Q: are we not MENA? A: we are the rolling middle east, north africa and other geopolitical hot spots thread 2016!

Partition is the worst solution except for all the other ones.

well yeah. Iran would basically annex as much shi'ite dominated territory as it could, Turks would immediately declare open war on Kurdistan, Sunnis left weak and beleaguered, a broken nation

or something like that

Iran isn't interested in annexing lower Mesopotamia. Different cultures/languages and Iran has enough domestic problems already. But they would like a proxy/buffer state between them and the Gulf state Arabs who are constantly threatening to bomb them. The best case scenario for Iran is basically the current one: a fractious, weakened nation next-door, politically dominated by their proxies. An independent Kurdistan would be a thorn given their own Kurd population. And Iran is certainly least objectionable neighbor for autonomous but not independent Kurds.

Iran's indirect approach has worked remarkably well for the past 15 years, even their allies who have been torn asunder owe them more loyalty/favors than ever before. When the Sauds realize bombing won't change the humanitarian crisis of Yemen, and Bahrain collapses, Iran's influence in a bad neighborhood will be further strengthened.

erdogan and barzani are pals now there's no way turkey would invade atm

this eli lake article gave me a grim chuckle:

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-05-04/can-a-demagogue-help-save-iraq-s-democracy

it's a p good rundown of events *afaict, but lake's framing (on twitter) was like "this man has killed americans, can he save iraqi democracy?" idk buddy is killing americans all that unpopular generally?

also shows that the relationship between the iranian gov't and iraqi shiites isn't so simple i guess

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/magazine/the-aspiring-novelist-who-became-obamas-foreign-policy-guru.html?_r=0

Big NY Times mag story on Obama advisor Ben Rhodes, the 38 year-old deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, ...He is, according to the consensus of the two dozen current and former White House insiders I talked to, the single most influential voice shaping American foreign policy aside from Potus himself.

What has interested me most about watching him and his cohort in the White House over the past seven years, I tell him, is the evolution of their ability to get comfortable with tragedy. I am thinking specifically about Syria, I add, where more than 450,000 people have been slaughtered.

“Yeah, I admit very much to that reality,” he says. “There’s a numbing element to Syria in particular. But I will tell you this,” he continues. “I profoundly do not believe that the United States could make things better in Syria by being there. And we have an evidentiary record of what happens when we’re there — nearly a decade in Iraq.”

Iraq is his one-word answer to any and all criticism. I was against the Iraq war from the beginning, I tell Rhodes, so I understand why he perpetually returns to it. I also understand why Obama pulled the plug on America’s engagement with the Middle East, I say, but it was also true as a result that more people are dying there on his watch than died during the Bush presidency, even if very few of them are Americans. What I don’t understand is why, if America is getting out of the Middle East, we are apparently spending so much time and energy trying to strong-arm Syrian rebels into surrendering to the dictator who murdered their families, or why it is so important for Iran to maintain its supply lines to Hezbollah. He mutters something about John Kerry, and then goes off the record, to suggest, in effect, that the world of the Sunni Arabs that the American establishment built has collapsed. The buck stops with the establishment, not with Obama, who was left to clean up their mess.

the clearest mandate obama had was no more foreign entanglements, no more interventions, no more wars. it's hard to fault him for following said mandate even if rhodes is wrong and we could've prevented some of the syrian catastrophe.

it was also true as a result that more people are dying there on his watch than died during the Bush presidency, even if very few of them are Americans.

eeehh I dunno about this, laying that at Obama's feet doesn't seem particularly accurate or helpful

maybe more people are dying in syria but its not because of direct us intervention, like what happened with the 400k+ civilian deaths post iraq war 2.

well his position hinges on the assumption that *less* people would have died if the US had intervened and frankly our track record in the middle east doesn't really support that imo

Rhodes singled out a key example to me one day, laced with the brutal contempt that is a hallmark of his private utterances. “All these newspapers used to have foreign bureaus,” he said. “Now they don’t. They call us to explain to them what’s happening in Moscow and Cairo. Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”

He had also developed a healthy contempt for the American foreign-policy establishment, including editors and reporters at The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker and elsewhere, who at first applauded the Iraq war and then sought to pin all the blame on Bush and his merry band of neocons when it quickly turned sour. If anything, that anger has grown fiercer during Rhodes’s time in the White House. He referred to the American foreign-policy establishment as the Blob. According to Rhodes, the Blob includes Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates and other Iraq-war promoters from both parties who now whine incessantly about the collapse of the American security order in Europe and the Middle East.

