Finian CUNNINGHAM

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week announced yet another radical shift in Washington’s policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, by way of saying that the United States “was accepting realities on the ground”.

What the mendacious and cynical Pompeo omits to add is that the Trump administration has been dramatically fueling the change in “realities” – specifically the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory and the demolition of Palestinian homes.

This week the top US diplomat declared that Washington would no longer adopt the international consensus position, backed by several UN resolutions, that Israeli settlement-building and occupation of Palestinian territory was a violation of international law. Washington is henceforth recognizing Israeli settlements as legitimate.

The move overturns more than four decades of official US policy which adhered to the UN-backed position of condemning Israeli occupation in the Palestinian West Bank and in East Jerusalem as illegal and a violation of the Geneva Convention.

Since the 1967 Six War, successive Israeli governments have overseen a relentless process of annexing Palestinian territory. Over that period, Palestinian lands have diminished and become increasingly fragmented with little contiguity that would be normal for a future state. There are estimated to be around 200 Israeli new-build settlements of towns and villages with a population of 600,000 Jewish settlers who have usurped Palestinian land and properties. The UN has repeatedly condemned the annexation and occupation as illegal, to no avail.

The latest move by the Trump administration is a flagrant repudiation of UN resolutions and international law. It follows previous declarations by President Trump recognizing Israeli claims to Jerusalem as its capital, as well as Israel’s annexation of Syrian territory in the Golan Heights.

“Calling the establishment of civilian settlements inconsistent with international law has not advanced the cause of peace,” said Pompeo on Monday. “The hard truth is that there will never be a judicial resolution to the conflict, and arguments about who is right and who is wrong as a matter of international law will not bring peace.”

That is an astounding dereliction of international law by the American government. The “hard truth” that Pompeo ignores is that US administrations have constantly undermined “judicial resolution of the conflict” because they have, to varying degrees, over the decades pandered to Israeli criminal occupation of Palestinian lands.

What the Trump administration is doing is not entirely unprecedented. Successive American presidents have merely paid lip service to a supposed peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, declaring their support for a “two-state solution” and presenting Washington as some kind of “honest broker”. The reality is that Washington has consistently undermined Palestinian national rights by its systematic bias towards Israel, indulging the latter’s criminal policies of occupation and military aggression towards Palestinian population.

However, Trump and his coterie of Middle East aides have taken the American bias and complicity with Israel to naked levels. Part of that is no doubt payback for the multi-million-dollar funding of Trump’s 2016 election campaign by Jewish-American billionaire and arch-Zionist Sheldon Adelson.

Israeli peace groups have recorded a surge in Israeli expansion of settlements across the West Bank and East Jerusalem over the past three years of the Trump administration. Demolition of Palestinian homes by Israeli bulldozers are at a record high.

There is an imperative business reason for this. President Donald Trump has personally invested in Israeli settlements, as have his ambassador to Israel David Friedman, and the White House’s special envoy to the region, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

One of those settlements is at Beit El which is described as “one of the most aggressive” in terms of expansionist scope. It overlooks the Palestinian city of Ramallah in the West Bank which is supposed to be the administrative seat of the Palestinian Authority.

Trump, Friedman and the Kushner family have in the past funneled millions of dollars into Beit El and other Israeli settlements. In return, Israeli financial companies have made huge investments in Jared Kushner’s family real-estate business back in the US. For example, Menora Mivtachim, a pension and insurance firm, invested $30 million in apartments in Maryland owned by the Kushner family.

Jared Kushner officially stepped away from his family’s property conglomerate when he was appointed by his father-in-law as special envoy on the Middle East “peace process”. But few would believe his future wealth will not benefit from investments in and from Israel. He is still a beneficiary of trusts that have holdings in Kushner properties, notes Haaretz newspaper.

It seems incredible given this blatant conflict of interest that Kushner has been tasked with producing a “peace plan” for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which Trump had previously boasted about as being the “deal of the century”. That plan has since wilted to non-existence. The media don’t even talk about its expected publication, so far off the radar is it.

The latest move by the Trump administration to effectively reward and accelerate further Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory has American self-interest and profit written all over it. It mirrors Trump’s declaration in March this year recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, where there is irrefutable evidence that Trump and the Zionist clique in the White House have major business interests in oil exploration and production in that contested region.

Russia warned this week that Washington’s policy is inflaming further conflict amid an intensification of air strikes by Israel on Gaza where more than 30 people have been killed over the past week, including one Palestinian family of three adults and five children. The bloodshed makes Pompeo’s announcement all the more repulsive.

The Arab League and the European Union have also condemned the unilateral rejection of international law by the US. Jordan, Egypt and other Arab states said the United States has forfeited its right to act as a peace broker in the region.

The “reality on the ground” – to use a talking point favored by Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu and now Mike Pompeo – is that the US is an accomplice in Israel’s illegal occupation and war crimes. Even more heinous, the US policy is being driven by Trump’s family business profits.

Finian CUNNINGHAM

Former editor and writer for major news media organizations. He has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages

Historic Russia-Turkey Deal in Syria, But US/NATO Pitfalls Await

EDITORIAL- Strategic Culture foundation

The agreement signed this week between Russia and Turkey for a new security plan in northeast Syria was certainly historic and a much welcome potential path towards stability and peace.

However, the way forward could be frustrated by continuing foreign meddling in Syria’s sovereignty. This week it was also reported that US forces, including Abrams tanks, are to deploy in eastern Syria to “secure the oil fields” in the country’s resource-rich region.

In a separate development, it is being proposed by Germany and some other European powers to dispatch a NATO force of up to 40,000 troops to ostensibly augment the safe zone in northeast Syria formulated by Russia and Turkey. It is not clear if the German proposal will actually materialize with NATO boots on the ground.

