The entire article should be read. Here are some quotations from the article, as teasers:
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Secretary of State John Kerry explained: “we’re not going to step away from our alliances and our friendships.” Even with an essentially totalitarian state which has promoted illiberal, intolerant religious teaching and Islamic extremism, and whose citizens have contributed both money and people to terrorist attacks against America.
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America still must worry about terrorism, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) remains a dangerous force. Alas, the KSA’s aggression has created a vacuum, freeing AQAP to grab more territory and plot more terrorist attacks. The Houthis, no friends of liberal, democratic values, disliked the U.S. even before the American military joined with the Saudis to rain bombs down upon Yemen, but they never attacked or even threatened America. Ansar Allah did, however, fight al-Qaeda—that is, until the movement was forced to concentrate on the Saudis. Last year Defense Secretary Ashton Carter acknowledged the terrorist group’s resulting “great gains.”
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The KSA’s last resort has been to justify its murderous military campaign by pointing at Tehran. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad calls all insurgents “terrorists,” trying to appeal to Washington in the latter’s fight against terrorism. The Saudi royals similarly call all Yemenis “Iran-supported” to camouflage Riyadh’s depredations. It is an equally deceitful claim
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Moreover, Saudi Arabia is less free politically and culturally, allows no religious liberty, and has done more than any other country to promote Islamic intolerance and underwrite terrorist groups which have attacked the U.S. and the West. Exactly how the KSA differs from the Islamic State, except in relative refinement of repression, is not obvious.
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The Yemen war could go on for years. President Obama should end America’s participation. If he doesn’t care about the loss of innocent life he should look to his legacy. At least President George W. Bush could claim humanitarian and security reasons for his misbegotten invasion of Iraq. There is no justification for America to play bloody handmaiden to the Saudis in Yemen.
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Here are some images from the article:
A Yemeni collects items amidst the rubble of a destroyed funeral hall building following reported airstrikes by Saudi-led coalition air-planes on the capital Sanaa on October 8, 2016 (MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP/Getty Images)
US President Barack Obama speaks with King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud) of Saudi Arabia alongside Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.jpg
A Saudi F-15 fighter jet landing at the Khamis Mushayt military airbase, some 880 km from the capital Riyadh, on November 16,2015 as the Saudi army conducts operations over Yemen. (FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP/Getty Images)
Yemeni children stand amid empty jerrycans as they wait to fill them with water from a donated source amid ongoing widespread disruption of water supplies in an impoverished coastal village on the outskirts of the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah.jpg
The following report is from Dawn, the main English language news organ in Pakistan.
English is an official language in Pakistan, and its leaders, many of them, are still educated in England, as they were in colonial days.
The information in the article has not been widely-published in United States newspapers, though it has been published in Great Britain.
The possibility of less-bad news is that it now seems as if Obama is serious about allowing the Houthi a major say in the future government in Yemen, and that is necessary for there to be a cease-fire. For there to be food and medical supplies the Saudi need end he blocked not yet covered in any cease-fire agreement.
US asks Saudis to accept unconditional ceasefire in Yemen
THE NEWSPAPER'S CORRESPONDENT — UPDATED 2 DAYS AGO
WASHINGTON: The United States urged Saudi Arabia on Sunday to recommit to an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Yemen.
The appeal for ending hostilities in the strife-torn Middle Eastern country follows a Saudi admission that misinformation and abuse of procedure resulted in the Oct 8 bombing of a funeral in Sana’a that killed 140 people.
“We urge all sides to recommit to an immediate and unconditional cessation of hostilities that can lead to renewed negotiations and a political settlement that ends the conflict,” said US State Department’s deputy spokesman Mark C. Toner.
The State Department also welcomed the initial results of the joint investigation by the Saudi-led Arab coalition into the air strike, saying that it “considers it an important first step towards better understanding the events of that day.”
“Throughout this conflict we have expressed our deepest concern about the ongoing actions by all parties involved,” Mr. Toner said in a statement to the media.
He noted that the war in Yemen has “killed and injured civilians, damaged civilian infrastructure, and inflicted a heavy humanitarian toll paid by the Yemeni people.”
So far more than 4,000 non-combatants have been killed in this war.
On Saturday, the Saudi-led coalition announced initial results of its investigation, reporting that a party affiliated with the Yemeni general chief of staff headquarters misinformed coalition command that armed rebels were gathering at the location in Sana’a and insisted that the target be hit immediately.
The targeted funeral was for the father of a close ally of Yemen’s former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh who supports the rebel Houthi militia.