But has his contempt succeeded, other than keeping thousands of American ground troops out of Syria? Or is that enough. Also, the new response I am seeing to his "Iraq failed", is but the Balkans was a success, how about looking at that too...

I don't remember or know enough about the Balkans to decide whether that response has any merit, or if its mixing apples and oranges ...

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/05/let-us-now-psychoanalyze-young-ben-rhodes

Kevin Drum defends Rhodes against critics who say he was arrogantly boasting about conning reporters.

I think Drum's characterization of Lozada's response is overly dismissive. The piece is gross and Samuels is an asshole, pandering to his subject the whole way through while he laughs at Rhodes' disdain for his colleagues. Rhodes has apparently been having to live a lot of this down over the phone since the piece came out.

Rhodes is about to become Another Former Speechwriter so he gets to try to make it up to anybody he respects or cares about with his inevitable book. Samuels OTOH sounds like he's just a bit of good timing away from being nearly another Judith Miller himself.

Also, the new response I am seeing to his "Iraq failed", is but the Balkans was a success, how about looking at that too...

I don't remember or know enough about the Balkans to decide whether that response has any merit, or if its mixing apples and oranges ...

The Republic of Kosovo has always been considered a puppet state by its own people and is effectively ruled by the construction mafia today, resulting in fascinating zoning issues in Pristina iirc.

Kosovo will probably be absorbed into Greater Albania at some point. As far as i can tell, Kosovo was set to be the UN's most expensive mission ten years ago and is still draining money now, to the extent that it's seen as a racket by a lot of Kosovars. There's not a huge amount of point in having highly paid and lavishly accommodated UN workers or soldier there, particularly as they're turning a blind eye to corruption, but it's too lucrative for them to withdraw. This is all slightly tangential to the main thrust of the thread but calling the Balkans a success ignores how badly post-war governance structures were set up in Kosovo and Bosnia.

don't quite follow that last post; if UN/EU/other foreign officials are haemorrhaging money then surely they would want to withdraw, and however much money local elites might be making out of it, surely they don't have much of a say in how long those programs continue?

That assumes the UN cares about how much it is spending there. The perception, correct or otherwise, is that it is a cushy number for so many people they find ways to string it out indefinitely.

I didn't think the parameters and length of the UN mission in Kosovo was ultimately determined by those on the ground. my impression was that although very much a mixed bag, that some of the more successful institutions have been ones shaped by the UN, with a big emphasis on meritocratic recruitment and striving towards the ideal of a weberian impersonal bureaucracy, which compared favourably to less coordinated efforts from the EU or the UK. there wasn't really a precedent for the sort of top down creation of political institutions and shift in political culture attempted in Kosovo, so it's hard to know what the reasonable expectations are that we can judge the international efforts against

Idk, the feedback that I get from the NGOs I work with is that KFOR is still there in large numbers to give NATO soldiers something to do and the bulk of the UN mission has turned into a self-perpetuating bureaucracy that focuses more time on justifying its presence than monitoring the implantation of strong governing structures. The direct investment with strong oversight of spending that Germany has been doing is much more warmly welcomed. The government is still a complete mess and, though it hasn't traditionally been welcomed internationally, there seems to be an internal push to resolve some of the structural issues with a much closer economic, political and cultural union with Albania, which they should arguably have been encouraged to do much earlier.

Structurally, Bosnia is even worse though, and probably a textbook example of how not to set up a government.

I do wonder how long the UN was envisaging they would be involved for when they signed onto this, pushing 20 years doesn't make this case much of a model for future situations

US export rules that rely on weapon reliability standards have not prevented the sale of cluster munitions to Saudi Arabia, putting civilians at long-term risk, Human Rights Watch said. Cluster munitions are prohibited by a 2008 treaty signed by 119 countries, though not Saudi Arabia, Yemen, or the US.

