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cincinnatusvirtue · 4 years ago

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Battle of Alcacer Quibir (1578 AD) (Battle of the Three Kings). Portugal’s attempt at colonialism in Morocco backfires and a new Moroccan dynasty secures its independence from foreign intervention.

Overview:

-Morocco’s history is largely driven by its strategic location. The Northwest corner of Africa at the tip of the Sahara Desert region, just south of the Iberian Peninsula in Southern Europe and hugging the gateway to the Mediterranean Sea at the Atlantic Ocean. Its position was crucial to geostrategic considerations with access to so many sea & overland trade routes.

-Its native peoples were Berber or Amazigh who encountered the Greeks & Romans of antiquity, they were a varied people across North Africa united by some common language and customs. After the rise & spread of Islam by Arabs from the Middle East, North Africa including Morocco became a target of conquest and religious conversion. The Berbers in time took on the Islamic religion while somewhat retaining their own customs. Gradually, they took on a cultural Arabization that takes place today with most of Morocco’s population being ethnic Berbers with Arab acculturalization becoming Arab-Berbers. There were however some Arab colonists who migrated from the Arabian Peninsula, Syria and other parts of the Middle East who settled & setup their lives in Morocco mixing with the local Berbers. Arabs & Berbers went on to invade the Iberian Peninsula in 711 AD under the Visigoth Kingdom which they largely over threw aside from the north of modern day Spain. In time Muslim dynasties ruled in Iberia and the Arabs and Berbers set up a colonial presence there while some Visigoths and Iberian Romans converted to Islam making up the majority of Iberia’s population well into the Middle Ages and the combination of Arabs, Berbers & European converts to Islam became known as Moors which covered no single ethnic group but rather the cultural ties that bonded these various peoples, though was previously used to describe just Berbers.

-In time, civil war amongst the Muslim dynasties that came & went along with the Reconquista, a centuries long Christian Crusade to rid the Iberian Peninsula of a Muslim presence weakened the Moorish hold over southern Europe. Arab & Berber dynasties from Morocco would often intervene in Iberia to reverse the tide of misfortune befallen its Muslims but inevitably they too would be brushed aside or retreat to Morocco which had become so intertwined with Iberia at that point. By the end of the 15th century, the Emirate of Granada, the last Muslim power in Iberia had fallen. The Kingdoms of Portugal & Spain had arisen from earlier Iberian Christian kingdoms and become more powerful than their Muslim rivals.

-Complicating matters was the rise of the Turkish Islamic dynasty in the east, the Ottoman Empire. By the 15th & 16th centuries, The Ottomans found themselves masters of the eastern Mediterranean and in competition with the Spanish Hapsburgs for control of the Mediterranean Sea. By then Spain had established dynastic control over parts of Italy & small colonial possessions on the coasts of North Africa spreading from Morocco to Libya. This was contested by the local Arab-Berber presence and the Ottomans. Likewise the Ottomans were overtaking North Africa from both their European rivals & the Arab-Berber dynasties of North Africa. Though direct Ottoman power would be varied depending on location and sometimes they relied on governors of theirs to rule in their stead, which in turn became increasingly semi-autonomous. these dynasties engaged in piracy of European trade and in particular in the enslavement of European Christians giving rise to the Barbary Pirates of Barbary Corsairs, so named for the Barbary (Berber) Coast of North Africa from which they operated, ranging in port cities from Morocco to Libya.

-The Ottomans and Spanish eyed Morocco as an area of political control. The Ottomans hoping to make it a protectorate like the rest of North Africa and the Spanish a home to various ports to counteract the Ottoman attacks against their shipping lanes. Meanwhile, Spain had for the last century engaged in exploration and conquest of the so called New World, the Americas. Spain’s other Iberian counterpart, the Kingdom of Portugal, likewise has engaged in colonization and conquest with the Americas, namely Brazil. Both Spain & Portugal saw it in their interest to secure the shipping to their ports from the threat of Ottoman and other Muslim piracy which confiscated their gold and other raw materials from the Americas. To this end they were determined to and did indeed conquer Moroccan port cities. Likewise the previous overland Trans-Saharan trade routes of gold, ivory and enslaved Sub-Saharan Africans which had previously enriched the Arabs & Berbers were of less importance due to both European investment in the Americas and control of Moroccan ports. This had lead to impoverishment of the Moroccan economy & flight of its many intellectuals draining its infrastructure and governance as well.

The Power Players:

Morocco & domestic politics...

-16th century Morocco had seen the foreign encroachment of the Portuguese & Spanish hold strong. Portugal held many of its Atlantic ports while Spain its Mediterranean. Meanwhile, the Ottomans who had overtaken neighboring Algeria were threating invasion to oust the Europeans but likewise overrule the local Arab-Berber population.

-At the start of the century Morocco was nominally ruled by the Berber dynasty known as the Wattasids. They had come to power in 1472 AD overthrowing their fellow Berbers, the Marinids. However, Wattasid rule only held sway in the north of Morocco with their kingdom being centered around the city of Fez. The south of the country was much more divided into various principalities and the populace in general resented the Wattasids for their seeming political and military impotence to eject the Europeans from their port cities. They failed in their promise to recapture these cities time & again.

-In the south of Morocco, a new power was rising that promised to remove the weak Wattasids & eject all foreign influence on Morocco. This new promising power was the Saadi dynasty. The Saadis were of Arab origin with a known ancestor going back to 13th century Arabia from the port city of Yanbu on the Red Sea who migrated to Morocco. The family is generally considered to be of Sharifian origin, which is an Arab honorific word meaning “noble or highborn” and reserved by Arabs for descendants from the Prophet Muhammad. The Saadis claimed descent through Muhammad’s daughter Fatimah and her marriage to Ali ibn Abi Talib, the prophet’s cousin & companion. The descent to the Saadis then continued through Ali & Fatimah’s son Hassan and as descendants of Hassan, the Saadis became known as Hassanids and were given the title of Sharif. Whereas descendants of Muhammad’s other grandson through Ali & Fatimah, Husayn were given the honorific title of Sayyid.

-The descent from Muhammad of the Saadi dynasty is a matter of some political conjecture, with their rivals trying to down play it as mere propaganda. Others will concede they descended from a relative of Muhammad but not his daughter Fatimah herself. It will probably be next to impossible to establish its veracity but it was promoted by the dynasty along with numerous other Islamic dynasties throughout history even into the present.

-The Saadis derive their name from the word for “happiness or salvation” and were settled by the 14th century in Morocco from their Arab ancestors in the southern part of the country. Centered around the city of Tagmadert in the Draa River valley. It was a region that neared the Sahara Desert. It was here that the family intermixed with the Arab-Berber populace and gave rise to the popularity of Sufism in Morocco. Sufism is a form of Islamic mysticism akin to the Kabbalah in Judaism or Gnosticism in Christianity.

-The chief (Sharif) of the Saadi family circa 1510 was Abu Abdallah al-Qaim who ventured to Medina in modern day Saudi Arabia as part of his religious pilgrimage and evidently while there had a dream involving two lions leading a large crowd of people to a tower. Taking this mystical vision as a sign he visited with a Sufi mystic who confirmed it as God’s mission for his son’s who would play a crucial role in the family and indeed Moroccan history. Al-Qaim returned to Morocco and aligned with the Sufi orders in the south of Morocco around the Draa Valley and organized them into a military order to declare jihad on both the Wattasids & the Europeans with a now holy mission to save Morocco.

-The Saadis gradually overtook by force and diplomacy much of southern Morocco’s other principalities. They captured the city of Tidsi in 1510 and al-Qaim’s two sons ventured to Fez to beseech the Wattasid sultan to undertake a nationwide jihad against the Europeans. When this did not materialize the Saadis gradually felt it was their duty to save the nation.

-The Saadis began a campaign against the Portuguese ports in the south of Morocco and had gradual success in retaking these port cities. Making them increasingly popular with the locals at the expense of the Wattasids in Fez. 1524 saw the Saadis capture the city of Marrakesh. Al Qaim’s son Mohammed al-Shaykh became the leader of the dynasty in 1517 and Al-Shaykh’s campaign against the Portuguese now turned to the Wattasids. His brother Ahmad Al-Araj was placed in charge of Marrakesh while Al-Shaykh controlled the city of Taroudannt and in 1527 the Saadis defeated the Wattasids in the Battle of Wadi al-Abid after which they recoginzed a divided dominion in the south for the Saadis and north for the Wattasids.

-However, Al-Araj & Al-Shaykh soon turned on each other and the brothers engaged in a civil war with Al-Araj seeking Wattasid assistance. Additionally he fought the Portuguese and successfully took the port city of Agadir in 1541 which led to other port cities to be evacuated by the Portuguese. His brother was defeated and fled to eastern Morocco to live out his days in exile. Meanwhile, the Wattasid capital of Fez was captured in 1549 using a reformed army that was based on the Ottoman model, including modern artillery.

-The capture of Fez gave the Saadis a chance to now attack Portuguese ports in the north with more success. However, some cities like Tangier remained in Portuguese hands.

-The Saadis also expanded into Western Algeria and captured a portion of that territory.

-Meanwhile Saadian expansion, concerned the Ottomans who hoped for it to become a protectorate. The ousted Wattasids cut a deal with the Turks to invade Morocco, oust the Saadis and become Turkish vassals in their own right.

-Al-Shaykh and the Saadis were driven out of Fez in 1554 by a combined Wattasid-Ottoman-Algerian army. The recapture was short lived as in the September of 1554, the Saadian army once more met the Wattasids & Turks in the Battle of Tadla and defeated them, the Wattasid ruler, Ali Abu Hassun was killed by the Saadian troops in battle and ended the threat of their dynasty.

-Al-Shaykh having united the country against the Europeans with success, having defeated his brother, the Wattasids & Ottomans had unified his rule over Morocco as undisputed Sultan. The Saadi dynasty was now firmly established, but much work remained and in the process of the Saadian conquest they had made many enemies.

-1557 saw plans for Morocco to ally with the Spanish against the Turks who still sought a foothold in Morocco. As this came to fruition, the Ottoman governor of Algeria ordered Sultan Al-Shaykh’s assassination. A number of Ottoman assassins claiming to be deserters infiltrated the Saadian armed guard of the Sultan, earning his trust before killing him.

- Al-Shaykh had multiple sons but three sons: Al-Ghalib, Al-Malik & Al-Mansur who would all play important roles in the coming years.

-Al-Ghalib being the oldest became the new sultan of Morocco. He had to defend against an Ottoman Algerian invasion in 1558 which was successfully halted at the Battle of Wadi al-Laban. The battle was inconclusive itself but word had reached the Turco-Algerian forces of a Spanish counterinvasion of Algeria and they were forced to turn back, sparing Morocco a potential take over.

-As so often happens in history, the concern over dynastic struggle takes place. Worried about civil war with his younger brothers Al-Malik & Al-Mansur, the two younger siblings went into exile with the Ottoman Empire, visiting its capital of Constantinople and living in Turkey with lavish existence.

-The two exiled Saadi princes served in the Ottoman army, battling in the famous 1571 naval confrontation off the Greek coast known as the Battle of Lepanto against Spain and a Holy League. It was a Christian victory that cost the Turks their best naval commanders and while their navy did replenish its numbers it never again had the level of experienced commanders and subsequently its training and experience stagnated, beginning a slow withdrawal from direct Ottoman involvement in the Mediterranean. Likewise, Lepanto contributed to the rise in its North African governors taking de-facto power for themselves. Giving rise to the age of the Barbary Corsairs who operated out of the North African city-states of Tunis, Algiers, Tripoli and later various Moroccan ports with these pirates peaking their powers in the 17th century and lasting until well into the 19th century.

-Al-Ghalib fought the Spanish and Turks and for 17 years kept Morocco in virtual peace. He improved the economy and built new mosques and other architecture, raising the stature of Marrakesh, which became the primary center of Saadian power.

-Al-Ghalib died of asthma in 1574 and was succeeded by his son, Abdallah Mohammed. Abdallah Mohammed like his father suspected struggle with brothers, one of whom was killed on his orders while the other was imprisoned. The reign of Abdallah however was challenged by his uncles Al-Malik & Al-Mansur. Now in Ottoman Algeria, they invaded Morocco with Ottoman backing in 1576

-Fez was captured by the Ottoman backed Saadian prince Al-Malik. Whose now ousted nephew Abdallah Mohammed fled first to Spain and ironically then to Portugal, former enemy of his grandfather & great-grandfather.

-1576 saw Al-Malik take power but with the understanding that he was a de-facto vassal of the Ottomans. However, his nephew sought to regain the throne and was willing to work with Portugal to regain it...

Portugal & King Sebastian...

-Sebastian of Portugal was born in 1554 and a member of the Aviz dynasty which had ruled Portugal since 1385 and was responsible for Portugal’s global empire, sometimes in competition with neighboring Spain. They had established control of Brazil in the Americas and had colonies as far flung as Macau in China, parts of India where they fought against the Ottomans in the Indian Ocean and even in Africa with control of Angola, Mozambique and elsewhere. Though the Portuguese and Spanish had rival colonial ambitions they had a common enemy against the Ottomans and Portugal in particular conflicted with the Turks in the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, Ethiopia and other parts of Africa.

-Sebastian’s mother was of the Hapsburg dynasty that had ruled Austria and Spain which with Spain’s global empire had become the most powerful dynasty in Europe if not the world. His grandfather was Charles V and uncle was Philip II of Spain.

-His father died when he was an infant and his mother later remarried in Spain. while his grandmother Catherine of Austria helped raise him. He grew to be tall and physically fit. He was also given a stern religious upbringing under Jesuits tasked with his education.

