Pennsylvania is home to the eternal resting places of many American heroes. The most recent to join that honored company are the passengers and crew of United flight 93. Forty Americans, randomly selected by the vagaries of travel and schedules. Forty men and women thrown together by blind and impartial fate. Forty fellow citizens who in a few minutes of life, a few minutes for which nothing in their collective experience could have prepared them, made a collective decision of magnificent courage.
These Americans decided to die not on their knees as fearful captives but as free people fighting. Free people fighting--whether literally as was the case of those who died at Gettysburg or metaphorically as is the reality for so many of us and our ancestors seeking to do more than simply survive in the face of adversity--has defined the American nation and its collective character since our beginning.
Amid the saccharine, multi-cultural, interfaith, touchy-feely drivel which spread as a sentimental and cheapening miasma through the Tenth Anniversary commemorations, the stark bravery of the Flight 93 Forty shines as the real torch of humanity. Their sacrifice, taken freely after a democratic vote, offsets the evil of the Muslim terrorists and mass murderers. They, like the first responders who entered the Twin Towers while all who could leave were doing so, redeem humanity from the stain placed upon it by the Muslims who killed with the words "Allah akbar" on their lips.
Contemplating the forty who died on the remote field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, one can only wonder, "Would I have been so brave? Would I have chosen to die on my feet fighting rather than on my knees in fear?" One can only be thankful not to have had the dreadful necessity of making this choice.
The ceremony at Shanksville as well as those at the Twin Towers and the Pentagon made the Geek think about the tenth anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Geek was alive and sentient at the time of the tenth anniversary, 7 December 51. He was an avid follower of the to and fro movement of the war the US was fighting at the time, the "police action" in Korea. His memories were quickly confirmed: There was no particular commemoration of the Japanese strike. Certainly, there were no high profile events involving past and present presidents of the US as has been the case this weekend. Headlines focused on the war in Korea, the economy, and even crime but not on any marking of the anniversary of the event which did well and truly change both the US and the world.
It has been said with nauseating frequency that 9/11 changed the US and the world in ways both profound and impossible to describe. The Geek remembers saying just that to Her Geekness as the first reports came over the radio. (Ten years ago there was no satellite Internet or television available in the canyon.) The Geek and the many pundits were wrong. At least the Geek is willing to admit that.
The events of 9/11/01 did not change the world. The changes, particularly the open warfare between advocates of violent political Islam and the civilized states of the world, had been underway since the Iranian Islamic Revolution and the Muslim based resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, both dating from 1979. Al-Qaeda had been in existence for years before the manned cruise missiles hit New York, Washington, and the field outside of Shanksville. Osama bin Laden's declaration of war was six years old. The US had already been attacked both at home (World Trade Center 1993) and abroad, in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kenya, and Tanzania.
9/11 made the war unmistakable and inescapable. While the strategy and tactics employed by the US in response may well have been faulty and counterproductive, the war was not of our making or wanting. While the idea of a "global war on terror" is both logically flawed and impossible in the real world, the continuation of the war and the threats of terror behind it are not of our making, our desire, our policy. The "war" both past and future is the sole creation of those who espouse and practice violent political Islam.
There is no doubt but most Americans want out of this perhaps never ending war, but such is impossible. We are all rather like the passengers and crew on flight 93, the challenge, the threat, the war has been brought to us by others, by others who desire to harm, to kill, to destroy us and all we and our ancestors have created. Like the Flight 93 Forty we have to choose: Fight for freedom or die on our knees captives to fear.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Saturday, September 10, 2011
The Next Ten Years
The US (and a hell of a lot of other countries) is approaching the zero point marking the official start of "The Global War On Terrorism (GWOT.)" To err on the side of accuracy, the US had already been in a war against advocates of violent political Islam for eight years when the hijacked passenger aircraft were turned into cruise missiles.
Osama bin Laden had dispatched his declaration of war against the US six years earlier, but few here paid any attention. Two years before that, violent political Islamists only semi-associated with al-Qaeda had tried to take down the World Trade Center with a VBIED. The Clinton administration in the lawyerly way which typified that brand treated this informal, undeclared act of war by a non-state actor to be a criminal offense rather than an act of overt aggression. The later al-Qaeda sponsored attacks on the USS Cole, the Khobar Towershousing complex in Saudi Arabia, and the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania did merit a military response of a limited and highly irrelevant sort. The dispatch of Tomahawk missiles rather than FBI teams must have bothered the peace loving Clintonites--and was equally ineffective.
The 9/11 strikes could not be termed other than an act of war even if the aggressor was a non-state actor. It was Afghanistan's misfortune to be the state on whose territory and under whose protection the attack was planned and launched. It was even more unfortunate that the head of the Taliban government (if that term is truly apposite), Mullah Omar, valued Islamic hospitality over the territorial integrity of his country or the lives of his fellow Afghans.
Nearly ten years later there is little doubt but the original al-Qaeda is all but dead. At the least this particular band of violent political Islamists has been organizationally weakened to the point it presents no direct threat to the US or other "infidel" states. The same cannot be said of Taliban, particularly as it appears that the US and its allies are seeking a political accommodation with the group and are supported in this by at least some critical segments of the Kabul regime.
Neither can there be any optimism about success having been achieved against any of the many groups espousing and practicing violent political Islam which have come into existence since 9/11. Some of these have consciously adopted the al-Qaeda brand name or claimed affiliation with the legendary name of the initial group and its leader. Two of these, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), constitute very real threats to the nations of the West as well as regional states.
As between the two al-Qaeda franchises, the first, AQAP, is the larger menace. Located in the rapidly disintegrating state of Yemen, AQAP has not only established a strong presence (effectively becoming the government of at least one province), it has brokered relations with two African entities, al-Shabaab in the fictional country of Somalia and Boko Haram in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country. Because of its successes to date and apparent prospects for doing even more in the months and years to come, AQAP has become the new focus of the Americans as they pursue the GWOT.
The US is currently planning to ramp up its use of armed UAVs with the goal of replicating the success in targeted assassinations enjoyed in the FATA of Pakistan. The use of the highly lethal unmanned platforms over the past two years in particular has been largely responsible for the emasculation of al-Qaeda and the progressive reduction of Taliban's ability to conduct hard target operations. The Obama administration believes the Predators and Reapers can work the same grim magic in Yemen against the AQAP.
The ongoing political crisis in Yemen with its prospect of internal war gives a new urgency to the challenge of defeating AQAP before its creative bomb makers can score a success or before the American born and educated immam, Anwar al-Awlaki, can smooth talk another incomplete personality into undertaking a one man martyrdom operation. Should an Awlaki guided suicide bomber or a well concealed package bomb penetrate US security with a resultant high body count, it would be difficult or impossible to avoid sending the troops one more time to a land filled with inhospitable terrain and flatly hostile people.
Awlaki is a mediagenic fellow. AQAP's online publication Inspire is equally attractive to the Western media. The past bombing attempts by AQAP have been noteworthy in both the imagination behind them--and their failure. Overall AQAP has attracted a very great deal of attention and generated a significant amount of apprehension without having actually done anything significant outside of Yemen.
In short, AQAP is far more shadow than substance. AQAP is, in the deathless words of Chairman Mao, "a paper tiger."
The fear that AQAP will slide easily into power in Yemen as the state energetically disassembles is overstated. There are a couple of reasons for this push back against the conventional wisdom.
The first is the tribal nature of Yemen's population. AQAP is primarily supported by one tribe, the one from which Awlaki springs. Other tribes are not thrilled by taking orders from either AQAP or its tribal sponsor. They will fight to preserve their autonomy and the privileges which go with it.
The second reason is the Salifist austerity of the AQAP is not compatible with the views of most Yemenis. In those cities where AQAP has been able to establish dominance in recent months, the locals have bridled rapidly when confronted with the severe limitations the Salifists place upon life and its few pleasures. This is in keeping with prior experiences in both Iraq and Afghanistan where the austere advocates of violent political Islam outwore their welcome with surprising speed. Salifists from Kabul to Somalia have proven themselves to be their own worse enemies.
The combination of popular rejection and tribal hostilities automatically limits the probability or even the possibility of AQAP exercising an increasing sway in the ruins of Yemen. Their natural support base is too deficient to provide for long term, unchallenged authority. They would not even find the same percentage of initial support as Taliban had in its first year or two in power. (And, never forget, Taliban never had a firm hold on the non-Pushtu population of Afghanistan.)
There is an important caveat to this. Should the US kill too many civilians, the base of support for AQAP will grow rapidly. This is not to say Yemenis will embrace either Salifist religious ideology or necessarily support AQAP's agenda of violent political Islam. They will simply seek to resist the Americans who are killing their kinsmen.
Reports out of the FATA are contradictory, but the many which point at increased animosity directed at the US as a result of the Predators killing non-combatants should not be discounted. Neither should they be diminished. The Afghans have demonstrated great antipathy over the killing of civilians by US and allied forces. The same animosity is not shown regarding the deaths of civilians caused by Taliban bombs and bombers. In both the FATA and Afghanistan, the locals expect their Muslim civilians to be killed by Muslim combatants. It is OK. A fact of life. But, they do not cotton up to being killed by infidels.