But it is evident that the Russia-Turkey deal signed on October 22, known as the Sochi Memorandum, may be impeded by the undue interference in Syria’s territorial affairs by self-appointed external powers.

First though it should be acknowledged that the accord signed this week by Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a consummate breakthrough. It has to be said too that the deal was the result of deft diplomacy by the Russian side.

It underscores the pivotal role Russia has assumed in bringing the war in Syria to an appropriate end.

Crucially, the Sochi Memorandum buttresses the shaky ceasefire which the United States had created on October 17. There was a grave danger that that truce was about to collapse from a renewed Turkish incursion into Syria and a grave escalation of violence against Kurdish militia, whom Turkey designates a terrorist threat to its southeastern territory.

The Moscow-led initiative this week proposes a joint Russian-Turkish security arrangement to police the border with Syria. Turkey is obligated to not make any further incursion into Syria, while the Kurds are to relocate southwards beyond a 30-km zone from the Syrian-Turkish border. That satisfies Ankara’s security concerns. Over the next week, the Sochi Memorandum requires Kurdish militia to vacate the designated safe zone.

Significantly, Syrian state forces are to take back control of most of the border region from the Euphrates River to the frontier with Iraq. Eventually, under the Astana trilateral agreement between Russia, Turkey and Iran, all Turkish forces are to relinquish current positions in Syria so that the Syrian government can resume its full control over all of its sovereign territory.

As Russia emphasized this week again, all military forces which are illegally present in Syria – American and NATO, including Turkey – must exit the territory. Only Russian and Iranian forces which were legally requested by the Damascus government have a proper mandate to be in Syria.

President Bashar al-Assad has given his approval for the Sochi Memorandum.

The importance of the Russia-Turkey deal is that, on the near term, it stops the bloodshed in northeast Syria which was threatening to explode. But going forward, the accord restores Syria’s national authority over its borders and territory. It also underpins the political process for drawing up a new constitution for Syria, led by the Syrian people, which hopefully will allow the country to recover from nearly nine years of war. In that process, the Syrian Kurds will have to negotiate with the government in Damascus about a future regional administration that caters for their ethnic interests.

Russia’s diplomatic efforts have thus gone a long way to bring potential bring peace and stability to Syria despite the morass of conflict and conflicting parties. That chaos has largely been created by foreign interference from Washington and its NATO allies who have covertly infiltrated Syria with proxy groups like Islamic State and Kurdish militia in order to balkanize the country and overthrow the government of President Assad. Over 600,000 Syrians have been killed and millions turned into refugees from this foreign-sponsored regime-change war. War damages to the country – once a prosperous and developed nation – are estimated, at the very least, to be valued at over $200 billion.

Despicably, though, Syria is not out of the woods yet. The Sochi Memorandum is a huge step forwards to a better future. But the criminal foreign intrigues are not over.

The Americans are not withdrawing troops from Syria, as President Trump recently boasted about. They are being redeployed from the northeast to the eastern areas where the oil fields are relocated. What mandate Washington invokes for this expropriation of Syria’s natural resources is simply its own imperialist arrogance. The latest reports are that American tank crews are to be newly deployed in eastern Syria. The troop numbers involved will far exceed the 1,000 or so that Trump claimed last week were “coming home”.

There is also the question of Islamist terror groups being reactivated and redeployed. During the recent turmoil in northeast Syria, hundreds of jihadists were reportedly airlifted by US military helicopters to safe havens. Are they to be used by their Pentagon handlers for a future rebooted covert war on Syria?

Then there is the harebrained German proposal for European NATO troops to be deployed on a major scale in northeast Syria – purportedly to support the Russia-Turkey security arrangement.

When will such madness stop? Syria has been plunged into a nine-year nightmare of bloodletting and horror because of Western imperialist interference. And now these powers want to extend their bloody interference with more military “intervention”.

Only Russia, along with Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah – and most importantly the fortitude of the Syrian people – have managed to salvage the catastrophe of the war imposed by the US, NATO and regional partners, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel.

The Sochi Memorandum highlights the positive role played by Russia. It can succeed to consolidate peace for Syria. But it will also require the ending of criminal interference in Syria by the US and its NATO accomplices.

‘Poor Little Israel’ Isn’t So Poor, Financially or Diplomatically

One of the tropes Israel and its international phalanx of lobbyists has used since the state’s inception in 1948 is that “Poor Little Israel” requires Western money and diplomatic support because the small country is surrounded by hostile Arab countries. Neither of these contentions have ever been true.

On August 7, 2019, the US Congressional Research Service (CRS) reported that Israel has been the largest recipient of cumulative assistance since World War II. In current non-inflation-adjusted dollars, Israel has received a total of $142.3 billion in US bilateral assistance and defense funding. Most of the US government assistance has been military in nature.

In addition to US assistance, Israel Bonds, sold through the Development Corporation for Israel (DCI), which is headquartered in New York, have seen $40 billion in sales, with $1.2 billion in annual sales being reached in 2013, a record for annual sales. The $1 billion mark was also reached in 2014 and 2015. One of the reasons behind the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) program to disinvest in Israel in retaliation for their treatment of the Palestinian people, is the fact that 90 US states and municipalities, in addition to labor unions, corporations, universities, and foundations, have invested their pension and treasury funds in the DCI.

Israel has also received billions of dollars in loan guarantees from the United States. The CRS report states that these guarantees have boosted the country’s “fiscal standing among international creditors in capital markets.” The US Congress is set to pass a bill that authorized $3.8 billion in US loan guarantees to Israel through Fiscal Year 2023.

