBC, Pompeo elaborated, “Whether it’s the influence they have over the government in Baghdad, whether it’s the increasing strength of Hezbollah and Lebanon, their work alongside the Houthis in Iran, (or) the Iraqi Shias that are fighting along now the border in Syria . . . Iran is everywhere throughout the Middle East.”
Few would deny that Iran’s influence in the region has grown over the past decade. What’s missing from such dire warnings of its imperial designs, however, is any reflection on how aggressive policies by the United States and its allies have consistently backfired, creating needless chaos that Iran has exploited as a matter of self-interest and self-defense.
Consider the case of Hezbollah, a Lebanese-based Shiite organization that Israeli leaders describe as a major threat and almost certainly the target of Israel’s next war. Although the Iranian-backed force intervened actively in Syria to back the Assad government, it disclaims any intent to start a war with Israel.
It does, however, declare with great bravado its intent to deter another Israeli invasion of its homeland. “Israel should think a million times before waging any war with Lebanon,” said its leader earlier this year.
Spurred by Israeli Invasions
In fact, Hezbollah owes its very existence to Israel’s repeated invasions of their country. In 1982, Israel broke a cease-fire with the Palestine Liberation Organization and invaded southern Lebanon with 60,000 troops. The Reagan administration took no steps to stop that invasion, which caused thousands of civilian casualties and turned much of the population against Israel.
With Iranian money and guidance, the Shiite resistance in Lebanon coalesced around the organization that became known as Hezbollah. “We are only exercising our legitimate right to defend our Islam and the dignity of our nation,” the group claimed in one of its ideological tracts. “We appealed to the world’s conscience, but heard nothing.”
Years later, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak conceded that “It was our presence [in Lebanon] that created Hezbollah.” Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin seconded that assessment, saying that Israel had let the “genie out of the bottle.”
In 2006, Israel again invaded Lebanon, this time to wipe out Hezbollah. Israel’s indiscriminate attacks against civilians drew condemnation from international human rights organizations. They also succeeded in strengthening the very enemy Israel sought to annihilate.
“Especially since the 2006 war with Israel, . . . an overwhelming majority of the Shi’a have embraced Hezbollah as the defender of their community,” writes Augustus Richard Norton in his study, Hezbollah: A Short History. “This suggests that outsiders . . . seeking to reduce Hezbollah’s influence in Lebanon must redress the security narrative rather than take steps that validate it.”
Instead, of course, the United States and its Sunni Arab and Turkish allies promoted the violent overthrow of Syria’s government, drawing Hezbollah forces into the fight for the survival of their longtime ally. While Hezbollah has paid a political and human price for its military expedition, its soldiers have gained tremendous battle experience, making them all the more formidable a foe.
The Iraqi Gift
Washington’s greatest geostrategic gift to Iran was the unprovoked U.S. overthrow of Iran’s arch enemy, Saddam Hussein, in 2003. Iran had lost hundreds of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in an eight-year war with Iraq, triggered by Saddam’s invasion in 1980. The Bush administration not only killed Saddam, but handed political power to Iraq’s majority Shiite population, which looked to Iran for spiritual and political guidance.
That windfall may not have been entirely luck. The leading Iraqi lobbyist for war, the neoconservatives’ darling Ahmed Chalabi, was later identified by U.S. authorities as a key Iranian intelligence asset. U.S. counterintelligence agents concluded that Chalabi and other Iraqi exiles, who peddled false claims about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, had “been used as agents of a foreign intelligence service … to reach into and influence the highest levels of the U.S. government,” in the words of a Senate Intelligence Committee report.
But Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s office shut down the investigation, leaving Chalabi to direct the political purge of Iraq’s government and then become Iraq’s deputy prime minister and oil minister. The Chalabi-led purge targeted Iraq’s Sunni politicians, aggravating the country’s sectarian divide and fueling the insurgency that still plagues the country today. The violence strengthened Iran’s hand in the country, as Shiite militia sought Tehran’s help to defend their communities.
At the same time, popular opposition to the U.S. occupation led to the rise of radical Sunni terrorists. It was from their swelling ranks in Iraq’s prisons that ISIS was born. ISIS made lightning gains across much of western Iraq in June 2014, with the conquest of Fallujah, Tikrit, and Mosul, the country’s second most populous city. With its very existence in jeopardy, Iraq’s beleaguered government welcomed Iran’s immediate dispatch of 2,000 soldiers to help block the ISIS offensive. Syria’s air force also began striking ISIS bases in coordination with Baghdad.
Misguided Pressure
Washington, in contrast, rejected Iraq’s call for air strikes and suggested that its Shiite-led government should step down to placate aggrieved Sunnis. Only in August 2014 did President Obama authorize limited bombing of ISIS to protect minorities threatened by their military advance. Needless to say, many Iraqis were grateful to Iran for its military support at a critical time.
“The Iranians are playing a long game and a waiting game,” said Sajad Jiyad, the director of the Al Bayan Center for Planning and Studies in Baghdad. “They put their skins on the line. They lost three or four generals plus a dozen senior officers.”
So when a “hamfisted” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, speaking in Saudi Arabia, recently demanded that Baghdad send home Iranian-backed paramilitary units that helped defeat ISIS, it didn’t go over well with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
“No party has the right to interfere in Iraqi matters,” his office stated. Abadi called the Popular Mobilization forces “Iraqi patriots,” not mere proxies of Iran, and insisted that they “should be encouraged because they will be the hope of country and the region.” Score another few points for Tehran.
ISIS might never have spread into Syria had not the United States publicly promoted the overthrow of the Assad government in 2011, following years of covert efforts by Washington and Israel to weaken the regime and promote sectarian divisions within Syria.
Contributing greatly to the rise of radical Islamist forces in Syria was the U.S.-backed overthrow of the Gaddafi regime in Libya, which unleashed large stocks of arms and hundreds of hardened fighters to spread their revolution into Syria.
