Rolling MENA 2014 (Middle East)

nb not saying what's at issue here involves choice between us & russia!
it's def postcoldwar world

& these u.s. alliances are v deeply-entrenched (imo israel's is like bedrock, despite iran deal)

but (for good and/or ill) u.s. has signalled willingness to withdraw somewhat from region; russia willingness to engage

i was just thinking yesterday that the US spent way too much to pull saudis + israel into US orbit to just jettison them to Putin.

that's of concern; one reason why iran deal (even if one deems it necessary/good) was, inescapably, gamble

It's pretty funny though, that the Saudi's praised Putin for standing by his allies, and immediately Israel get Russia to allow for them to bomb one of Russias allies. Heh.

Also, Iran deal is gamble, indisputably, but so would no Iran deal have been.

that is true

kinda feel like loyalty is more important to US-ally relationships bc so much of what US offers is protective umbrella, so if you're going to fail to make military moves (ie europe greatly decreasing military budget, ukraine giving up nukes, israel not bombing iranian reactors) you need to trust that the US is going to have yr back. has anyone discussed japan's new military decision in light of worldwide skepticism of the US's willingness to project power on their behalf? by contrast does anyone really /trust/ putin or are his relationships a lot more cynical realpolitik?

I dont know if Japan's decision is based as much on the US' willingness to intervene as much as it is part of Abe's nationalist platform?

I also dont know how the GOP is supposed to think about israel and putin sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g..

xp otm imo
hmm re japan-- imo, plausible
& re putin, i sure don't know

for sure it's bc of abe's platform but i guess i meant in a more general sense in terms of the political power of a militaristic right-wing to pass such a huge legal change. fwiw i just saw that the nyt seems to think so:

Japan has accepted American protection for ever since the end of the United States’ occupation, and today there are more than 40,000 United States military personnel stationed in the country. Yet the arrangement has come at the cost of Japanese independence, many here believe. The trade-off has taken on new significance now that Japan could be asked to risk the lives of its own soldiers and sailors for the United States in return.

“Japan is caught between fear of entanglement and fear of abandonment,” said Tsuneo Watanabe, a senior fellow at the Tokyo Foundation, a policy research group. “It’s partly about public distrust of Japan’s own government. People think Japanese leaders are too weak to say no to the U.S.”

Mr. Abe argues that Japan needs to play a more active role in the alliance in order to strengthen it against threats like the growing military power of China and a nuclear-armed North Korea. His legislation has won support from United States policy makers, who have welcomed a larger role for Tokyo in regional security at a time when American resources are increasingly stretched.

GOP probably thinks bibi talking to putin is pragmatic - for one they love bibi they'd forgive him anything, two i think they kinda secretly admire putin, and three i mean like israel plans to bomb syria weapon transfers to hezbollah i think even GOP thinks they should make sure they don't start ww3 by accidentally cratering a russian general.

Another few things worth remembering while wondering about all the complications and alliances and macro-strategies: Keeping weapons away from Hezbollah and Hamas is indisputably a good thing, and Russia agreeing to help with that, even though their ally Syria is helping arming those terrorists, is simply a good thing. And actually, Russia gaining closer ties to Israel and Saudi Arabia might not be too much of a bad thing either. The US has done business with some pretty bad dictators as well (our sunni allies, for example), and Russia's consistent support to Syria has been linked to a lack of other strategic options in the middle east.

^agree

https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/21/moscow-relishes-revamped-role-in-mideast-as-israel-seeks-assurances-in-syria/

considering that russia is the primary arms supplier of the syrian govt to what extent should we read the current influx of the russian military apparatus as putin airdropping sales reps? maybe that's why they don't care about israel bombing govt weapon transfers - it's good for business.

The Russian soldiers in Syria overtly are specifically sales support. There was speculation at one point that Russia would stop training the Syrian army and servicing its weapons but that hasn't been the case. Unless there's something more solid over the last few days, the 'influx' of Russian military apparatus claimed by the US amounts to 6 tanks. They took 1800 into Afghanistan in 1979. Other than that, it has been reported 'sightings of trucks' coming from the Syrian opposition. It looks like the air base might be happening and they will deploy soldiers to man and defend it but there still hasn't been a single credible claim of Russian ground troops fighting alongside Assad's. It might happen in the future but it doesn't seem to be happening now.