Between 1973 and 1991, the US State Department’s Migration and Refugee Assistance account (MRA) provided $460 million to the private foundation, United Jewish Appeal (UPA) to resettle Jewish refugees in Israel. Many of these so-called “refugees” were from the Soviet Union and their “stay” in Israel was rather short. Many of them re-emigrated from Israel to the United States, where they enjoyed the freedom to engage in criminal enterprises centered mainly in Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, New York (nicknamed “Little Odessa”); Miami and Palm Beach; Florida; Newark and Atlantic City, New Jersey; Los Angeles, California; and Las Vegas, Nevada. A number of these refugees-turned-gangsters invested heavily in the Trump Organization’s residential properties in Manhattan; Sunny Isles Beach, north of Miami; Las Vegas; Phoenix, Arizona; Panama City, Panama; Toronto, Canada; Punta del Este, Uruguay; as well as Trump casinos in Atlantic City. The effects of these investments by what is alternately called by the US Federal Bureau of Information the “Organizatsiya,” “Eurasian Mafia,” and “Red Mafiya,” and, more informally and in very hushed tones, the “Kosher Nostra,” has plagued the Trump administration and contributed to its many scandals.

The recent arrest at Dulles International Airport of Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two Miami-based Organizatsiya players, on federal election law violations is merely the latest in a string of such law enforcement actions. The latest arrest involves Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, who, as the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), brought criminal charges against and convictions of the leaders of the five Italian Mafia crime families in New York (Genovese, Gambino, Lucchese, Colombo, and Bonanno). Giuliani, as mayor of New York City, permitted the Organizatsiya crime families of Brooklyn to flourish in the absence of the Italian mob. Today, these crime figures travel freely between the United States and Israel, the latter having become a central cog in global black market, money laundering, and smuggling operations. It is Israel’s sanctioning of criminal activities that has directly led to it being one of the world’s wealthiest countries.

Critics of taxpayer-funded US military assistance to Israel point out that the Israelis are currently a major exporter of military systems to other countries, which include some of the so-called “hostile Arab nations” that surround Israel. Israel’s sizable domestic military industry has netted sales of missile defense systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, cyber security products, radar, and electronic communications systems to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, in addition to India, Azerbaijan, Vietnam, Thailand, South Korea, Singapore, Philippines, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Brazil, and the United States.

The CRS report also includes information on increasing military ties between Israel and China. These growing ties have alarmed the US Navy, which has previously made port calls at the Israeli naval base in Ashdod on the Mediterranean coast. According to the report: “. . . a state-owned Chinese company (the Shanghai International Port Group) has secured the contract to operate a new terminal at Haifa’s seaport for 25 years (beginning in 2021), and another state-owned Chinese company (a subsidiary of China Harbor Engineering Company) is developing Ashdod’s new port. Both Haifa and Ashdod host Israeli naval bases. Due to the Chinese contract for Haifa, the US Navy is reportedly reconsidering its practice of periodically docking at the base there.” Considering the close ties between Donald Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, it is likely that the US Navy’s objections to sharing port facilities with Chinese construction crews with be vetoed by the White House.

Israel’s status of a small country fending off hostile moves by surrounding Arab and Muslim nations beggars belief. Israel maintains close relations with Egypt, with which it has maintained diplomatic ties since 1979. Israel and Egypt jointly engage in military operations directed against jihadist groups in the Sinai Peninsula, as well as restricting access to the Gaza Strip. Israel also maintains diplomatic relations with Jordan. Low level non-diplomatic relations also exist between Israel and Bahrain (with which Israel has an intelligence-sharing relationship), Iraqi Kurdistan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia (with which Israel has an agreement to stockpile military supplies in forward operating locations in the event of a joint Israeli-Saudi-UAE attack on Iran), Oman; Djibouti; the United Arab Emirates (where Israel maintains a non-diplomatic office in Abu Dhabi), the Tobruk-based government of Libyan warlord General Khalifa Haftar; and the exiled government of Yemen, which is based in Riyadh. Previous non-diplomatic relations between Israel and Lebanon, Turkey, Mauritania, Maldives, Qatar and Tunisia were frozen as a result of Israeli military actions against the Palestinians and other issues. Full diplomatic relations exist between Israel and such Muslim nations as Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan. Israel also maintains low-level non-diplomatic and trade relations with non-Arab Muslim nations, including Afghanistan, Indonesia, and Malaysia. There are various reports of Israeli diplomats having paid covert visits to Somalia and the self-declared Somaliland.

Israel’s closer relationship with Saudi Arabia should put to rest the notion of Israel being surrounded by hostile countries. There are credible news reports that Israel has been selling the Saudis advanced military drones via South Africa. It has also been credibly reported that Israel’s Mossad and the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate (GID) maintain direct links and that Mossad facilitated the provision of the Pegasus mobile phone tracking software, manufactured by the Herzliya-based NSO Group, to the GID. Pegasus was allegedly used by GID in its murder of US-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in October 2018. Israel and the UAE and Bahrain also apparently pooled their intelligence resources to ensure a Trump administration withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – the nuclear agreement with Iran – and a multinational embargo instituted against Qatar.

Today, “Poor Little Israel” exercises de facto superpower influence over its own region and long-reach diplomatic power over nations as far away as the Marshall Islands, Vanuatu, and Nauru in the South Pacific.

Wayne MADSEN

Investigative journalist, author and syndicated columnist. A member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and the National Press Club

Russia Rises as Honest Broker in Mideast

President Putin’s successful Mideast tour this week evinces Russia as a credible, respected and perhaps pivotal mediator for peace in the region. This ascendancy of Russia comes as the United States flounders from its bankrupt hegemonic policies.