-He technically took the throne at age three with the death of his paternal grandfather and a regency was put in place for him. As he grew older he became more stubborn in his personality but was always devoutly religious. Sebastian also had several marriage proposals made but none had come to fruition.

-Under his personal rule he improved relations with Spain, France, England & the Holy Roman Empire wanting to secure the peace and trade of all for his global empire. He also rewarded natives in Brazil who aided the Portuguese against the French by giving them their own grants of land and freed them from slavery by decree. He also restructured the laws of administration and the judiciary in Portugal. Hoping to expand education for his people, he also created royal scholarships for students of medicine at university.

-Finally, he sough to patronize the arts with poems & operas being written during this time and dedicated to him. He also reformed the military which proved successful in fending off attacks in India against the Portuguese colony of Goa.

-However, one everlasting goal of his since 1568 at the age of 14 was to conquer Morocco by Crusade against the Saadi dynasty which had expelled the Portuguese from control over numerous ports. These ports were important as way stations for Portuguese ships traveling in India where its colonies were important in the spices, gems & other precious commodities trade. A combination of religious fervor and economic concerns over nearby Morocco guided Sebastian.

-The opportunity for his Crusade arose in 1576 with the ouster of former Saadian Sultan Abdallah Mohammed who had been overthrown by his uncle, the Ottoman backed Al-Malik.

-Abdallah Mohammed had fled first to Spain and then Portugal asking for aid in the restoration of his throne. After which he promised his support against the Turks, Portugal & Spain’s principal rival. Sebastian was intrigued by the offer and visited with his uncle, Philip II of Spain to discuss joint plans for a combined Portuguese-Spanish invasion of Morocco to restore Abdallah Mohammed as their friendly ally who would allow future use of Moroccan ports for trade and as launching points against Ottoman Algeria. Philip refused to participate whole heartedly since he sought a treaty with the Ottomans to give some much needed breathing space for other concerns, namely England. He did offer a smattering of Spanish volunteers though.

-Despite Spain’s lack of full commitment, Sebastian decided to go it alone. Absolutely convinced of the technological superiority and training of his army against the Moroccan army. Technically this was true with advances in gunpowder driven small arms, artillery and armor being superior along with overall discipline. Whereas Morocco relied on light cavalry, had less artillery and mostly ill trained and ill equipped irregular troops.

The invasion and Battle of Alcaber Quibir.

-Sebastian began preparations for summer campaign in 1578. He departed Lisbon with an army of 17,000 men made up of Portuguese regulars at foreign mercenaries from Germany, Spain, Italy & the Netherlands. He also asked the Portuguese nobility to accompany him. Convinced the campaign would be quick, he wanted to demonstrate his power before them while also establishing colonial holdings in a Portuguese controlled Morocco. Some nobles brought over their whole retinues & families as well as a fully stocked kitchens, portable chapels and even a whole church choir, giving the crusade an almost picnic or hunting expedition feel for some.

-The fleet stopped at Cadiz for the promised Spanish volunteers, they did not materialize and so on they sailed for Morocco. Arriving in June south of Tangier they joined Abdallah Mohammed with 6,000 loyal Moorish troops.

-Upon reaching the shores and in front of his still disembarking nobility Sebastian and a small contingent chased away an enemy contingent. This demonstrated to many assembled that Sebastian was a brave commander fully confident in his mission. To some of his commanders though there was concern it might mean he was also too headstrong to listen to reason.

-They suggested to the king that he first capture ports along the coast and avoid venturing into the interior of Morocco at this juncture. The ports would be important for reopening Portuguese trade and weakening the Moroccan economy. From there they could also resupply by sea for future operations, typically sound military advice.

-Sebastian did not heed the caution, he sought a decisive victory to end the campaign quick. He ordered a march into the Moroccan interior. Despite knowing he would face a numerically superior opponent. Confident Portuguese technology, training & God’s will were on their side.

-Al-Malik as Sultan of Morocco, took advantage of the Turkish backing, training his troops in advanced Ottoman techniques and acquiring some Turkish arquebusiers (early muskets) and artillery. Nevertheless, the majority of his forces were Berber and Arab irregulars from the Moroccan countryside or Moors expelled from Iberia, though some Ottoman Turks and Algerians had joined in the army. While his army was of poorer quality training & technology, it was made up for in raw numbers of men and morale for defense of their homeland.

-Al-Malik also suffered one more setback going into the battle, his own health was suffering by some undisclosed illness, possibly the plague. Only his brother (Al-Mansur) and physician knew of this illness as Al-Malik did not want to discourage his troops morale, to it was kept secret. He rode out from Marrakesh with at fast speed the drive of which gave Al-Malik barely any rest and only worsened his condition. Al-Mansur rode out from Fez and the two planned to meet and intercept the invaders & their nephew’s army.

-The two opposing armies would meet at the town of Ksar-el-Kebir rendered in Portuguese as Alcacer Quibir. Sebastian had 23,000 troops at his disposal against the Moroccan 50,000 strong under Al-Malik. Fearing being outflanked by a larger foe, he ordered his forces in a fortified square. Placing his artillery & arquebusiers in the front with cavalry & pikemen in the rear on the sides.

-Al-Malik was so ill he had to be strapped to his horse. He would choose to give a rousing speech to his troops before the battle’s start. His army formed in a crescent shape

-The battle began with volleys of artillery & arquebusiers from both sides while the Crusaders elite cavalry charged the Moroccan center. The Portuguese made headway until Al-Malik and his personal bodyguard and other cavalry rode out to blunt the charge and hold the center. Likewise he signaled Al-Mansur to command the tribal horsemen from the Berber tribes of the northern mountains of Morocco he had been hidden in reserve with the goal of enveloping the main Portuguese square which was now without the use of its best cavalry. Al-Malik has setup a surprise trap. now the task of enveloping the whole Portuguese army was to begin.

-Al Malik and his bodyguard joined his brother while the Moroccan center reorganized having surrounded the Portuguese cavalry. Seeing what was happening, Sebastian rode out personally leading his reserve heavy knights & nobles along with the horsemen of his ally, the deposed Abdallah Mohammed. The goal was to take down Al-Malik personally and break the Moroccan army’s morale.

-The retinues of all three kings met in the middle, with Al-Malik losing many men around him but the sultan and his bodyguard fought on while his brother Al-Mansur continued with the encirclement of the main square.

-Al-Mansur’s cavalry encircled the square and using dragoon tactics charged the square only to turn around just before being impaled by the Portuguese pikemen. Once the Moroccan horse pirouetted around the rider fired their musket at point blank range inflicting casualties on the European infantry. This tactic continued for hours in order to wear down the Crusaders.

-Meanwhile, Sebastian and his retinue fell back trying to rally the square. Soon the whole square was attacked on all sides. At some point while bravely fighting he lead another charge and was cut down, his body never recovered. He was only 24 years old and without wife or heir.

-Eventually the flanks of the Portuguese square were worn down and soon the Moroccans pushed onto the center which overwhelmed it.

-The battle ended after four hours of heavy fighting resulting in a decisive Moroccan victory. Sebastian had been killed in the fighting along with much of the nobility with 8,000 Crusader & Moorish troops in the Portuguese army dying. Another 15,000 troops including their camp followers were taken prisoner and enslaved. Roughly only 100 are believed to have escaped to the coast or Portuguese controlled ports. Abdallah Mohammed had escaped the battle on horseback but drowned crossing a river in hasty escape. However, for Al-Malik and the Moroccan army, it was costly too. Al-Malik, sick with a fever and plague died of natural cause due to over exertion due to riding on horseback and personally fighting, the exact point he died is uncertain but kept secret from his army so as not to break their morale until after the battle had been decided. The Moroccan army also suffered around 7,000 dead according to Portuguese sources as the bravery and determination of the Portuguese were acknowledged despite their defeat. With the deaths of Sebastian & the rival Saadian sultans Abdallah Mohammed & Al-Malik, the day be became known as the Battle of the Three Kings.

-Though it could be called the battle of four kings as Al-Malik’s younger brother and second in command, Al-Mansur would become his heir and successor as Sultan of Morocco. Al-Mansur also became the pinnacle of the Saadian dynasty reigning from 1578 until 1603 during which time he was the absolute ruler of a Morocco that was unified and expansive. He extended control to parts of Algeria and southward into Mauretania & Mali where he conquered the Songhai Empire and revived the important gold, ivory & African slave trade overland routes of the Trans-Sahara, vastly improving Morocco’s economy. He also went on to eject the Ottoman influence and army from his court. Asserting an independent Morocco free of European and Turkish influence. While there remained some European controlled ports, Al-Mansur was mostly successful in stabilizing his country. He also built up Marrakesh & Fez including vast palaces and the Saadian Tombs, considered the peak of Saadian architecture.

-After Al-Mansur’s death in 1603 Morocco fell into civil war and relative chaos once more. As had typified the Saadian dynasty from the start, the sons fought over control of the country. This time, the Moroccans had joint sultans who ruled divided portions of the country, creating a power vacuum that allowed for the rise of Barbary Corsairs and their pirates republics which would claim de-facto independence from the sultans, most notably the Republic of Sale headed by the Dutch privateer turned Barbary pirate, Jan Janszoon Van Haarlem also known by his Muslim name as Murad Reis the Younger.

-Eventually the Saadi dynasty was overthrown in the mid 17th century by the Alaouite dynasty which was another Arab Sharifian dynasty and which rules Morocco to this day. Though the Saadis are still regarded by the Moroccans for their architecture and role in securing an independent and stable Morocco, free from foreign influence.

-As for Portugal, it lost its king without an heir and much of its nobility. It was in this power vacuum that subsequently it was overtaken by the Kingdom of Spain being in a so called Iberian Union for the next 60 years before it became independent once again.

-Meanwhile, the Ottomans increasingly lost their ability to have a direct hold over North Africa altogether and despite nominal over lordship of Egypt to Algeria, Morocco remained relatively untouched by Turkish influence, given it a special place in the Muslim world. Additionally, the Turks with a stagnating navy turned their attention to expansion in the Middle East and Europe with the 17th century being the start of a long stagnation for them as well, their best days long behind them.

-The Battle of Alcacer Quibir fought on August 4th, 1578 was the culmination of domestic and foreign power struggles for Morocco, the product of colonial and imperial desires amid a succession crisis and civil war. Ironically, it triggered a succession crisis in the invading country and resolved one in the very country that triggered the foreign intervention. It was also a case in point of the arrogant illusion of the inevitability of European and Ottoman colonialism in North Africa and of course became a great symbolic victory in the psyche of an independent Morocco...

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diarrheaworldstarhiphop · 6 years ago

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Twenty-five years ago, in the February, 1994 issue of The Atlantic , I published a decidedly unAmerican cover story: unAmerican in that it was pessimistic, deterministic, and, most importantly, declared that the victory of the United States in the recently concluded Cold War would be not so much short-lived as irrelevant, because of various natural, demographic and cultural forces underway in the world that would overwhelm America’s classically liberal vision. It eschewed the debate over ideals that have traditionally been the fare of intellectual journals and newspaper opinion pages. Moreover, because of the unrestrained optimism of the era—globalization in the 1990s was being employed as a freshly conceived buzzword—the pessimism of my essay was deeply alienating, if not abhorrent, to many. The title that the editors chose said it all: “The Coming Anarchy: How Scarcity, Crime, Overpopulation, Tribalism, and Disease Are Destroying the Social Fabric of the Planet.” They turned “The Coming Anarchy” into “the most xeroxed article of the decade,” in the words of Lester Brown, president of the Worldwatch Institute.

My aim was to expose the illusion of knowledge where none actually existed among elites. At fancy conferences and in the major media of the era people spoke breezily about how democracy would soon be overtaking the world, without knowing firsthand what the world they were talking about was really like, especially in developing countries beyond the luxury hotels, government ministries and protected residential enclaves. To counter this trend, I visited the slums of cities in West Africa and Turkey, comparing the culture of poverty in the two regions, and drawing conclusions. What I said was provocative, or at least deemed to be by complacent champions of globalization.

I claimed that in an increasingly claustrophobic world made smaller by technology and the spread of disease, the most obscure places in Africa could eventually become central to the future of the West; that Africa, rather than be placed on a protective pedestal and treated exclusively on its own terms, should be legitimately compared in vivid cultural and developmental detail to other parts of the world.

Finally, I emphasized how political and social interactions, including war, would be increasingly subject to the natural environment, which I labeled “the national-security issue” of the twenty-first century. Whereas the opinion pages of the time, both liberal and conservative, were obsessed with the clashing ideas shaping the post–Cold War world, I zoomed in on how the increasing lack of underground water and the increasing lack of nutrients in overused soils would, in indirect ways, inflame already existent ethnic, religious and tribal divides. And this factor, merged with an ever-growing number of young males in the most economically and politically fragile societies, would amplify the chances of extremism and violent conflict. Natural forces were at work that would intensify political instability: if not necessarily everywhere, then certainly in the world’s least governable parts. The most benighted parts of West Africa were a microcosm, albeit in exaggerated form, of turmoil to come around the globe.