“The US has sold Saudi Arabia cluster munitions, a weapon most countries have rejected due to the harm they cause civilians,” said Steve Goose, arms director at Human Rights Watch and chair of the Cluster Munition Coalition, the international coalition of groups working to eradicate cluster munitions. “Saudi Arabia should stop using cluster munitions in Yemen or anywhere else, and the US should stop producing and exporting them.”

http://www.juancole.com/2016/05/saudis-cluster-munitions.html

map porn here:
http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/the-map-that-changed-the-middle-east-1916/

lots of good skeptical questions about how a iraq partition would work:
http://warontherocks.com/2016/05/partitioning-iraq-make-a-detailed-case-or-cease-and-desist/

Did rebels kill longtime Hezbollah military leader in Syria or did the Israelis?

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-hezbollah-blast-idUSKCN0Y506R

Hezbollah said on Saturday its top military commander, whose death it announced on Friday, was killed in Syria by Sunni Islamist artillery fire and not by an Israeli air strike as one member of the Lebanese Shi'ite movement had said.

"Investigations have showed that the explosion, which targeted one of our bases near Damascus International Airport, and which led to the martyrdom of commander Mustafa Badreddine, was the result of artillery bombardment carried out by takfiri (hardline Sunni) groups in the area," Hezbollah said in a statement.

versus this

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2016/05/15/Killing-of-Hezbollah-s-Badreddine-points-to-open-score-settling-in-Syria-.html

x-post-- yep, some good questions raised in the post re Iraq

yeah it's weird bc when i first heard about badreddine's death all the context i heard suggested that it was KIA in the course of ground battles. but then i started hearing ppl speculating all over the place that no actually the israelis did it. but i didn't see any evidence to that effect and i wonder if it's more just that any time a hezbollah commander dies ppl just immediately assume israel did it absent any good reason.

There is a hypothesis circulating that it was Israel but Hezbollah won't admit it because they are too preoccupied to retaliate at the moment but I don't think anyone is likely to find out soon.

Al Arabiya should be taken with a massive pinch of salt on Syria and Iran.

but is there any actual reason to believe israel did it besides the fact that he was a hezbollah commander and israel has assassinated hezbollah commanders before? bc he was operating in a warzone so occum's razor might suggest that?

My first thought was, lol this lot blame Israel for everything.

The Syrian Observatory (another huge pinch of salt) claims there was no shelling in the area and there is no obvious reason why it would be an inside job so an air strike is plausible, though clearly not proven.

Kerry trying to salvage Syria truce and peace settlement negotiations

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/05/world-powers-gather-vienna-resume-syria-talks-160517081357389.html

While in Iraq, jihadists set off bombs

http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2016-05-17/three-bombs-kill-at-least-63-people-in-iraq

From the interesting piece Mordy linked upthread:

<q>Why is it time to give up on the idea of an Iraqi state, and why do Westerners get to foist weak ethno-sectarian federalism or dissolution upon them? Iraq’s difficult experiment with democracy — thrust upon them by the United States and its allies — has been running for about 13 years. Iraqi democracy is in its infancy. While the violence there is terrible, why is now the time to give up and try something new? Why not three years, five years, or perhaps 10 years from now?</q>

While this is a valid question, it should pose more as a mirror to the West, instead of troubling 'Iraq' with this. Good luck telling the Kurds in Iraq threat the West is done tinkering about for a while and will let things be as be for ten years...
Iraqi-Kurdistan is closer than ever to establishing their own state. The Barzani's, in control, have moderately close and ok relations with both Turkey and Baghdad. The former heavily investing in the region, and seeing Iraqi-Kurdistan in a very different light as Eastern Kurdistan (the Kurds in Turkey. Diyarbakir etc). The latter, Baghdad, is failing to support the Kurds and Peshmerga in the North on a daily basis.
Giving the Kurds their own state isn't "giving up". For them, this isn't the time for the west to say: let's take a break and see how democracy in Iraq evolves. They are on the brink of finally having their own state (which in theory they already have, being the autonomous region they are).