When the infidel Predators cause collateral fatalities in Yemen, the first result will be the engendering of hostility to the US and those Yemenis who support or are seen as supporting the US. The winner would be AQAP.
The US is facing the prospect of a self-fulfilling prophecy in Yemen. In the attempt to stamp out a menace which does not yet exist, we are in danger of creating a genuine menace which cannot be stamped out.
We did this once before. In Vietnam. The bombing campaign directed against infiltration into South Vietnam by North Vietnam which did not exist prior to the commencement of the bombing resulted in the North starting up infiltration of supplies and trained manpower which could never be stopped.
Arguably, we are doing much the same today in the FATA although the prospect may very well be overstated. But even in an overstated form, any bolstering of the Taliban or Haqqani network is not in our better interests. So far, the balance between positive and negative effects in the FATA has been on the plus side of the ledger. However, that is not a proof of concept which should be used to justify the employment of UAVs in Yemen.
Right now, the least-worst option is using the Predators in a watch and wait role only. The situation in Yemen is to tenuous to run the risk of tilting affairs in favor of AQAP. Watch, wait, and try to work sub rosa to help the Yemeni themselves contain and finally eliminate the adherents of violent political Islam. Odds are the locals can do the job--unless we 'help' them in a lethal way.
Osama bin Laden had dispatched his declaration of war against the US six years earlier, but few here paid any attention. Two years before that, violent political Islamists only semi-associated with al-Qaeda had tried to take down the World Trade Center with a VBIED. The Clinton administration in the lawyerly way which typified that brand treated this informal, undeclared act of war by a non-state actor to be a criminal offense rather than an act of overt aggression. The later al-Qaeda sponsored attacks on the USS Cole, the Khobar Towershousing complex in Saudi Arabia, and the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania did merit a military response of a limited and highly irrelevant sort. The dispatch of Tomahawk missiles rather than FBI teams must have bothered the peace loving Clintonites--and was equally ineffective.
The 9/11 strikes could not be termed other than an act of war even if the aggressor was a non-state actor. It was Afghanistan's misfortune to be the state on whose territory and under whose protection the attack was planned and launched. It was even more unfortunate that the head of the Taliban government (if that term is truly apposite), Mullah Omar, valued Islamic hospitality over the territorial integrity of his country or the lives of his fellow Afghans.
Nearly ten years later there is little doubt but the original al-Qaeda is all but dead. At the least this particular band of violent political Islamists has been organizationally weakened to the point it presents no direct threat to the US or other "infidel" states. The same cannot be said of Taliban, particularly as it appears that the US and its allies are seeking a political accommodation with the group and are supported in this by at least some critical segments of the Kabul regime.
Neither can there be any optimism about success having been achieved against any of the many groups espousing and practicing violent political Islam which have come into existence since 9/11. Some of these have consciously adopted the al-Qaeda brand name or claimed affiliation with the legendary name of the initial group and its leader. Two of these, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), constitute very real threats to the nations of the West as well as regional states.
As between the two al-Qaeda franchises, the first, AQAP, is the larger menace. Located in the rapidly disintegrating state of Yemen, AQAP has not only established a strong presence (effectively becoming the government of at least one province), it has brokered relations with two African entities, al-Shabaab in the fictional country of Somalia and Boko Haram in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country. Because of its successes to date and apparent prospects for doing even more in the months and years to come, AQAP has become the new focus of the Americans as they pursue the GWOT.
The US is currently planning to ramp up its use of armed UAVs with the goal of replicating the success in targeted assassinations enjoyed in the FATA of Pakistan. The use of the highly lethal unmanned platforms over the past two years in particular has been largely responsible for the emasculation of al-Qaeda and the progressive reduction of Taliban's ability to conduct hard target operations. The Obama administration believes the Predators and Reapers can work the same grim magic in Yemen against the AQAP.
The ongoing political crisis in Yemen with its prospect of internal war gives a new urgency to the challenge of defeating AQAP before its creative bomb makers can score a success or before the American born and educated immam, Anwar al-Awlaki, can smooth talk another incomplete personality into undertaking a one man martyrdom operation. Should an Awlaki guided suicide bomber or a well concealed package bomb penetrate US security with a resultant high body count, it would be difficult or impossible to avoid sending the troops one more time to a land filled with inhospitable terrain and flatly hostile people.
Awlaki is a mediagenic fellow. AQAP's online publication Inspire is equally attractive to the Western media. The past bombing attempts by AQAP have been noteworthy in both the imagination behind them--and their failure. Overall AQAP has attracted a very great deal of attention and generated a significant amount of apprehension without having actually done anything significant outside of Yemen.
In short, AQAP is far more shadow than substance. AQAP is, in the deathless words of Chairman Mao, "a paper tiger."
The fear that AQAP will slide easily into power in Yemen as the state energetically disassembles is overstated. There are a couple of reasons for this push back against the conventional wisdom.
The first is the tribal nature of Yemen's population. AQAP is primarily supported by one tribe, the one from which Awlaki springs. Other tribes are not thrilled by taking orders from either AQAP or its tribal sponsor. They will fight to preserve their autonomy and the privileges which go with it.
The second reason is the Salifist austerity of the AQAP is not compatible with the views of most Yemenis. In those cities where AQAP has been able to establish dominance in recent months, the locals have bridled rapidly when confronted with the severe limitations the Salifists place upon life and its few pleasures. This is in keeping with prior experiences in both Iraq and Afghanistan where the austere advocates of violent political Islam outwore their welcome with surprising speed. Salifists from Kabul to Somalia have proven themselves to be their own worse enemies.
The combination of popular rejection and tribal hostilities automatically limits the probability or even the possibility of AQAP exercising an increasing sway in the ruins of Yemen. Their natural support base is too deficient to provide for long term, unchallenged authority. They would not even find the same percentage of initial support as Taliban had in its first year or two in power. (And, never forget, Taliban never had a firm hold on the non-Pushtu population of Afghanistan.)
There is an important caveat to this. Should the US kill too many civilians, the base of support for AQAP will grow rapidly. This is not to say Yemenis will embrace either Salifist religious ideology or necessarily support AQAP's agenda of violent political Islam. They will simply seek to resist the Americans who are killing their kinsmen.
Reports out of the FATA are contradictory, but the many which point at increased animosity directed at the US as a result of the Predators killing non-combatants should not be discounted. Neither should they be diminished. The Afghans have demonstrated great antipathy over the killing of civilians by US and allied forces. The same animosity is not shown regarding the deaths of civilians caused by Taliban bombs and bombers. In both the FATA and Afghanistan, the locals expect their Muslim civilians to be killed by Muslim combatants. It is OK. A fact of life. But, they do not cotton up to being killed by infidels.
When the infidel Predators cause collateral fatalities in Yemen, the first result will be the engendering of hostility to the US and those Yemenis who support or are seen as supporting the US. The winner would be AQAP.
The US is facing the prospect of a self-fulfilling prophecy in Yemen. In the attempt to stamp out a menace which does not yet exist, we are in danger of creating a genuine menace which cannot be stamped out.
We did this once before. In Vietnam. The bombing campaign directed against infiltration into South Vietnam by North Vietnam which did not exist prior to the commencement of the bombing resulted in the North starting up infiltration of supplies and trained manpower which could never be stopped.
Arguably, we are doing much the same today in the FATA although the prospect may very well be overstated. But even in an overstated form, any bolstering of the Taliban or Haqqani network is not in our better interests. So far, the balance between positive and negative effects in the FATA has been on the plus side of the ledger. However, that is not a proof of concept which should be used to justify the employment of UAVs in Yemen.
Right now, the least-worst option is using the Predators in a watch and wait role only. The situation in Yemen is to tenuous to run the risk of tilting affairs in favor of AQAP. Watch, wait, and try to work sub rosa to help the Yemeni themselves contain and finally eliminate the adherents of violent political Islam. Odds are the locals can do the job--unless we 'help' them in a lethal way.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
What Is Erdogan Smoking?
The Islamist-leaning jefe grande of the AKP and prime minister of Turkey, Recip Erdogan, is proving to be something of a regional loose cannon. It is one thing to demand an apology from Israel for the badly mishandled boarding of the Mavi Marmora, but it is a far different matter to threaten war.
Make no mistake about it, the bellicose prime minister's promise/threat to provide naval cover for future "aid" flotillas headed for Gaza is the next best thing to a declaration of war against Israel. Erdogan might not like it, but the Israeli blockade of Hamas ruled Gaza does conform with international law as well as the customs of war at sea. That inconvenient truth has been made clear time after time, most recently in the Palmer Report. The report severely criticized the Israelis for the conduct of the blockade but emphasized that the blockade per se was and is totally legal.
This means that any Turkish naval units convoying the "aid" vessels would be seeking to break an internationally recognized and legal blockade by armed force. That is a pretty good operational definition of war. Perhaps the huffing and puffing PM did not realize that as he allowed his mouth to run away from adult supervision, but if the Turkish navy shoots, the Israelis will shoot back, just as sure as it is hot as hell in Texas.
