A View From The Left-NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

 

US “Democracy promotion” in the Middle East. . .

I subscribe to a service of the US State Department which emails statements and reports regarding US relations in the Middle East.  On Tuesday I got six notices in quick succession entitled U.S. Security Cooperation With Oman, U.S. Security Cooperation With the United Arab Emirates, …Saudi Arabia, …Bahrain, …Kuwait, …Qatar, detailing arms sales, basing rights, joint military exercises and training worth many tens of $billions.  Question: Which one of these countries is ruled by an intolerant, autocratic regime? Answer: all of the above.

 

SYRIA’S CESSATION OF HOSTILITIES: How Does It Work and How are Factions Reacting?

At midnight on February 27, the guns fell silent in Syria—at least temporarily. With numerous allegations of breaches beginning to surface, Syria’s ceasefire is already on shaky ground. This cessation of hostilities, as it is formally called, followed two weeks of intensive negotiations between the United States and Russia. Just before the clock struck twelve, their efforts reached fruition when the UN Security Council unanimously approved resolution 2268, endorsing a Russian-American agreement from February 22 and demanding that Syrian and international actors comply… Groups listed as terrorists by the UN Security Council were automatically excluded. They include the self-proclaimed Islamic State, the al-Qaeda-aligned Nusra Front, and a few other small organizations and individuals on the jihadi fringes of Syria’s Sunni insurgency…  War against the Islamic State is not necessarily disruptive for the rest of Syria, as its territory is fairly well delineated from other factions and it has no allies who could take offense.  The Nusra Front, however, is another matter entirely. It is deeply embedded within the Sunni Islamist landscape, particularly in northern Syria. Russian, Syrian, and American airstrikes that target the group often end up hitting other factions as well, not to mention civilians. These attacks always meet with howls of protest from the broader opposition, often including factions backed by the United States.   More

 

Building on the Syrian Truce

The best feasible outcomes for Syria in the foreseeable future, alongside continued armed opposition to extremist groups and especially ISIS, would have the nature of a frozen conflict. Frozen conflicts are unsatisfying and offensive to the principles of national unity and territorial integrity, but they sometimes are better than the available alternatives. They can lead to enough long-term stability to get a conflict out of the headlines and off policy-makers' front burner… The main underlying principle in addressing the Syrian problem and trying to nurse a fragile truce into being something a little less fragile is that it is the war itself, far more than any particular internal political outcome or distribution of power, that has made Syria a problem for international security, with threats of spreading regional instability and far-flung violent extremism.   More

 

GARETH PORTER: 'Plan B' and the Bankruptcy of US Syria Policy

US Secretary of State John Kerry provoked widespread speculation when he referred in testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee last week to “significant discussions” within US President Barack Obama’s administration about a “Plan B” in Syria. The speculation was further stoked by a “senior official” who told CBS News that options under consideration included “‘military-like’ measures that would make it harder for the regime and its allies to continue their assault on civilians and US-backed rebels.” …”. In other words, the administration’s national security policymakers believe something more should be done in Syria, but they are not at all clear what could be done now. The official said three options were under discussion, none of which is even close to being realistic in the present situation: an increase in US Special Forces on the ground, an increase in arms assistance to fighters opposing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and a no-fly zone.    More

 

US Protecting al-Qaeda

In UN Security Council Resolution 2254, in which it was articulated that member states be committed to the “sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic,” while calling on them to suppress ISIS, al-Nusra, and “all other individuals, groups, undertakings, and entities associated with Al Qaeda or ISIL”, it was also agreed upon that the Security Council “expresses its support for a nationwide ceasefire in Syria.”  …Yet when push came to shove the main stumbling-block in the way of the CoH [Cessation-of-Hostilities] was the oppositions demand that any truce be “conditional on the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front no longer being targeted.”  Sources close to the talks would tell Reuters that this insistence was the main “elephant in the room” preventing a settlement… “The West does not actually hand the weapons to al-Qaeda, let alone ISIS,” he said, “but the system that they have constructed leads precisely to that end.  The weapons conduit that the West directly has been giving to groups such as the Syrian Free Army (FSA), have been understood to be a sort of ‘Wal Mart’ from which the more radical groups would be able to take their weapons and pursue the jihad.”    More

 

Turkey, Kurds, and the US

There is no question that tensions between Turkey and the US have increased substantially as a result of differences over to what degree the US is supporting the Syrian Kurdish nationalist Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed affiliate, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which are the strongest political and most effective forces fighting the Islamic State (IS) and some of its affiliated groups in Syria. The PYD/YPG are also the strongest entities among the 14 competing Kurdish nationalist organizations in Syria… When Turkey and the US came to an agreement in July 2014 that allowed the US and NATO air forces to use the ?ncirlik Air Base, enabling these forces to more effectively attack IS, it seemed to patch up differences between Ankara and Washington regarding Turkey’s low-profile strategy against IS. But as it turned out, Ankara interpreted the agreement as a license to attack PKK bases in northern Iraq as well as within Turkey.   More

 

US Counterterror Strategy in Yemen Has Crashed and Burned

As they faced off with al-Qaeda in Yemen, US Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama publicly praised the commitment of their counterparts, Yemeni Presidents Ali Abdullah Saleh and Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, to combat terrorism. But in reality Yemen’s government appears to have privately colluded with Islamist militants, allowing major prison breaks of al-Qaeda operatives in both 2006 and 2014… The US used airstrikes to attack al-Qaeda in Yemen without deploying significant ground forces. Some al-Qaeda operatives have been killed under the program, but targeted killings ultimately generated huge resentment and fed support for anti-Western militants. Local media have described drone attacks as massacres, and jihadi online fora have been filled with pictures of victims’ bodies. Al-Qaeda leaders have grieved with victims’ families and accused the US of waging war against all Muslims.   More

 

What the New York Times won’t tell you about the American adventure in Ukraine

Ukraine has gone from political crisis to armed conflict to humanitarian crisis with no break in the regress since the American-cultivated coup in February 2014. But for many months now we have had before us a textbook example of what I call the Power of Leaving Out. The most daring attempt at “regime change” since righteous Clintonians invented this self-deceiving euphemism in the 1990s has come to six-figure casualties, mass deprivation,  a divided nation and a wrecked economy. If you abide within the policy cliques or the corporate-owned media, it is best to go quiet as long as you can in the face of such eventualities.  The short of it, readers, is that all three chickens now take up their roosts at once: The Poroshenko government is on the brink of collapse, neo-Nazi extremists have forced it to renew hostilities in the east and there is no letup in the blockade Kiev imposes on rebelling regions. The last differs from a punitive starvation strategy only in degree.  The very short of it is that the more or less complete failure of Washington’s most adventurous assertion of power in the post-Cold War period can no longer be papered over.   More