Part of the justification for air support might well be that Russia feels it needs to do something to show backing for Assad but doesn't want to commit ground troops who'd immediately become a high-priority target for ISIS.

Putin agreed that Syria had provided apparatus to Hezbollah in the past but claimed they were much too occupied with other things to bother doing it at the moment. He also specifically denied that they were providing Russian-made missiles so it's worth seeing the agreement with Netanyahu in that context. Russia can't assent to Israel bombing transfers it claims it has nothing to do with.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/with-fight-against-the-islamic-state-in-iraq-stalled-us-looks-to-syria-for-gains/2015/09/21/0c473098-607e-11e5-9757-e49273f05f65_story.html

With the offensive to reclaim territory from the Islamic State largely stalled in Iraq, the Obama administration is laying plans for a more aggressive military campaign in Syria, where U.S.-backed Kurdish forces have made surprising gains in recent months.

"relaxing vetting standards" sounds interesting.

always a great time to be a war profiteer, dang

Hezbollah militants fighting alongside Syrian troops say they plan to shift to a defensive posture after helping President Bashar Assad win back a key border town, Lebanese media reported Tuesday.

Officials from the Lebanon-based Islamist organization informed Damascus that they would no longer help Assad with offensives against rebel groups, according to the Beirut-based Daily Star.

Aha, things are moving along.

We're really bad at this:

Second Batch of 75 US Trained Fighters Immediately Defect And Hand Weapons Over To Al-Qaeda Upon Entering Syria

Couldn't make it up etc

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/09/pilgrims-killed-hajj-stampede-mina-mecca-150924082302232.html

So Jeb Bush tweeted out some sympathy for the victims of the horrendous tragedy among Hajj pilgrims in Saudi Arabia yesterday:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2015_09/not_praying_for_the_guilty_one057787.php

Praying for the hundreds of innocent Muslims who suffered a tragic death in the stampede in Mecca during the Hajj pilgrimage.
— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) September 24, 2015
Brian Beutler supplies the appropriate commentary:

Even here "Muslims" needs a qualifier https://t.co/vtHXbFdWVA
— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) September 25, 2015

meh. so all the times i refer to 'innocent civilians' i'm secretly alluding to all the non-innocent civilians? i think it's just an adjective designed to accentuate the injustice / tragedy of the event.

Could be

well we all know the idiom 'innocent victims' is meant to malign all those guilty victims

Given that this was accident, I'm not sure why you would be talking about 'innocent victims' anyway. I think? I haven't heard the term used in any news reports over here.

this is overdeterminate in that there are other reasons for writing 'innocent x's' eg not being able to write properly, even so when x is 'muslim' rather than such other classic innocents as 'women and children', the less salubrious inference is reasonable

fair, just think it's a mistake to respond to the mainstream republican candidate for president expressing sympathy for muslim victims by pointing out a speculative unsympathetic reading.

if u look at the wingnut response they don't seem relieved that jeb! insinuated that most muslims are not innocent. they're angry that he expressed any sympathy whatsoever

sympathy or lack thereof has nothing to do with it, specifying an aspect of the victims that is not a directly indicative (innocent pilgrims, innocent cinemagoers) is atypical and probably not arbitrary

This doesn't seem particularly well sourced but it looks like Russia, Iran, Syria and Iraq are setting up a joint information centre in Baghdad to coordinate attacks on ISIS. Russia, Syria and Iran working together is no surprise but Iraq participating is interesting.

http://www.rt.com/news/316592-russia-syria-islamic-state/

if iraq = al-abadi govt that's not too surprising

interesting
a russia-led coalition

https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/25/russias-game-plan-in-syria-is-simple-putin-assad/

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/NewsReports/565949-pro-hezbollah-daily-says-party-in-syria-pact-with-russia

BEIRUT – A leading pro-Hezbollah daily claimed on Tuesday that the party has joined a new counter-terror alliance with Moscow and that Russia will take part in military operations alongside the Syrian army and Hezbollah.