This all ran counter to the paradigm celebrated at the time by Stanford University’s Francis Fukuyama in The End of History and the Last Man . Fukuyama suggested—in profound and riveting form—that the triumph of liberal democracy in the Cold War indicated a thematic conclusion to the story of civilization, since no other system would ever make human beings as personally fulfilled. Democracy’s triumph, while certainly not assured, was nevertheless likely to succeed. This was agreeable to global elites whose own lives fixated on personal achievement and fulfillment. But it was an extremely American- and Euro-centric vision, taking insufficient account of what was going on beyond the West. And it did not comport with what I was witnessing in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

Critics said that my dark vision was demoralizing. But I was merely following the dictum of the late Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington, who said that the job of a scholar or observer is not necessarily to improve the world, but to say bluntly what he or she thought was actually going on in it. To do that meant focusing on matters that would be inappropriate to raise at a polite dinner party—that would elicit an embarrassed silence among the guests. For I have always believed that the future often lies inside the silences, inside the things few want to discuss.

And I would say something further.

When it comes to making predictions, a journalist like myself cannot know the specific, short-term future: whether a country will have a coup or not within the next week. That depends on the Shakespearian dynamics between vital political actors and key intelligence that even the best spy agencies have difficulty uncovering; nor can a journalist or analyst know the situation of a country several decades hence, since so many factors, especially the advance of technology, make such a prediction mere speculation. But what a journalist or analyst can do is make the reader measurably less surprised by what happens in a given place over the middle-term future: five-years, ten-years, or fifteen-years forward, say. And that is not an original idea. Ten-year forecasts or thereabouts are the time frame utilized by many corporations in their planning exercises, as I know from my own work as a geopolitical consultant.

SO JUDGED by the standard of a middle-term future assessment, how does “The Coming Anarchy” hold up?

It begins with a detailed description of Sierra Leone and Cote d’Ivoire (the Ivory Coast) in mid-1993, with references to the general situation in West Africa during this period. This constitutes roughly the first part of my lengthy essay, and it essentially paints the bleakest of possibilities for those places, which I basically describe as countries that are so weakly governed that they are not really countries at all, but merely places with fictitious, meaningless borders on the map. Sierra Leone was in an extremely fragile political state when I visited there, and Cote d’Ivoire, though imperceptibly deteriorating, was then still seen in the West—according to the cliché—as an African success story. Articles in major world newspapers through the second half of the 1990s painted an optimistic picture for the prospects of these places as fledgling democracies. In particular, the 1996 elections in Sierra Leone drew favorable press notices, declaring that West Africa was showing the way for the future of the continent.

But my point in “The Coming Anarchy” and a related Atlantic cover story titled “Was Democracy Just a Moment?” in the December 1997 issue, was that elections by themselves didn’t matter nearly as much as the building of modern bureaucratic institutions. And West African countries had developed virtually none. That made me pessimistic. In 1999, half a decade after my essay was published, Sierra Leone had descended into utter anarchy, with drug-crazed teenagers hacking the limbs off more than a thousand civilians in the capital of Freetown alone and killing an additional several thousand, as armed groups—mobs of young men more than disciplined soldiers—terrorized the city. The number of refugees and displaced persons was well over a million, almost a quarter of the total population. (UN peacekeeping troops would be forced to remain in Sierra Leone until 2005.) During the same time-frame, a coup rocked Cote d’Ivoire, and the country descended into a period of civil war and chaotic, geographically based political fractures lasting a full decade until 2011. War in Liberia continued through 2003, and Nigeria never arrested its decline as a coherent, centrally governed state. Over the past few years, Sierra Leone and Cote d’Ivoire have gradually gained a modicum of stability, even as political violence, tribalism and crime continue to rear their heads. In 2013–2016, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea experienced a major Ebola outbreak. Of course, further afield in the Middle East, the chaotic meltdowns of Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen following either American-led interventions or the rigors of the Arab Spring indicated that beneath the carapaces of tyranny in those places lay complete institutional voids, comparable to what I had found in West Africa.

In Turkey in mid-1993 I also found slums, but of a completely different sort. There was poverty, but no crime or social dissolution. As I wrote in another lengthy part of “The Coming Anarchy:”

Slums are litmus tests for innate cultural strengths and weaknesses. Those peoples whose cultures can harbor extensive slum life without decomposing will be, relatively speaking, the future’s winners. Those whose cultures cannot will be the future’s victims. Slums—in the sociological sense—do not exist in Turkish cities. The mortar between people and family groups is stronger here than in Africa. Resurgent Islam and Turkic cultural identity have produced a civilization with natural muscle tone. Turks, history’s perennial nomads, take disruption in stride.

My take was that Turkish geopolitical power would grow in coordination with a rising Islamic identity. At the time, Turkey had been a secular republic for sixty years already. The idea that Turkey would emerge as an Islamic power—with a religious, authoritarian firebrand in control—was not on the horizon in 1994. As I wrote then:

Islam’s very militancy makes it attractive to the downtrodden. It is the one religion that is prepared to fight. A political era driven by environmental stress, increased cultural sensitivity, unregulated urbanization, and refugee migrations is an era divinely created for the spread and intensification of Islam . . .

Moreover, in the course of arguing how maps lie, and how legal borders would become increasingly less meaningful, I stated that the Turkish-Kurdish frontier dispute would eventually become more central to the Middle East than the Israeli-Palestinian one.

“The Coming Anarchy” also focused on how elites would increasingly come to see the natural environment, especially water shortages and soil erosion—in addition to shifts in the earth’s climate itself—as a major foreign policy concern. This was far less obvious in 1994 than it is today. Moreover, I said that future wars would be motivated by communal survival, aggravated in some cases by environmental scarcity. The Middle East’s diminishing water table would never be mentioned in reports of armed conflict, but would operate as a silent indirect factor, nonetheless.

Of course, this was very Malthusian. And few thinkers are as regularly disparaged as Thomas Robert Malthus, who in 1798 wrongly predicted that as population increased, the world would effectively run out of food supplies. However, what critics fail to note about Malthus is that merely by introducing the subject of ecosystems into discussions of contemporary political philosophy, he immeasurably enriched such discussions. Humankind may be nobler than the apes, but we are still biological. Making nature itself part of the argument when it comes to geopolitics is something we owe to Malthus.

I also referred to the work of an Israel-based military historian, Martin van Creveld, to describe a “pre-Westphalian vision of worldwide low-intensity conflict,” in which “technology will be used [by warrior bands] toward primitive ends.” This was twenty years before isis would use the video camera to publicize its beheadings of hostages. Major interstate conflicts like the two world wars were not necessarily in the offing, in my view. Rather, the future would be “bifurcated”—between populations “healthy, well fed, and pampered by technology”—and therefore decidedly optimistic about the human condition; and others condemned to low-level violence and instability in many parts of the globe from which I had reported in the 1980s and early 1990s.

There were also a number of things that I got quite wrong. In particular, I drew too close a link between dissolution in the developing world and instability in the United States and the West. The American political system may now be in trouble, but it is for reasons—like the impact of video and digital technology on politics and society—that have little to do with the factors that I discussed then. Finally, though in almost all cases I wrote specifically about “West Africa” in the essay, it was quite understandable that people would conflate “West Africa” with “Africa” as a whole. But that was wrong. For example, whereas what happened in Sierra Leone and Cote d’Ivoire was a consequence of the virtual absence of institutions and authority, the genocide in Rwanda was unconnected to Hobbesian chaos. In fact, Rwanda was the opposite of West Africa. With a tightly organized political and security apparatus, which perpetrated a crime with a distinctive modernist and systematized aura, Rwanda represented the evil possible under a strong state. Indeed, race was an ideological weapon in Rwanda, as it had been in Nazi Germany; in West Africa ideology simply did not exist.

UNSURPRISINGLY, “THE Coming Anarchy” suffered the same fate as other essays and books that have become famous: they are alternately praised and criticized for the wrong reasons. Whenever the headlines are especially dreary anywhere for whatever cause, “The Coming Anarchy” is periodically invoked. Conversely, whenever something good happens, especially in Africa, “The Coming Anarchy” is periodically disparaged. What happened five years, ten years and fifteen years later in the specific places I wrote about has now been forgotten; so too have the details of the essay itself, and thus all that remains is a vague, general impression. For as news cycles become more vivid and intense, they also become more quickly erased from memory, as fresh images replace old ones. Wait long enough and a news cycle will come around that will prove any big idea either wrong or right, depending on the circumstances. Fukuyama’s essay has suffered a similar fate: his nuanced, brilliantly argued thesis has been reduced to a bumper sticker. The truth is, “The Coming Anarchy” accurately captured the beginning of an arc of dissolution and upheaval in significant regions of the world that may now be completed and is thus transforming itself into something new.

Nearly a decade ago, in my book Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power , I wrote about a whole new cycle of economic development that was just starting to characterize significant tracts of sub-Saharan Africa, especially East Africa, which I included in an emerging Indian Ocean prosperity sphere. In fact, it is becoming more and more superficial to think of Africa as Africa. Globalization is producing more identifiable regions: as the Persian Gulf, India and China have been able to invest increasingly more money in East Africa; as southern Africa attempts to garner more Western investment following the end of the disastrous reign of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and that of Jacob Zuma in South Africa; as the West African sub-region of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia continue to struggle following decades of real and incipient anarchy; and as the vast, often-densely forested tracts of the continent’s interior—far from any coastline and thus less effected by globalization and the outside world—remain trapped in ethnic-tribal disputes and overwhelming underdevelopment, from the Central African Republic and South Sudan clear through the whole of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Modernism has been especially cruel to both West Africa and the wider African interior, where ethnic, tribal and linguistic boundaries “crisscross and overlap, without the neat delineations so much beloved by Western statesmen since the treaties of Westphalia,” observes the French Africa scholar, Gerard Prunier. Here, he says, borders work best as “porous membranes” that are not set in the “cast-iron” lines favored by Western imperialists. “The Coming Anarchy” happened to describe West Africa at a moment when traditional culture was still being shredded by modernism and by modernism’s false boundaries, but before new political and societal forms could take hold.

Yet evolution is inexorable. Technology in particular is not so much defeating geography as shrinking it. This means the geopolitical world is becoming smaller, that much more claustrophobic, and consequently more nervous, with the fate of the West increasingly tied to that of Africa and other places. While Europe’s indigenous population stagnates, Africa’s population could grow from one billion to as much as four billion by the end of the century—and that is even with declining rates of population growth. Nigeria, whose population stands at 200 million, could reach 750 million by then, with concomitant erosion of agricultural soil. Thus, an era of migration from south-to-north may be only just beginning. This at a time, when, as experts suggest, the combined effects of automation, artificial intelligence and so-called 3d printing could make Western companies far less dependent on cheap labor in poor countries, further destabilizing them. Though middle classes are emerging in a number of African countries, that will only empower more people to vote with their feet and migrate. Peasantries rooted in place are far more politically stable than newly literate and empowered masses with rising expectations.

Don’t think even for a moment that economic development, where it does happen, will assuage political upheaval in Africa or anywhere else. In fact, it will only lead to great upheavals of a different kind. As Huntington wrote in his most important book, Political Order in Changing Societies, social and economic change in the developing world creates demands for new institutions and drastic reform of institutions that already do exist, leading to ever more sophisticated forms of political turmoil. An increasingly interconnected world, beset by vast technological change and absolute rises in population in the poorest countries, simply cannot be at peace. This means that I may have been wrong about downplaying major interstate wars as I did, especially given the hardening of military power in authoritarian states like China and Russia. Tumultuous change, both positive and negative—some of it violent and greatly so—must occur. For there will be no night watchman to preserve world order (and the established hierarchies upon which order depends). Of course, that is the very definition of anarchy, as intimated by the late Columbia University political scientist Kenneth Waltz. My vision—then and now—of vast geopolitical disruption is not ultimately pessimistic, but merely historical. n

Robert D. Kaplan is the author most recently of The Return of Marco Polo’s World: War, Strategy, and American Interests in the Twenty-first Century . He is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a senior adviser at Eurasia Group.

#africa #turkey #europe #geopolitics #history #Robert D. Kaplan

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didanawisgi · 6 years ago

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“The intervention was questionable in the first place, and the reasons for staying are murky.

Donald Trump is looking to make a precipitate exit from Syria. His advisers, most of the leading opinion writers in the country, and all the great and the good of America’s foreign-policy elite are crying out at the blunder they anticipate it will be. The president is handing a gift to Vladimir Putin and Iran. The president is betraying our allies. Disaster.

I don’t think so.

You may remember that the U.S. Congress refused to authorize intervention in Syria in 2013, when President Obama kicked the question to them. They refused to do so because of polls showing that Americans opposed intervention overwhelmingly, roughly 70–30. And support for intervention tends to go down over time. However, U.S. forces had already been active in Syria, and in Syria’s civil war, for at least a year by that point, working with the CIA to arm and train Sunnis fighting the government. Alas, in our scramble to find “moderate rebels,” we often ended up arming Al Nusra, the franchise of al-Qaeda that is native to Syria.

More U.S. forces came into Syria in 2014 and 2015 to combat ISIS, which had formed its burgeoning statelet in the chaos of western Iraq and eastern Syria. They did so under the dubiously reinterpreted congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force from 2001.

As refugees and migrants flowed out of Syria, every great power, regional power, or freelancing wannabe flowed in. The United States, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, most of the Gulf states, Russia, and lately even China have tried to get involved in one or another aspect of the fight. Even the persecuted Uighur minority of western China, improbable as it sounds, has fighters involved in northwest Syria.

In the midst of this, you might ask, what are Americans trying to accomplish in Syria? For laymen, it certainly is confusing. Advocates for staying in Syria are sometimes specific and sometimes vague. One commentator will say we have to stay in order to defeat ISIS, another will say we have to stay to honor and protect the Kurds because their militias helped us defeat ISIS. Another will say that we are there, joined in the struggle to secure a post-war order in Syria. Still others will say that the mission is to prevent Russia from achieving greater influence in the region.