Having made the promise/threat, the AKP government now had best hope that no pro-Palestinian group will take up the offer. Given that the "humanitarian" NGO behind the Mavi Marmora flotilla has very close ties to the government, it may be expected that at least that group, IHH, will be controllable. But there are many other entities willing to use the specious cover of humanitarian aid convoys to embarrass Israel and, given the Erdogan commitment, perhaps start a war which will end the Zionist menace once and for all.
Certainly there are enough entities, including both state and non-state actors, which fervently desire an end to Israel. Of these, most would be willing to manipulate a face off between Turkey and Israel into the long hoped for War of the Final Solution. Erdogan's promise/threat darn near invites some group to do just that.
There is the chance that Erdogan was motivated not only by his ambition to recreate the Ottoman Empire in an updated form but also by an exaggerated belief that his navy could simply intimidate the Israelis into allowing the Turk protected "aid" convoy to steam unimpaired to port in Gaza. The Turkish navy is much larger than its Israeli counterpart. The TCG has eight former US Perry class frigates as well as more modern classes including eight MEKO vessels. The Turks also can deploy an impressive number of smaller combatants headed by six French built corvettes.
The Israeli navy is small in comparison. However the almost microscopic coastal defense oriented IDF naval forces include three highly competent Dolphin class submarines whose tube launched missiles constitute a serious threat to any surface opponent. Far more importantly, any confrontation between Turk and Israeli would occur within very easy range of the Israeli land based air force. The Turks have no credible way of countering the Israeli air threat. Period.
Israeli air dominance means it is game, set, and match to those fighting under the blue and white flag of Israel.
Erdogan is apparently too busy contemplating his diplomatic brilliance to remember the hortatory advice which ended the sci-fi classic, The Thing, "Watch the skies!"
The Islamist PM has also overlooked the vast difference between impressing the Arab street with anti-Israeli oratory (very good) and saber rattling (which scares the hell out of the same street.) Turkey has gained a whale of a lot of traction in the Mideast by cocking a snoot at Israel by way of words and diplomatic rupture. This does not mean the Arabs or their governments, either new or old, are hoping for a return of the Ottoman Empire under any guise. Nor are all hands thrilled by the prospect of a new regional war whether initiated by intent or miscalculation.
The same dynamics and considerations apply to the second of Erdogan's promises/threats. The expansive, not to say delusional, PM also declared that the Turks will guarantee the maritime commons and subsea resources against Israeli exploitation. This is a more comprehensive commitment than the convoying of humanitarian flotillas. At the same time, it places the Turks in a more vulnerable position by greatly enlarging the possibility of starting a war of miscalculation. It also places Turkey in the role of regional semi-hegemon pretending that no one can drill below the water of the Eastern Mediterranean without Ankara's remit. This is a preposterous assertion which will alienate not only the government of Cyprus but a host of others as well.
Alienation takes many forms. And, alienation can have a host of consequences, none of which is positive from Ankara's perspective.
For example, the present Egyptian government (the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) may be happy with the new military agreement between itself and Turkey. It may be pleased with the prospect of joint military, naval, and air exercises to be held early next year. But, neither SCAF nor any successor government other than one dominated by the more extreme Salifists would be thrilled by a joint war against Israel. After all, the Egyptians are a lot closer to Israel and know from experience what that can mean if the bullets fly and the bombs fall.
Every Arab state is too preoccupied currently with internal problems to seek a war. If a war of miscalculation would ensue after a Turk-Israeli shoot out at sea, there would be few Arabs rushing to the frontline. The Turks would find themselves rather alone in the matter.
Erdogan (who now deserves the Joe Biden Award) has no choice in the real world now other than to back down. Fortunately for him the walking back can be done quietly. He and the AKP will lose a bit of street cred, but that is preferable to losing a war.
Make no mistake about it, the bellicose prime minister's promise/threat to provide naval cover for future "aid" flotillas headed for Gaza is the next best thing to a declaration of war against Israel. Erdogan might not like it, but the Israeli blockade of Hamas ruled Gaza does conform with international law as well as the customs of war at sea. That inconvenient truth has been made clear time after time, most recently in the Palmer Report. The report severely criticized the Israelis for the conduct of the blockade but emphasized that the blockade per se was and is totally legal.
This means that any Turkish naval units convoying the "aid" vessels would be seeking to break an internationally recognized and legal blockade by armed force. That is a pretty good operational definition of war. Perhaps the huffing and puffing PM did not realize that as he allowed his mouth to run away from adult supervision, but if the Turkish navy shoots, the Israelis will shoot back, just as sure as it is hot as hell in Texas.
Having made the promise/threat, the AKP government now had best hope that no pro-Palestinian group will take up the offer. Given that the "humanitarian" NGO behind the Mavi Marmora flotilla has very close ties to the government, it may be expected that at least that group, IHH, will be controllable. But there are many other entities willing to use the specious cover of humanitarian aid convoys to embarrass Israel and, given the Erdogan commitment, perhaps start a war which will end the Zionist menace once and for all.
Certainly there are enough entities, including both state and non-state actors, which fervently desire an end to Israel. Of these, most would be willing to manipulate a face off between Turkey and Israel into the long hoped for War of the Final Solution. Erdogan's promise/threat darn near invites some group to do just that.
There is the chance that Erdogan was motivated not only by his ambition to recreate the Ottoman Empire in an updated form but also by an exaggerated belief that his navy could simply intimidate the Israelis into allowing the Turk protected "aid" convoy to steam unimpaired to port in Gaza. The Turkish navy is much larger than its Israeli counterpart. The TCG has eight former US Perry class frigates as well as more modern classes including eight MEKO vessels. The Turks also can deploy an impressive number of smaller combatants headed by six French built corvettes.
The Israeli navy is small in comparison. However the almost microscopic coastal defense oriented IDF naval forces include three highly competent Dolphin class submarines whose tube launched missiles constitute a serious threat to any surface opponent. Far more importantly, any confrontation between Turk and Israeli would occur within very easy range of the Israeli land based air force. The Turks have no credible way of countering the Israeli air threat. Period.
Israeli air dominance means it is game, set, and match to those fighting under the blue and white flag of Israel.
Erdogan is apparently too busy contemplating his diplomatic brilliance to remember the hortatory advice which ended the sci-fi classic, The Thing, "Watch the skies!"
The Islamist PM has also overlooked the vast difference between impressing the Arab street with anti-Israeli oratory (very good) and saber rattling (which scares the hell out of the same street.) Turkey has gained a whale of a lot of traction in the Mideast by cocking a snoot at Israel by way of words and diplomatic rupture. This does not mean the Arabs or their governments, either new or old, are hoping for a return of the Ottoman Empire under any guise. Nor are all hands thrilled by the prospect of a new regional war whether initiated by intent or miscalculation.
The same dynamics and considerations apply to the second of Erdogan's promises/threats. The expansive, not to say delusional, PM also declared that the Turks will guarantee the maritime commons and subsea resources against Israeli exploitation. This is a more comprehensive commitment than the convoying of humanitarian flotillas. At the same time, it places the Turks in a more vulnerable position by greatly enlarging the possibility of starting a war of miscalculation. It also places Turkey in the role of regional semi-hegemon pretending that no one can drill below the water of the Eastern Mediterranean without Ankara's remit. This is a preposterous assertion which will alienate not only the government of Cyprus but a host of others as well.
Alienation takes many forms. And, alienation can have a host of consequences, none of which is positive from Ankara's perspective.
For example, the present Egyptian government (the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) may be happy with the new military agreement between itself and Turkey. It may be pleased with the prospect of joint military, naval, and air exercises to be held early next year. But, neither SCAF nor any successor government other than one dominated by the more extreme Salifists would be thrilled by a joint war against Israel. After all, the Egyptians are a lot closer to Israel and know from experience what that can mean if the bullets fly and the bombs fall.
Every Arab state is too preoccupied currently with internal problems to seek a war. If a war of miscalculation would ensue after a Turk-Israeli shoot out at sea, there would be few Arabs rushing to the frontline. The Turks would find themselves rather alone in the matter.
Erdogan (who now deserves the Joe Biden Award) has no choice in the real world now other than to back down. Fortunately for him the walking back can be done quietly. He and the AKP will lose a bit of street cred, but that is preferable to losing a war.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
They Just Have The Wrong Enemy
Back in 1918, the Great Powers, victors over Germany, Austria, and the Ottoman Empire did a bit of practical work, redrawing the maps of Europe and the Mideast. Supposedly high on the list of priorities for this exercise in practical cartography was the uniquely American proposition called, "self-determination of peoples." This noble bit of High Mindedness was honored more or less with respect to the splitting up of the old Hapsburg domains, but was it observed only in the breech when it came to dismembering the Ottoman lands.
When the hyper-idealistic Woodrow Wilson confronted the real world of secret deals and the fruits of wartime exigencies, he discovered that his notions of self-determination had been preempted by an assortment of understandings both formal and otherwise between Great Britain and France. One of these rather under the table deals dealt with the area called Palestine. This area along with the coterminous Trans-Jordan had been divided according to two contradictory undertakings. One, the Balfour Declaration, promised Jews a "national homeland." The other, an agreement between two bureaucrats, Sykes and Picot, created two protectorates, one under British rule and the other under French.