By late 2011, Sunni-led states such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar began financing and arming militant Islamist rebels in Syria, including Al Qaeda and even ISIS. The resulting war killed hundreds of thousands of combatants and civilians, uprooted millions of refugees, and laid waste to ancient cities.
The Obama administration proved itself just as deluded as the Bush administration about the efficacy of armed intervention. Describing hopes by the White House that Libya’s uprising would “ripple out to other nations in the region” and fuel anti-regime movements in Syria and Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported, “Syria has served for 30 years as Iran’s closest strategic ally in the region. U.S. officials believe the growing challenge to Mr. Assad’s regime could motivate Iran’s democratic forces.”
Instead, of course, Syria’s conflict prompted Iran’s hardliners to send Revolutionary Guard units and Hezbollah forces to the defense of their ally. With the help of Russian air power, they turned the tide in Assad’s favor, leaving the Damascus regime intact and greatly in Tehran’s debt.
The Yemeni Mess
Echoing longstanding claims by Saudi Arabia, the Trump administration also insists that Iran is a major backer of Houthi tribal forces who swept down from northern Yemen to seize control of most of the country in early 2015. That March, with U.S. backing, a Saudi-led coalition of Arab states launched a scorched–earth military campaign to oust the Houthis, in the name of resisting Iran.
The coalition’s indiscriminate bombing of industrial and other civilian targets, including schools and hospitals, has laid waste to much of the country and destroyed the economy. Its blockade of ports caused mass hunger and triggered the world’s worst cholera epidemic.
“Cynics can argue that the real strategy of the Saudi coalition is to rely on starvation and disease to wear down the Yemeni people,” observed former White House adviser and CIA analyst Bruce Riedel. “The United Nations has labeled the war the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the world . . . (Yet) Iran is the only winner, as it provides aid and expertise to the Houthis at a tiny fraction of the cost of the Saudi war effort while the Islamic Republic’s Gulf enemies spend fortunes on a conflict they jumped into with no endgame or strategy.”
Experts point out that Washington picked the wrong ally in this fight. “The Houthis are one of the few groups in the Middle East that has little intention or ability to confront the United States or Israel,” writes Harvard lecturer Asher Orkaby. “And far from being aligned with extremists, the Houthi movement has repeatedly clashed with the Islamic State . . . and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. It is Saudi Arabia that has long supported Sunni Islamist groups in Yemen.”
To compound the irony, the paranoid sheiks in Riyadh created the very threat they set out to crush with their invasion in 2015. Iranian ties to the Houthis were negligible before then. Remarking on years of attempts to smear them as pawns of Iran, the U.S. ambassador to Yemen reported in a classified cable in 2009, “The fact that . . . there is still no compelling evidence of that link must force us to view this claim with some skepticism.”
Two former members of the State Department’s Office of Policy Planning have recently confirmed that “the vast majority of the Houthi arsenal . . . was seized from Yemeni army stockpiles,” not provided by Iran.
As the devastating war grinds on, however, Iran has provided the Houthis with modest training, advice, and ground munitions. “Iran has exploited, on the cheap, the Saudi-led campaign, and thus made the expansion of Iranian influence in Yemen a Saudi self-fulfilling prophecy,” they observe.
“By catering to the Saudis in Yemen,” they add, “the United States has . . . strengthened Iranian influence in Yemen, undermined Saudi security, brought Yemen closer to the brink of collapse, and visited more death, destruction, and displacement on the Yemeni population.”
Qatar and Beyond
In a moment of particular lunacy, President Trump this June tweeted his support for a Saudi-led political and economic blockade of Qatar, a tiny but gas-rich Gulf emirate. Riyadh is aggrieved in part by Qatar’s sponsorship of Al Jazeera, the politically nettlesome broadcaster. Trump’s action surprised and embarrassed the Pentagon, which operates a huge military base in Qatar.
Iran quickly took advantage of this latest Saudi blunder. It opened its airspace to Qatari flights that were barred from crossing the Arabian Peninsula. It shipped food to replace supplies lost by the closure of the Saudi-Qatari border. In gratitude, Qatar restored full diplomatic relations with Tehran after recalling its ambassador two years ago.
“This dispute has pushed Qatar towards other players in the region who are critical: Iran, Turkey, Russia, China,” said Rob Richer, former Associate Deputy Director for Operations at the CIA. “These are players who now have a lot more influence as we diminish our influence in the region. In this way, the blockade has actually undermined everything that the Saudis and Emiratis wanted by pushing the Qataris into the arms of these other regional players.”
Time after time, in other words, the United States and its regional supporters have made a mess of matters with their overt and covert military interventions in the Middle East. It’s only natural that Iran, having long been targeted by Washington and its allies (sometimes for understandable reasons), tries to seize opportunities to defend its interests.
The lesson we should learn is that curbing Iran and promoting U.S. security interests will require less intervention from afar, not more self-defeating forays into the region.
As Chatham House research fellow Renad Mansour recently observed, until the United States overcomes its counterproductive reactions to obsessive fears of Iranian influence, “the Iranophobes will be right about one thing: Iran is the smarter player in the region.”
Saudi succession struggle enters home stretch
By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | November 5, 2017
Within hours of a decree by the Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz on Sunday announcing the constitution of a new committee to combat corruption under the chairmanship of the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman [MBS], an unprecedented purge of top establishment figures unfolded, signaling a pre-planned political campaign. The purge involves the sacking and/or detention of dozens of princes, ministers and former ministers. Several senior ministers, including those in charge of the kingdom’s National Guard, economy, and planning have also been dismissed. Notably, billionaire Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal is among those detained. The security forces grounded private jets in Jeddah to stop any high-profile figures from leaving the country.
King Salman’s decree invests the new anti-corruption committee with draconian powers. The decree says that the anti-corruption committee shall be exempted from “laws, regulations, instructions, orders and decisions”, while performing its tasks of identifying “offenses, crimes, persons and entities involved in cases of public corruption.” It empowers MBS to issue “arrest warrants, travel ban, disclosure and freezing of accounts and portfolios, tracking of funds, assets” as well as take “precautionary measures”.