Regardless, the Kurds in Iraq will call their own autonomy anyway, probably very soon, through the long-awaited referendum. Neither the West nor Turkey, nor Iran, would oppose. Which is quite unique in and of itself.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/magazine/doctors-with-enemies-did-afghan-forces-target-the-msf-hospital.html

it's a long piece but here's a particularly dramatic part:

In 2011, M.S.F. opened the hospital in Kunduz, a location it chose because it believed, presciently, that the province’s bloody past presaged a violent future. But some members of the Afghan government and security forces there had little respect for M.S.F.’s neutrality and resented its treatment of wounded Taliban. When I visited Kunduz in November, their anger was still surprisingly raw, despite the recent destruction of the hospital. “They give them medicine; they transport and treat their injured,” Gard, the commander of the quick-­reaction force, told me. “Their existence is a big problem for us.” And though the hospital treated many more wounded for the government, there were rumors that M.S.F. had carried out unnecessary amputations on them, according to Fawzia Yaftali, a member of the provincial council. “The general perception was that M.S.F. supported the Taliban,” she said.

On July 1, an episode occurred that should have been, in retrospect, a warning sign for all involved. A team of Afghan police commandos from elite units mentored by United States and NATO special forces — the 222 and 333 Battalions, which were later part of the Afghan forces sent to Kunduz with the Green Berets — had arrived in Kunduz Province to track a high-­value target, a militant commander named Abu Huzaifa. After targeting Huzaifa in an airstrike, the commandos believed that he had been wounded and taken to the M.S.F. hospital in Kunduz City. They drove there and forced their way inside, where they physically assaulted the staff members and fired their weapons into the air, according to M.S.F. Huzaifa was nowhere to be found.

“It was a kind of wild intrusion,” Molinie said. After M.S.F. phoned the governor and the police chief, the commandos were called off. Furious that the sanctity of the hospital had been violated, M.S.F. closed it to new admissions for five days, until officials received guarantees from Kabul that it would be respected. Huzaifa would be killed seven weeks later — by an American drone, according to a senior Afghan special forces commander — but bitterness about the hospital raid lingered among the Kunduz security forces. “They hid him,” Gard told me, without offering any evidence. His men had accompanied the police commandos to the hospital. “The people who work there are traitors, all of them.”

apparently lieberman joining the Bibi coalition - word is that Odeh will become head of opposition?

ok apparently odeh was only going to become opposition head if bougie joined the coalition which i guess w/ lieberman now is not gonna happen. too bad - that would've been an interesting change of pace.

Oh, Avigdor Lieberman.

SO Bibi went to the right rather than center-left.

It had appeared for the past several days that a course had been set for Isaac Herzog's center-left Zionist Union party, which has 24 lawmakers, to agree on an alliance with Netanyahu's right-wing Likud.

But in a surprise move, Lieberman, who heads the far-right Yisrael Beitenu party and previously served as foreign minister, convened a news conference on Wednesday to say he was ready to negotiate a pact with Netanyahu.

Lieberman, whose party has six Knesset seats, demanded the defense portfolio as well as new legislation that would impose capital punishment on Palestinians carrying out fatal attacks.

...

Lieberman, who twice served as foreign minister in previous Netanyahu-led governments and has had testy relationship with the prime minister, has drawn headlines by repeatedly questioning the loyalty of Israel's Arab minority.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-government-idUSKCN0Y91S7

Laying out the welcome mat, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked of Jewish Home, said: "Avigdor Lieberman is part of the nationalist camp, and I think the coalition, together with him, with 67 legislators will hold together until 2019," when Israel's next election is due.

If Netanyahu remains in office until the end of July 2019, he will be Israel's longest serving prime minister.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-netanyahu-politics-idUSKCN0YA1DA

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/05/19/top-general-agreement-to-send-u-s-troops-to-libya-could-be-reached-any-day/?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_checkpoint-libya-820pm-top%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Hopefully training of Libyan troops will go better than such training has gone elsewhere in the region

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israels-defense-minister-abruptly-resigns-in-protest-of-growing-extremism/2016/05/20/c5a3d99b-bc00-4143-a4e7-15c17c9ae05d_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_israel-935a-top%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

In a press conference Friday, Yaalon, a fellow member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, warned that Israel was drifting dangerously toward extremism.