This exercise in international can kicking is still with us today in the form of the seemingly endless conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. (By the way a body of American experts on the region advised President Wilson to fight this one to the death as the result would be a century of bloodshed. Rarely have experts been so right.)
Almost overlooked was the simultaneous division of Iraq and Syria into British (Iraq) and French (Syria along with its appendage, Lebanon) protectorates. Embedded in both Iraq and Syria as well as in the rump state of Turkey and the country then called Persia was a people long separated from their neighbors by language, customs, and culture but not religion. This nation now split among four states was the Kurds.
The Kurds were not at all happy with this division. Nor should they have been. According to the principle of self-determination, the Kurds merited their own state, the state of Kurdistan. But, these unfortunate folk lacked any representative in Versailles. Unlike the Arabs way down south, the Kurds had provided no service to the Allied cause. Unlike the Arabs, the Kurds had no access to powerful British political figures. Neither did they gain the attention of imperial minded bureaucrats. As a result, they were casually and cruelly consigned to minority status within four states.
Almost immediately, the Kurds commenced a defensive insurgency in each and every of the four countries to which they had been so cavalierly assigned. The insurgency has not ended to this day. Like the conflict between Arab Palestinian and Israeli Jew, the conflict gives no hint of ending soon, or ever.
The Kurdish people are an ancient hill folk. Like hill dwellers almost everywhere, they are excellent warriors. It deserves mention that the great Muslim fighter who kicked Crusader butt with great effect, Saladin, was a Kurd. While today's Kurdish fighters may not have either the military genius or bent to chivalry which marked the legendary Saladin, they are not slouches in the craft of guerrilla war as may be attested to by the marked lack of success enjoyed to date by Turks and Iranians alike.
Other than in Iraq where the Kurds have a semi-autonomous province under sole Kurdish control, it is accurate to say the Kurds live under occupation by a foreign force. In Turkey, in Syria, and in Iran, the majority Kurdish areas are under direct military control. Indeed, in at least two of these countries, the degree of military control equals or exceeds that exercised by Israel over the Palestinians of the West Bank and far outstrips that of Gaza.
The Kurds are denied equal treatment in all three states to a degree never reached in the West Bank or Gaza. They are denied the use of their own language. They are not allowed to conduct their own education. They are not provided with the same level of governmental services including access to economic development as the majority populations in all three states. In short, the Kurds in Turkey, Syria and Iran have been pushed to the margins, had their culture and language robustly attacked as a matter of policy, and are subject to an array of legal disabilities as well as informal discrimination.
From any perspective, the Kurds have suffered far more deprivation of status, rights, and opportunities at the hands of the governments and majority populations of Turkey, Syria, and Iran than the Palestinians ever were during the years since June 1967. At the same time, the Kurds have a claim on statehood which equals or exceeds that made by the Palestinians.
In sharp contrast with the Palestinians, the Kurds have waged their multi-generation insurgency with remarkable humanity. Unlike the Palestinians down to the present day, the Kurdish fighters sharply limit their attacks to military and constabulary targets. The intentional attack of civilians is almost unheard of. Compared to the Palestinian way of war, the Kurds take care to reduce collateral damage to a minimum. In the usually dirty business of insurgent warfare, the Kurds are relative good guys. The Palestinians are very much of the opposite hue.
These ground truths demand a question or two. Where are the liberal groups in the West? Where are the groups espousing boycotts, divestiture, or deligitimatization of Iran, Syria, and Turkey? Where are the UN resolutions condemning the suppression of the legitimate rights of the Kurds by Ankara, Damascus, Tehran? Where is the UN Human Rights Council with resolutions, special rapporteurs, and other displays of condemnation or concern?
In the last few years, advocates of Palestinian statehood have proliferated with a speed which boggles the imagination. Campaigns of boycotts, divestiture, and sanctions have spilled forth in mighty torrents. The UN and its lesser creatures have shown a tender concern for the Palestinians without precedent. The High Minded and Lofty Thinking of the West have taken the Palestinians--rockets, suicide vests, and AK-47s included--into a warm embrace.
All blame for whatever happens in the Mideast between Israel and the Palestinians is quickly, automatically, ascribed to the evil doing, racist, Zionist occupiers. Even when a Jewish infant dies, throat slit as it slept near the dead parents and elder siblings, it is seen as the direct result of the Zionist occupier.
Meanwhile, the Turkish air force bombs civilians in Iraqi Kurdistan while Iranian artillery does the same without even the mildest whimper coming from the assorted advocates of self-determination around the world who are so quick to condemn the Zionist occupiers. Even Syria is exempt from criticism as it denies the most basic rights to Kurds resident in its borders.
Why?
Why two "victims" (one, the Kurds, arguably more deserving of the term) with two such wildly disparate responses from the "international community," the human rights congeries, and politicians around the world?
The answer is as simple as it is ugly. The Kurds are predominantly Muslim. So also are the oppressive majority populations in each and every of the four states. The Palestinians are mainly Muslim. Their putative oppressors are Jewish.
And, now the really nasty part, antisemitism is as rife in the West as it is endemic to the Muslim states. In the West, this ancient, evil mindset hides behind the currently respectable facade of being "anti-Zionist" or, even better, as a euphemism, "opposition to aspects of Israeli policy."
It is OK in the West to look at Muslim oppression of Muslims with total indifference. In the Muslim majority states, the same is true to an even greater extent because to condemn the Muslim majority for oppressing a Muslim minority is to commit that great Islamic sin of fitna, of introducing fission in the great Islamic ummah. The single towering fiction in Islam is that of holding the community of believers to be one huge, happy family. So, no hand is raised, no voice either, to stop the oppression of Kurds by Muslim Turks, Muslim Iranians, or Muslim Arabs.
The fiction of Islamic unity is nothing compared to the larger concoction in the West. The concealing of antisemitism behind the thin and torn scrim of "anti-Zionism" or "opposition to aspects of Israeli policy" is not simply hypocritical, it is a moral delict of the highest order.
Any way you cut it, the groups and individuals in the West who brandish the cudgels on behalf of the Palestinians while maintaining a discrete silence with respect to the Kurds are examples of moral decay without equal. It is a very severe indictment of the High Minded in the West who by their careful selection of who deserves support show themselves to be both dishonest and antisemitic to the core.
The people and groups so staunchly supporting the Palestinians (including the UN, the UN Human Rights Council, the assorted NGOs, and the individuals who espouse sanctions, boycotts, and divestiture) will deserve respectful attention when and only when they exhibit the same level of concern for the Kurds as they do the Palestinians. Unless and until these worthies are as willing to condemn and seek to delegitimatize the Turks, the Iranians, and the Syrians, they merit no hearing.
Rather, these groups and individuals should themselves be blackguarded as the antisemites they are. Any less is to endorse their wicked position.
When the hyper-idealistic Woodrow Wilson confronted the real world of secret deals and the fruits of wartime exigencies, he discovered that his notions of self-determination had been preempted by an assortment of understandings both formal and otherwise between Great Britain and France. One of these rather under the table deals dealt with the area called Palestine. This area along with the coterminous Trans-Jordan had been divided according to two contradictory undertakings. One, the Balfour Declaration, promised Jews a "national homeland." The other, an agreement between two bureaucrats, Sykes and Picot, created two protectorates, one under British rule and the other under French.
This exercise in international can kicking is still with us today in the form of the seemingly endless conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. (By the way a body of American experts on the region advised President Wilson to fight this one to the death as the result would be a century of bloodshed. Rarely have experts been so right.)
Almost overlooked was the simultaneous division of Iraq and Syria into British (Iraq) and French (Syria along with its appendage, Lebanon) protectorates. Embedded in both Iraq and Syria as well as in the rump state of Turkey and the country then called Persia was a people long separated from their neighbors by language, customs, and culture but not religion. This nation now split among four states was the Kurds.
The Kurds were not at all happy with this division. Nor should they have been. According to the principle of self-determination, the Kurds merited their own state, the state of Kurdistan. But, these unfortunate folk lacked any representative in Versailles. Unlike the Arabs way down south, the Kurds had provided no service to the Allied cause. Unlike the Arabs, the Kurds had no access to powerful British political figures. Neither did they gain the attention of imperial minded bureaucrats. As a result, they were casually and cruelly consigned to minority status within four states.
Almost immediately, the Kurds commenced a defensive insurgency in each and every of the four countries to which they had been so cavalierly assigned. The insurgency has not ended to this day. Like the conflict between Arab Palestinian and Israeli Jew, the conflict gives no hint of ending soon, or ever.
The Kurdish people are an ancient hill folk. Like hill dwellers almost everywhere, they are excellent warriors. It deserves mention that the great Muslim fighter who kicked Crusader butt with great effect, Saladin, was a Kurd. While today's Kurdish fighters may not have either the military genius or bent to chivalry which marked the legendary Saladin, they are not slouches in the craft of guerrilla war as may be attested to by the marked lack of success enjoyed to date by Turks and Iranians alike.
Other than in Iraq where the Kurds have a semi-autonomous province under sole Kurdish control, it is accurate to say the Kurds live under occupation by a foreign force. In Turkey, in Syria, and in Iran, the majority Kurdish areas are under direct military control. Indeed, in at least two of these countries, the degree of military control equals or exceeds that exercised by Israel over the Palestinians of the West Bank and far outstrips that of Gaza.