American policymakers have mostly given up on the mission of helping rebels topple the Alawite regime of Bashar al-Assad, partly because it would be very difficult to dislodge him. Intervention remains unpopular, and Russia proved willing to intervene dramatically. Of course it did; it naturally wants to protect naval assets hosted by a longtime regional ally, especially at a time when it considers other naval assets in Ukraine to be under pressure.

America turned its fire on the Islamic State and destroyed the burgeoning caliphate. That burgeoning statelet has been annihilated. But there are still thousands of ISIS fighters in the region, mostly in northern Syria, many of them among the rebel forces that occasionally excite American sympathy. This is why the president and experts seem to say that ISIS is defeated in one breath, and ISIS is still a threat in the next. But Syria is not the only place where ISIS can be found. ISIS also has places to operate in western Iraq, which is still barely reconciled to the government in Baghdad. And “affiliate” groups exist throughout much of North Africa.

In the fight against ISIS, we’ve worked closely with left-wing Kurdish militia, who are a thorn in the side of our NATO ally Turkey. Kurdish-controlled zones tend to be more religiously tolerant than neighboring ones, though they are also considered a security threat by Erdogan and Assad. The fights between Kurds and Turks should give readers an idea of how “entangled” our alliances have become in the Middle East.

So in this situation, commentators argue against leaving because it would abandon our Kurdish allies on the ground to the tender mercies of our Turkish allies. This would ruin our credibility when we intervene elsewhere. It would give Putin a “gift” and we would lose leverage in a post-war Syrian settlement.

Much of that is true. There are always costs to abandoning a bad investment. And yet these costs are preferable to an endless, ever-evolving mission that has no popular support or mandate. What critics of withdrawal refuse to do is describe the actual sustainable ends they want to achieve with America’s military in Syria.

What would a post-war Syria that is acceptable to America look like, and how can America bring it about at a cost Americans are willing to accept? We are not told. What are the conditions we hope to achieve before the mission can end? This question is also met with silence.

It is as if the downsides of leaving are cited only because staying keeps American soldiers and matériel near the ongoing disaster in Syria, a disaster that may yet yield an international outrage that will motivate Americans to expand the mission to include regime change. Every few months, as Assad’s government reclaims more territory, media outlets dutifully relay the messages of rebels ahead of their latest evacuations. So far public opinion has refused to satisfy the foreign-policy hawks.

As for Russian prestige, is it so enhanced? As in eastern Ukraine, so in Syria: The United States placed a gamble on a people-powered movement that would have the effect of depriving Russia of an ally that hosts vital Russian naval assets, and Russia eventually scrambled to avoid this major loss. It is not so much a gift as the successful and costly prevention of a theft.

If Russia’s prestige has been enhanced in the Middle East, perhaps it is not so much the fecklessness of American intervention and the resolution of Putin, but that Russia simply had the more viable strategy. Russia has intervened on behalf of traditional state actors, Iran and Syria. The United States, since the Arab Spring, has fitfully allied itself with demotic and even revolutionary Sunni movements. The relationships of these movements to Sunni terrorist movements such as Al Nusra and ISIS has been rather fluid.

In fact, Russia’s reentry into the Middle East has been made much easier by U.S. failures in the region, in the exact same way that increased Iranian influence follows American failure. The Iraq War increased the polarization of Sunni and Shia across the region, and Russia has simply sided with those who have more reason than ever to resent American involvement in the region. Russia could even advert to its own people and to the world that it was returning to its role as a protector of Christian religious minorities. It can make this ruse almost believable, because America’s and Saudi Arabia’s actions support, directly and sometimes indirectly, Sunni movements that are fantastically intolerant. If Syria is a gift to the Russians, let them have it — just as we took the “gift” of Afghanistan, only to discover how unhappy it has made us.

My friend Noah Rothman writes in Commentary, “Political commentators and anti-interventionist ideologues will note that withdrawing America’s modest footprint from Syria is popular with the public. But what would you expect? Precisely no one in the political class is making a case for sustained and substantial American intervention in this conflict zone.”

Are we sure that we have cause and effect in correct order? At the height of anger and outrage at Bashar Assad’s government, most of the press, most of the U.S. Senate, and the president himself were making a case for intervention against Assad. They did so on the limited basis of enforcing norms against the use of chemical weapons, though the war aims would surely be wider, just as a few years earlier the mission in Libya went from protecting human life to decapitating the regime. Americans were against such an intervention in Syria nearly four to one. The Parliament of the United Kingdom opposed it. Then the U.S. Congress dropped it. The wisdom of putting the power of war in the people’s house is that democracies cannot fight successful wars without popular support.

As for credibility with our allies, the Kurds allied with us, as did others, because we are powerful and rich. They are capable of remembering how George H. W. Bush encouraged Iraqis and Kurds to rise up against Saddam in the early 1990s, only to extricate ourselves. They knew the risks. They also know who is president of the United States, and have started talks about guaranteeing a tolerable order with the Syrian government.

When the U.S. embarked on its bid to transform Iraq, it did so while touting a “democratic domino theory.” A free Iraq would be an example that weakens the grip of authoritarians and despots across the Arab and Muslim world. So we were told.

And we did set the dominos in motion. But instead of stable democracies, what spread was chaos, Sunni radicalism, and an intensifying of the Sunni–Shia conflict across the Islamic world. Knocking over Iraq’s government put Baghdad in the grasp of Iran-sympathetic Shia, whose misgovernance encouraged a revolt across Iraq’s Sunni triangle and eventually in Syria. Similar Sunni radicalisms swept over Libya and Egypt. The results have been the destruction of minority religious communities of Christians and Yezidis and an ongoing refugee and migration crisis that has destabilized politics across almost the entirety of Europe.

We were told that we have to fight them over there, so that we do not have to fight them at home. But instead, we went to fight them over there, and find we are fighting them everywhere.

America has been conducting its terrorism fight according to the logic that obtains in imperial orders, where the great power at the center maintains an expansive, world-bestriding reign and tries to pick its fights along the permeable periphery of that order. Christmas markets and major public buildings at the centers of that order are reinforced and protected by concrete barriers.

But the unpopularity of intervention in Syria shows that Americans still have a small-r republican streak. Instead of trying to construct barriers to terrorism around Syria, and around a few important buildings in our cities, they would prefer barriers at the national border. It would be a shame if we ever gave up entirely on this republican spirit. Certainly nothing the hawks promise we’ll find in Syria seems worth sacrificing it.”

MICHAEL BRENDAN DOUGHERTY — Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review Online.

#controversy #syrian civil war #syria #politics #geopolitics #islamic state #isil #trump administration #debate #Al Nusra #al-Qaeda

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thisdaynews · 4 years ago

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BREAKING:U.S. Intelligence Reports Says Mohammed bin Salman Approved Khashoggi's Murder

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/breakingu-s-intelligence-reports-says-mohammed-bin-salman-approved-khashoggis-murder/

BREAKING:U.S. Intelligence Reports Says Mohammed bin Salman Approved Khashoggi's Murder

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the 2018 killing of U.S.-based journalist and Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, according to a declassified report released by the Biden administration on Friday.

The report, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), said the crown prince, the kingdom’s de facto leader, “approved an operation … to capture or kill” Khashoggi.

“We base this assessment on the Crown Prince’s control of decisionmaking in the Kingdom, the direct involvement of a key adviser and members of Muhammad bin Salman’s protective detail in the operation, and the Crown Prince’s support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad, including Khashoggi,” the report said.

“Since 2017, the Crown Prince has had absolute control of the Kingdom’s security and intelligence organizations, making it highly unlikely that Saudi officials would have carried out an operation of this nature without the Crown Prince’s authorization,” it continued.

The four-page report’s release was highly anticipated and is part of President Biden’s strategy to “recalibrate” the relationship with Saudi Arabia, where he has committed to emphasize democratic values and human rights in Washington’s dealings with Riyadh.

“For too long, the United States failed to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for the brutal murder of journalist, dissident, and Virginia resident Jamal Khashoggi,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) said in statement Friday. “I’m encouraged to see the new administration taking steps to rectify that by releasing this long-overdue congressionally mandated report into his killing.”

The report was released the day after Biden spoke with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman. A White House statement on the call did not mention Khashoggi or the report, but said the president “affirmed the importance the United States places on universal human rights and the rule of law.”

On Wednesday, Biden said he had read the report, without elaborating.

Asked Friday whether Biden raised Khashoggi with the king, White House press secretary Jen Psaki declined to elaborate on the call, but stressed to reporters that officials “at every level” have publicly raised concerns about human rights abuses.

Khashoggi was killed by a Saudi hit squad, including a bone saw-wielding forensic doctor, in October 2018 while he was at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to obtain documents for a marriage license. Turkish authorities have said he was strangled soon after entering the consulate and dismembered.

The report’s release Friday was paired with an announcement by Secretary of State Antony Blinken of visa restrictions against 76 Saudi individuals believed to be engaged in threatening dissidents overseas, including but not limited to those connected to Khashoggi’s murder.

“While the United States remains invested in its relationship with Saudi Arabia, President Biden has made clear that partnership must reflect U.S. values,” Blinken said in a statement. “To that end, we have made absolutely clear that extraterritorial threats and assaults by Saudi Arabia against activists, dissidents, and journalists must end. They will not be tolerated by the United States.”

Called the “Khashoggi ban,” the visa restrictions can be imposed on any individual believed to be directed by a foreign government to seriously harass and threaten people perceived as dissidents.

The Treasury Department also announced sanctions on Ahmad Hassan Mohammed al Asiri, Saudi Arabia’s former deputy head of the General Intelligence Presidency, who the department said was “assigned to murder” Khashoggi and was the “ringleader” of the operation.

Treasury also slapped sanctions on Saudi Arabia’s Rapid Intervention Force, Crown Prince Mohammed’s elite personal protective detail whose members were part of the hit squad. But the sanctions notably did not target the crown prince himself.

The report on Friday listed the names of 21 individuals U.S. intelligence officials have “high confidence … participated in, ordered, or were otherwise complicit in or responsible for” Khashoggi’s murder “on behalf of” Crown Prince Mohammed. Still, it says the United States can’t confirm if the individuals knew the operation would result in the journalist’s death.

The report highlighted that members of the hit team included officials linked to the Saudi Center for Studies and Media Affairs, whose leader publicly said in 2018 he did not make decisions without the crown prince’s approval.

The team also included seven members of Crown Prince Mohammed’s elite personal protective detail, who the U.S. officials “judge would not have participated in the operation against Khashoggi without Muhammad bin Salman’s approval,” the report said.

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D), a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who represents the Virginia district where Khashoggi resided, called for a “reevaluation” of the U.S. and Saudi relationship in the wake of the crown prince’s responsibility.

“This report lays the blame for the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, my constituent, directly at the feet of the Crown Prince. Saudi Arabia must be held accountable, and that demands a careful and complete re-evaluation of the US relationship with the Kingdom,” Connolly said in a statement. “It is a dark stain on the Trump administration that they were willing to keep this report from the American people in order to protect its relationships with the Crown Prince over and above basic American values and Jamal’s life itself.”

Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a U.S. organization founded by Khashoggi shortly before his murder, said the report’s release helps confirm previously reported details.

“At minimum, certainly this information is really just further confirmation of what we all know — and that is that Mohammed bin Salman is responsible for the murder of Jamal, our founder,” she said.

Whitson said DAWN is likely to include the ODNI report in its own civil suit against the crown prince, which was filed with Khashoggi’s fiancee Hatice Cengiz in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia and seeks monetary damages.

Whitson added the report’s release serves as a warning against such brazen violent actions.

“It is an important warning and we hope an important measure of deterrence against other despots who think they can go around the world killing people they don’t like in foreign countries,” she said.

Biden has already taken actions shifting the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia, in part over Khashoggi’s murder and supported by Congress. They include ending U.S. support for the Saudi-led offensive in Yemen, as well as relevant weapons sales to the kingdom.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, urged the Biden administration to follow the report’s release with “serious repercussions against all of the responsible parties it has identified, and also reassess our relationship with Saudi Arabia.”

“We must ensure that if foreign governments target journalists simply for doing their jobs, they are not immune to serious repercussions and sanctions, because restoring confidence in American leadership requires we act in accordance with the values that have long set America apart,” Schiff said. “The administration should take further steps to diminish the United States’s reliance on Riyadh and reinforce that our partnership with the Kingdom is not a blank check.”

The State Department on Friday is reportedly expected to announce further restrictions on offensive weapons to the kingdom.

Still, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby stressed after the report’s release that Saudi Arabia “remains a strategic partner in the region.” He declined to comment on the ODNI report itself, describing it as outside the purview of the Defense Department.

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khalilhumam · 4 years ago

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Is there a new window of opportunity in the Eastern Mediterranean crisis?

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/is-there-a-new-window-of-opportunity-in-the-eastern-mediterranean-crisis/

Is there a new window of opportunity in the Eastern Mediterranean crisis?