Corruption is synonymous with oligarchies and the House of Saud is no exception. The Saudi way is traditionally to throw money at problems. Make no mistake that Saturday’s purge signifies another step in the no-holds-barred attempt by the 32-year old Crown Prince for consolidating absolute political power and paving the way for his ascension as the next ruler. Evidently, MBS intends to strike fear into the hearts of the elites who could be rival power centres when the time for succession arrives, which could be in a conceivable future as per indications.
An intriguing twist to the tale lies in the recent speech by MBS at a ceremony launching a $500 billion project on the Red Sea where he vowed to “destroy extremism” and return to a “a moderate Islam open to the world and all religions”. MBS was addressing an international audience and the speech was widely interpreted as an attempt to give a new face of Saudi Arabia aimed at the Western world, primarily, by pressing all the buttons that the West may like to hear pushed about entrepreneurship, liberalism, moderate Islam.
However, such a facile explanation is insufficient. For, there is indeed a contradiction insofar as the Saudi royal family has traditionally depended on backing from the ultra-conservative religious establishment to ensure its claim to legitimacy, while under MBS’s watch during recent months, the regime has begun implementing unprecedented economic and social reforms that might potentially undermine the regime’s deeply conservative power base. The noted Saudi editor and opinion maker Jamal Kashoggi told Deutsche Welle in a recent interview his explanation of what MBS is attempting:
“It is hard for Saudi Arabia to disown Wahhabism, seeing as how it created a hard-line Salafi current that has been in power for 30 years… I believe that the prince’s (MBS) social and economic reforms enjoy wide popular support and great momentum… The country needs to be freed from the hard-line Salafi approach that has been prevailing for 30 years with the state’s permission… Today, the carpet has been pulled from underneath this current’s feet, and it does not have the strength to prevent reform… On the other hand, there will always be Saudi hardliners who oppose those reforms… but they are not sufficiently powerful to prevent that march… It is hard to disown Wahhabism… it is the basis on which the Kingdom was built. But it can replace it with a centrist Islam… There are modern Islamic ideas available to the state, and it can use them without having to announce its disowning of Wahhabism.
Doesn’t it look like a Saudi-style “cultural revolution” where ideology and reform become the leitmotif of what is at the core a transition in the calculus of political power? By means of liberalizing rhetoric, MBS is on the one hand engaging the West and appeasing ordinary Saudis (and even sections of conservative clerics), while on the other hand also aiming to consolidate his and his father’s power by removing opposition voices. Arguably, they form two sides of the same coin.
Clearly, there is a foreign-policy angle to all this, which will impact regional security. The Saudi Crown Prince cannot do without American backing. (The former Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif, rival to MBS who was ousted earlier this year, used to be Washington’s favorite as successor to King Salman.) Now, the exit of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Saturday is the latest telling evidence of a growing US-Saudi-Israeli congruence. A relatively stable set-up in Beirut (involving co-habitation between Hariri and Hezbollah), which acquitted itself remarkably well in the war against terrorist groups, has been suddenly thrown into disarray. What follows next in Lebanon dovetails into the US-Israeli-Saudi strategy toward post-ISIS Syria and Iraq where the balance of forces currently works in favor of Iran. Interestingly, Hariri announced his resignation in a speech broadcast from Saudi Arabia following a meeting with MBS. (Read the report in Tehran Times titled Hariri makes surprise resignation under Saudi pressure.)
Netanyahu: Lebanese PM’s Resignation a ‘Wake-Up Call’ to Unite Against Iran
Al-Manar | November 5, 2017
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman have turned Lebanese PM Saad Hariri’s resignation to Israel’s advantage by attacking Iran and Hezbollah.
“The resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri and his statements are a wake-up call for the international community to act against Iranian aggression,” Netanyahu said, adding that Iran was “trying to turn Syria into a second Lebanon,” Netanyahu, who is in London, tweeted.
“This aggression endangers not only Israel, but the entire Middle East. The international community needs to unite and stand against this aggression,” the Israeli PM added.
For his part, Israeli DM warned that Lebanon “would become like Iran.”
“Lebanon=Hezbollah. Hezbollah=Iran. Lebanon=Iran,” Liberman tweeted.
“Iran is a danger to the world. Saad Hariri proved this today. Period,” the Israeli minister added.
Saudi gamble risks plunging Lebanon into war
Press TV – November 5, 2017
Saad Hariri’s sudden resignation from Lebanon’s premiership, announced from Saudi Arabia, has raised fears that regional tensions were about to escalate and that the small country would once again pay a heavy price.
Hariri quit his post on Saturday in a televised speech broadcast by Saudi Arabia’s Al-Arabiya television, during which he appeared tense as he carefully read out from a written statement.
He claimed that he feared the same fate as his assassinated father and accused Iran and the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah of meddling in Arab countries’ affairs.
Hariri’s departure sent shockwaves through Lebanon as the country is struggling to maintain stability at a time when much of the Middle East is gripped by Takfiri violence rooted in Saudi Arabia.
Lebanon’s Minister of Justice Salim Jreissati said the development was “confusing and suspicious in its timing and location as well as the way it was delivered and the content of the resignation.”
“The optics are terrible — for Hariri to resign from Riyadh, imagine how his audience [in Lebanon] feels watching that,” said Emile Hokayem, a regional analyst at the Institute for Strategic Studies.
“God protect Lebanon from the evil of Saudi Arabia’s reckless adventures,” Sheikh Nabil Kawouk, a member of Hezbollah’s central committee, told Lebanon’s Al Jadeed television.
Last week, Qatar’s former prime minister Hamad bin Jassim revealed how the US coordinated support by Doha, Riyadh and Ankara for terrorists operating against the Syrian government.
Syria has always been a thorn in the side of Israel. The Arab country is part of the “axis of resistance” along with Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iran, which has brought Daesh to the brink of elimination.
The triangle of Saudi Arabia, Israel and the US is alarmed and the prospect of an eventual triumph of this axis which has now become inevitable has prompted them to take drastic measures.