The Kurds are denied equal treatment in all three states to a degree never reached in the West Bank or Gaza. They are denied the use of their own language. They are not allowed to conduct their own education. They are not provided with the same level of governmental services including access to economic development as the majority populations in all three states. In short, the Kurds in Turkey, Syria and Iran have been pushed to the margins, had their culture and language robustly attacked as a matter of policy, and are subject to an array of legal disabilities as well as informal discrimination.
From any perspective, the Kurds have suffered far more deprivation of status, rights, and opportunities at the hands of the governments and majority populations of Turkey, Syria, and Iran than the Palestinians ever were during the years since June 1967. At the same time, the Kurds have a claim on statehood which equals or exceeds that made by the Palestinians.
In sharp contrast with the Palestinians, the Kurds have waged their multi-generation insurgency with remarkable humanity. Unlike the Palestinians down to the present day, the Kurdish fighters sharply limit their attacks to military and constabulary targets. The intentional attack of civilians is almost unheard of. Compared to the Palestinian way of war, the Kurds take care to reduce collateral damage to a minimum. In the usually dirty business of insurgent warfare, the Kurds are relative good guys. The Palestinians are very much of the opposite hue.
These ground truths demand a question or two. Where are the liberal groups in the West? Where are the groups espousing boycotts, divestiture, or deligitimatization of Iran, Syria, and Turkey? Where are the UN resolutions condemning the suppression of the legitimate rights of the Kurds by Ankara, Damascus, Tehran? Where is the UN Human Rights Council with resolutions, special rapporteurs, and other displays of condemnation or concern?
In the last few years, advocates of Palestinian statehood have proliferated with a speed which boggles the imagination. Campaigns of boycotts, divestiture, and sanctions have spilled forth in mighty torrents. The UN and its lesser creatures have shown a tender concern for the Palestinians without precedent. The High Minded and Lofty Thinking of the West have taken the Palestinians--rockets, suicide vests, and AK-47s included--into a warm embrace.
All blame for whatever happens in the Mideast between Israel and the Palestinians is quickly, automatically, ascribed to the evil doing, racist, Zionist occupiers. Even when a Jewish infant dies, throat slit as it slept near the dead parents and elder siblings, it is seen as the direct result of the Zionist occupier.
Meanwhile, the Turkish air force bombs civilians in Iraqi Kurdistan while Iranian artillery does the same without even the mildest whimper coming from the assorted advocates of self-determination around the world who are so quick to condemn the Zionist occupiers. Even Syria is exempt from criticism as it denies the most basic rights to Kurds resident in its borders.
Why?
Why two "victims" (one, the Kurds, arguably more deserving of the term) with two such wildly disparate responses from the "international community," the human rights congeries, and politicians around the world?
The answer is as simple as it is ugly. The Kurds are predominantly Muslim. So also are the oppressive majority populations in each and every of the four states. The Palestinians are mainly Muslim. Their putative oppressors are Jewish.
And, now the really nasty part, antisemitism is as rife in the West as it is endemic to the Muslim states. In the West, this ancient, evil mindset hides behind the currently respectable facade of being "anti-Zionist" or, even better, as a euphemism, "opposition to aspects of Israeli policy."
It is OK in the West to look at Muslim oppression of Muslims with total indifference. In the Muslim majority states, the same is true to an even greater extent because to condemn the Muslim majority for oppressing a Muslim minority is to commit that great Islamic sin of fitna, of introducing fission in the great Islamic ummah. The single towering fiction in Islam is that of holding the community of believers to be one huge, happy family. So, no hand is raised, no voice either, to stop the oppression of Kurds by Muslim Turks, Muslim Iranians, or Muslim Arabs.
The fiction of Islamic unity is nothing compared to the larger concoction in the West. The concealing of antisemitism behind the thin and torn scrim of "anti-Zionism" or "opposition to aspects of Israeli policy" is not simply hypocritical, it is a moral delict of the highest order.
Any way you cut it, the groups and individuals in the West who brandish the cudgels on behalf of the Palestinians while maintaining a discrete silence with respect to the Kurds are examples of moral decay without equal. It is a very severe indictment of the High Minded in the West who by their careful selection of who deserves support show themselves to be both dishonest and antisemitic to the core.
The people and groups so staunchly supporting the Palestinians (including the UN, the UN Human Rights Council, the assorted NGOs, and the individuals who espouse sanctions, boycotts, and divestiture) will deserve respectful attention when and only when they exhibit the same level of concern for the Kurds as they do the Palestinians. Unless and until these worthies are as willing to condemn and seek to delegitimatize the Turks, the Iranians, and the Syrians, they merit no hearing.
Rather, these groups and individuals should themselves be blackguarded as the antisemites they are. Any less is to endorse their wicked position.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Yes, Bibi, Great States Do Apologize
The apparent center of gravity in the current degradation of relations between Turkey and Israel is the failure of the latter to offer an acceptable, formal apology for the nine deaths which occurred at the hands of IDF personnel during the encounter between Israel and the utterly bogus "relief" flotilla headed by the Mavi Marmora. The Palmer Report concluded that while Israel had international law and custom on its side as regarded the naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, the enforcement of the blockade as well as the resultant deaths constituted an egregious act of overreach.
The incident on board the ship handed anti-Israeli elements, including the Islamist leaning AKP government of Turkey a heaven sent opportunity to make much propaganda at the expense of the Jewish state. In this context the Turks have demanded repeatedly that Israel not only provide compensation for those wounded and killed by IDF members but also provide an acceptable apology. Israel has agreed to compensation but has balked over the idea of an apology. Prime minister Netanyahu has maintained that doing so would damage Israeli public morale among other sinister things. In this he has been backed (or exceeded) by the always ready to breath fire foreign minister, Lieberman. The far right of the Israeli political spectrum has been monolithic in the rejectionist stance adopted by Netanyahu.
It seems that the Netanyahu government believes that an apology for an action seen as being defensive in nature and not overdone in view of the provocations offered by activists on board the Mavi Marmora who were armed with bludgeons and similar weapons would somehow lessen Israel in the eyes of its citizens and the world generally. This is an utterly specious notion.
The first reason for declaring the Netanyahu stance specious is simply that the raid was poorly conceived and even more poorly executed. It seems preposterously arrogant that the raid's planners and commanders did not anticipate any armed resistance to the IDF boarding party. Did these experienced military officers really, really believe the activists sponsored by a group with a long record of hostility to Israel would not seek a confrontation? Or, were they of the view that the simple arrival of the dreaded IDF would cause an instant collapse of will on the part of the activists? Either flies in the face of both experience and realistic military planning.
To put it bluntly, the boarding was as badly botched as, for example, the special operations force attempt in Somalia twenty years back which resulted in Blackhawk down. The IDF blew it pure and simple when they mounted the assault. This is not a mark against the troops who fast roped down to decks filled with men ready and eager for a violent confrontation, men who were willing to court and accept death at the hands of the IDF, men willing to be martyrs for the faith and the cause.
Apologizing for your own side's errors is no shame--only a transient embarrassment for those in charge. Admitting that better thinking, better planning, better timing, better methods and tactics would have resulted in a death free takeover of the ship is no sin, no humiliation, but rather an expression of a willingness and capacity to learn from mistakes.
The second reason the Netanyahu posture is specious not to say vacuous is simply that great nations can and do apologize. By this the Geek does not mean the bogus exercises of mea culpa engaged in by President Obama for American "transgressions" both real and imagined but in all cases resident in the far distant past. No, the Geek means such examples as that provided by General Stanley McChrystal, sitting, legs crossed, feet bootless, on the rug covered floor of an Afghan stone hut apologizing for fatalities inflicted by forces under his command upon civilians, upon members of the family in whose house he sat.
The humble, human gesture of offering apologies for lives cut short in no way humiliated the general, nor the forces in his command, nor the nation in whose service he and his people fought. Rather, it demonstrated that a great and powerful country disposing military force of nearly unlimited power could admit it did inadvertent wrong, wreaked unintended havoc and death--and, most importantly, could acknowledge and apologize for it.
Unlike General McChrystal, there will be no need for Mr Netanyahu to face the kin of those who died at the hands of the IDF. Mr Netanyhu will not have to take off his shoes, sit on the floor, and personally say, "I am truly sorry for the deaths my men caused and the pain inflicted upon you by our actions. Mr Netanahu can do the job by written words, words carefully crafted by diplomats and vetted by politicians, words which can be totally insincere provided they do not read as such. It can be an antiseptic charade without any requirement for the direct person-to-person dynamic which involved McChrystal.
True, the Turks will crow over an apology. The Erdogan government will distort it, use it to advance Turkey's status in its ambitious plan of a neo-Ottoman Empire. That will be to the shame of Ankara not Israel. And, it is debatable that the resultant propaganda will be any more destructive of Israel's interests than is the ongoing festering crisis of diplomacy and trade.