The war started last year when the Houthi militia over-ran the capital and ousted the president, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
So far the United States has backed the Saudi-led coalition but the US media reported earlier this week that future American military assistance to the kingdom will now hinge on whether Riyadh embraces a Washington-backed cease-fire with Houthi rebels.
The media also reported that the White House has begun a top-to-bottom review of military aid for the kingdom, including both a massive, long-standing program of arms sales and more-limited assistance for the extended air war over Yemen.
Last week, the Pentagon launched Tomahawk cruise missiles against Houthi targets in Yemen, a response to a series of attacks this week on nearby US ships.
Since last year, US tanker planes have conducted more than 1,400 missions, offloading tens of millions of pounds of fuel. US personnel also have advised their Saudi counterparts on targeting rebels and avoiding civilian casualties.
AFP adds: The United Nations envoy, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, said: “We are here to call for an immediate cessation of hostilities, which will be declared in the next few hours.” Cheikh Ahmed said he had been in contact with the rebel Huthi militia’s lead negotiator and with Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi’s government.
But he also warned that he hoped for “clearer plans” for a ceasefire in coming days.
US Secretary of State John Kerry would not predict whether Yemen’s government or rebel forces had accepted the demand, but said the diplomats were not operating “in a vacuum.” “This is the time to implement a ceasefire unconditionally and then move to the negotiating table,” Kerry told reporters. Kerry was speaking after meeting Cheikh Ahmed and his opposite numbers from Britain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates at talks hosted by Britain in London.
The United States, which fired cruise missiles at rebel radar sites in Yemen on Oct. 13 after missiles were fired at a US warship, needs to push for an immediate cessation of hostilities in Yemen before things get even more out of hand.
Monday, October 10, 2016
The basic Syrian fight has been between Ira and the Gulf Cooperation Council over who would be able to deliver natural gas from the Pars Field to Europe over the Mediterranean Sea. The field lies mostly under the Persian Gulf. Qatar and Iran both have access to that field:
Natural Gas Pipeline from Iran to Iraq could be Ready in 20 Days - Oil & Gas 360
The field holds the World's largest supply of natural gas. All the world is still addicted to petrochemicals and all the World is interested in getting gas from the field.. Immense wealth goes to the country that can deliver the gas to wealthy Europe. The slaughter of Syrians is directly related to a struggle over whether Iran or Qatar will win that prize. Russia prefers that Iran win, and so is supporting the Syrian Government, which has already agreed to Iran's pipeline to the Mediterranean. Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Cooperation Council are supporting Qatar. The United States-- too long backing Saudi Arabia' Monopoly on gas prices, is ambivalently supporting Qatar and is distracted by irrational domestic fears of the Islamic State, whose main goal is control of Mecca and Medina -- Saudi Arabia's greatest fear.. The new article in The Guardian, below, indicated that Iran is on its way to winning the Prize. The United States would be well advised to distance itself from urdrous Erdoğan and the equally brutal Saudi Arabia and form economic and political alliances with Iran and the rest of Asia. Saudi Arabia's years of ruling the world through its monopoly on oil is coming to an end. The World, if it does not recover from oil addiction in time, will see a rise in Iranian power, and Iran will see its brutal theocracy modernize long before Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi government gives up its ancient brutal polity. The Guardian's article suggests that Iran is progressing steadily tower winning the prize. We'll see.
Not far from Mosul, a large military force is finalising plans for an advance that has been more than three decades in the making. The troops are Shia militiamen who have fought against the Islamic State, but they have not been given a direct role in the coming attack to free Iraq’s second city from its clutches. Instead, while the Iraqi army attacks Mosul from the south, the militias will take up a blocking position to the west, stopping Isis forces from fleeing towards their last redoubt of Raqqa in Syria. Their absence is aimed at reassuring the Sunni Muslims of Mosul that the imminent recapture of the city is not a sectarian push against them. However, among Iraq’s Shia-dominated army the militia’s decision to remain aloof from the battle of Mosul is being seen as a rebuff.Yet among the militias’ backers in Iran there is little concern. Since their inception, the Shia irregulars have made their name on the battlefields of Iraq, but they have always been central to Tehran’s ambitions elsewhere. By not helping to retake Mosul, the militias are free to drive one of its most coveted projects – securing an arc of influence across Iraq and Syria that would end at the Mediterranean Sea.