Al-Akhbar’s editor-in-chief Ibrahim al-Amin wrote that secret talks between Russia, Iran, Syria and Iraq had resulted in the birth of the new alliance, which he described as “the most important in the region and the world for many years.”

“The agreement to form the alliance includes administrative mechanisms for cooperation on [the issues of] politics and intelligence and [for] military [cooperation] on the battlefield in several parts of the Middle East, primarily in Syria and Iraq,” the commentator said, citing well-informed sources.

“The parties to the alliance are the states of Russia, Iran, Syria and Iraq, with Lebanon’s Hezbollah as the fifth party,” he also said, adding that the joint-force would be called the “4+1 alliance” – a play on words referring to the P5+1 world powers that negotiated a nuclear deal with Iran.

“The Russians have also set up a coordination process with Kurdish forces and parties,” the article said.

“A Russian military delegate paid a secret visit to a number of Kurdish military commanders in Hasakeh and inspected areas of confrontation between the YPG and the armed groups.”

I'm still confused, but apparantly Russia saw what America has done over the last decade+ in MENA, and decided the proper cause of action was to commit troops to fight a sunni uprising? How well do we think that will work out?

Also, do we think Bibi was informed that Hezbollah would be a partner in what Russia would do in Syria? Because that doesn't seem all that smart to me. They've railed and railed against US having anything to do with the shia-alliances, and now they support Russia allying themselves with them?

This whole chess game takes place in way too many dimensions to me, right now.

if they can get iraq/syria back to the level of security/stability it had in 2009 before gwb left office it'll be a huge fp coup for putin i'd think worldwide and i assume they'll have more of a stomach for the ugly stuff than the US does

Well, sure, but do we actually believe that can be done? The former dictatorship in Russia lost power to a large extent getting caught in a quagmire in the area, so, y'know. And they're intervening on the part of the alawites, most refugees in Europe are sunni (right??) so a Russian victory would mean they wouldn't want to go home.

There is still no indication that Russia is committing troops. They might be providing air support but that's very different to the 115k soldiers in Afghanistan.

One way or another, Sunnis are going to have to have a role in government. Even with support from outside, Alawites have never been able to run Syria without them.

Putin's gonna explain it all to Obama in NY at their meeting...

I guess they did not work it all out...

http://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/politics/2015/10/1/the-stakes-are-high-for-russias-gamble-in-syria

Lots of completely unsourced speculation masquerading as fact on all sides atm. Unsurprising to see it coming from Qatar's version of Russia Today.

It certainly looks like Russia has hit several ISIS positions but they seem to also be going after al-Nusra Front, which is where it gets messy. Al-Nusra (effectively Al Qaeda in Syria) is aligned with the Jaish al-Fatah umbrella group. Jaish al-Fatah seems to have coordinated a lot of activity with rebel groups on decent terms with the U.S. and probably contains a fair few CIA trained fighters who switched from more palatable organisations. Throw in the fact that it's not clear who is bombing what and it is horribly complicated. Lavrov claims that Russia isn't bombing the core FSA and doesn't see an end to the conflict without bringing them in, but there is always the danger with any air strikes that it unites opposition behind more radical banners.

Iraq chipped in to say they'd rather like Russia to start bombing there too, earlier today...

which ISIS positions has Russia bombed? lol vox says nope: http://www.vox.com/2015/9/30/9423229/russia-bombing-isis-syria tbh i don't know why they would - assad has also mostly left ISIS alone

i'm sure putin came to the same calculation that assad did. for the time being they're an asset in fighting the rest of the syrian rebellion and they pose no risk to seriously challenging assad's international legitimacy as sole sovereign in syria

another cute map here: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/09/30/world/middleeast/syria-control-map-isis-rebels-airstrikes.html?_r=0

Loathe as I am to question the veracity of Vox, Russia has supposedly hit positions in Palmyra, which is ISIS controlled, but more broadly, the idea that there is a clearly delineated "ISIS territory" isn't necessarily true, particularly in Homs province. There is a lack of clarity over which sites are being hit and who holds what.

afaik only acc to Russia which hopefully we can all agree has earned some skepticism