On Friday, as Syria began celebrating the capture of Dayr al-Zawr, Nusra Front terrorists launched a massive assault on a Druze village neighboring the occupied Golan Heights.
According to Syrian state media, the onslaught was carried out with Israeli coordination and assistance but Tel Aviv used the occasion to threaten direct intervention in the war.
Hariri’s resignation over what he called Hezbollah’s “grip” on Lebanon is the latest drastic step which Saudi Arabia and its allies have taken to tip the scales even at the cost of turning Lebanon into another Syria.
With the prime minister out of the political landscape, the architects of the new “plot” could claim that Lebanon was exclusively under Hezbollah’s control. That idea was articulated by Israeli minister of military affairs Avigdor Lieberman on Saturday.
“Lebanon=Hezbollah. Hezbollah=Iran. Lebanon=Iran,” he tweeted.
Hariri was appointed as the Lebanese premier in late 2016, after two years of political deadlock in the country. He formed a national unity government that included almost all of the main political parties in Lebanon, including Hezbollah.
Under the Lebanese constitution, the prime minister should be picked from among the Sunni community, but Saudi Arabia has tried to use the prerogative to maintain its influence in the country.
Riyadh says the government should be purged of Hezbollah, especially at a time when the resistance movement is emerging stronger from the Syria conflict.
Over the past few weeks, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of State for Persian Gulf Affairs Thamer al-Sabhan had unleashed a series of vitriolic attacks against Hezbollah, saying the group “should be punished… and confronted by force.”
The accusations coincided with new sanctions approved by US House of Representatives on the Lebanese resistance movement.
Hossein Sheikholeslam, a senior Iranian politician, told Al Mayadeen TV that Hariri’s’ resignation had been coordinated before between US president Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
He said, “After the defeat of Daesh and the US in the region, Washington and Riyadh are trying to fuel tensions in Lebanon and the region.”
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, an adviser to the Iranian parliament speaker, agreed. “The decision has been made by the anti-Iran and anti-Hezbollah front following the disillusionment of US and its allies with Daesh,” he said.
In Lebanon, political leaders expressed their apprehension, including the leader of Lebanon’s Druze minority, who has frequently played kingmaker in Lebanese politics.
Walid Jumblatt, the leader of Lebanon’s Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), warned of the political burden and consequences of the resignation.
Hilal Khashan, a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut, said Hariri’s departure was “a dangerous decision whose consequences will be heavier than what Lebanon can bear.”
“Hariri has started a cold war that could escalate into a civil war, bearing in mind that Hezbollah is unmatched in Lebanon on the military level,” he added.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, welcomed the decision and said Hariri’s departure should be a “wake-up call” to the international community to what he described as the threat posed by Iran.
Israeli-Saudi Tandem Adjusts to Syria Loss
By Alastair Crooke | Consortium News | November 4, 2017
It seems that matters are coming to a head in the Middle East. For many states, the coming period will likely prove to be the moment in which they determine their futures — as well as that for the region as a whole.
The immediate peg for “crunch time” is Russia’s fast-track proposal of a conference to be held in Sochi, with the near-full kaleidoscope of Syrian opposition invited, which, if all goes as planned, might mean 1,000 delegates arriving in Sochi as soon as Nov. 18.
The Syrian government has agreed to attend. Of course, when one hears of attendance in these numbers, it suggests that this is not intended as a “sleeves rolled-up” working session, but rather as a meeting in which Russian thoughts will be mooted on the constitution, the system of government, and the place of “minorities” – with a chaser that Russia wants fresh elections pretty darned quick: which is to say, in six months’ time. In short, this is to be the “last chance saloon” for opposition figures: come aboard now, or be shut out, in the cold.
This initiative has plenty of push behind it, including President Putin’s personal endorsement, but no guarantee of success. Both Iran and Turkey (the co-guarantors of Astana) privately may have reservations, not knowing precisely what Moscow might unveil. Iran is insistent on Syria retaining a strong centralized government, and Turkey is likely to worry about whether the Kurds might receive too much from Moscow; it will also have reservations about sitting down with the YPD (Syrian Kurds), which it views to be little more than a re-branded PKK, which Turkey regards as a terrorist organization. If Turkey does pull out, it will take an important slice of the opposition with it.
Critical moments in history, however, do have a habit of proving to be less critical than first imagined, but this one effectively marks the beginning of the winding up process of the Syrian war and of the 20-year “New Middle East” project (as devised by the U.S. and Israeli governments). How each state responds, will determine the Middle East landscape for the next years.
Military Mop-up
Late last week, the Syrian army took the rest of Deir Ezzor city, and with its rear now secure, the Syrian army is free to continue the 30 or so kilometers to reach Abu Kamal (al-Bukumal) – the last ISIS urban outpost – and the vital border crossing on the Euphrates with Iraq. It is estimated that there may be 3,500 Da’esh (another name for the Islamic State or ISIS) in Abu Kamal. But Abu Kamal’s “twin” (on the Iraqi side of the border), al-Qaim, was taken by the Iraqi government’s PMU militia forces on Friday. The Iraqi forces are now clearing the city of its estimated 1,500 Da’esh fighters.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
The Syrian army, backed up by several thousand recently injected Hezbollah forces, is poised to enter Abu Kamal in the coming days from two directions – and from the south, a co-ordinated thrust north up and into Abu Kamal by the Iraqi Hash’d a- Sha’abi (PMU) militia, will form a pincer.
American-supported SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces), however, are also trying to reach Abu Kamal from the east (the U.S., pressured by Israel, would like to seal and close the border crossing). U.S. allied forces can move more quickly, as U.S. officers are seeking to bribe local tribal leaders who formerly had sworn allegiance to ISIS (with Saudi money), to switch sides, or at least to allow the SDF forces to advance unhindered by ISIS (as happened in the environs of Deir Ezzor).
