NEW
WARS / OLD WARS –
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
'Iraq
syndrome' will limit new president's options
For
a generation, the so-called Vietnam syndrome kept the United States from
undertaking any large-scale foreign military operations. The mere suggestion
that a conflict could become "another Vietnam" was enough to galvanize public
opinion against the dispatch of U.S. troops to some far corner of the world. It
wasn't until the end of the 1991 Gulf War that President George H.W. Bush could
say, "By God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all!" Today, 25
years later, U.S. public opinion has turned against the Iraq war, which is
widely viewed as a "big, fat mistake," as Trump put it during the Feb. 13
Republican debate in North Carolina. Trump's criticism of the Iraq war puts him
at odds with the other Republican candidates, as well as the establishment wing
of the party. The split is just as pronounced in the Democratic race.
More
SAUDI
ARABIA’S UNHOLY WAR
Since
it began its war on the Houthis in March 2015, Saudi Arabia has justified its
intervention as a broader holy duty to fight Shia and protect the government in
exile. Yet Yemenis increasingly view Saudi intervention more as a campaign—in
which they are collateral—to upgrade Riyadh’s own influence and an ill-conceived
effort to promote Mohammed Bin Salman as a powerful future Saudi king. As such,
Yemenis fail to see any moral or legal justification for the U.S.-backed Saudi
war. What is evident to them is the deliberate destruction of people and
capital—all to no end, as the war has failed to accomplish Saudi Arabia’s goal
of weakening the Houthis. Instead, the airstrikes and blockade that form the
core of Saudi Arabia’s strategy have increased anti-Saudi hatred, driving
greater numbers of Yemenis to support the Houthis every day.
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US-Saudi
War Helping al-Qaida Flourish in Yemen
AQAP
[al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula] has gladly taken advantage of the Saudi-led
campaign’s almost exclusive focus on the Houthi-Saleh alliance. In April 2015 it
occupied Mukalla, Yemen’s fifth-largest city and the capital of Yemen’s largest
province, freeing prisoners and seizing cash and weapons. In December it
captured Zinzibar, the capital of Abyan province, and in late January, the
capital of Lahj province, Houta, also fell to the group. In February AQAP
occupied several more towns as it is now quickly reestablishing control over the
territory it held at its prior peak in 2011 and 2012. As busy as AQAP has been,
it still took the time to reaffirm in August 2015 that the United States remains
its top target. Much of the work to deny AQAP a safe haven in Yemen, flawed as
it was, has now been completely undone. More
We Are
Witnessing the Decline of Saudi Arabia as a Major Power
Just
as the Arab Spring provided the opportunity for the Saudis to intervene in
Libya, so too did it provide the Saudis with the pretext for regime change in
Syria and in other theaters where it fantasized about Iranian influence
(Bahrain, Yemen and Lebanon). The Saudi ambition was to erase Iran’s presence.
Five years later, the detritus of that policy is clear: Libya, Syria and Yemen
are destroyed, whereas Bahrain has been reduced to a prison of dreams… But much
of the Saudi dream, given encouragement by the United States, has now turned.
Syria and Yemen have been destroyed, but they remain standing. Iran has been
welcomed into the fraternity of nations, whether with the slow erasure of the
nuclear sanctions regime or integration into the Chinese and Russian networks.
Saudi Arabia’s oil civil war has served to bankrupt Saudi Arabia as much as its
adversaries. More
ENERGY
WARS OF ATTRITION
U.S.
and Canadian producers were adding millions of barrels a day in new production
to world markets at a time when global demand was incapable of absorbing so much
extra crude oil. An unexpected surge in Iraqi production added additional crude
to the growing glut. Meanwhile, economic malaise in China and Europe kept
global oil consumption from climbing at the heady pace of earlier years and so
the market became oversaturated with crude… Threatened by this new reality, the
Saudis and their allies faced a painful choice. Accounting for about 40% of
world oil output, the OPEC producers exercise substantial but not unlimited
power over the global marketplace. They could have chosen to rein in their own
production and so force prices up. There was, however, little likelihood of
non-OPEC producers like Brazil, Canada, Russia, and the United States following
suit, so any price increases would have benefitted the energy industries of
those countries most, while undoubtedly taking market share from OPEC. However
counterintuitive it might have seemed, the Saudis, unwilling to face such a
loss, decided to pump more oil. Their hope was that a steep decline
in prices would drive some of their rivals, especially American oil frackers
with their far higher production expenses, out of business.
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Iran
Deal Opponents Keep Trying. . .
Leading
Democrats and Republicans join forces on Iran sanctions
Senate
Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and ranking member Ben
Cardin (D-Md.) are preparing legislation to slap additional sanctions on Iran in
response to a recent spate of ballistic missile launches. While the tests do not
themselves violate the Iranian nuclear deal that took effect in January,
officials believe they fly in the face of other international prohibitions and
weaken the spirit of compliance needed to sustain the nuclear pact… If the
Senate can produce a package of sanctions, it stands a good chance of getting an
audience in the House, where Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) said Tuesday that
Congress would “continue to press for new sanctions against Tehran” in light of
the most recent ballistic missile tests. More
Iran's
latest missile test launches do not violate nuclear deal, U.S.
says
The
Obama administration labeled the missile launches provocative, but said the
firings did not violate the terms of last year’s nuclear deal between Iran and
world powers, including the United States… Biden told reporters in Jerusalem
that U.S. officials were closely watching Iran’s “conventional activity outside
the [nuclear] deal.” He repeated U.S. vows to take action should Tehran be found
to be violating the terms of the nuclear pact… The high-profile tests, analysts
said, have a dual purpose: to demonstrate Iran’s missile capabilities to outside
adversaries — including Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United States — while
reassuring a domestic constituency that the nation’s military might remains
robust, despite the nuclear pact, at a moment of high regional tension.
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Your
Tax Dollars Are Enabling Police Brutality in Egypt
Ever
since the Black Lives Matter movement exploded into the headlines, violence by
American police officers has come under fire from activists and ordinary
citizens alike. Less discussed, however, is how the U.S. government winks at the
police brutality of its client states abroad. The military government in Egypt,
for example, is cracking down hard on its restive citizenry — harder than any
time in memory. And the United States, which sends the country over a $1 billion
a year in security aid, is looking the other way. The cops on the beat in
Egyptian cities are a menace. They demand bribes from motorists on any pretense
and mete out lethal violence on a whim. On February 18, a Cairo policeman shot 24-year-old Muhammad Sayed in the head because the youth
asked him for a few extra dollars to do the cop a favor. The policeman is facing
murder charges. But, as in the United States, it’s common for Egyptian courts to
acquit officers or send them away with a slap on the wrist. Beatings and other
abuses are rampant at the country’s police stations. More
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