Sic Semper Tyrannis

Saudi Arabia severs ties with Iran (by CP)

 

According to breaking news, the Saudis, in the tradition of the Rufus T. Firefly school of foreign policy, servered ties with Iran after protesters in Tehran appear to have set fire to the Saudi embassy in riots over the execution of the Saudi Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.

While charges and verdict against al-Nimr probably were trumped-up, and the execution probably a deliberate Saudi provocation, it was stupid in the extreme for the Iranians to not have guarded that building better. In fact, what better to remind the US of unpeleasant common history with Iran? How dumb can one be?

Immediately, this incident will be water on the mills of those who want to kill at least the implementation of the US-Iran deal that they were unable to stop. Perhaps the leak about US surveillance of Israel influencing US lawmakers and subverting Obama administration policy towards Iran has to be seen in this light.

After the incident, the Saudis, of all people, accuse Iran of supporting terrorism. These nasty Iranians. Clearly, the Saudis would never stoop so low. At the same time, US lawmakers, 'under the influence', try to move the goalposts and make Iranian missiles an issue, which never were part of the deal between the US and Iran, in an attempt to create an obstacle to the implementation of the deal. IMO these two - support of terrorism and the missiles - will be two dominant memes/themes in the new effort to stall implementation of the implemenation of the deal.

More, off the top of my head:

• This reeks of a gut impulse on the part of the Saudis. The less than convincing performance of late by the Saudi leadership team King Salman & Prince "Reckless" Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud doesn't suggest much of a plan.
• This is in any case an obstacle for any negotiations over Syria.
• The Saudis will continue their commitment in Yemen.
• Fighting in Yemen may get worse and the Iranians may feel compelled under domestic pressure to, eventually, fulfill the Saudi fiction prophecy and support the Houthis for real.
• It makes it more likely that the Saudis will support Jihadi groups in Syria with money, arms and training.
• This is likely to increase cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Turkey - together the two biggest outside sponsors of Jihadi groups in Syria.
• This will probably increase Saudi support for Sunni groups in Iraq, including ISIS.
• The Israelis have recently, somewhat, restored links between with Turkey, under the spectre of the 'phantom Shia menace'.
• i.e. there is a clear Saudi-Turkish-Israeli anti-Shia Iran axis emerging.
• The Saudis probably will use the 'phantom Shia menace' to justify further and increased repression of the Shia in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi logic likely goes like this: When you treat Shia like dogs, and they inexplicably resent that, that can only be because of Iranian scheming.
  
• There is some risk for open war between Saudi-Arabia and Iran.
• The Saudis or Turks, by their record, are capable of trying to 'engineer' some ambiguous incident in order to draw the US in. There are enough US vessels (or installations, like the US HQ in Bahrain) in the area for something like that.
• The US are exposed to something like that.
• It was a wise move by the Obama Whitehouse to reject a proposal to forge a common defense treaty of the Gulf nations with the United States. The idea must have been to insulate the US precisely from such volatile tempers and developments.
• Given the speculative nature of oil pricing, this is likely to increase the price of oil on the markets. While that would benefit Iran, and Russia, it would benefit Saudi Arabia more (given their greater market share). This is a very secondary aspect.
  

Share thoughts and post new developments as they emerge.

~ by confusedponderer

Borgist Vapidity on The Zakariya Newsie Show

Fareed Zakariya the man who loves America as he would like it to be, assembled a panel of his fellow Borgistas today to ask their opinions on the shape of events to come in 2016.

The group was made up of Richard Haas, Anne Marie Slaughter and some other dweeb whose name I can never remember (old age showing).

For me, the most interesting aspect of their meditations was the contemplation of the fate of Syria in this year.  Not a word was said throughout of the combat situation in either Syria or Iraq.   The talk was all of the diplomatic prospects involved in the apparent belief that the progress of the war(s) on the ground meant nothing.  I presume that this is at least in part the result of the total military ignorance of the participants.

But,  Haas is the well entrenched president of the CFR.

Anne Marie Slaughter is the head of the New America Foundation

The dweeb is the acerbic head of some foundation for great thinkers. 

Slaughter is obviously parked at NAF in waiting for appointment by HC as secretary of something or other.  She opined in her prediction on Syria that Russia will soon "cave" and become "cooperative" because the public psychology in Russia is incapable of accepting casualties.  She seems to think that everyone will "come to their senses" if they are scolded enough.   She favors a federated Syria.  I guess she does not understand that federation is not thought of as other than weakness in the ME.  (The UAE is a club for sovereign princes nd is hardly a country at all).  She also thinks that a negotiated settlement in Syria can be reached without Turkish acquiescence.