Best of all, the issuance of an apology puts the ball back in the Turk's court. The apology would place the onus on Ankara to put up or shut up, to restore the status quo ante or admit the whole issue was false, a gambit intended to put Israel on the unending defensive, a way to back out of the previous policy of cooperation between the two countries. This manner of clarification is in Israel's interest, is it not?
Get a grip, Mr Netanyahu! An apology is in your interests. It is in the better interests of your country. Offering one will not diminish Israel; it will buff the country's image and status around the world and in the US. It will not even bruise your ego. It might even enhance your sense of self. It will have been you who called the Erdogan bluff.
The incident on board the ship handed anti-Israeli elements, including the Islamist leaning AKP government of Turkey a heaven sent opportunity to make much propaganda at the expense of the Jewish state. In this context the Turks have demanded repeatedly that Israel not only provide compensation for those wounded and killed by IDF members but also provide an acceptable apology. Israel has agreed to compensation but has balked over the idea of an apology. Prime minister Netanyahu has maintained that doing so would damage Israeli public morale among other sinister things. In this he has been backed (or exceeded) by the always ready to breath fire foreign minister, Lieberman. The far right of the Israeli political spectrum has been monolithic in the rejectionist stance adopted by Netanyahu.
It seems that the Netanyahu government believes that an apology for an action seen as being defensive in nature and not overdone in view of the provocations offered by activists on board the Mavi Marmora who were armed with bludgeons and similar weapons would somehow lessen Israel in the eyes of its citizens and the world generally. This is an utterly specious notion.
The first reason for declaring the Netanyahu stance specious is simply that the raid was poorly conceived and even more poorly executed. It seems preposterously arrogant that the raid's planners and commanders did not anticipate any armed resistance to the IDF boarding party. Did these experienced military officers really, really believe the activists sponsored by a group with a long record of hostility to Israel would not seek a confrontation? Or, were they of the view that the simple arrival of the dreaded IDF would cause an instant collapse of will on the part of the activists? Either flies in the face of both experience and realistic military planning.
To put it bluntly, the boarding was as badly botched as, for example, the special operations force attempt in Somalia twenty years back which resulted in Blackhawk down. The IDF blew it pure and simple when they mounted the assault. This is not a mark against the troops who fast roped down to decks filled with men ready and eager for a violent confrontation, men who were willing to court and accept death at the hands of the IDF, men willing to be martyrs for the faith and the cause.
Apologizing for your own side's errors is no shame--only a transient embarrassment for those in charge. Admitting that better thinking, better planning, better timing, better methods and tactics would have resulted in a death free takeover of the ship is no sin, no humiliation, but rather an expression of a willingness and capacity to learn from mistakes.
The second reason the Netanyahu posture is specious not to say vacuous is simply that great nations can and do apologize. By this the Geek does not mean the bogus exercises of mea culpa engaged in by President Obama for American "transgressions" both real and imagined but in all cases resident in the far distant past. No, the Geek means such examples as that provided by General Stanley McChrystal, sitting, legs crossed, feet bootless, on the rug covered floor of an Afghan stone hut apologizing for fatalities inflicted by forces under his command upon civilians, upon members of the family in whose house he sat.
The humble, human gesture of offering apologies for lives cut short in no way humiliated the general, nor the forces in his command, nor the nation in whose service he and his people fought. Rather, it demonstrated that a great and powerful country disposing military force of nearly unlimited power could admit it did inadvertent wrong, wreaked unintended havoc and death--and, most importantly, could acknowledge and apologize for it.
Unlike General McChrystal, there will be no need for Mr Netanyahu to face the kin of those who died at the hands of the IDF. Mr Netanyhu will not have to take off his shoes, sit on the floor, and personally say, "I am truly sorry for the deaths my men caused and the pain inflicted upon you by our actions. Mr Netanahu can do the job by written words, words carefully crafted by diplomats and vetted by politicians, words which can be totally insincere provided they do not read as such. It can be an antiseptic charade without any requirement for the direct person-to-person dynamic which involved McChrystal.
True, the Turks will crow over an apology. The Erdogan government will distort it, use it to advance Turkey's status in its ambitious plan of a neo-Ottoman Empire. That will be to the shame of Ankara not Israel. And, it is debatable that the resultant propaganda will be any more destructive of Israel's interests than is the ongoing festering crisis of diplomacy and trade.
Best of all, the issuance of an apology puts the ball back in the Turk's court. The apology would place the onus on Ankara to put up or shut up, to restore the status quo ante or admit the whole issue was false, a gambit intended to put Israel on the unending defensive, a way to back out of the previous policy of cooperation between the two countries. This manner of clarification is in Israel's interest, is it not?
Get a grip, Mr Netanyahu! An apology is in your interests. It is in the better interests of your country. Offering one will not diminish Israel; it will buff the country's image and status around the world and in the US. It will not even bruise your ego. It might even enhance your sense of self. It will have been you who called the Erdogan bluff.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Turkey's Foreign Policy--Clever Calculation Or Flat Out Stupid
Until very recently, the announced foreign policy of Turkey under the Islamist leaning AKP has been one of "zero problems" with its regional neighbors. This exercise in fantasy started to crumble under the bitter winds of the "Arab Spring."
Ankara did not know whether to go with the new flow or stand resolutely alongside the embattled regimes of Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Qaddafi. The Erdogan government blew first hot and then cold on the uprisings in Bahrain. The name of the Turkish diplomatic game regarding Syria was vacillation.
After a long period of agonizing indecision, Ankara finally did come down on the side of the Egyptian protesters. Then, after more of the same, the Turks reluctantly sided with the Libyan rebels. In the latter case, it is not trivial to note that Ankara robustly opposed the use of force--either to protect civilians or to provide the anti-government forces with an air capacity.
Only after the longest possible period of watching and waiting did the Erdogan government come out publicly against Bashar al-Assad. The delay and equivocation in this case was due to a powerful desire in Ankara not to damage their rapprochement with Tehran. Possibly this was enhanced by the pending announcement of the decision to host the basing of the new American X band radar on Turkish soil, a move which would raise the hackles of the ayatollahs.
The alternative to irritating Iran over Syria was to court further distancing from the majority of the Arab street which was strongly supportive of the "Arab Spring" movements and saw the Syrians as martyrs to the cause of freedom. Biting the bullet, Erdogan and his fellow Islamists denounced the Assad regime as having lost Turkish governmental "confidence."
The Syrian demarch was too little too late to satisfy the pro-freedom groups proliferating in the Mideast to the disadvantage of Ankara's desire to recreate the Ottoman days. At the same time, the twin moves of condemning Syria and accepting the X band radar did infuriate the ayatollahs and their frontmen. By poor timing, the Turks fell between the two stools and emasculated the "zero problems" gambit.
The effect has been to put more pressure on Erdogan to take the strongest possible anti-Israel stance. Only by Israel baiting of the highest sort could Turkey hope to keep or rebuild its stature not only on the Arab street but within the chanceries of the region.
The attractions of playing the Israel card are self-evident. Erdogan came to prominence in 2009 by stalking off the stage at Davos while loudly accusing Israel president Peres of being a "murderer." The next year the Israelis enhanced Erdogan's status as the champion of the Palestinians by a heavy handed but legal stopping of the bogus aid flotilla with nine fatal casualties among those on board the lead ship. Ever since that day, the Erdogan government has made rich PR hay by flogging the dead horse of the Mavi Marmora. Most recently his demand for an apology has been reinforced by a downgrading of diplomatic relations between Israel and Turkey with highly positive results among the denizens of the Arab street.
The escalation of the diplomatic contretemps has assured Turkey's "zero problems" is not only defunct but stinkingly so. The sickly sweet smell of death hangs around Turkey's regional diplomacy.
As if alienating the Iranians, the Israelis, the Libyans, the Egyptians, and the Syrians was not enough, Ankara has undertaken a number of high casualty attacks by air and artillery against targets in Iraqi Kurdistan. The series of air strikes and artillery stonks was purportedly in retaliation for an ambush conducted on Turkish soil by members of PKK, the long lived Kurdish insurgent group seeking the creation of a true Kurdish state.
It is true that PKK has sanctuary in Iraqi Kurdistan. So does the group PJK which has been waging low intensity war against the Iranians. It is this geographic and political locus which gives Tehran and Ankara a coinciding national interest. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps stages the same sort of hyperactive response to guerrilla attacks as does the Turkish army.
Stripped to its essentials, both Turkey and Iran have been waging undeclared international war against Iraq. While the Shia dominated pseudo-government in Baghdad sheds no tears for dead Iraqi Kurds, the recent attacks by Turkey have produced an unacceptable number of civilian deaths and, thus, have cast doubt upon the Baghdad government's will and ability to guarantee the integrity of its national borders. This is a very poor idea just months before the final expulsion of the Americans from Iraq.
One more problem for the Turks "zero problems" approach to regional life.
It is not out of line to wonder when the Iraqi Kurds will say, "Enough is enough" and move robustly to protect their own population regardless of what the Shias of Baghdad may want. The Kurdish peshmerga are numerous, well armed, very well motivated, and reasonably well armed. They have the advantage of fighting on home ground in terrain which favors the defense.