By Galip Dalay Maritime disputes between Greece and Turkey, couched in competing narratives of national sovereignties, are nothing new. Their genesis dates as far back as the founding periods of the two states. At its core, these disputes center on three issues: the disagreement over the width of Greek territorial waters, along with the ownership of certain islands or isles in the Aegean Sea; the question of the two countries’ respective Exclusive Economic Zones in the Eastern Mediterranean; and the unresolved nature of the Cyprus crisis. In addition to these matters, Turkey also contends that a number of other issues, such as the sovereignty or demilitarized status of certain Greek islands, also remain unresolved and need to be addressed. For its part, Greece rejects these demands outright as a violation of its sovereignty. Since these disputes are tied to core issues for both countries, concessions and compromises are inherently difficult and politically costly, making their resolution extremely difficult. Plus, the two sides cannot seem to agree on a framework within which to address their disputes: Greece favors international arbitration, while Turkey prefers bilateral negotiations. But even if Ankara agrees to the international adjudication route, only the next dispute will be what is taken to the international court. Though these details are important, there is nothing new in the story of the Greco-Turkish maritime disputes, nor in their disagreements over frameworks. Plus, in spite of the intermittent flare-ups, these disputes have traditionally taken the form of a smoldering but largely frozen conflict. How, then, to account for the current tensions, which seem to be the longest-lasting crisis in Athens-Ankara relations since Turkey’s military intervention in Cyprus in 1974? Two geopolitical and energy developments, and two sets of systemic changes, are the key drivers of this latest tension.

Triggering factors

The traditional sources of friction between Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus are now dovetailing with another set of interlocking geopolitical tensions and energy disputes in the Eastern Mediterranean. These are between Turkey and a group of countries including France, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In particular, the energy discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean and the ever-sprawling Libyan imbroglio have aggravated longstanding tensions. At this stage, not only has the number of countries involved in the Eastern Mediterranean crisis grown, but the scope of the disputes has broadened to include new issues, such as gas exploration and the Libyan crisis. In the wake of discoveries of gas in the Eastern Mediterranean — by Israel in 2009 and 2010 (Tamar and Leviathan, respectively), Cyprus in 2011, and Egypt in 2015 (Zohr) — the question of how to sell the gas to Europe has become pressing. The Eastern Mediterranean pipeline project was premised on closer cooperation between Greece, Cyprus, and Israel. In January 2020, this tripartite cooperation in Cairo was formalized with the creation of the East Mediterranean Gas Forum. In addition to Greece, Cyprus, and Israel, the forum also includes Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, and Italy. However, the envisioned pipeline project and the forum, as well as the regional realignment that underpinned them, have contributed to Turkey’s sense of being sidelined. It has responded with coercive diplomacy, striving to prevent the emergence of an anti-Turkey energy security order in the Eastern Mediterranean. Likewise, the Libyan conflict has aggravated the situation. First, Libya has become a site of confrontation between Turkey and a set of countries, including Egypt, the UAE, and France. All of these countries have sided with Greece in its dispute with Turkey. France has become the most vocal European power in support of Greece and Cyprus; it has even done military drilling operations with Greece and sent the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier to the Eastern Mediterranean in solidarity. Similarly, the UAE signed a defense agreement with Greece. Second, Turkey signed two memorandums of understanding with Libya’s U.N.-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) in November 2019: the Delimitation of Maritime Jurisdiction Areas in the Mediterranean Sea and the Security and Military Cooperation Agreement. Through the first agreement, Turkey aimed to disrupt the emerging regional energy and security order: The projected gas pipeline would partially go through maritime areas claimed by Turkey, and the deal conveys Turkey’s intention to disrupt any gas pipeline projects that would circumvent it. The deal also conveys Turkey’s views of its maritime boundaries in the Eastern Mediterranean, but disregards big Greek islands such as Crete and Rhodes, making it shaky from the perspective of international law. With the second deal, Turkey committed to the protection of the GNA in the face of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s (of the Libyan National Army) offensive to take over Tripoli. In a sense, for the GNA, the maritime deal was the price to be paid in order to receive the military cooperation deal with Turkey in return. Particularly, the Turkey-Libya maritime deal further increased tensions with Greece, and also paved the way for Greece to sign a similar deal with Egypt in August that delimited their respective maritime jurisdictions. Just as the Turkish-Libyan deal conflicts with Greece’s view of its own maritime boundaries, the Greek-Egyptian deal contradicts Turkey’s view of its own maritime boundaries.

Systemic changes: Turkey’s FOREIGN POLICY post-EU accession, and Trump’s world

On top of gas discovery and explorations, as well as the Libyan conflict, two systemic changes have provided the larger backdrop to the current crisis and have made it more perilous. First, in previous Greece-Turkey flare-ups, the United States has usually intervened. Such spats risk military confrontation between two NATO members — for instance, during tensions over the contested tiny islands of Imia (or Kardak, in Turkish) in 1996, which almost brought Turkey and Greece to the brink of war. However, in recent years, two trends have become apparent. First, the U.S. has reduced its footprint in the region. This partial retreat did not start with Trump, but rather began under the Obama administration. Trump compounded this trend with another factor, sending the message that this is an everyone-for-himself world. His approach accelerated the decline of international institutions, norms, and principles in the conduct of international affairs. Many powers, including Turkey, adjusted accordingly. The U.S. downsizing of its role in the region, coupled with Trump’s such view of international affairs, has set off scrambles amongst different regional players for more influence and power in the Eastern Mediterranean and broader Middle East and North Africa region. Second, Turkey-Greece relations are unfolding against the larger backdrop of the European framework. The honeymoon period between Ankara and Athens during the late 1990s and 2000s was a natural outcome and requirement of Turkey’s European Union (EU) accession vision and process at the time. This was the primary reason for the Turkish government’s strong support for the U.N. plan that was put to a referendum in Cyprus in 2004, on the unification of the island. Turkish Cypriots voted 64.9% in favor of unification, whereas Greek Cypriots voted by 75.83% against. However, Turkey’s EU accession process and aspirations have long come to a standstill, which has in turn hurt Turkish-Greek/Cypriot relations.

The way forward

President-elect Joe Biden’s victory has led to euphoria, if not complacency, in Europe. But Biden is unlikely to resume America’s post-World War II role as the policeman in the European neighborhood and the world at large. He is equally unlikely to increase the U.S. security commitment to the region. As Europe expert Daniel Hamilton puts it, Biden “will demand more, not less, of Europe” in foreign and security policy. This, in return, means that it falls squarely upon the Europeans to prevent the Eastern Mediterranean crisis from getting out of hand — as of now, a conflict is unlikely, but not unthinkable. In the end, this is not only a crisis in Europe’s neighborhood, but also a crisis within Europe, given the deep involvement of three EU member states, namely Greece, Cyprus, and France. In this respect, German-led European diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the crisis are a step in the right direction. However, the future prospects of these efforts will be contingent upon a sharp diagnosis of the crisis, as well as patience, commitment, and imaginative policy responses. Even more importantly, they depend on Germany and France patching up their divergence on the subject. Although there are multiple files and actors in this crisis, its core remains centered on multi-layered maritime disputes between Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus. The effort to de-escalate the tension should also start by focusing on re-starting talks between Greece and Turkey. The expectations need to be kept modest. Instead of conflict resolution, the present conditions at best only allow for conflict management. And in Greece-Turkey disputes, talks usually indicate de-escalation, as they take the focus from coercive diplomacy and military posturing towards dialogue and negotiations. However, for talks to start, it is equally critical that there is a form of moratorium on energy exploration in the disputed waters in the Eastern Mediterranean. As of now, Turkey is almost the only one that undertakes these activities. To reinforce this process, Europe should push for Turkey’s inclusion in the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum. Ankara’s recent push for a modus vivendi with Egypt and the reported outreach to Israel to mend these ties also appear to aid this process. If this route is not viable, Europe should then push for a trilateral framework between Turkey, the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum countries, and the EU in order to discuss and address the crisis in the Eastern Mediterranean. Though the gas discoveries triggered the recent tension, this crisis is essentially political. In addition, despite the early optimism about the size of the gas reserves and its potential monetization, it now appears that the gas reserves are smaller and less lucrative, making the projected Eastern Mediterranean gas pipeline project to Europe highly unfeasible. Plus, European energy transition and decarbonization goals mean the commercial value of the gas riches will further diminish going forward. This can potentially open an avenue for conversation between the EU and littoral states of the Eastern Mediterranean on energy transition and decarbonization in the European neighborhood, as well. For this to happen, the EU needs to advance a major decarbonization vision for the European neighborhood, a plan to implement it, and a commitment to achieve it. At present, given the division within Europe and disagreement amongst Middle Eastern states about the nature of the regional order, such a grand plan might not resonate widely. But even an official-level exploration and conversation on the subject can direct the nature of the conversation on the Eastern Mediterranean more towards a cooperative mode. This in itself can help reduce the tension. Finally, Turkey’s deepening economic ills, coupled with the prospective trans-Atlantic convergence between the EU and the Biden administration on the Eastern Mediterranean, is likely to motivate Ankara to de-escalate the situation in the area. Europe and the U.S. should seize this window of opportunity, which may not arise again for a long time to come.

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erdoganandtrump · 4 years ago

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Game Changer Erdogan

Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the president of the modern Republic of Turkey since 2018. He entered national elections in 2002, and never lost it again.

During his reign, Globalist regimes were in power on both side of the Atlantic until Donald Trump revolution in America. Yet, GameChanger Erdoğan still excelled.

Last attempt to topple him came on 15 July 2016. Globalists failed, perhaps one last time, and they came home to roost after that.

GameChanger Erdoğan: Da’wa

Erdoğan fought for his Da’wa at all fronts since 2002 and still has a long way to go. The road to 2016 was first part of it.

That is when, the last vestiges of the Globalists gave their best chance to derail him. Since then he is still on the same unwavering path no matter what the world throws at him.

His Da’wa is noble that is why he endures. He is there to provide security and justice to the unfortunate. Unless his counterparts understand his mission in life, their efforts will always be in vain, and a rock and a hard place.

Da’wa Against Muslims

Erdoğan will continue delivering with zeal that will be always be equated with religious connotation because of bias against Muslims of the world. Behind his unshakable determination, there is the damnation of the oppressed and downtrodden. To put it into a perspective, Erdoğan came to power with the popular vote of those living in the margins of the modern society in Turkey. Since then, he reached out everyone that is in the margins beyond borders. First in line, there was 54 Muslim majority countries and then came the rest, including the ones in S. America and Africa.

Deva to Dava

Erdoğan enveloped their cause to his Da’wa. More and more are now coming on board ever since and they have already become bigger than what Globalists can handle. To put it into perspective, Erdoğan simply galvanized masses of humanity by investing his country to hard work and education. He built the defense industry to new heights, focused on energy sources and invested to the infrastructure. Multi media messaging reached out to everyone around the globe. The result speaks for itself. The modern Republic of Turkey has grown during his reign three times more than during the 25 previous prime ministers of the country. All the while, he became a global brand like the Turkish Airlines.

GameChanger Erdoğan: Dava

In 2002, Erdoğan had two simple mission in mind: Going after Free Press and the Turkish Armed Forces.

Coming from the margins of the society, a place like Kasımpaşa, having a case against two formidable institutions shows, where he was coming from.

Civilization of Free Press

Having the wherewithal that trying to correct the fault lines of the “Free Press” on one hand at the beginning of his long journey, is telling. After all, Free Press is the by product of America. The bedrock of the Democracy, that everyone believes, is in its best form there . Yet, what transpired in America, miraculously, since 2016 is remarkable. How “Free Press” lost its credibility when in the divided society one half no longer believed what the other side printed. Was not Erdoğan right 12 years before most Americans realized how “Free Press” would become a tool in the hands of evil?

Pacification of the Armed Forces

As for the Turkish Armed Forces, everyone thought it was the reason why Erdoğan entered national elections in 2002. It was not so. In fact, Erdoğan has never been against either the Free Press or the Turkish Armed Forces that jailed him for four months by making a federal case against him, out of a relatively minor offense, by throwing the book at him in 1999. Come fast forward, the Turkish Armed Forces in 2020 is the domineering regional power because of Erdoğan and expected to become the top five military on the planet within a decade.

A Man of Da’wa or Dava: A True Believer

I wrote GAMECHANGER Trump Card: Turkey & Erdoğan in 2019, believing that there is a divine intervention.

In 2016, America elected, much to the dismay of large masses within America and beyond, Donald J. Trump as the 45th president of the United States of America.

Yet, what Trump was saying was no different than what Erdoğan was doing all alone. They were both for the oppressed and downtrodden, free and fair trade, homeland first, against no so free press anymore, pro-military to no end, and believing in God.

It was easy for me to conclude the rest as a student of political science and history to put the pieces together. As a result, I penned what Turkey and Erdoğan stood for and their foreign policy objectives. After that, I explained “Arabs” and the “Western Europeans” and what changed in the 21st century. I put all that into perspective what was in stake for the Western civilization.

Meeting of Minds

Gamechanger Erdoğan, as a True Believer, was doing the work for the Da’wa. Once understood the real intentions of the “true believer Erdoğan,” all the leader of the only superpower of the world had to do was to work together. In 2018, they were on the same page and started to walk the walk as two True Believers.

Where does True Believer GameChanger go from here?

Same old same old.

Via Zero Sum Game

True Believer continues with his Da’wa. Russia is on board with Turkey and Erdoğan. Now it is for the three major powers of Europe to find their groove as well. Short of that, it is a calamity because GameChanger Erdoğan will play Zero Sum game everywhere that is vitally important for the security of Turkey proper. However, there is a caveat. He will also be liable to apply Zero Sum game, albeit selectively, elsewhere in the region.

For the love of the Muslim Ummah

Region ranges from Horn of Africa to North Africa, but also includes West Africa and Sub-Sahara in due process. Central Asian Turkic Republics are the next area of foray. The entirety of the Middle East is not even questioned. The immediate domain will encompass an area between the expanses of the Indian Ocean and Eastern Mediterranean Sea. That is basically where the Muslim “ummah” lives.