For most of the decades since the Second World War, it was the US that dominated the oil-rich region. And it is no coincidence during much of that period the so-called Pax Americana was anything but peaceful. That’s because Washington’s foreign policy is essentially driven by imperialist objectives of control and domination, which requires a zero-sum modus operandi.

The US either has clients which it calls “allies” and “partners”; or it targets non-compliant nations for regime change. It therefore follows that under this American order-disorder, the Middle East has been a by-word for conflict, sectarianism and endless wars. Washington is the fountainhead of strife and destruction because of its pursuit of unilateral objectives to satisfy empire. The self-adulation and projection of “noble leader of free world, democracy and rule of law” is but a delusional inversion of reality by the US and its Western cronies, including the dutiful corporate media which function as a propaganda system.

By contrast, Russia’s geopolitics are driven by multilateralism and adherence to international law. Moscow has repeatedly proclaimed the principles of respecting national sovereignty, as enshrined in the United Nations Charter established in 1945. Russia’s foreign policy is not imperialist, it is mutualist. This can be seen in the way Russia, along with China and others, have galvanized numerous countries to cooperate for economic partnership and development. The corollary is that Moscow’s military doctrine is primarily based on defense. For the US and its imperialist relation to the world, its militarism is all about offense and aggression because its power relies on domination and subjugation of others to furnish its interests.

Sooner of later, however, even supposed allies of the US end up becoming distrustful of, and estranged from, Washington. The self-serving nature of American power necessarily involves duplicity and treachery. A case in point is the way the Trump administration has unceremoniously abandoned erstwhile Kurdish “allies” in Syria; or the way Washington browbeats supposed allies like Turkey when they step out of line.

Washington’s fecklessness seems to have become more apparent under the Trump administration. But that is not due to Trump per se. It is a manifestation of American hegemonic power on the wane. Such a policy is unsustainable and anathema to the needs of the Middle East and the rest of the world for cooperation, multilateralism, respect for sovereignty and diplomacy.

Russia’s world stature has grown in concert with the increasing relevance of the geopolitical vision it espouses and practices.

When President Vladimir Putin was greeted this week in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, it was patently evident the high respect afforded to the Russian leader. That is in spite of the fact that Russia has staunchly supported the Syrian government to defeat a regime-change war, whose anti-government forces were backed by the Saudis and Emiratis. Their financial losses from sponsoring that disastrous war are no doubt colossal. But there was not a hint of chagrin this week from the Arab rulers towards Putin. Indeed, quite the opposite.

Russia has also stood firm in supporting Iran and its sovereign rights. The decades-long antagonism between Iran and the Saudis and other Persian Gulf Arab kingdoms is largely a result of the American policy of divide-and-rule. Despite Moscow’s support for Tehran, this was again clearly not a cause of animus from the Saudi and Emirati rulers.

In defending Syria – a longtime ally of Russia – Moscow has also warned Israel against further aggression. The installation of S-300 air defense systems in Syria is proof of Russia’s firmness. Yet Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu still maintains close personal relations with Putin. As with the Arab rulers, Israel may have opposing views to Russia’s, but at least they know where Moscow stands on geopolitical matters. That in turn makes for mutual respect and a willingness to negotiate.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is another example of a leader whose foreign policy objectives clashed with those of Russia over the war in Syria. Ankara backed the illegal regime-change campaign fomented by Washington and its NATO clients. Turkey, like the Sunni Arab regimes, lost its gamble. And it was Russia that caused that bitter loss when Putin ordered the military intervention from the end of 2015 to defend Moscow’s Syrian ally. The consistent principle is one of respect for sovereignty and international law. Eventually, all nations need to abide by that political principle, or else chaos, duplicity, treachery, and war prevail. Instead of America’s win-lose doctrine, Russia strives for win-win.

That is why Russia has been empowered to pull off a “diplomatic masterpiece” in Syria, as SCF writer Federico Pieraccini eloquently put it this week. The Syrian war is ending with Syria’s territorial integrity being restored thanks to Russia’s defensive military power and its diplomatic dexterity. Russia’s role as power broker in the Middle East is effective because it is respected by all – even by, at times, adversaries – due to its honest, consistent adherence to the principles of international law.

Can Trump’s ‘Middle Lane Nationalism’ Hold the Line Against System-Network Attack Strategy?

Alastair CROOKE

“Trump has blown the lid off. This is not going to go away. There is going to be a Nationalist alternative to [American] foreign policy; I don’t think you can just put it back in a box.” Professor Colin Dueck who has written a book on US foreign policy suggests: “The neoconservative and noninterventionist wings of the Republican party have long sought to take ownership of — and thence to shape — Trump’s unpredictable foreign policy. But the president simply has refused to fit into either mould:”

“He found a kind of the middle position, and that turned out to be the single most popular position in the Republican primary,” says Dueck: “I don’t think there was an established school of thought. He has certainly created a new position that did not exist before.” Dueck calls it middle lane nationalism.

He created space for these ostensibly competing Republican instincts. Another commentator suggests that this “instinctive and shoot-from-the-hip foreign policy style, may become the ‘new normal’ in what security experts say is an increasingly unsettled global threat environment.”

The point here, is that whilst this ‘give’ a little to one side of the policy debate, and then to offer a titbit to the other, may well serve the domestic US audience, it does not do anything to acknowledge global change. US defence policy hardly has evolved over the years – and despite rhetorical re-packaging, it still remains rooted in old-style, ‘big power-big military’, full-on, clashes. This is where the money is, of course, for the military-industrial complex. Similarly, US weaponry has failed to keep up. Again, the ‘big ticket’ items are where the money is. (‘show sales’ to gullible foreign states, rather than re-tool for a new, small-is-better, era).