In short, the military outcome in Syria is done (after six years of war), and now comes the political bargaining. How this plays out will determine the relative strengths of the forces that will shape the Middle East in the coming years. The outcome will likely see whether Turkey can be bullied back towards NATO (by threats such as that by General Petr Pavel, head of NATO’s military committee, warning of “consequences” for Turkey’s attempts to buy Russian air defenses), or whether Turkey’s determination to limit Kurdish aspirations will see Turkey position itself alongside Iran and Iraq (who share a common interest).
Turkey’s role in Idlib, in overseeing the de-escalation zone there, remains opaque. Effectively, its forces are positioned more to control the Afrin Kurdish “canton” (rather than monitor the Idlib de-escalation zone). It is possible that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is hoping to use Turkish troops to carve out a buffer zone along the Turkish-Syrian border – in contravention to the Astana understandings. If so, this will place him at odds with both Moscow and Damascus (but will not necessarily imply a return to the NATO camp, either).
Syria’s Future
The bargaining at Sochi will also make clearer whether Syria will be a strong centralized state (as Iran prefers), or a looser federal state as America (and perhaps Russia) would prefer. Sochi will be something of a litmus for the extent to which American influence can shape outcomes in today’s Middle East. At present, it looks as if there is co-ordination between Moscow and Washington for a speedy political settlement in Syria, a U.S. declaration of victory over ISIS, Syrian elections, and an American exit from the Syrian theatre.
The outcome of the conference will also perhaps clarify whether the Syrian Kurds finally will remain with the U.S. CentCom project for retaining a permanent U.S. presence in northeast Syria (as Israel wants), or whether the Syrian Kurds will cut a deal with Damascus (after witnessing the crushing of the Barzani Kurdish independence project by neighboring powers).
If the latter occurs, the argument for retaining a longer-term U.S. presence in northeast Syria would lose force. The Saudis will have either to accept defeat in Syria, or act the party-pooper (by trying to re-ignite the remaining proxy forces in Idlib) – but, for that, the kingdom would need Turkey’s compliance, and that may not be forthcoming.
Iraq too, irked by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s comments suggesting that the PMU are Iranian – and must “go home” – has already shown signs of re-orientating towards Russia. (It has recently signed an expansive energy and economic protocol with Russia – after having reclaimed control of its borders and of Iraq’s energy resources – and is procuring Russian arms). Evidence of Iraq’s close connections with Syria, Turkey and Iran was very manifest in the quick execution of the put-down to the Kurdish independence gambit.
But the state facing the biggest dilemma in respect to the Syrian outcome is Israel. Alex Fishman, the doyen of Israeli defense columnists, has written that Israel simply has failed to adjust to strategic change, and is locked in a narrow “cold war” mentality:
“The Syrians fire rockets at open areas: Israel destroys Syrian cannons in response; the Iranians threaten to deploy Shiite forces in Syria: Israel announces ‘red lines’ and threatens a military conflict; Fatah and Hamas hold futile talks on a unity government: the prime minister declares Israel is suspending talks with the Palestinans – and everyone here applauds the security and political echelons: – ‘there, we showed them the meaning of deterrence’, [the Israeli leadership repeats].
“But what we are seeing here is a provincial defense policy, a false representation of a leadership that barely sees beyond the tip of its nose, and is busy putting out fires day and night.
“It’s a leadership that sees national security through a narrow regional viewpoint. It’s as if everything beyond Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran doesn’t exist. It’s as if the world around us hasn’t changed in the past decades, and we are stuck in the era of aggressive solutions in the form of reward and punishment as the main political-security activity. The current political-security echelon isn’t solving problems, isn’t dealing with problems, but simply postponing them, passing them on to the next generation”
Missing the Strategic Picture
What Fishman is pointing to is profound: Israel has gained some tactical victories in the neighborhood (i.e. over the Palestinians generally, and in weakening Hamas), but it has lost sight of the wider strategic picture. In effect, Israel has lost its ability to dominate the region. It had wanted a weakened and fragmented Syria; it had wanted a Hezbollah mired in the Syrian mud, and an Iran circumscribed by Sunni sectarian antipathy towards the Shi’a generally. It is unlikely to get any of these.
Rather, Israel finds itself being deterred (rather than doing the deterring) by the knowledge that it cannot now overturn its strategic weakness (i.e. risk a three-front war) – unless, and only if, America will fully enter into any conflict, in support of Israel. And this is what worries the security and intelligence echelon: Would America now contemplate a decisive intervention on behalf of Israel – unless the latter’s very survival was at risk?
In 2006, Israeli officials recall, the U.S. did not enter Israel’s war against Hizbullah in Lebanon, and after 33 days, it was Israel that sought a ceasefire.
Fishman is right too that attacking Syrian factories and radar positions “out of old habit” solves nothing. It may be sold to the Israeli public as “deterrence,” but rather it is playing with fire. Syria has started to fire back with aged surface-to-air missiles (S200s) at Israeli aircraft. These missiles may not have hit an Israeli jet yet, and maybe were not even intended so to do. The Syrian message however, is clear: these missiles may be old, but they have a longer range than the newer S300: Potentially, their range is sufficient to reach Ben Gurion Airport outside Tel Aviv.
Are the Israelis sure that Syria and Hezbollah don’t have more modern missiles? Are they certain that Iran or Russia will not provide them such? The Russian defense minister was very angry on his visit to Tel Aviv to have been faced with an Israeli retaliatory air attack on a Syrian radar and missile position – as a welcome gift on landing in Israel. To his protests, his Israeli counterpart, Defense Minister Lieberman condescendingly said that Israel needed nobody’s advice in respect to Israel’s security. General Sergey Shoygu reportedly was not amused.
Can Israel come to terms with its new strategic situation? It seems not. Ibrahim Karagul, a Turkish political commentator and an authoritative voice of President Erdogan, writing in Yeni Safak, notes that
“the foundations of a new disintegration [and] division are being laid in our region. Saudi Arabia’s ‘We are switching to moderate Islam’ announcement contains a dangerous game. The U.S.-Israel axis is forming a new regional front line.”