The Turks have deployed a regimental sized combat group near to the Iraqi border. This as well as recent oratory from Erdogan's boys seems to indicate a ground assault may be in the offing. The Turks have done this in the past with limited results--if any. In the past they have gotten away with incursions but may find the going far more difficult in the future--if the Kurds allow the peshmerga to return fire.
Of course, this will present the Obama administration with a very real challenge. They will have to placate the Turks, if such is possible. They will have to deter the Kurds, if such is possible. They will have to work overtime to prevent a defacto split of Iraq into an Arab Iraq and a Kurdish Kurdistan. Given that the US has no leverage in Baghdad and the Turk's decision to allow basing of the X band radar gives them the whip hand, it is difficult to see what the US can do in the event the Turkish army moves into Iraqi Kurdistan and meets resistance from the provincial militia.
The "zero problems" stance bodes well to be replaced in reality with a "problems everywhere" policy. The Deep Thinkers of the AKP have to decide where Turkey's national interests reside. True, it would be best for Ankara if it could be the balancing point between the West and the Muslim states of the Mideast and Central Asia, but it seems the reach of Turkish ambitions far outstrips the competence of its policy grasp. Thus, it seems appropriate that the Turks decide if it is better for their longer term interests to back down and align with the West as has been the case for the past sixty plus years or side with the mullahs, the ayatollahs, the imams of the Muslim states including Iran and Pakistan but against the Saudis and the other Gulf countries.
Erdogan is obviously a good politician in the context of Turkey. But, like other good politicians he has made the mistake of conflating public adulation with total support. As Woodrow Wilson learned nearly a century ago at Versailles, there is a world of difference between cheers on the street and cutting effective policy deals with foreign leaders. Applause is nice, but policy success is much better.
Well, just one more problem for the "zero problems" guy.
Ankara did not know whether to go with the new flow or stand resolutely alongside the embattled regimes of Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Qaddafi. The Erdogan government blew first hot and then cold on the uprisings in Bahrain. The name of the Turkish diplomatic game regarding Syria was vacillation.
After a long period of agonizing indecision, Ankara finally did come down on the side of the Egyptian protesters. Then, after more of the same, the Turks reluctantly sided with the Libyan rebels. In the latter case, it is not trivial to note that Ankara robustly opposed the use of force--either to protect civilians or to provide the anti-government forces with an air capacity.
Only after the longest possible period of watching and waiting did the Erdogan government come out publicly against Bashar al-Assad. The delay and equivocation in this case was due to a powerful desire in Ankara not to damage their rapprochement with Tehran. Possibly this was enhanced by the pending announcement of the decision to host the basing of the new American X band radar on Turkish soil, a move which would raise the hackles of the ayatollahs.
The alternative to irritating Iran over Syria was to court further distancing from the majority of the Arab street which was strongly supportive of the "Arab Spring" movements and saw the Syrians as martyrs to the cause of freedom. Biting the bullet, Erdogan and his fellow Islamists denounced the Assad regime as having lost Turkish governmental "confidence."
The Syrian demarch was too little too late to satisfy the pro-freedom groups proliferating in the Mideast to the disadvantage of Ankara's desire to recreate the Ottoman days. At the same time, the twin moves of condemning Syria and accepting the X band radar did infuriate the ayatollahs and their frontmen. By poor timing, the Turks fell between the two stools and emasculated the "zero problems" gambit.
The effect has been to put more pressure on Erdogan to take the strongest possible anti-Israel stance. Only by Israel baiting of the highest sort could Turkey hope to keep or rebuild its stature not only on the Arab street but within the chanceries of the region.
The attractions of playing the Israel card are self-evident. Erdogan came to prominence in 2009 by stalking off the stage at Davos while loudly accusing Israel president Peres of being a "murderer." The next year the Israelis enhanced Erdogan's status as the champion of the Palestinians by a heavy handed but legal stopping of the bogus aid flotilla with nine fatal casualties among those on board the lead ship. Ever since that day, the Erdogan government has made rich PR hay by flogging the dead horse of the Mavi Marmora. Most recently his demand for an apology has been reinforced by a downgrading of diplomatic relations between Israel and Turkey with highly positive results among the denizens of the Arab street.
The escalation of the diplomatic contretemps has assured Turkey's "zero problems" is not only defunct but stinkingly so. The sickly sweet smell of death hangs around Turkey's regional diplomacy.
As if alienating the Iranians, the Israelis, the Libyans, the Egyptians, and the Syrians was not enough, Ankara has undertaken a number of high casualty attacks by air and artillery against targets in Iraqi Kurdistan. The series of air strikes and artillery stonks was purportedly in retaliation for an ambush conducted on Turkish soil by members of PKK, the long lived Kurdish insurgent group seeking the creation of a true Kurdish state.
It is true that PKK has sanctuary in Iraqi Kurdistan. So does the group PJK which has been waging low intensity war against the Iranians. It is this geographic and political locus which gives Tehran and Ankara a coinciding national interest. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps stages the same sort of hyperactive response to guerrilla attacks as does the Turkish army.
Stripped to its essentials, both Turkey and Iran have been waging undeclared international war against Iraq. While the Shia dominated pseudo-government in Baghdad sheds no tears for dead Iraqi Kurds, the recent attacks by Turkey have produced an unacceptable number of civilian deaths and, thus, have cast doubt upon the Baghdad government's will and ability to guarantee the integrity of its national borders. This is a very poor idea just months before the final expulsion of the Americans from Iraq.
One more problem for the Turks "zero problems" approach to regional life.
It is not out of line to wonder when the Iraqi Kurds will say, "Enough is enough" and move robustly to protect their own population regardless of what the Shias of Baghdad may want. The Kurdish peshmerga are numerous, well armed, very well motivated, and reasonably well armed. They have the advantage of fighting on home ground in terrain which favors the defense.
The Turks have deployed a regimental sized combat group near to the Iraqi border. This as well as recent oratory from Erdogan's boys seems to indicate a ground assault may be in the offing. The Turks have done this in the past with limited results--if any. In the past they have gotten away with incursions but may find the going far more difficult in the future--if the Kurds allow the peshmerga to return fire.
Of course, this will present the Obama administration with a very real challenge. They will have to placate the Turks, if such is possible. They will have to deter the Kurds, if such is possible. They will have to work overtime to prevent a defacto split of Iraq into an Arab Iraq and a Kurdish Kurdistan. Given that the US has no leverage in Baghdad and the Turk's decision to allow basing of the X band radar gives them the whip hand, it is difficult to see what the US can do in the event the Turkish army moves into Iraqi Kurdistan and meets resistance from the provincial militia.
The "zero problems" stance bodes well to be replaced in reality with a "problems everywhere" policy. The Deep Thinkers of the AKP have to decide where Turkey's national interests reside. True, it would be best for Ankara if it could be the balancing point between the West and the Muslim states of the Mideast and Central Asia, but it seems the reach of Turkish ambitions far outstrips the competence of its policy grasp. Thus, it seems appropriate that the Turks decide if it is better for their longer term interests to back down and align with the West as has been the case for the past sixty plus years or side with the mullahs, the ayatollahs, the imams of the Muslim states including Iran and Pakistan but against the Saudis and the other Gulf countries.
Erdogan is obviously a good politician in the context of Turkey. But, like other good politicians he has made the mistake of conflating public adulation with total support. As Woodrow Wilson learned nearly a century ago at Versailles, there is a world of difference between cheers on the street and cutting effective policy deals with foreign leaders. Applause is nice, but policy success is much better.
Well, just one more problem for the "zero problems" guy.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Going To Hell In A Bucket
To paraphrase a mantra of the early (1920s) self-help movement, the Mideast and coterminous regions appear "in every way and every day to be growing worse." For those of us who are fans of collapse and chaos, these are the glory days for the benighted folk living in the vast arc from Pakistan to the Persian Gulf and beyond to the point where sand dunes meet the surf in Morocco.
Pakistan remains what it has been for some years now, a national definition of the old military term SNAFU. You almost have to feel sorry for the Pakistanis. In the rush to use Islam of the Wahhibist flavor to unify the nation, the result was not only to undercut whatever potential for unity might have existed but to assure the place would dissolve into a bloody froth of differing views of what sort of Islam held the total truth for the Pakistani national identity.
The crimson foam of theological disputation conceals but does not mitigate the other divisions which constitute the political and social terrain of Pakistan. Corruption is an ever present "flavor of the day," providing the basic diet of politics and business. The Baluch defensive insurgency refuses to simply go away despite the fervent desires of Islamabad. The national judiciary would provide much comic relief were it not for the tragic results of its combination of lethargy and incompetence. The national fisc is a disaster area such that the country depends upon international aid (aka protection money and bribes) so that the army can continue to prepare for the hoped for next round of war with India.
Arguably, the real world challenges of inefficiency, bankruptcy, insurgency, corruption, broken government, and general poverty would be solvable were it not for the more powerful threats presented by the aforementioned religious disputes. Stripped to the politically incorrect essentials, Pakistan is rumbling dangerously close to the cliff of failed state status due to the Islamic tendency to stay stuck in a war of religions, or, more properly, a war of competing sects not all that unlike those which left the German states in utter ruin nearly four hundred years ago.