So the question is, ‘can Trump’s instinctive, creative ambiguity’ hold the line of US ‘credibility’ (which exists more in the eye of the domestic beholder, than for the foreign one)? Can his idiosyncratic policy continue to survive the sealed retort of the US foreign policy machine — a zeitgeist stuck fast – when others’ surely have (i.e. the Russian deck of new weaponry, that has rendered obsolete traditional navies)?

We have been given examples of other evolutions (and startling innovation), amongst America’s challengers in recent weeks. In fact, we can see an ‘alternative’ conflict paradigm taking shape: Firstly, with the 15 September strikes on two Saudi Crude processing plants, of crucial importance to the overall infrastructure of Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure. And secondly, by the extraordinary rout of three brigades of the Saudi armed forces (some of them from the élite National Guard) – by AnsarAllah (composed of Houthi, and loyalist Yemeni army elements).

Both actions were well planned, well researched, well executed and sophisticated. Together, they shattered any credibility lingering around the notion of Saudi having any military stature; they imploded the image of America’s ‘security umbrella’; and overturned US and Israeli smug assumptions about ‘rag-tag’ forces in the Region. They all must analyse afresh (after eating humble pie).

The delivery of precise strikes – a mix of drones and cruise missiles – on the Aramco facilities, guarded by an American-supplied air defence system, represents a novel, effective (and wholly inexpensive) attack strategy. How come, for starters, the Saudi missile defences did not work? Did the drones manage to blind the targeting radar; or was some form of electronic warfare (EW) deployed? Is the regional EW better than America’s now?

We are dealing here – it seems – with the Houthis using a new attack paradigm, a new mode of warfare: Some of these latter elements (attacks on oil infrastructure and tankers), seem remarkably consistent with concepts first identified by Russian military theorists Igor Popov and Musa Khamsatov in 2016, as a ‘system-network warfare’, (sistemno-setevaya voyna) in their book: The Future of War.

In this system-network notion, “the entire State and its society should be viewed as a system consisting of critical ‘nodes’, whose destruction would profoundly affect the defense potential [of the whole system], and therefore is likely to lead to a victory with relatively limited commitment from challengers. There would be no need to fight against all military forces of the adversary, nor [to fight against] the whole population. It would be enough just to destroy the ‘centers of gravity’.

Accordingly, the main drivers in such a war, would be what the authors call an “amorphous adversary,” whose “key structural elements and subsistence systems are located, not on one’s own territory; but rather, in the states of ‘near and far-abroad’: Territories or entities that formally are not party to the conflict […] This makes it very hard to point a finger at the real culprit.” That is to say, it provides plausible deniability – and spreads confusion and unease.

This seems to fit the model now being deployed jointly by the Houthis, Iran, the Hash’d al-Shaabi and Hisbullah. It is a model that can be deployed widely, and in differing contexts. But in the context of the Gulf, it signals that any large civilian infrastructure object, including energy, water and transport infrastructure can no longer be regarded as completely safe to Houthi retribution. The Gulf energy-risk calculus needs to be re-visited.

The point about paradigm change is well underlined in a unique interview given by Maj. General Qassem Soleimani, the Commander of the Quds Brigade. He outlines the ‘before’ situation (in the wake of 9/11). Massive US forces were deployed across the Middle East, and in Afghanistan. It was a daunting presence to its inhabitants; and it was clearly intended as the precursor to Condi Rice’s promise of coming painful ‘birth pangs to a New Middle East’. The West then, was cohesive and single-minded.

As Soleimani describes it, these widespread occupations served to give the US and Israel the latitude to contemplate an attack on Hizbullah, sufficient to force the displacement of the Shia population of Lebanon out of the South and into distant refugee camps – far from the Israeli border. (The 2006 war failed to achieve this aim). The psychological impact of this US dispersion, plus Israel’s 2006 precision bombing of Shia areas however, had its effect, Soleimani suggests. For the first time, Arab States sided with a foreign power against a significant Arab constituency (Hizbullah).

Compare that, with the situation with now (a comparison not offered by Soleimani): America’s wars were not successful – Hizbullah, Syria and Iraq all survived the onslaught. And are linked to the Iranian camp. The psychological climate has inverted: The US presence – then intimidating, now smacks of deep western cultural division, and policy uncertainty.

The US President now wants out of this troubled region. And instead, seeks to engage with his Iranian counterpart. Saudi Arabia, the former leader of the Iran-containment bloc, is being pressured by the White House to reach out to the Houthis and Iran. The other Gulf States have already made that switch, having assimilated the reality that the American ‘security umbrella’ offers no protection against system-network strategies.

What now? There are no easy answers to the military challenges posed to the US in the Middle East by amorphous opponents – other than the wearily standard, US military deterrent punishments that might plunge us into region-wide war. The next period may be crucial. The Houthis on the one hand, and Iran on the other, are likely to incrementally escalate counter-pressures – unless, that is, sanctions on Iran are lifted, and a settlement is reached in Yemen.

Really – Saudi has no option but to end its war on Yemen. It needs to monetise is its oil reserves (to fund Vision 2030) – and faced with the choice of monetising a whack of Aramco; or pursuing conflict with Iran, the outcome should be a ‘no brainer’. MbS already has begun to reach out to the Houthis and Iran; but can MbS survive the blow to his fading prestige, of capitulation to the Houthis? It is doubtful.

Trump probably will try to hold the line again, if there are yet further instances of ambiguously-sourced ‘system-network’ actions in the region? But, can he continue to hold out, as Iran periodically continues to ‘de-comply’ with the JCPOA? Trump has already been harshly criticised for eroding US ‘credibility’ through having not responded militarily to Iran (fingered by some in Washington as the source for the Aramco strikes). The pressures will be intense on a President entering the pre-election period.