Karagul continues:
“We have been watching the strange developments in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Israel and the U.S. for some time now. There is a new situation in the region, which we know is [principally aimed] against Iran; but has recently taken an open anti-Turkey state, aimed at limiting Turkey’s influence in the region … You will see, the ‘moderate Islam’ announcement will be immediately followed by a sudden and unexpected strengthening of Arab nationalism. This wave will not differentiate between Shiite or Sunni Arabs, but it will isolate the Muslim Arab world from the entire Muslim world.
“This separation will be felt most by the Shiite Arabs in Iraq. With this new block, Iraq and Iran are going to stage a new power showdown [i.e. will react forcefully to counter it]. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s future in power is also most likely going to [become contingent on the outcome to] this showdown.”
An American ‘Buy-in’
To give this project American “buy-in,” Israel and Saudi Arabia are focusing it on Lebanese Hezbollah, which the U.S. has declared to be a terrorist entity though the movement was part of Lebanon’s government, which was headed by Prime Minister Saad Hariri until he ominously resigned today in an announcement made in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (Hariri is a dual Saudi-Lebanese national.)
Saudi State Minister for Gulf Affairs Thamer al-Sabhan (in Beirut last week) called for “toppling Hezbollah” and promised “astonishing” developments in “the coming days. Those who believe that my tweets are a personal stance, are delusional … the coming developments will definitely be astonishing.”
Al-Sabhan added that the kingdom’s escalation against Hezbollah could take several forms that would “definitely affect Lebanon. Politically, it might target the government’s relations with the world. At the economic and financial levels, it could target commercial exchange and funds, and militarily it might involve the possibility of a strike on Hizbullah by the U.S.-led coalition, which labels Hizbullah a terrorist organization.” (Comment: this latter point probably was made more in hope, than in expectation. Europe and the U.S. set considerable store on maintaining Lebanon as stable).
Karagul reflects further on this U.S.-Gulf-Israeli initiative:
“The moderate Islam project was tried the most in Turkey. We always said this is ‘American Islam’ and opposed it. The February 28 military intervention is the product of such a project. It was implemented by the U.S./Israel extreme right-wing and their partners on the inside. The Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) is the product of such a project, and the Dec. 17/25 and July 15 attacks were made for this very reason. They were all aimed at trapping Turkey within the U.S./Israel axis.
“But Turkey’s local and national resistance has overcome them all. Now they are burdening Saudi Arabia with the same mission. That is how they are making it appear. I do not think that it is possible for Saudi Arabia to undertake such a mission. This is impossible both in terms of the regime’s character and its social structure. This is impossible because of the ‘Israel/U.S. sauce’.
“The discourse of making the switch to moderate Islam will cause serious confusion in the Saudi administration and grave social reactions. The actual conflict is going to take place within Saudi Arabia. Also, the Riyadh administration has no chance of exporting something to the region or setting an example.
“Especially once it is further revealed that the project is security-based, that a new front line has been formed, that it is all planned by the U.S.-Israel, it will result in a fiasco. This project is suicide for Saudi Arabia, it is a destruction plan; it is a plan that will destroy it unless it comes to its senses.”
Karagul makes the point well: the attempt to make Islam in the Christian “Westphalian” image has a disastrous history. The metaphysics of Islam are not those of Christianity. And Saudi Arabia cannot be made “moderate” by Mohammad bin Salman just ordering it. It would entail a veritable cultural revolution to shift the basis of the kingdom, away from the rigors of Wahhabism to some secularized Islam.
More War?
Where is this taking the Middle East: to conflict? Maybe. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not noted for his audacity: he his noted more for rhetoric which often has proved empty; and Israeli security officials are being cautious, but both sides are preparing against the possibility of what Karagul calls a “great power showdown.” It looks, though – from this and other Turkish statements – as if Turkey will be with Iran and Iraq, and standing against America and Saudi Arabia.
And President Trump? He is wholly (and understandably) preoccupied with the low-intensity war being waged against him at home. He probably tells Netanyahu whatever it is that might advance his domestic battles (in Congress, where Netanyahu has influence). If Bibi wants a fiery speech at the U.N. berating Iran, then, why not? Trump can then call on the trifecta of White House generals to “fix it” (just as he did with JCPOA, passing it to Congress “to fix”), knowing that the generals do not want a war with Iran.
The danger is a “black swan.” What happens if Israel goes on attacking the Syrian army and industrial premises in Syria (which is happening almost daily) – and Syria does shoot down an Israeli jet?
Alastair Crooke is a former British diplomat who was a senior figure in British intelligence and in European Union diplomacy. He is the founder and director of the Conflicts Forum.
US offers $12 mln bounty on two Hezbollah leaders, cites ‘homeland’ threat
RT | October 10, 2017
The US has offered a total of $12 million in rewards for the capture of two senior Hezbollah officials, saying the Iranian-backed group is plotting attacks inside the US. The announcement comes as Washington mulls canceling the Iran nuclear deal.
A $7 million bounty applies to Talal Hamiyah, head of Hezbollah’s external operations. Another $5 million is being offered for Fuad Shukr, the group’s senior military official, accused of masterminding the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing that killed 241 US Marines.
Hezbollah is “focused on US interests, including here in the homeland,” National Counterterrorism Center Director Nicholas J. Rasmussen told reporters at the State Department Tuesday.
While he declined to comment on any specific, credible or imminent threats, Rasmussen said the US intelligence community continues to see “activity on behalf of Hezbollah here inside the homeland.”
“It’s our assessment that Hezbollah is determined to give itself a potential homeland option as a critical component of its terrorism playbook,” he added.
The FBI arrested two Hezbollah operatives in June, one in New York and another in Michigan, said Counterterrorism Coordinator Nathan A. Sales.
Asked whether this would affect Washington’s financial support to the government of Lebanon, which includes several Hezbollah members, Sales replied that it will not. He added that the US does not recognize any distinctions within the group.