To regulate the flow of Migration

Like I explained in the GAMECHANGER Trump Card: Turkey & Erdogan, the mission is to regulate the flow of migration to Western Europe. That is the Da’wa. It is not only GameChanger Erdogan’s Da’wa but also it is this planet’s Da’wa. Both True Believers already understand well what this Da’wa is about.

Hope for the West

The hope is, for the rest of the Globalists also to realize, what is at stake. If not, they will learn it the hard way and everyone will feel the pain.

#Azerbaijan BalanceOfPower Book EasternMediterranean Economy English ErbilGunasti Erdogan erdoganandtrump France NewsNotFitToPrintInAmerica T

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armeniaitn · 4 years ago

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Azerbaijan and Turkey must be held responsible for bringing paid killers and fanatic jihadists to our region – Armenian President

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/politics/azerbaijan-and-turkey-must-be-held-responsible-for-bringing-paid-killers-and-fanatic-jihadists-to-our-region-armenian-president-63090-15-10-2020/

Azerbaijan and Turkey must be held responsible for bringing paid killers and fanatic jihadists to our region – Armenian President

Azerbaijan and Turkey should be held responsible for bringing paid killers and fanatic jihadists to our region thus making achievement of peace even more complicated, Armenian President Armen Sarkissian said in an interview with Kuwaiti daily Arabic-language newspaper Al-Jarida.

“The civilized world should stop this. It is a shame for the 21st century to still have mercenaries who are paid for killing civilians or creating human disasters,” the President said.

The full text of the interview is provided below:

Who started the military actions in Nagorno-Karabakh and in which political context it occurred? Are we witnessing a proxy war? Or another battlefield for energy wars?

Nagorno-Karabakh is a region which was historically part of the Armenian lands and Armenians have been living there for thousands of year. Historically, Nagorno-Karabakh or Artsakh was always a part of Armenia. It is a nice mountainous beautiful region where Armenians, as an indigenous people, were inhabiting those lands for thousands of years and they still live there. Only under the Soviet regime, Nagorno-Karabakh, as an autonomous region, was given by Stalin to Soviet Azerbaijan for 70 years. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, we got the first war and almost 30 years of negotiations. The Azeri side is that it has a legitimate right to free those lands. But free from whom? There are ethnic Armenians 100% living there, and they have been there always. Why one should leave his/her own home just because a newcomer wants to? This is called aggression followed by ethnic cleansing. They want that land without Armenians. For the Azeri side, controlling those lands and justifying their aggression is part of an identify-building narrative, while for the Armenian side, it’s a struggle for life, for cultural heritage and historic memory. It a fight for their houses, parents and children who live there, but who now became direct targets of Turkish drones and Azeri missiles.

So, they started a full war while there is a clear agreement of a cease-fire established since 1994. This is a real war which Azerbaijan and Turkey prepared seriously and long ago. The Azeri sides wants to break the status-quo and impose its will. And Turkey militarily and politically backs this dangerous venture of Azerbaijan pushing the region to the brink of a human disaster. We, Armenians, never challenged any energy infrastructure. Instead, according to some arrangements, Armenia could even export electricity to Turkey as it does for Iran and Georgia. As for your question about a proxy war, I can tell you that Turkey is using Azerbaijan to expand its dominance in the region. By doing so, it threatens the fragile stability in the South Caucasus.

With the regional tension all around, are you afraid the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh will create a new “Syria”?

Yes, I am, because if there is no a strong international reaction to Turkey’s deliberate and unlawful actions in the region, we can turn the region into a Syria-like nightmare. And then, everyone in the region and beyond will be affected. So, if Turkey is not stopped from being directly involved in military offensive activities, the conflict between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan may spiral out of control. We need to stop Turkey and Azerbaijan from levelling up the situation in magnitude, in complexity, and creating something that eventually will become another Syria of the Caucasus. Turkey is permanently recruiting and sending war mercenaries, mujahedin–terrorists, Islamic terrorists Azerbaijan to fight against the civilian population of Nagorno-Karabakh-Republic or Artsakh, as we say it. Different countries must interfere and put a strong and unequivocal pressure on Turkey to stop it from interfering in the region. If Turkey is restrained, then we have a chance of an effective ceasefire and negotiations, with a possibility of going back to the negotiation table. This Turkish involvement and the Azeri aggression which didn’t stop even under the declaration of ceasing hostilities for humanitarian purposes on October 10, 2020, give feeling to everyone not only in Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia but everywhere where are Armenians, and those people who are close to the Armenians, that Turkey wants to repeat something that happened 105 years ago-ethnic cleansings of Armenians from their homeland-and creating another genocide. We-Armenians, in Armenia, Artsakh and Diaspora-will never allow another genocide to happen. Enough is enough.

Azerbaijan authorities proclaimed that Armenians volunteers, especially from Syria and Lebanon, are joining the fight. Is that accurate? Are you afraid that this may increase religious dimensions of the conflict?

After the Genocide of Armenians perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire and never recognized as such by modern Turkish Republic, Armenians were spread world-wide, and became proud citizens of a number of countries: the US, Russia, France, Iran, Argentina, Lebanon, Australia, Syria, Georgia, Singapore, Poland, etc. They are effectively integrated into their home countries and societies, and a humble and law-abiding contributors in economy, politics, culture, sports, sciences, technology, education, etc. of the host countries. When there is an imminent existential threat, Armenians seek to get mobilized globally and they also can come to the Homeland and help their brothers and sisters on the ground. Azerbaijan and Turkey, not Armenia, should be taken responsible for bringing paid killers and fanatic jihadists to our region thus making achievement of peace even more complicated. The civilized world should stop this. It is a shame for the 21st century to still have mercenaries who are paid for killing civilians or creating human disasters.

As for the religious dimension, Armenians have nave showed any resentment and intolerance towards other religions. The religious dimension is just excluded from this conflict since the very beginning. Armenia and Armenians have a full respect for all religions and beliefs and thousands years of our history clearly demonstrated our attachment to human values including tolerance and respect for other religions, cultures, race, etc. I don’t know any Armenian having hatreds for representatives of other religions. We adopted Christianity in 301, officially the first in the world. During two millennia, the Armenian nation experienced wars, conflicts, exoduses, and even a genocide, but it never became a blind religious fanatic, as now we see many among those fighting against us on the Azeri side. But you will always find those who want to ignite hatreds and fuel new escalations, and they will say you there is a religious dimension which a non-sense.

Are you satisfied with the Arab gulf countries stance on the situation?

Since the very first day, when the Azeri side backed by Turkey started its unprecedented offensive against Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, I was in touch with heads of the Arab countries, such as the Sultan of Oman, the King of Bahrain, the Emir of Qatar, the President of Egypt, the King of Jordan, the Crown Prince of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, etc. In my letters and phone call I was expressing my deep concern over the spiraling situation stating that regrettably, Azerbaijan’s intermittent war against the people of Artsakh and the Republic of Armenia was nothing new and that for over three decades, Azerbaijan was trying to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh issue through military means and wipe out the Armenian population from its Homeland. And this is unacceptable.

What are Armenia demands for a ceasefire? How do you envision the political solution?

This is not the first time in about 30 years that Azerbaijan, enjoying the overt support of Turkey, perpetrated horrific aggression against Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, using a wide range of artillery and rocket munitions, including the banned cluster bombs to target the residential areas, situated far from the line of contact. It is important to remind that the routes of this conflict lied back in 1990-1991, when to the peaceful protests of the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh Azerbaijan then-Soviet Republic responded with brutal military force, committing mass ethnic cleansings, and continued atrocities aimed to forcefully squeeze out the Armenian population. The Armenians then withstood the imposed war and enjoyed 26 years of de-facto independent and peaceful life on own Homeland amidst an enduring process of negotiations.

And now, the Turkish-Azerbaijan ongoing aggression the Armenians are facing now comes to expose the genocidal intentions of them, leaving no chance to the local population but to fight again to safe own homes, families, thousand-years old history and monuments.

Therefore, we are more than convinced that the international recognition of the Republic of Artsakh is the only option that might guarantee the security and the right of the Armenians living in here. So the political solution is clear: the only way to prevent the potential genocide and forced displacement of these people is the international recognition of their self-determination.

Are you optimistic about France and Russia and the United States upcoming meetings. Do you think the international intervention will help or complicate the situation?

The international mediation of OSCE Minsk Group that co-chaired by France, Russia, and the United States was one of the factors of lasting peace-oriented to a peaceful outcome, which was blatantly disrupted by Turkey and Azerbaijan blowing up the Caucasus region on 27 September, transferring mercenaries and radical jihadists to fight the Armenians.

Even though the joint statements of leaders of France, Russia and the United States to halt the violence immediately and back to the negotiation table, those were defiantly ignored not only by the Azeri government but first and foremost by Erdogan’s Turkey, who bears responsibility for instigating and militarily involving in Azerbaijan’s unleashed aggression against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh. So, the only international intervention that not only complicated the situation but evoked an existential threat to the Armenians dramatically destabilizing the entire region is Turkey. And here is worth mentioning Turkey’s Foreign Minister Chavushoglu’s statement that his country will continue to stand by Azerbaijan on the ground and on the table, hence confirming Turkey’s military involvement in this war. This fact should inherently raise a concern among NATO members that their ally is an initiator of aggression against its Partnership for Peace partner. With this regard, to my understanding, the imperative for the international stakeholders, particularly to those who are interested in long-term peace or in the conflict resolution namely France, the United States, and Russia and others, is to refrain Turkey, making both Ankara and Baku accountable and responsible for provoking this horrible war.

Armenia is discontent with US over the use of F16 ,and with Israel over the weapon shipments to Baku ,and Russia was very cautious about showing support to you, are you concerned that Armenia will find herself alone?

The issue of Turkish F-16 in this war was raised by Armenia’s Prime Minister Pashinyan, who eventually stated that the United States may want to explain whether those fighter jets were delivered to Turkey for bombing Armenian civilians. It is also about NATO since Turkey is a NATO member and operates those F-16s. I have asked some NATO colleagues to look at this very carefully because we have a situation where a member of NATO-an organization, which has a clear mandate of what to do-is taking part or getting involved in a conflict of third parties, which are not NATO members. Does Turkey have an authorization or a green light from NATO? If yes, we should know that. If not, then I hope that our colleagues in NATO will make their voice heard and put pressure on Turkey that they should not get involved into this conflict because their presence here is not helping at all, it is escalating the situation dramatically.

On the other hand, the issue of Israel’s continued arming of Azerbaijan has long story, which remains confusing for the Armenian society. Even now, at times of the Turkey-Azerbaijan aggression against the Armenians, Israel’s government’s unchanged behavior in arming the aggressor is far from understanding for the Armenian side, who asks a simple question: since the Jewish State is a Genocide-survivor country, so why arming those who wage genocidal war against Armenia? Armenia and Artsakh are not anole, as we are on the side of truth. As for the position of Russia, the President Vladimir Putin made clear that Russia was and will keep its commitments as bilateral and multilateral security treaty ally of Armenia under the terms and conditions of a strategic partnership with Armenia.

Read original article here.

#Armenia #Armenians #Artsakh #Caucasus #Karabakh #Politics

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amirblogerov · 3 months ago

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Rebuilding Syria: Damascus's Control over Membij and Trans-Euphrates as Key to Stability

In recent years, Syria has been experiencing not only a humanitarian catastrophe, but also an ongoing struggle for territorial control. The activity of various military groups in the north of the country often leads to the plundering of its national wealth and the aggravation of interethnic conflicts. In this context, the restoration of Damascus's control over the Membij and Trans-Euphrates districts with the support of Russia could become a turning point for further stabilization of the region and the minimization of threats posed by competing forces.

The control of the Syrian government over these strategically important territories will stop the uncontrolled plundering of resources such as oil and agricultural products, which are currently the subject of disputes between various local and international forces. Against the backdrop of the economic crisis and sanctions imposed on the country, the return of these resources under the control of the central government will restore stable income to the budget and direct funds to the restoration of civilian infrastructure and social programs. This, in turn, will improve the living conditions of the local population, which is a prerequisite for long-term stability.

In addition, strengthening Damascus's position in the region brings with it important security aspects. Turkish aggression aimed at creating a buffer zone under Ankara's control appears to be one of the main threats to Syrian sovereignty. Restoring control over Membij and the Euphrates region under the auspices of the Syrian government and with the support of Russia will be a significant step towards ending the Turkish intervention. This will not only create conditions for more peaceful coexistence, but will also reduce tensions between the Kurdish and Arab communities, contributing to the consolidation of Damascus's power as the sole representative of all Syrians.

No less important is the issue of eliminating interethnic conflicts, which for many years have served as a source of violence and instability in the region. Establishing Damascus' control will help integrate various ethnic groups into a single national space, allowing for the implementation of long-awaited measures for reconciliation and the restoration of social justice. Ending the tyranny of gangs that often exploit ethnic differences for their own benefit will be an important step towards creating a safe and fair environment for all citizens of Syria. As a result, the restoration of Damascus' control over the surrounding areas of Membidj and Trans-Euphrates with the support of Russia can open a new century of stability and peace in Syria. Ending the plunder of national wealth, preventing threats of external aggression and eliminating interethnic conflicts will create the necessary conditions for the country's recovery. These measures will not only alleviate the grave humanitarian situation, but will also give Syrians a chance for a dignified and safe life, which is the main goal of the international community in the current crisis.