And following the failure of Macron’s UNGA attempted mediation, it is unlikely that any mooted offers by the US President to ‘lift Iran sanctions’ will be viewed as being credible – with Congress locked into impeachment proceedings. The Democrats, who control US sanction legislation, will lend Trump no helping hand, on this, or any other issue, for time being.

In practice, Trump too, has few options: With Wall Street now having premonitions of US economic recession, Trump desperately needs an Art of the Deal success, (absent a buoyant US economy to claim as his own) – and certainly needs no Middle Eastern blunder (President Carter-style), to tarnish his Presidential candidature.

Yet, reason doesn’t always prevail. And, with Iran declining to meet him (absent the lifting of sanctions), Trump’s present path of hoping MbS or Imran Khan can network a meeting for him with Rouhani – does seem quite a stretch. And American neo-cons, as always, will be on the lookout for the opportunities that an impeachment-distracted President might offer, to seize control of policy.

Alastair CROOKE

Former British diplomat, founder and director of the Beirut-based Conflicts Forum.

The Real Saudi-Israeli Relations

Giorgio CAFIERO, Lorenzo CARRIERI

Over the past two decades, Israel and Arab Gulf monarchies have forged a tacit partnership, increasingly aligning their interests and agendas, while hiding behind a public perception of being enemies.

Saudi-Israeli links are not new. They’ve made covert contacts through back-channels since Sheikh Kamal Adham’s time, when he ran the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate from 1965 to 1979. Though still having no official diplomatic relations, in recent years the Kingdom and Israel have put far less effort into concealing their unspoken strategic partnership.

Developments in the region — from Iran’s geo-political ascendancy in the region following Iraq’s Ba’athist regime’s destruction in 2003, to Lebanon’s Hezbollah battlefield performance during its war with Israel in 2006, and to the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 — have allowed Riyadh and Tel Aviv to be more overt about their connection. The same can be said about the other Gulf Cooperation Council member-states and Israel (with the notable exception of Kuwait.)

Smoke over Haifa, Israel, after a rocket launched by 
Hezbollah hit the city; Aug. 12, 2006. 
(Tomer Gabel, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)

Turning Point in 2006

The Saudi-Israeli partnership reached a turning point during the Hezbollah-Israel war of 2006, in which Riyadh slammed the Lebanese Shi’a group for taking actions against Israel that amounted to “illegitimate resistance” and a “miscalculated adventure.” Twelve years later, in 2018, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), told The Atlantic that “there are a lot of interests we share with Israel and if there is peace, there would be a lot of interest between Israel and the [GCC] countries.”

Last year, an Israeli journalist leaked MbS’s comments during a meeting with pro-Israeli leaders in the U.S.: He reportedly said, “It’s about time the Palestinians take the proposals and agree to come to the negotiations table or shut up and stop complaining.” In early 2019, during the Warsaw Mideast Summit, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office leaked video footage of Saudi Arabia and other GCC states’ foreign ministers supporting Israel’s right to defend itself while stating that confronting Iran was a higher priority than addressing the Palestinian question.

If Saudi-Israeli relations continue to strengthen, analysts should not be surprised. The two nations agree about the region’s conflicts and Iran’s role, and perceive what they regard as the same emerging threats; thus they have put religious and ideological differences aside at a time of unabated hostilities in Iran’s relationship with both Saudi Arabia and Israel.

As most other GCC states join Riyadh in normalizing relations with Israel, with Egypt and Jordan having established official diplomatic ties decades ago, it is increasingly clear that, despite some Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians remaining militantly opposed to Israel, it is no longer an “Arab-Israeli conflict.”

Opposition to Democratic Reform

Although many analysts attribute the growth of Saudi-Israeli relations to the perceived Iranian threat, broader concerns about the region’s instability also explain the deeper tactical alliance. Put simply, neither country would welcome an “Arab Spring 2” or any events that could strengthen Islamists, or secular groups’ demands for democratic reforms. For Saudi Arabia, such movements could lead to its citizens’ challenging the rulers’ political, moral and religious legitimacy. For Israel, it is far less risky to have pro-U.S. regimes in Arab states led by strongmen such as Egypt’s Abdel Fateh el-Sisi, who keep their countries at peace with the Jewish State, than to have Arab societies’ electing governments that could adopt a fundamentally different approach to Israel and the Palestinians.

Doubtless, if Saudi Arabia (or any GCC state) and Israel officially normalize relations, it would mark a major diplomatic victory for the Trump administration, which has been pushing for them to move closer and unite against the perceived Iranian threat. If this happens before the 2020 presidential election, Trump could claim a watershed achievement on the international stage.

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump 
arrive in Rihad, Saudi Arabia, 2017. 
(White House/Shealah Craighead)

However, since overwhelming majorities in the Arab countries oppose their governments’ normalizing relations with Israel, the Saudi leadership would have to accept the risk of serious blowback. Indeed, for leaders in the Arab/Islamic world, the memory of Anwar al-Sadat’s assassination by Khalid Ahmed Showky al-Islambouli remains all too fresh after Sadat made peace with Israel.

Occasional Condemnations

To mitigate such risks, Saudi leaders will probably continue to occasionally condemn some Israeli actions or rhetoric in relation to the Palestinians: A case in point was Riyadh’s reaction to Netanyahu’s pre-election pledge to annex the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea (roughly 30 percent of the West Bank). On Sept. 11, Riyadh condemned Netanyahu’s vow as a “dangerous escalation” and “flagrant violation of the UN charter and the principles of international law.” As the Saudi Press Agency reported, officials also urged an “emergency meeting” of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The next day, King Salman spoke with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas by phone and reiterated Riyadh’s stance against Netanyahu’s pledge to extend Israeli sovereignty.