“Hezbollah has no political wing. It is a single organization, a terrorist organization, and it is rotten to its core,” Sales said, pointing to Iran as the group’s chief sponsor.
The State Department designated Hezbollah – or Hizballah, as the US government spells it – as a foreign terrorist organization in October 8, 1997. In February this year, the US offered a $5 million bounty for Mohammed Ali Hamadei, a Hezbollah member who allegedly took part in the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in which US sailor Robert Stethem was killed.
Although the bounties were officially announced Tuesday, news of their existence was reported Monday by the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv. … Full article
Israeli war minister: Next war will not spare population centers
Palestine Information Center – October 3, 2017
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – Israel’s war minister Avigdor Lieberman warned on Monday that the next war is likely to feature attacks on population centers and civilians, according to Haaretz daily.
Avigdor Lieberman, who took part on Monday evening in a ceremony in which certificates of honor were awarded to 31 Israeli officers and soldiers from various units in the army, said: “The next confrontation, if it breaks out, will take on a completely different character, when our enemies will try to strike first at population centers and civilian infrastructure. So we will not have the luxury to wage a long war.”
“We live in a new reality of a new Middle East, which is much worse than the old Middle East. And in this terrible new reality, we have yet to face difficult tests,” he added.
“Any confrontation will have to be conducted from the very first moment in the highest profile, using all the army’s strengths,” Lieberman continued. “If there is a crossing of red lines, the other side must know in advance that it is going to pay very heavy prices.”
“The sovereign, too, regardless of whether he controls his territory or not – as soon as a hostile action takes place, the sovereign will also bear all the responsibility,” the war minister further threatened.
The international community has ceaselessly sounded alarm bells over the Israeli aggression on civilian homes, infrastructure, and unarmed communities across the occupied Palestinian territories and the blockaded Gaza Strip, in aggressions deemed by the international law as crimes against humanity.
US & Israel back to plot to carve-up region after ‘failure of ISIS project’ – Hezbollah leader
RT | October 1, 2017
The leader of the Lebanese based Hezbollah has said that Israel and its allies are worried over the imminent defeat of the Islamic State terrorist “project,” and are back on course to plunge the region into chaos by sowing division, starting with Iraqi Kurdistan.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned against the partitioning of Iraq in the wake of this week’s Kurdish independence referendum, arguing that its secession from Iraq will set off a chain reaction and lead to more endless wars in the region.
“It will open the door to partition, partition, partition,” Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah emphasized, according to Reuters. He added that “partition means taking the region to internal wars whose end and the time frame is known only to God.”
On Monday, the Iraqi Kurdistan region held a non-binding referendum, where some 3.45 million ballots were cast. Over 92 percent of those who voted opted in favor of independence, according to local authorities.
The Iraqi parliament condemned the vote and has imposed a number of trade and economic restrictions on the region. Neighboring Turkey, Iran and Syria also oppose the creation of an independent Kurdistan, mainly over concerns that it may spur separatist sentiment in their own Kurdish-populated areas.
On Saturday, the Hezbollah chief warned that the Kurds’ independence drive is a threat to the whole region. Nasrallah called the September 25 referendum a part of the US-Israeli plot to carve up the region, a policy, which according to Nasrallah, is driven by arms companies.
“We say to our beloved Kurds that the issue is not about deciding your fate, but about dividing the region according to sectarian and ethnic belonging,” the Hezbollah leader noted, according to Almanar news.
“After the failure of the ISIS project, it’s now back to the project of dividing up the region, first from the area of Kurdish Iraq,” he added, according to the Jerusalem Post.
The leader of the militant organization, designated as a terrorist group by Israel and the US, believes the threat of partitioning the region increases with the looming defeat of the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL terrorist group).
“Daesh is at its end. It is a matter of time in Iraq and Syria,” Nasrallah, whose Hezbollah forces are actively fighting ISIS in Syria said. “ISIL is incapable of regaining territory. The group is trying to exhaust the Syrian army in order to delay its end. However, this plan is ineffective because the decision to wipe out ISIL has been taken.”
At the same time, he called on all people of the region to confront any efforts to sow the seeds of division.
“The people of this region bear the responsibility of confronting this scheme of the division,” Nasrallah noted. “There should not be an ethnic bias between Arabs, Kurds or Iranians, the problem is not with Kurds, it’s political one.”
Most world powers have criticized Monday’s referendum. Moscow said it respects the desire of Kurds to have a national state but underlined that autonomy should be pursued only through peaceful dialogue and within a unified Iraqi state.
Washington, which has been reliant on Kurdish forces fighting against IS and other terrorist groups both in Iraq and Syria, has called on Iraq to maintain its territorial integrity.
“The United States does not recognize the Kurdistan Regional Government’s unilateral referendum held on Monday. The vote and the results lack legitimacy and we continue to support a united, federal, democratic and prosperous Iraq,” US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson said Friday.
President Aoun at UN: Lebanon Won’t Allow Naturalization of Any Refugee
Naharnet | September 21, 2017
The Lebanese President Michel Aoun stressed Thursday in his maiden speech before the UN General Assembly that Lebanon will not allow the naturalization of any Syrian or Palestinian refugee on its soil “no matter what that might cost.”
“The decision in this regard belongs to us and not to anyone else,” Aoun underlined.
Noting that the Syrian state is now in control of “85 percent of its territory,” the president emphasized that “there is an urgent need to organize the return of refugees to their country.”
“Some call for the refugees’ voluntary return and we call for their safe return and differentiate between the two concepts,” Aoun noted.
“The claim that they will not be safe should they return to their country is an unacceptable excuse… If the Syrian state is carrying out reconciliations with the armed groups that it is fighting, wouldn’t it be able to do so with refugees who had fled war?” the president asked.
He added: “The UN better help the refugees return home instead of helping them to stay in encampments that lack the least requirements of decent life.”
Separately and from the same UN podium, Aoun nominated Lebanon to become a “permanent, UN-affiliated center for dialogue among the various cultures, religions and races.”