The same dynamic of warfare between conflicting interpretations of theology threaten to turn the "Arab Spring" into an endless winter of very violent discontent in Egypt and, perhaps, Libya, as well as other countries--here Syria comes to mind. No matter the gloss applied by Western journalists, academics, and politicians, the ugly face of conflict between adherents of austere Islam, Salifists, Wahhibists, and others of similar ilk with adherents of less austere forms as well as "secularists" can be seen easily.
Bad ideas do not die. It does not matter to the True Believers of austere Islam that the appeals of their form of Islam have been shown in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, and elsewhere to have a short life in the real world. The seeming exception of Iran can be explained easily by reference to the numerous and well equipped internal security forces. The lesson of life remains the same. Austere Islam is not acceptable to the vast majority of Muslims and can be imposed and maintained only by robust, eternal repression.
Taliban in Afghanistan had outworn its welcome before the Americans arrived a decade back. Al-Qaeda in Iraq rapidly expired as a direct result of its dreadful behavior in Anbar province. Even in Somalia, the "kids" of al-Shabaab have insured their own ultimate defeat by their efforts to forcefully impose an unacceptably harsh interpretation of Islam on a people who previously wore their Islam lightly.
These lessons are lost on the Salifists of Egypt, a group which has not garnered the attention in the West lavished on the better known Egyptian Brotherhood. It might be noted that a self-proclaimed voice of Salifism in Egypt, a man named Ismaili, has a very good chance of becoming Egypt's first democratically elected president. The Salifists are dead set against peaceful relations with Israel. Rather they are fully committed to seeing an end to the Jewish state. Even more than the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's Salifists are anti-West, anti-American. They are also of the view that the current regimes in the region are apostate and must be overthrown.
The Salifists of Egypt are four square in favor of Shariah. They are equally firm in their opposition to making any accommodation to the West (or Western tourists.) Some would go so far as to treat the monuments of Egypt's long pre-Islam history as "unlawful" suitable to be treated as Taliban did the great statutes of the Buddha. Others would allow them to exist--hidden behind protective screens.
The Salifists are not so evident in their presence in Libya. The invisibility doesn't imply absence. Rather, it is indicative of caution, the same sort of caution which impelled the Renaissance Party in Tunisia to deny its goals and interim agenda for weeks after the collapse of the old regime. It is a caution bred of the hard experience of Salifists and kindred souls in the deadly war between them and the Algerian army twenty years ago. While the old regime in Egypt suppressed Salifists as it did the Muslim Brotherhood, the Algerian armed forces obliterated these advocates of political Islam.
The Salifists, the Brotherhood members, the Wahhibists, all those who espouse austere and politically oriented forms of Islam learned the lesson and keep their heads well down until such time as they can be raised with impunity at the least and an expectation of victory at best. Splits between "secularist" militias and those representing the advocates of austere, political Islam are already apparent in Libya. There is not yet fighting between militiamen without beards and those whose faces are bearded (but lack mustaches--a clear sign of Salifist tendencies), but there is no reason that today's lack of inter-group trust will not degenerate into exchanges of fire in the not too distant future.
Egypt, Tunisia, Libya all face very large problems in the wake of their respective adventures in regime change. Big as the problems might be, seemingly insurmountable as the challenges seem, there is no reason to believe that each state and its people would not be able to overcome them. That is, there would be no reason were it not for the presence of religious disputes. The dynamic pitting those of powerful austere beliefs against all others bodes well to assure that each case is more likely than not to fail in achieving the goal of a more or less open, more or less democratic, more or less free market society, polity, and economy.
Once again it may be politically incorrect but it is not inaccurate to observe that each of these states is likely to dissolve in a welter of sectarian violence not unlike that which occurred in Iraq. This eventuality is not in the interests of regional or global stability--to engage in an exercise of belaboring the obvious. It is also an eventuality which cannot be halted or mitigated by Western action or inaction.
The takeaway? To paraphrase the campaign mantra of Clinton in 1992: "It's the religion, stupid!"
Pakistan remains what it has been for some years now, a national definition of the old military term SNAFU. You almost have to feel sorry for the Pakistanis. In the rush to use Islam of the Wahhibist flavor to unify the nation, the result was not only to undercut whatever potential for unity might have existed but to assure the place would dissolve into a bloody froth of differing views of what sort of Islam held the total truth for the Pakistani national identity.
The crimson foam of theological disputation conceals but does not mitigate the other divisions which constitute the political and social terrain of Pakistan. Corruption is an ever present "flavor of the day," providing the basic diet of politics and business. The Baluch defensive insurgency refuses to simply go away despite the fervent desires of Islamabad. The national judiciary would provide much comic relief were it not for the tragic results of its combination of lethargy and incompetence. The national fisc is a disaster area such that the country depends upon international aid (aka protection money and bribes) so that the army can continue to prepare for the hoped for next round of war with India.
Arguably, the real world challenges of inefficiency, bankruptcy, insurgency, corruption, broken government, and general poverty would be solvable were it not for the more powerful threats presented by the aforementioned religious disputes. Stripped to the politically incorrect essentials, Pakistan is rumbling dangerously close to the cliff of failed state status due to the Islamic tendency to stay stuck in a war of religions, or, more properly, a war of competing sects not all that unlike those which left the German states in utter ruin nearly four hundred years ago.
The same dynamic of warfare between conflicting interpretations of theology threaten to turn the "Arab Spring" into an endless winter of very violent discontent in Egypt and, perhaps, Libya, as well as other countries--here Syria comes to mind. No matter the gloss applied by Western journalists, academics, and politicians, the ugly face of conflict between adherents of austere Islam, Salifists, Wahhibists, and others of similar ilk with adherents of less austere forms as well as "secularists" can be seen easily.
Bad ideas do not die. It does not matter to the True Believers of austere Islam that the appeals of their form of Islam have been shown in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, and elsewhere to have a short life in the real world. The seeming exception of Iran can be explained easily by reference to the numerous and well equipped internal security forces. The lesson of life remains the same. Austere Islam is not acceptable to the vast majority of Muslims and can be imposed and maintained only by robust, eternal repression.
Taliban in Afghanistan had outworn its welcome before the Americans arrived a decade back. Al-Qaeda in Iraq rapidly expired as a direct result of its dreadful behavior in Anbar province. Even in Somalia, the "kids" of al-Shabaab have insured their own ultimate defeat by their efforts to forcefully impose an unacceptably harsh interpretation of Islam on a people who previously wore their Islam lightly.
These lessons are lost on the Salifists of Egypt, a group which has not garnered the attention in the West lavished on the better known Egyptian Brotherhood. It might be noted that a self-proclaimed voice of Salifism in Egypt, a man named Ismaili, has a very good chance of becoming Egypt's first democratically elected president. The Salifists are dead set against peaceful relations with Israel. Rather they are fully committed to seeing an end to the Jewish state. Even more than the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's Salifists are anti-West, anti-American. They are also of the view that the current regimes in the region are apostate and must be overthrown.
The Salifists of Egypt are four square in favor of Shariah. They are equally firm in their opposition to making any accommodation to the West (or Western tourists.) Some would go so far as to treat the monuments of Egypt's long pre-Islam history as "unlawful" suitable to be treated as Taliban did the great statutes of the Buddha. Others would allow them to exist--hidden behind protective screens.
The Salifists are not so evident in their presence in Libya. The invisibility doesn't imply absence. Rather, it is indicative of caution, the same sort of caution which impelled the Renaissance Party in Tunisia to deny its goals and interim agenda for weeks after the collapse of the old regime. It is a caution bred of the hard experience of Salifists and kindred souls in the deadly war between them and the Algerian army twenty years ago. While the old regime in Egypt suppressed Salifists as it did the Muslim Brotherhood, the Algerian armed forces obliterated these advocates of political Islam.
The Salifists, the Brotherhood members, the Wahhibists, all those who espouse austere and politically oriented forms of Islam learned the lesson and keep their heads well down until such time as they can be raised with impunity at the least and an expectation of victory at best. Splits between "secularist" militias and those representing the advocates of austere, political Islam are already apparent in Libya. There is not yet fighting between militiamen without beards and those whose faces are bearded (but lack mustaches--a clear sign of Salifist tendencies), but there is no reason that today's lack of inter-group trust will not degenerate into exchanges of fire in the not too distant future.
Egypt, Tunisia, Libya all face very large problems in the wake of their respective adventures in regime change. Big as the problems might be, seemingly insurmountable as the challenges seem, there is no reason to believe that each state and its people would not be able to overcome them. That is, there would be no reason were it not for the presence of religious disputes. The dynamic pitting those of powerful austere beliefs against all others bodes well to assure that each case is more likely than not to fail in achieving the goal of a more or less open, more or less democratic, more or less free market society, polity, and economy.
Once again it may be politically incorrect but it is not inaccurate to observe that each of these states is likely to dissolve in a welter of sectarian violence not unlike that which occurred in Iraq. This eventuality is not in the interests of regional or global stability--to engage in an exercise of belaboring the obvious. It is also an eventuality which cannot be halted or mitigated by Western action or inaction.
The takeaway? To paraphrase the campaign mantra of Clinton in 1992: "It's the religion, stupid!"
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