Regardless of these occasional public disagreements, the odds are good that the Saudis will pragmatically continue unofficial relations with Israel, as will most of the GCC states. However, Riyadh would likely see official diplomatic ties with Israel as a bit too much of a stretch for the Saudi Kingdom–despite Trump’s desires.

Most likely, it would rather wait for either Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to establish official diplomatic relations with Israel before Riyadh would make the move. And because Bahrain lost much of its sovereignty to Riyadh in the post-2011 period, it is difficult to imagine how its diplomatic overtures to Israel during the past few years could have occurred without Saudi authorization—if not the Kingdom’s blessings.

Forecasting Saudi-Israeli relations is difficult. Still, in a region where both states feel increasingly threatened and most Arab officials only pay lip service to the Palestinians, Saudi and Israeli overlapping interests will likely drive the governments ever closer.

consortiumnews.com

The End of Modern Diplomacy

Wayne MADSEN

Modern diplomacy can generally be traced back to the late 19th century and the intercession of professional diplomats in the foreign relations between major and minor powers of the era. International negotiations to resolve problems were primarily handled by diplomats prior to politicians giving their assent to peace treaties and compacts. The Congress of Berlin of 1878 and 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth (New Hampshire) helped resolve the Russo-Turkish War and Russo-Japanese War, respectively. These early diplomatic efforts would eventually lead to treaties establishing the League of Nations, the International Court of Justice, and the United Nations, in addition to a variety of regional and specialized international agencies. Each of these international agencies brought into being a corps of international diplomats who, for the most part, were committed to hammering out disputes between nations through negotiations and not armed conflict. The lessons of World Wars I and II provided an impetus for nations to commit to dialogue rather than war.

In recent years, the world has seen the rise of anti-diplomacy occasioned by the appearance on the world stage of political brutes, all operating under the color of “populism.” Aristotle defined a tyrant as someone who rules solely for his own benefit and pleasure. The world has seen the steady rise of such tyrants over the past few decades. What is alarming is that tyranny and anti-diplomacy has flourished in erstwhile democratic nations having traditional presidential-legislative and parliamentary systems of government.

Perhaps it is fitting that Silvio Berlusconi, the media mogul and former Italian prime minister who introduced brutish governance to Europe in the 1990s, has returned to politics after a respite brought about by several indictments and a 2013 conviction for tax fraud. Berlusconi leads his right-wing Forza Italia political party as a member of the European Parliament. Berlusconi’s populism is consistently directed against “Communists.” Berlusconi now directs his ire at the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, which recently forced an old Berlusconi political ally – the right-wing Northern League led by Matteo Salvini – out of a coalition government. Salvini and Berlusconi now vie for the support of some 30 percent of the Italian electorate that continues to admire World War II fascist leader Benito Mussolini.

Berlusconi is recognized more for his crude comments than his neo-fascist policies. In 2003, Berlusconi suggested in the European Parliament that German Social Democratic MEP Martin Schulz play the role of a “kapo,” a concentration camp inmate who was empowered by the Nazi camp officials to enforce rules and labor details, in a forthcoming film. In another reference to German concentration camps that same year, Berlusconi said, “Mussolini never killed anyone, he just sent dissenters abroad for vacation.” Italian relations with Germany and Israel soured. In 2009, at a G20 Summit photo shoot with Queen Elizabeth II and other world leaders, the queen was irritated by Berlusconi’s loud shouting, prompting her to ask Barack Obama – who Berlusconi previously called “sun-tanned,” – “Why does he have to shout?” In 2010, Berlusconi further irritated Israel by telling a joke about a Jew who hid fellow Jews in his basement for money without telling them World War II was over. In 2011, Berlusconi said that German Chancellor Angela Merkel was “an unfuckable lard-ass.” Berlusconi also made crude remarks about Finland’s female president, Tarja Halonen and criticized the Spanish government for having too many women in its Cabinet. Berlusconi insulted China when he claimed that under Mao Zedong, the Chinese government “boiled children to fertilize the fields.” It was a clear sign that the age of modern diplomacy had hit rocky shoals and was about to rapidly sink. In 2011, the worst was yet to come.

Berlusconi’s vulgarity and anti-diplomacy would soon be matched by that of Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines. Duterte called the US ambassador in Manila a “bakla,” which means an effeminate man in the Tagalog language. Duterte also called President Obama a “son of a whore” and Pope Francis a “son of a bitch.” After Iceland criticized Duterte’s human rights record, he responded by stating that Icelanders “go about eating ice” and claimed that Iceland had “no policemen.” He added that Iceland had “too much ice, and there is no clear day or night there.” Duterte’s Foreign Secretary, Teodoro Locsin, Jr., who is nominally in charge of the country’s diplomatic corps, emulated Duterte by referring to Europeans as people “who don’t shower at least once daily and [were] likely on cartel payroll.” Asked about the Philippines and the “international community,” Locsin replied, “Fuck the international community. It can be bought.”

Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack recently insulted South Pacific leaders concerned about the effects of global climate change on their vulnerable nations when he said of Pacific islanders, “They’ll continue to survive because many of their workers come here and pick our fruit.” Tuvalu Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga reacted by threatening to pull his nation’s citizens out of Australia’s seasonal workers program.