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syriafreenews · 5 years ago

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Broken arrangements

Turkey’s actions in the Idlib de-escalation zone in recent years are clearly contrary to statements by Turkish leaders that there are no expansion plans for Syrian territory. During Operation Dawn Idlib, during which the Syrian Arab Republic government forces liberated the southern part of the province from terrorists, only the direct intervention of Ankara saved Jabhat Al-Nusra and other militants from final defeat. During the negotiations initiated by Turkey with Russia, Erdogan guaranteed the safety of civilians in the territory not controlled by Damascus, as well as the disarmament of illegal armed groups and the restoration of economic ties with the rest of Syria. The main artery for the implementation of the latter requirement is the M4 highway, along which the Turks promised to ensure unhindered movement of civilian vehicles. To control the safety of the route, it was decided to organize joint Russian-Turkish military patrols. However, Turkey has not fulfilled its obligations. Having overtaken more than five thousand of its troops and a certain amount of armaments and military equipment, including EW and air defense systems, into the de-escalation zone, the Turks did nothing to disarm terrorist groups, the main of which remains “Jabhat An-Nusra” — “Hayat” Tahrir Al-Sham. ” Moreover, the Turkish side explicitly declared to Russia that it could not ensure the security of our troops during joint patrols, as a result of which it was suspended for the time being. Only militants ride along the M4 highway through Idlib, and there is no question of any restoration of peaceful auto traffic in the interests of the regional economy. It seems that, after a break caused by the defeat of the IAF during the counter-offensive of the SAR Supreme Army last winter, Turkey continued to implement the plan to turn Idlib into its colony. During the ceasefire, the Turkish-controlled coalition formation Jebhat Wataniya Lee Tahrir (National Liberation Front) joined the so-called Syrian National Army, which is subordinate to the Provisional Syrian Government established in Turkey. Together with the terrorist group “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham”, under the leadership of Turkish military advisers, they created a joint operational headquarters with the big name “Clear Victory” (Al-Fath Al-Mubin). The militants regrouped, strengthened their defensive positions and strongholds. And in this Turkey, almost without hiding, contributed to them — by supplying construction materials, weapons, equipment and ammunition. Currently, the Turkish military and special services are helping the KhTSH eliminate competitors from the radical group Khurras Ad-Din, which has tried to lure the Idlib jihadists under the roof of its operational headquarters “Fa Musabbatu” (“And be persistent”). The conflict between the terrorist factions escalated a week ago and at first it seemed that the Alkaid people from the Khurras Ad-Din were gaining the upper hand. But then the foreign mercenaries and field commanders of the KhTS, who initially maintained neutrality, received an unambiguous signal from Ankara and sharply intensified. By June 29, supporters of Khurras Ad-Din were blocked in a number of settlements that remained under their control, while groups such as Tansikiyat Al-Jihad, Liva Al-Mujaheddin Val-Ansar, Jabhat Ansar Ad-Din and “Jamaat Ansar al-Islam” moved from “And be persistent” to “Clear victory”. Having entered into an alliance with the terrorists from Jebhat Al-Nusra, who abandoned Idlib’s civilian administration, the Turks and the Syrian Provisional Government controlled by them took a course to omanize the region like they act in the northern regions of the province captured by Turkish troops and pro-Turkish forces Aleppo (Aazaz, Jarablus, Maarea, El-Bab, Afrin). This spring, the Turkish lira was introduced in Idlib instead of the Syrian pound, street names were changed to the Turkish style, Syrian banks and post offices were closed, and Turkish ones were opened instead. Even fines for traffic violations are now collected in Turkish liras. The local economy is directly subordinated to Turkish firms, turning the occupied territories into a raw materials appendage of Turkey itself. The ban on the departure of graduates of Idlib schools to pass state exams in Syrian territory, initiated by Ankara’s filing, was especially indicative. As an alternative, they were offered to study at Turkish educational institutions. In these conditions, when Ankara essentially breaks down the agreements concluded earlier with it, the question arises — is it worth Russia to execute them unilaterally, at the same time risking its military personnel. After all, Turkey, hiding behind the agreements with Moscow, actually disrupts the process of political settlement of the Syrian conflict. The legalization of “Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham” in Idlib means the refusal of both Damascus and a significant part of the Syrian opposition to recognize local representatives as participants in the constitutional process. Thus, the foundation is laid for the rejection of a large piece of Syrian territory. Moreover, it is highly likely that stronger militants will once again attempt to seize territories under the control of the Syrian government. And this already poses a direct threat to the civilian population, which has just begun to return to areas liberated from militants and restore peaceful life there. Neither the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic, nor the Russian Federation, as the guarantor of peace in a country bleached by war, can allow this to happen.

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paulbenedictblog · 5 years ago

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Bbc news Conflicto en Libia: Turquía envía tropas para apuntalar al gobierno respaldado por la ONU

Bbc news

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Portray copyright AFP

Portray caption These Tripoli residents welcomed data of Turkish defense power strengthen for the GNA

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has talked about troops maintain begun getting into into Libya afterparliament favorite the crossclosing week.

He talked about their mission turned into to make certain that stability for the UN-backed Executive of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli.

The Libyan authorities is struggling with an insurgency by riot forces below Gen Khalifa Haftar, based in eastern Libya.

Gen Haftar is backed by Egypt and the UAE, while the UN-backed authorities is supported by Turkey and its ally Qatar.

Insurgent forces maintain been searching for to take hang of Tripoli and were blamed foran air strike on a defense power academy on Saturdaythat killed on the very least 30 of us. They denied any involvement.

The Turkish authorities has given no critical aspects referring to the dimensions of the defense power deployment.

"Our squaddies' accountability there is co-ordination. They will construct the operation centre there. Our squaddies are step by step going honest now," President Erdogan told the CNN Turk TV channel.

He talked about Turkey's purpose turned into "no longer to fight" however "to reinforce the decent authorities and prevent away from a humanitarian tragedy".

Media playback is unsupported for your map

Media captionBBC Arabic found videos of our bodies being desecrated by fighters accurate to strongman Khalifa Haftar.

The UN Security Council is anticipated to fulfill on the aid of closed doorways on Monday to focus on the project in Libya, AFP data agency reported, citing diplomats.

What manufacture other countries reflect referring to the Turkish action?

It has been condemned by quite loads of countries, in conjunction with the US.

Ideal week, President Donald Trump told Mr Erdogan in a cell phone name that "international interference is complicating the project in Libya".

Egypt talked about defense power intervention in Libya turned into a "subject of Egyptian national safety" and it will probably well per chance defeat efforts searching for "to manipulate" its neighbour, data agency Reuters experiences.

Whereas Israel, Greece and Cyprus issued a joint assertion warning in opposition to the Turkish deployment. They referred to as it a foul threat to regional stability, and warned that it breached a UN hands embargo imposed on Libya in present to full years of violence.

Read more about what's happening in Libya:

Mr Erdogan talked about Libya's authorities had requested defense power assistance.

MPs in Turkey favorite the invoice allowing the deployment of troops closing Thursday with 325 in favour and 184 in opposition to.

Libya has been torn by violence since long-time ruler Muammar Gaddafi turned into deposed and killed in 2011 by Nato-backed forces.

The nation has two rival administrations, the UN-backed one based in Tripoli, and Gen Haftar's one within the eastern metropolis of Tobruk.

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omgstupendousbouquetbasement · 5 years ago

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Turkish Parliament Sanctions Libya Military Deployment Amid Concerns, Condemnation

A motion sanctioning the deployment of armed forces to Libya easily passed the Turkish Parliament on Thursday, but the specter of Turkish forces entering the Libyan civil war is triggering alarm and condemnation.

Passing with a 325-184 vote, the motion gives Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a one-year mandate to send armed forces in support of Libya's internationally recognized Government of National Accord. The GNA is currently besieged by Libyan General Khalif Haftar's military forces, who now control eastern Libya. Turkish forces becoming involved in the Libya civil war is causing international concern. Following Parliament's vote, U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with Erdogan by telephone.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a symposium in Ankara, Turkey, Jan. 2, 2020.

"President Trump pointed out that foreign interference is complicating the situation in Libya," said Hogan Gidley, principal White House deputy press secretary.

"Egypt condemns in the strongest terms this step that violates United Nations resolutions," said an Egyptian Foreign Ministry statement. "The Arab Republic of Egypt also warns of repercussions of any Turkish military intervention in Libya and confirms that this intervention will negatively affect stability in the Mediterranean Sea region." Cairo is backing Haftar's military forces, and previously warned it was ready to deploy its own forces if Ankara went ahead with sending soldiers.

'Not intervening in Libya'

Ankara dismissed concerns over any Libyan military deployment.

"Turkey's agreement with the Libyan government is the best guarantee for security and stability in the Mediterranean. We will, of course, protect our rights and interests in the Mediterranean," tweeted Fahrettin Altun, Turkey's director of communications.

"Some countries are trying to put their narrow interests above international peace and security in the Mediterranean. Any agreement struck with a group other than the legitimate government in Tripoli will drag the country further into chaos," Altun added.

During debate over the motion, the Turkish government tried to allay international and domestic concerns. "We're not intervening in Libya. We are just meeting a request for help from the internationally recognized government there," Emrullah Isler, Erdogan's envoy to the fractured nation, told parliamentary deputies ahead of Thursday's vote.

'Disastrous call'

All of the parliamentary opposition parties opposed the motion.

Unal Cevikoz, a lawmaker of the main opposition Republican People's Party, speaks in Ankara, Turkey, Jan. 2, 2020.

"This motion does not speak of 'national security,' it speaks only of 'national interest,' " Unal Cevikoz of the main opposition CHP Party said during the feisty debate. "It is a disastrous call by the presidential palace to send our citizens to the deserts of Libya."

Opposition deputies also raised concerns over the broad nature of the motion with little information on the type of Libyan military deployment.

Ahead of the vote, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar suggested any military action would be confined to training and providing munitions and weapons. Last year, Ankara sent several armed drones in support of the GNA.

But while Haftar's forces, backed by Russian mercenaries, are tightening their control around Tripoli, reports by local Turkish media suggest the GNA may be looking to Ankara to deploy a force of as many as 2,000 combat soldiers.

Strategic interests

According to observers, Erdogan expedited passage of the motion because of the imminent threat faced by the GNA. Erdogan argues that the GNA's survival is key to Turkey's strategic interests.

Last November, he signed two agreements with the Libyan government. One was a security agreement in which Ankara pledged military support. The second gave Turkey control of a large swath of the eastern Mediterranean between the two countries. The region is the center of an increasingly bitter rivalry among regional countries for the search of hydrocarbons. Ankara is alarmed at growing cooperation involving rivals Greece, Israel, Egypt and the Greek Cypriots in the search for and exploitation of the region's energy.

"No plan in the region that excludes Turkey has any chance of success," Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said Wednesday.

Gas pipeline On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed an agreement in Athens committing his country, Greece and the Greek Cypriot government to building a multibillion-dollar gas pipeline. The pipeline seeks to exclude Turkey from lucrative transit fees in distributing vast gas reserves discovered off the Israeli coast to Europe. But the route of the planned pipeline passes through the Mediterranean Sea under Turkish control in its agreement with the GNA.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pose for a photo before signing a deal to build a gas pipeline, in Athens, Greece, Jan. 2, 2020.

"These agreements with the GNA are of so much strategic importance for Turkey," said energy expert and former Turkish Ambassador Mithat Rende. "The strategy of Turkey is to protect its legitimate rights in the eastern Mediterranean. The strategy is to have an equitable solution to the matter, because we have overlapping claims. Turkey made it clear after signing these agreements. Turkey is ready to speak with Greece and other authorities."

Turkey's strategy of coercing its regional rivals to negotiate is widely seen as increasingly dependent on the survival of the GNA. However, Ankara may yet hold off deploying soldiers to Libya.

"Passing the motion in Parliament has a strong political message," Oktay said. "If they [Haftar's forces] stop their attacks or withdraw, we may see this as appropriate. But if they keep continuing their attacks, the motion gives us a one-year mandate, so we may deploy our soldiers whenever necessary."

Given that Libya is nearly 2,000 kilometers from Turkey, analysts warn any major military deployment into a combat zone carries considerable risk.