The strip of land to the west of Mosul in which the militias will operate is essential to that goal. After 12 years of conflict in Iraq and an even more savage conflict in Syria, Iran is now closer than ever to securing a land corridor that will anchor it in the region – and potentially transform the Islamic Republic’s presence on Arab lands. “They have been working extremely hard on this,” said a European official who has monitored Iran’s role in both wars for the past five years. “This is a matter of pride for them on one hand and pragmatism on the other. They will be able to move people and supplies between the Mediterranean and Tehran whenever they want, and they will do so along safe routes that are secured by their people, or their proxies.”
Interviews during the past four months with regional officials, influential Iraqis and residents of northern Syria have established that the land corridor has slowly taken shape since 2014. It is a complex route that weaves across Arab Iraq, through the Kurdish north, into Kurdish north-eastern Syria and through the battlefields north of Aleppo, where Iran and its allies are prevailing on the ground. It has been assembled under the noses of friend and foe, the latter of which has begun to sound the alarm in recent weeks. Turkey has been especially opposed, fearful of what such a development means for Iran’s relationship with the PKK (the Kurdistan Workers’ party), the restive Kurds in its midst, on whom much of the plan hinges. The plan has been coordinated by senior government and security officials in Tehran, Baghdad and Damascus, all of whom defer to the head of the spearhead of Iran’s foreign policy, the Quds force of the Revolutionary Guards, headed by Major General Qassem Suleimani, who has run Iran’s wars in Syria and Iraq. It involves demographic shifts, which have already taken place in central Iraq and are under way in northern Syria. And it relies heavily on the support of a range of allies, who are not necessarily aware of the entirety of the project but have a developed vested interest in securing separate legs.
Maj Gen Qassem Suleimani, head of Iran’s all-powerful Quds force. Photograph: HO/AFP/Getty Images
The corridor starts at the entry points that Iran has used to send supplies and manpower into Iraq over the past 12 years. They are the same routes that were used by the Quds force to run a guerrilla war against US forces when they occupied the country – a campaign fought by the same Iraqi militias that have since been immersed in the fight against Isis.The groups, Asa’ib ahl al-Haq, Keta’ib Hezbollah and their offshoots, accounted for close to 25% of all US battlefield casualties, senior US officials have said. They have become even more influential since US forces left the country. And in one of modern warfare’s starkest ironies, in the two years since US troops have returned to Iraq to fight Isis they have at times fought under US air cover.
The route crosses through Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, around 60 miles north of Baghdad. A mixed Sunni/Shia area for hundreds of years, Diyala became one of the main sectarian flashpoint areas during Iraq’s civil war. Along roads that have been secured by militias, which are known locally as “popular mobilisation units”, it then moves northwest into areas that were occupied by Isis as recently as several months ago.
The town of Shirqat in Salaheddin province is one important area. It was taken by militias along with Iraqi forces on 22 September, delivering another blow to the terrorist group and an important boost to Iran’s ambitions.
The militias are now present in large numbers in Shirqat and readying to move towards the western edge of Mosul, to a point around 50 miles southeast of Sinjar, which – at this point – is the next leg in the corridor. Between the militia forces and Sinjar is the town of Tal Afar, an Isis stronghold, which has been a historical home of both Sunni and Shia Turkmen – ancestral kin of Turkey.A senior intelligence official said the leg between Tel Afar and Sinjar is essential to the plan. Sinjar is an ancestral home to the Yazidi population, which was forced to flee in August 2014 after Isis invaded the city, killing all the men it could find and enslaving women. It wasrecaptured by Iraqi Kurdish forces last November. And ever since PKK forces from across the Syrian border have taken up residence in the city and across the giant monolith, Mt Sinjar, behind it. The PKK fighters are being paid by the Iraqi government and have been incorporated into the popular mobilisation units. Iraqi and western intelligence officials say the move was approved by Iraq’s national security adviser, Falah Fayadh.
An influential Iraqi tribal sheikh, Abdulrahim al-Shammari, emerges as a central figure further to the north. He has a power base near the Rabia crossing into Syria, receives support from the popular mobilisation units and is close to the Assad regime in Damascus. “I believe that in our area Iran does not have very much influence,” he told the Observer in Baghdad. “There is nobody here, no major power that is helping us with weapons. Ideologically speaking, the PKK is affiliated with the Kurds of this area, so there is no problem having them here.”
From the Rabia crossing, the mooted route goes past the towns of Qamishli and Kobani towards Irfin, which are all controlled by the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia. Throughout the war the YPG (People’s Protection Units) has hedged its bets, at times allying with the US against Isis, and at other times siding with the Syrian regime. “Iran thinks it has them where it wants them now,” said the European source. “I’m not sure it has gauged the Turks correctly, though.”