Such undiplomatic outbursts were once rare, even at the height of the Cold War. Dwight Eisenhower entertained visiting world leaders, including West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, French President Charles De Gaulle, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, at his Gettysburg, Pennsylvania farm, where, in 1959, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev made a point of inviting Eisenhower’s grandchildren to visit Moscow with their grandparents on a future state visit. The era of diplomacy – both quiet and for public consumption – was one of carefully-written communiqués and protocol-conscious photo opportunities. Four letter epithets were never publicly overheard in matters of diplomatic statecraft.

The personalized insult rhetoric was normally consigned to Third World firebrand dictators like Uganda’s Idi Amin, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, and Gambia’s Yahya Jammeh. In the current post-diplomacy era, such insults would no longer emanate from well-guarded presidential palaces in Kampala, Harare, or Banjul, but from the White House, Number 10 Downing Street, and Parliament Hill in Canberra. Leaders and their close advisers now sound more like drunken sailors leaving a bar than representatives of nations with long democratic traditions.

Britain’s Boris Johnson has had a non-distinguished history of insulting people, both as Mayor of London, Foreign Secretary, and now as Prime Minister. He once called those in Commonwealth nations, who avidly welcomed the British Queen, “cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies” bearing “watermelon smiles.” Johnson also said the people of Papua New Guinea, a Commonwealth member nation, practiced “orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing.” Johnson also referred to Africa as “that country.” As Foreign Secretary, Johnson was prepared to recite a crude poem, titled the “Road to Mandalay,” written by Rudyard Kipling about colonial era-Burma. Johnson happened to be visiting the most scared Buddhist temple – the Shwedegon Pagoda – in Yangon, Myanmar. Johnson was prepared to utter the following stanza that referred to Buddha: “Bloomin’ idol made o’ mud/ Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd” – before the British ambassador stopped him with a warning that it was definitely not appropriate to recite such words in the Buddhist religious shrine.

Johnson also insulted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – who is no shrinking violet when it comes to his own insults – with a crude limerick he wrote:

“There was a young fellow from AnkaraWho was a terrific wankererTill he sowed his wild oatsWith the help of a goatBut he didn’t even stop to thankera.”

Not to be outdone, Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu were fond of trading insults, with each calling the other a “terrorist.” Erdogan also insulted Australia, stating that “anti-Muslim Australians” in Turkey would return to Australia in coffins like their grandfathers, a reference to the World War I Gallipoli, Turkey invasion that saw thousands of Australian soldiers killed in battle.

Johnson’s ideological and vulgar doppelganger in Washington, Donald Trump, has similarly disparaged Africa and Africans by calling their nations “shithole countries.” At a Republican Party fundraiser in the millionaire enclave of The Hamptons on Long Island, Trump mimicked South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe by speaking in a mock Asian accent. Trump’s insults of Mexicans resulted in then-Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto canceling a visit to Washington in 2017.

Prior to his love affair with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Trump referred to him as “little rocket man.” Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau was called “very dishonest and weak” after Trump stormed out of the 2018 G-7 summit in Quebec. Trump called Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen as “nasty,” after she rejected as “absurd” Trump’s proposal to buy Greenland from Denmark. Trump also insulted Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II by canceling, at the last minute, a state visit to Denmark, leaving the Danes with pre-purchased state dinner food and drink. Trump insulted Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven after the prime minister informed Trump that he had no power to release from jail a fourth-rate US rapper named A$AP Rocky who was charged with the assault of a man on a Stockholm street.

Others who have fallen victim to Trump’s personal insults include French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Merkel, former British Prime Minister Theresa May, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Montenegro Prime Minister Duško Marković, former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan (who had to arrange for his own transportation to downtown Washington, DC after arriving at Dulles International Airport in Virginia for a visit to the White House),Afghan President Ashraf Ghani (whose only invitation to meet with Trump was to be at an abruptly-canceled “secret” meeting with Taliban leaders at Camp David in Maryland during the same week that marks the 9/11 attack). There have been others similarly insulted.

The schoolyard antics of Trump and Johnson are matched by Brazil’s Adolf Hitler-loving President Jair Bolsonaro. After President Macron criticized Bolsonaro’s handling of Amazon rainforest arson-inducted fires, Bolsonaro criticized the age of Macron’s wife, Brigitte, who is 66, as compared to Bolsonaro’s wife, who is 37. Macron responded, “I think that Brazilians, who are a great people, will probably be ashamed to see this behavior.” In July of this year, Bolsonaro canceled a meeting with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian to get a haircut.

After United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet criticized police abuse and the killing of Amazon indigenous tribal leaders in Brazil, Bolsonaro replied, “While [Bachelet] says that Brazil is losing democratic space, she forgets that her country is not Cuba thanks only to those who had the courage to put a stop on the left-wing in 1973,” a reference to the 1973 military coup that ousted Chile’s democratically-elected Socialist President Salvador Allende. Bolsonaro added insult to injury by praising the Chilean junta’s execution of Bachelet’s father, Air Force Brigadier General Alberto Bachelet. Bolsonaro bragged that “among the communists during that era was her [Bachelet’s] brigadier father.” Bolsonaro’s Economy Minister, Paulo Guedes, piled on, stating that: “What I see in the newspapers is that he [Bolsonaro] insulted [Michelle] Bachelet, or that he called Macron’s wife ugly . . . He did say that and it’s true – the woman is indeed ugly.”

Too many diplomats, from UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold and UN Middle East mediator Count Folke Bernadotte to Russian ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov, US ambassador to Cyprus Rodger Davies, and UN Commissioner for Namibia Bernt Carlsson, have died in diplomatic service in furtherance of peace to allow low-class ruffians and gangsters to hijack modern diplomacy for their own greedy and extremist purposes.

Wayne MADSEN

Investigative journalist, author and syndicated columnist. A member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and the National Press Club