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alexsmitposts · 6 years ago

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US Defeat in Syria Transforms into Campaign of Spite The US-engineered proxy war against Syria, beginning in 2011 and the crescendo of the so-called “Arab Spring,” has ended in all but absolute defeat for Washington. Its primary goal of overthrowing the Syrian government and/or rendering the nation divided and destroyed as it has done to Libya has not only failed – but triggered a robust Russian and Iranian response giving both nations an unprecedented foothold in Syria and unprecedented influence throughout the rest of the region. Lamenting America’s defeat in Syria in the pages of Foreign Affairs is Brett McGurk – a career legal and diplomatic official in Washington whose most recent title was, “Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.” He resigned in protest over alleged plans for a US withdrawal from its illegal occupation of eastern Syria. McGurk’s lengthy complaints are full of paragraph-to-paragraph contradictions – illustrating the lack of legitimate unified purpose underpinning US policy in Syria. In his article titled, “Hard Truths in Syria: America Can’t Do More With Less, and It Shouldn’t Try,” McGurk would claim (emphasis added): Over the last four years, I helped lead the global response to the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS)—an effort that succeeded in destroying an ISIS “caliphate” in the heart of the Middle East that had served as a magnet for foreign jihadists and a base for launching terrorist attacks around the world. McGurk would also claim (emphasis added): Following a phone call with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Trump gave a surprise order to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria, apparently without considering the consequences. Trump has since modified that order—his plan, as of the writing of this essay, is for approximately 200 U.S. troops to stay in northeastern Syria and for another 200 to remain at al-Tanf, an isolated base in the country’s southeast. (The administration also hopes, likely in vain, that other members of the coalition will replace the withdrawn U.S. forces with forces of their own.) Yet if anything McGurk says is true, then ISIS is undoubtedly a threat not only to the United States, but to all of its coalition partners – mainly Western European nations. Why wouldn’t they eagerly commit troops to the coalition if ISIS truly represented a threat to their security back home? And why would the US withdraw any troops in the first place if this were true? The answer is very simple – ISIS was a creation of the West – a tool explicitly designed to help “isolate” the Syrian government and carry out military and terrorist operations the US and its partners were unable to do openly. It was in a leaked 2012 US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) memo (PDF) that revealed the US and its allies’ intent to create what it called a “Salafist principality” in eastern Syria. The memo would explicitly state that (emphasis added): If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran). On clarifying who these supporting powers were, the DIA memo would clarify: The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime. This “Salafist”[Islamic] “principality” [State] would show up on cue, placing additional pressure on an already besieged government in Damascus and eventually creating a pretext for direct Western military intervention in Syria. Only through Russia’s own intervention in 2015 were US plans overturned and its overt war against Syria frozen in limbo. McGurk and others throughout the Western establishment have attempted to compartmentalize what is essentially their own collective failures by linking them exclusively to both former-US President Barack Obama and current US President Donald Trump. Whether President Trump maintains troops in eastern Syria or not, nothing will change or reverse the significant strategic and geopolitical defeat Washington has suffered. Instead, troops levels and deployments in not only Syria, but also neighboring Iraq, serve to contribute to the next phase of US interference in the Middle East – spoiling reconciliation and reconstruction. Washington’s War of Terror This most recent episode of US military intervention in the Middle East – fighting terrorists it itself created and deliberately deployed specifically to serve as a pretext – is an example of US “slash and burn” foreign policy. Just as farmers burn to the ground forest that serves them no purpose so that they can plant what they desire in its place – the US deliberately overturned an emerging political and economic order in the Middle East that served them no purpose in a bid to replace it with one that did. McGurk all but admits this in his article, claiming – as he gave his version of ISIS’ defeat – that (emphasis added): Over the next four years, ISIS lost nearly all the territory it once controlled. Most of its leaders were killed. In Iraq, four million civilians have returned to areas once held by ISIS, a rate of return unmatched after any other recent violent conflict. Last year, Iraq held national elections and inaugurated a new government led by capable, pro-Western leaders focused on further uniting the country. In Syria, the SDF fully cleared ISIS out of its territorial havens in the country’s northeast, and U.S.-led stabilization programs helped Syrians return to their homes. He also claimed: Iraqis and Syrians, not Americans, are doing most of the fighting. The coalition, not just Washington, is footing the bill. And unlike the United States’ 2003 invasion of Iraq, this campaign enjoys widespread domestic and international support. In other words, it was a redesigned regime-change campaign spanning both Syria and Iraq, designed to attract domestic and international support by using an appalling – but artificially engineered – enemy to destroy both nations and allow the US and its “coalition partners” to rebuild the region as it desired. And while McGurk enumerates the accomplishments of his US-led coalition – what he omits is the existence of a vastly more effective and powerful coalition in the region led by Russia and Iran. While McGurk boasts of taking back empty desert in eastern Syria, it was the Syrian Arab Army and its Russian, Iranian, and Hezbollah allies who took back Syria’s most important, pivotal, and most populated cities. In Iraq – Iranian sponsored Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) carried out a large percentage of the fighting against ISIS there – and in the process have created a permanent nationwide network of militias that will better underwrite Iraqi security than compromising US defense partnerships and expensive US arms contracts, and the hordes of terrorists sponsored by the US itself to justify both. McGurk eventually admits further into his article that the US presence in Syria has little to do with ISIS – and more to do with “great power diplomacy.” He talks about the “US zone of influence” in Syria and brags about America’s ability to “enforce” it by killing Iranians and Russians who entered it in pursuit of terrorists the US was all but openly harboring. McGurk also repeatedly decries “Iranian military entrenchment” in Syria, a geopolitical development made possible only by America’s many categorical failures amid its proxy war in Syria. ISIS was eradicated first and foremost in areas under the control of the sovereign governments of Syria and Iraq in cooperation with Russia and Iran. ISIS remnants have clung – without coincidence – to territory within the “US zone of influence.” The US continues citing “ISIS” as its pretext to remain in Syria – while simultaneously admitting its presence in the region aims at reasserting Western domination over it and containing Russian and Iranian influence – Russia which was invited by Damascus to assist in counter-terrorism operations – and Iran – a nation that actually resides within the Middle East. This incoherent, conflicting narrative contrasts with Russia and Iran’s clear-cut agenda of eliminating terrorists and preserving the territorial integrity of Syria, and their decisive, clear-cut actions to implement this agenda. Russia and Iran are also offering all shareholders in the region amble incentives to get behind this agenda – including the economic and political benefits that normally accompany national and regional peace and stability. Washington’s War on Peace Washington’s illogical and contradicting narratives undermine any notion of unified purpose in the Middle East. Even if its goal is regional hegemony, its multitude of failures and lack of incentives for allies undermine any chance of success. In the absence of a sensible, unified purpose, attractive incentives, or a coherent strategic plan, the US has instead turned to spoiling reconciliation and reconstruction through attempts to divide the region along ethnic lines, preserve what few terrorists remain by shuffling them between Iraq and Syria through territory US forces occupy, and by targeting nations and their allies with sanctions to hinder reconstruction efforts. Sanctions on Iran directly impact Tehran’s efforts to assist Syria and Iraq in reconstruction and the rehabilitation of their respective economies. So do US sanctions on Moscow. The US is also targeting fuel shipments attempting to reach Syria – with Syria’s own oil production hamstrung by the ongoing illegal US occupation of Syria’s east where much of its oil resides. AP in an article titled, “Syria fuel shortages, worsened by US sanctions, spark anger,” would report that: Syrians in government-controlled areas who have survived eight years of war now face a new scourge: widespread fuel shortages that have brought life to a halt in major cities. The article also reported that: The shortages are largely the result of Western sanctions on Syria and renewed U.S. sanctions on Iran, a key ally. But they have sparked rare and widespread public criticism of President Bashar Assad’s government just as he has largely succeeded in quashing the eight-year rebellion against his rule. The combination of sanctions and deliberate attempts to prolong the proxy war in Syria illustrate Washington’s true attitude toward any notion of “responsibility to protect.” Fuel will still reach Syria’s government and military where it is needed most – but will cause extraordinary suffering among Syria’s civilian population – as Washington explicitly intends. Washington is not attempting to remove the government in Damascus to alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people – it is causing immense suffering among the Syrian people to remove the government in Damascus. While Washington has lost its war against Syria, it continues its war on peace. It will spoil attempts by Syria to move forward – and by doing so – and more than anything else – illustrating to the world that its own malign interests and agenda wrecked the region – not “ISIS” and not “Iranians” or “Russians.” The US campaign of spite will continue onward both in Syria and across the rest of the region until an alternative regional and global order can be established that allows nations to sufficiently defend against US aggression and interference and enables the world to move on without those special interests on Wall Street and in Washington driving America’s current battle for hegemony.

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mideastsoccer · 5 years ago

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UAE Targets Turkey and Qatar in the Mediterranean

By James M. Dorsey

A podcast version of this story is available on Soundcloud, Itunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spreaker, Pocket Casts, Tumblr, Podbean, Audecibel, Patreon and Castbox.

Europe is progressively being sucked into the Middle East and North Africa’s myriad conflicts. As if wars on its doorstep in Libya and Syria were not enough, UAE support for an Eastern Mediterranean pipeline that could hurt Qatar economically — combined with Greek, Cypriot and French opposition to Turkish moves — leaves Europe with few, if any, options but to get involved.

Europe’s headaches just got worse. Its efforts to contain wars on its doorstep in Libya and Syria have failed at a moment that Europe is struggling to control a pandemic and reverse its economic fallout.

Proxy wars that pit the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt against Qatar and Turkey have spilled out of Libya and Syria into the Eastern Mediterranean as a whole.

European nations, including France, Greece, and Cyprus, feel threatened by Turkey’s use of Libya to extend its grip on gas-rich regional waters in violation of international law. As a result, Middle Eastern and North African disputes are becoming European problems.

Libya’s internationally recognized Islamist Government of National Accord (GNA), backed by Turkish military might, has forced rebels led by Khalifa Haftar, who is supported by Russia, Egypt, France and the UAE to retreat in recent weeks from western Libya and fight to maintain control of key cities in the center of the country.

A statement last month by the foreign ministers of France, Greece, Cyprus, the UAE, and Egypt made their concerns clear.

The statement condemned Turkey’s "illegal activities" in the Eastern Mediterranean. It called on Turkey to “fully respect the sovereignty and the sovereign rights of all states in their maritime zones in the Eastern Mediterranean.”

Israel was conspicuously absent among the signatories even though it maintains close relations with all of them.

The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), a prominent Israeli think tank, warned that “given that Israel’s ties with Turkey have been highly problematic and relations with Russia remain delicate, Jerusalem needs to prepare for the possibility of a continuing and even growing regional influence of both, especially in light of Washington’s continued reluctance to assume a more active diplomatic or military role.”

So does Europe, which at the European Union level has so far remained on the sidelines at its peril.

“Now that the catastrophic consequences of European inaction are evident and Haftar no longer has a chance to seize power, a (European) policy shift is both possible and indispensable,” said Libya scholar Wolfram Lacher.

“Two key goals should guide European policies: first, safeguard Libya’s unity; second, counter Russian influence in Libya as a matter of priority. The U.S. shares both goals. But Europeans will only be able to act in unison if the French position shifts away from its relative tolerance for Russia and adversarial stance towards Turkey,” Mr. Lacher suggested.

Mr. Lacher appears to believe that countering Russia would not only help thwart the threat posed by Moscow but also prevent Turkey and Russia from carving up Libya into spheres of influence, if not separate states.

Arguing that the EU can no longer afford to stand by, Mr. Lacher advised the EU to impose sanctions on Mr. Haftar in a bid to undermine Russian support for his forces.

“In parallel, Western states should finally push their interests in a stable Libya more strongly when engaging with Haftar’s other foreign supporters, particularly Egypt and the UAE, to dissuade them from further cooperation with Russia,” Mr. Lacher said.

Underlying the UAE’s Saudi-backed determination to stymie Turkey is its assertive global campaign to confront any expression of political Islam. The UAE is aided by Egypt, whose president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, came into power in a 2013 Emirati-backed military coup that toppled an elected Muslim Brotherhood president.

Coupled with an agreement between Turkey and the Tripoli-based GNA which extends the two countries maritime boundaries in the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkish involvement in the wars in Libya and Syria appears to have fueled Emirati efforts to suck Europe, and ultimately the United States, into its conflict with Turkey.

Greece and Italy — which was believed to be supporting the GNA prior to Turkey’s intervention — this week signed a maritime boundaries agreement to counter Turkish moves. The accord recognizes Greek territorial waters off its many islands in accordance with the international Law of the Sea. The Turkish-Libyan agreement ignores those rights for a number of Greek islands.

The UAE and its partners in the Eastern Mediterranean were expected to support the Greek-Italian accord.

The UAE is banking on the fact that Turkey’s traditional ties to its NATO allies, Europe and the US, are strained over a host of issues, including Turkey’s military intervention in Libya, the fate of millions of refugees primarily from Syria hosted by Turkey, and Turkey’s relationship with Russia and its acquisition of an S-400 Russian anti-missile defense system.

The UAE has been putting in place the building blocks for enhanced influence in the eastern Mediterranean for some time. Increasingly close ties to Israel, whose relations with Turkey are complex, constitute a cornerstone. So does UAE participation in Greek-led annual military exercises in which Israel, Cyprus, Italy, and the United States also take part.

Containing Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean has taken on greater significance after the UAE’s hopes for a planned EastMed pipeline that would have transported natural gas from Israeli, Cypriot and Lebanese fields via Greece to Italy, were dashed.

The pipeline threatened to replace up to half of Qatari exports to Europe with gas from the Eastern Mediterranean.

Among Qatar’s detractors, the UAE is believed to be the most resistant to finding a compromise that would end the three-year-old UAE-Saudi-led boycott of the Gulf state.

The $7 billion USD, 2,200-kilometre-long pipeline project was effectively put on hold because of the economic fallout of the pandemic and the collapse of energy prices.

A consortium led by France’s Total, which includes Italian oil and gas major ENI and Novatek, Russia’s second largest gas producer, was expected to halt drilling after its first well proved to be dry.

ENI and Total have also suspended plans for six drillings off the coast of Cyprus while ExxonMobil has delayed exploration of its two wells in the area. US explorer Noble Energy together with Shell and Herzliya-based Delek Drilling is likely to follow suit in Israel’s Aphrodite field.

All of that does not seem to deter Turkey. The country’s Official Gazette announced on May 30 that state-owned oil company Turkish Petroleum had been granted 24 exploration licenses that include waters off the coast of Greek islands such as Crete and Rhodes.

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias’ warning that his country would answer what he called, "the Turkish provocation" if Turkey were to proceed would further draw Europe into the Eastern Mediterranean’s mushrooming imbroglio.

It is a development that would boost Emirati efforts to further corner Turkey internationally even if it would for now likely further dampen prospects for dealing a blow to Qatar.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is an award-winning journalist and a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. He is also an adjunct senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute and co-director of the University of Wuerzburg’s Institute of Fan Culture in Germany

#France #turkey #Russia #uae #qatar #Israel #syria #libya #greece #cyprus #mediterranean

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