“I fought with all my might against manifestations of extremism, violence and racism in Israeli society, which are threatening its sturdiness and trickling into the armed forces, hurting it already,” he said.

Yaalon appeared to be referring to widespread support by Israeli leaders for a combat medic who shot to death a wounded Palestinian attacker as he lay on a street in Hebron in the occupied West Bank.

Thousands of Israelis rallied in Tel Aviv and proclaimed the soldier a hero. Israeli human-rights activists called it a cold-blooded execution. The killing was captured on video.

I think this is a disastrous move for Bibi politically and could potentially cost him w/ voters. Replacing a popular pro-IDF general w/ a nut like Lieberman w/ no defense experience will be seen v poorly I think. And it's hard to understand what real benefit Bibi got from this - he increases his seat margin slightly but not dramatically, he still has a few years till next election... I don't know if I believe this is true but I think it's possible that he is planning on upending the status quo in the territories and that he is trying to make the broadest (and most right-wing) government possible as cover for something like ending the occupation (presumably through withdrawal not annexation). It might seem implausible but he is supposedly negotiating with Sisi about the Arab League initiative and Lieberman has expressed more pragmatic pro-negotiation opinions in the past. Again, v hard for me to imagine Bibi doing anything politically brave esp as it regards the territories but despite that it might explain why he'd make such an otherwise incomprehensible move.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/airstrike-on-taliban-leader-escalates-us-involvement-in-afghan-war/2016/05/22/f26ced5a-2014-11e6-aa84-42391ba52c91_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-more-top-stories_no-name%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Back in Pakistan again

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/world/europe/how-the-saudis-turned-kosovo-into-fertile-ground-for-isis.html?_r=0

Every Friday, just yards from a statue of Bill Clinton with arm aloft in a cheery wave, hundreds of young bearded men make a show of kneeling to pray on the sidewalk outside an improvised mosque in a former furniture store.

The mosque is one of scores built here with Saudi government money and blamed for spreading Wahhabism — the conservative ideology dominant in Saudi Arabia — in the 17 years since an American-led intervention wrested tiny Kosovo from Serbian oppression.

Since then — much of that time under the watch of American officials — Saudi money and influence have transformed this once-tolerant Muslim society at the hem of Europe into a font of Islamic extremism and a pipeline for jihadists.

Kosovo now finds itself, like the rest of Europe, fending off the threat of radical Islam. Over the last two years, the police have identified 314 Kosovars — including two suicide bombers, 44 women and 28 children — who have gone abroad to join the Islamic State, the highest number per capita in Europe.

with friends like these...

Again, v hard for me to imagine Bibi doing anything politically brave esp as it regards the territories but despite that it might explain why he'd make such an otherwise incomprehensible move.

interesting interpretation, I certainly can't unravel what he's up to

Saudi, Qatari, etc, funding is a problem in Bosnia too. Again, it's a symptom of the failure to build a viable post-intervention economy. Kosovo has a youth unemployment rate of over 60%.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/ground-offensive-in-syria-seeks-to-squeeze-islamic-state-stronghold-raqqa/2016/05/24/68035454-21b0-11e6-b944-52f7b1793dae_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_syria-1050a-top%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Although the operation around Raqqa appears to have relatively limited goals, it will provide an early test of a coalition being built in the desert between local Arab fighters and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG.

But the umbrella force remains overwhelmingly dominated by the Kurds, and efforts to recruit Arab fighters have been plagued by disputes and mistrust.

The U.S. military in April dispatched 250 U.S. Special Operations forces to northern Syria, to join the 50 who were already there, with the goal of helping recruit and train more Arab fighters.

The YPG has expressed little interest in fighting for Raqqa, which is a predominantly Arab town, and U.S. officials say a significant Arab force is needed before an assault directly on the city. But the officials would not put a time frame on how long it could take to assemble enough Arab fighters.