R+6 is advancing everywhere; south of Damascus they are approaching the Israeli occupied Golan Heights and are now just east of the Israeli demolished city of Quneitra.  R+6 is also pressing NE from Kuweires air base, SW from Aleppo and the Syrian Army with Russian support is grinding up rebel forces along the approaches to Idlib Province.  This attritional battle will result IMO in a breakthrough moment.

The YPG Kurds and their Green Beret pals are moving west against the rhetorical resistance of Sultan Tayyip's Turkey.   This is made possible by US air and the air defense umbrella provided by the Russian expeditionary force. 

The discourse here on SST sometimes lapses into social science gibberish, completely detached from reality, but the comparison to the actual Borgist elites makes you all look good.  pl 

Open Thread - 3 January 2016

pl

An alternative foreign policy - BTH

It would be interesting to consider a US foreign policy that was based on US self-interest and was willing to really play the parties against one another to control the craziest elements.

• Openly support Sisi relative to the MB and encourage Egyptian economic development wherever possible even if through a corrupt military so that it is apparent to the normal Egyptian on the street that western cooperation is in his long-term interest.

 

• Coordinate with Egypt to bring political stability into Libya even if it means dividing Libya. Failing that, support a Libyan strongman that can knock heads.

 

• Trim Israeli defense subsidies to a level that encourages good neighborly relations without endangering Israel. Add a price to the cost of meddling in US domestic politics - it should be a redline.

 

• Support the Kurds in forming a coalition or confederation with oil resources and legitimate Turkish export markets. Offer something more moderate economically and politically than Sunni Arabs, Turks or Shia are offering. They'll all squeal but so what? It would certainly not hurt if Kurdish oil and gas were supplied to Turkey. Ultimately the Kurds have to export that oil. Turks are now forced to buy from Iran and Russia, so best to channel it into a constructive path for the local populations.

 

• Support Jordan where possible economically and politically - Really use special forces, coalition air power and Sunni Arab factions that might be less crazy and rentable to attack IS. Sunni financiers paid per IED with a coalition casualty bounty for over a decade in Iraq. What says that this approach would not work today? To make it apparent to Sunnis in Anbar and eastern Syria that there is a future open to them in a more moderate regime, even an independent one, by working with us and death on the road to an IS hell on earth. Given the lack of troops willing to deal with IS, it may come down to the B52 option that the fool Cruz has been proposing. Say what you will, people remember Dresden. We would not be raining democracy on their heads, but we certainly can make it clear that where IS reigns, bombs will follow and bombs are bad for business.

 

 

• Support a Turkey that moderates its foreign policies, or at least lays out a path that says to Turkey that it is in their economic interest to moderate its own policies. Perhaps Ergodan's family can legitimize their economic relations with the oil trade by helping form an Iraqi Kurd/Turkish oil and gas infrastructure. Turkey will need to restore confidence from world financial markets in two years to refinance its infrastructure. This is a fact. This may only be possible after an economic crisis fully sinks in in Turkey in 2016. Also, it wouldn't hurt to call Erdogan out on his buffoonery in the meantime. Perhaps we will lose our base; well so what? Some good it did us in the last decade.

 

• A Russia that continues to pay a high price for moving into Ukraine until that situation calms down hopefully with their overt assistance. - US financially assist Ukraine or arm it to a point just under full self-sufficiency until a political negotiation with Russia is solidified.

• Reduce military support for S. Korea which will do just fine without us in exchange for China cleaning up N. Korea.

• Make it clear to Japan and China that we will continue to moderate Japan in exchange for reasonable moderation by China in its Pacific naval and island expansion. Or alternately there can be a new militarism in Japan, but does anyone really want that? For all our issues in East Asia, it must be said, that it could have and still could be worse. Pax Americana hasn't been bad for East Asia and I think even the Chinese know that.

 

• A policy with Russia that is at least not obstructed by the US in Syria and perhaps even encouraged provided Assad moves into retirement, in say 2 years, and some sort of Syrian state under Putin's watchful eye emerges that would at least stabilize western Syria and fight IS in eastern Syria.

• A US-Russian policy that would encourage long-term cooperation with regard to its southern borders such as in Afghanistan or Turkey. - Support an oil policy in the $60/bbl range that keeps the economic lid on Russia and the Saudis but doesn't destroy our own domestic industry which surely $30/bbl will do in 2016.