“I hope the member states will back Lebanon in this demand, so that we can all work for peace, security and stability,” he added.
US President Donald Trump’s suggestion that refugees be resettled closer to home instead of brought to the United States has angered many in Lebanon, a tiny country hosting more than 1.5 million refugees.
The country of just 4 million is officially hosting more than 1 million Syrian refugees and some 500,000 Palestinians. The real numbers are likely higher as many don’t register with the UN.
On the 35th Anniversary of Sabra and Shatila: The Forgotten Refugees
By Dr. Swee Chai Ang | Arab America | September 13, 2017
This September will be the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Sabra-Shatila Massacre in West Beirut. Three thousand unarmed refugees were killed from 15-18 September 1982.
I was then a young orthopedic trainee who had resigned from St Thomas Hospital to join the Christian Aid Lebanon medical team to help those wounded by Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. That invasion, named “Peace for Galilee”, and launched on 6 June 1982, mercilessly bombarded Lebanon by air, sea, and land. Water, food, electricity, and medicines were blockaded. This resulted in untold wounded and deaths, with 100,000 made suddenly homeless.
I was summoned to the Palestine Red Crescent Society to take charge of the orthopedic department in Gaza Hospital in Sabra- Shatila Palestinian refugee camp, West Beirut. I met Palestinian refugees in their bombed out homes and learned how they became refugees in one of the 12 Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. Before this encounter, I had never heard of Palestinians.
They recounted stories of being driven out of their homes in Palestine in 1948, often fleeing massacres at gunpoint. They fled with whatever possessions they could carry and found themselves in neighboring Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
The United Nations put them in tents while the world promised they would return home soon. That expectation never materialized. Since then the 750,000 refugees, comprising half of the population of Palestine in 1948, continued to live in refugee camps in the neighboring countries. It was 69 years ago that this refugee crisis started. The initial 750,000 has since grown to 5 million. Palestine was erased from the map of the world and is now called Israel.
Soon after my arrival, the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) evacuated. It was the price demanded by Israel to stop the further relentless bombardment of Lebanon and to lift the ten-week military blockade. Fourteen thousand able-bodied men and women from the PLO evacuated with the guarantee by Western powers that their families left behind would be protected by a multinational peacekeeping force.
Those leaving were soldiers, civil servants, doctors, nurses, lecturers, unionists, journalists, engineers, and technicians. The PLO was the Palestinians’ government in exile and the largest employer. Through evacuation, fourteen thousand Palestinian families lost their breadwinner, often the father or the eldest brother, in addition to those killed by the bombs.
That ceasefire lasted only three weeks. The multinational peacekeeping force, entrusted by the ceasefire agreement to protect the civilians left behind, abruptly withdrew. On September 15, several hundred Israeli tanks drove into West Beirut. Some of them ringed and sealed off Sabra-Shatila to prevent the inhabitants from fleeing. The Israelis sent their allies; a group of Christian militiamen trained and armed by them, into the camp. When the tanks withdrew from the perimeter of the camp on the 18 September, they left behind 3,000 dead civilians. Another seventeen thousand were abducted and disappeared.
Our hospital team, who had worked non-stop for 72 hours, was ordered to leave our patients at machine-gun point and marched out of the camp. As I emerged from the basement operating theatre, I learned the painful truth. While we were struggling to save a few dozen lives, people were being butchered by the thousands. Some of the bodies were already rotting in the hot Beirut sun. The images of the massacre are deeply seared into my memory: dead and mutilated bodies lining the camp alleys.
Only a few days before, they were human beings full of hope and life, rebuilding their homes, talking to me, trusting that they would be left in peace to raise their young ones after the evacuation of the PLO. These were people who welcomed me into their broken homes. They served me Arabic coffee and whatever food they found; simple fare but given with warmth and generosity. They shared their lives with me. They showed me faded photographs of their homes and families in Palestine before 1948 and the large house keys they still kept with them. The women showed me their beautiful embroidery, each with motifs of the villages they left behind. Many of these villages were destroyed after they left.
Some of these people became patients we failed to save. Others died on arrival. They left behind orphans and widows. A wounded mother begged us to take down the hospital’s last unit of blood from her to give to her child. She died shortly afterward. Children witnessed their mothers and sisters being raped and killed.
The terrified faces of families rounded up by gunmen while awaiting death; the desperate young mother who tried to give me her baby to take to safety; the stench of decaying bodies as mass graves continued to be uncovered will never leave me. The piercing cries of women who discovered the remains of their loved ones from bits of clothes, refugee identity cards, as more bodies were found continue to haunt me.
The people of Sabra Shatila returned to live in those very homes where their families and neighbors were massacred. They are a courageous people and there was nowhere else to go. Afterwards, other refugee camps were also blockaded, attacked and more people were killed. Today, Palestinian refugees are denied work permits in 30 professions and 40 artisan trades outside their camps. They have no passports. They are prohibited from owning and inheriting property. Denied the right of return to their homes in Palestine, they are not only born refugees, they will also die refugees and so will their children.
But for me, painful questions need to be answered. Not why they died, but why were they massacred as refugees? After 69 years, has the world already forgotten? How can we allow a situation where a person’s only claim to humanity is a refugee identity card? These questions have haunted me and they have yet to receive answers.
Dr. Swee Chai Ang is a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon and founder of Medical Aid for Palestinians. She is the author of: “From Beirut to Jerusalem,” published by The Other Press.
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How Ukraine Tortured and Slaughtered Donbass
By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | July 11, 2024
Almost immediately after the proxy war erupted, ISIS-tier footage of the torture and murder of Russians in Ukrainian custody emerged.
On July 6th, the New York Times published an astonishing investigation: In Ukraine, Killings of Surrendering Russians Divide an American-Led Unit. The article documents in grim detail how Chosen Company, an international volunteer battalion for Kiev, routinely executes Russian prisoners of war. It is the very first mainstream admission that this practice – a brazen breach of the Geneva Conventions, and a grave war crime – is widespread among Ukraine’s fighters, both foreign and homegrown. … continue
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