• Assist India in financing its enormous infrastructure needs provided there are US industrial interests involved on mutually compatible terms. If not, then not.

• Support Pakistan's private sector development, textile exports, port development, pipelines that would require it to integrate with the rest of the world on terms that are mutually tolerable in the long-term. If they want to do it with the Chinese, then fine, one less thing to worry about, as the man said.

• Iran, perhaps we will not be friends, but we need not be enemies. The ball is in your court.

These would not be unrealistic objectives for a rational US policy. I put it out there for criticism and comment.   BTH

Venality and the Surveillance Hawks (by CP)

After TTG lined out the neccessity of spying, and the hypochrisy of the people who were all for NSA surveillance on the hoi polloi, but are aghast when it is being directed (rather appropriately in this case) against them, too - I'd like to briefly look at the topic from a different angle:

What was it that Obama, that villain, had been spying on them for i.e. what was Obama's "compelling national security purpose"?

It was about Israeli subversion in the US in opposition to the US administration's deal between the US and Iran.

What the wiretaps collected was evidence on the rather unprecedented influence peddling and meddling in the domestic US political process by Israel's agents and proxies, and influence taking from US politicos. Highlights:

• Stepped-up NSA eavesdropping revealed to the White House how Mr. Netanyahu and his advisers had leaked details of the U.S.-Iran negotiations—learned through Israeli spying operations—to undermine the talks
• the Israelis coordinated talking points with Jewish-American groups against the deal ... Israeli ambassador to the US Mr. Dermer was described as coaching unnamed U.S. organizations—which officials could tell from the context were Jewish-American groups—on lines of argument to use with lawmakers, and Israeli officials were reported pressing lawmakers to oppose the deal.
  
• the Israelis asked undecided lawmakers what it would take to win their votes, according to current and former officials familiar with the intercepts.

The last one is my favourite, and one can easily imagine what it spelled out more direct language - like this: Just how much in (thanks to Citizens United unlimited) free speech capaign contributions (from, say, a Mr. Saban or Adelson) would it cost to change your mind and be against the deal? No? So you just want to be a comittee chair, yes? ...

There is an anectdote, perhaps apocryphal, on corruption in Russia and the sainted 'dissident' Chodorkowsky - iirc there was debate on a law regulating banks, and it was one representative's turn to speak. On the way to the podium he stopped by another representative, who was also a director in Chodorchowsky's bank Menatep, had a mobile phone handed to him and went to the podium to speak, denouncing the proposed law, having his speech rather obviously and shamelessly dictated to him by phone. People found that a tad blatant.

What the Izzies did was not much less blatant.

The Israelis tried to derail US administration policy and had to learn that the US can play that game, too. The whining today by those who were receptive to Israel's influence taking or buying, and supportive to their meddling in domestic US politics, is pathetic.

Also, it is important to make clear that the Obama admninistration wasn't 'caught', as one could read in some places, they probably deliberately leaked the story themselves (underlining again their double standard when it comes to breaches of secrecy, but that's a separate issue). Obama is telling the Israelis and the lobby that he knows what they are doing and that he is watching.

Obama at one point notably said (h/t to Mondoweiss) that it would be an “abrogation of [his] constitutional duty” to defer to Israel’s interests on the Iran Deal. He is absolutely right. It is hard to see US interests being served by adhering to the Israeli command of unrelenting hostility towards Iran and all of Israel's other enemies and effectively granting the Netanyahoo a veto in US foreign policy. There is no clause in the constitution that grants Israel such a right. Given Bibi's maximalist and expansionist goals it would be a particularly unwise thing to do anyway.

To the extent that the US listens to Israel's opinions, that should to a sober mind be rightly understood as the considerate courtesy that it should be.

Links:

• U.S. Spy Net on Israel Snares Congress
• NSA Spies Reveal Congress/Jewish Lobby Link
• Bombshell report from WSJ: NSA spied on Congress, Netanyahu, and Jewish organizations to push Iran deal
• (somewhat over-optimistic IMO) Israel and its lobby lose the Iran Deal all over again, in news of damning wiretaps
• Why Tell the Israeli Spying Story Now?
  
  Israel and its lobby lose the Iran Deal all over again, in news of damning wiretaps - See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2015/12/israel-damning-wiretaps#sthash.KlAU1ut7.dpuf

~ by confusedponderer

Welcome, 2016!

pl