A fighter sits on a balcony in Sinjar, Iraq after the town was retaken from Isis by Kurdish-led forces. Photograph: Cengiz Yar for the Guardian
Of all the points between Tehran and the Syrian coast, Aleppo has concentrated Iran’s energies more than anywhere else. Up to 6,000 militia members, mostly from Iraq, have congregated there ahead of a move to take the rebel-held east of the city, which could begin around the same time as the assault on Mosul.Those who have observed Suleimani up close as he inspects the frontlines in Syria and Iraq, or in meetings in Damascus and Baghdad, where he projects his immense power through studied calm, say he has invested everything in Syria – and in ensuring that Iran emerges from a brutal, expensive war with its ambitions enhanced. “If we lose Syria, we lose Tehran,” Suleimani told the late Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi in 2014. Chalabi told the Observer at the time that Suleimani had added: “We will turn all this chaos into an opportunity.”
Securing Aleppo would be an important leg in the corridor, which would run past two villages to the north that have historically been in Shia hands. From there, a senior Syrian official, and Iraqi officials in Baghdad, said it would run towards the outskirts of Syria’s fourth city, Homs, then move north through the Alawite heartland of Syria, which a year of Russian airpower has again made safe for Assad. Iran’s hard-won road ends at the port of Latakia, which has remained firmly in regime hands throughout the war.
Ali Khedery, who advised all US ambassadors to Iraq and four commanders of Centcom in 2003-11 said securing a Mediterranean link would be seen as a strategic triumph in Iran. “It signifies the consolidation of Iran’s control over Iraq and the Levant, which in turn confirms their hegemonic regional ambitions,” he said. “That should trouble every western leader and our regional allies because this will further embolden Iran to continue expanding, likely into the Gulf countries next, a goal they have explicitly and repeatedly articulated. Why should we expect them to stop if they’ve been at the casino, doubling their money over and over again, for a decade?”
Friday, October 7, 2016
The Times article lists some of Russia's national interests at stake in Syria:
Moscow considers Mr. Assad’s survival crucial to protecting its interests in Syria, which include combating jihadism, preserving intelligence and military assets, and asserting that Russia is a geopolitical player in the Middle East.
Russia, with Salafi Jihadists fighting in Dagestan and up the Volga River into the heart of Russia naturally wants to defeat Saudi Arabia's Salafi Jihadists in Syria. It also wants to protect its naval base in Syria, it's only direct outlet to the Mediterranean Sea. These ear rational national interests. The article does not mention Iran's and Qatar's mutual and conflicting interests in a pipeline through Syria without which neither can deliver natural gas from the Pfs Natural Gas field, from which each nation could deliver huge amounts of gas to Europe. Russia's interest is to prevent Qatar from delivering Pars gas to Europe, undercutting the price of the oil it delivers to Europe, with disastrous effect on the Russian economy. Russia is less concerned with Iran's delivering gas to Europe, believing it can cut a deal with Iran to protect its price monopoly. Both Iran and Qatar have proposed gas lines through Syria. See here.
Russia has vital national interests in Syria. The United State's only national interest is protecting the Gulf Cooperation Council's oil monopoly from competition from Iran, an interest that has long outlasted its usefulness. Aleppo is full of heart-rending tragedy. Yemen is worse. The United States can do something about Yemen; doing something about Aleppo will require great diplomatic skill. Bombast won't cut it. The Times article, below, is rational. One hopes that our next president, whatever the campaign rhetoric, will recognize it. I believe Mrs. Clinton does. Friends fear she is more war-like.
The Opinion Pages | OP-ED
Don’t Intervene in Syria
By STEVEN SIMON and JONATHAN STEVENSON OCT. 6, 2016
Credit Anthony Russo
The cease-fire in Syria that the United States and Russia tortuously negotiated has, like the one before it, fallen apart.
The trouble began when an errant American airstrike killed some 60 Syrian government soldiers. Then, Russia resumed its disingenuous grandstanding and the Syrian government, with Russia’s support, went back to indiscriminately bombing rebel-held areas of Aleppo. On Monday, less than a month after the agreement went into effect, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the United States would break off talks with Russia on trying to revive it.
This failure, accompanied by images of suffering in Aleppo, has inspired renewed calls for a tougher American policy in Syria from liberal hawks and traditional conservatives alike. At the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday, both the Democrat, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, and the Republican, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, advocated more aggressive American action.
But the truth is that it is too late for the United States to wade deeper into the Syrian conflict without risking a major war, or, at best, looking feckless by failing to fully commit to confronting Russia and President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and then backing down. The goal now should be reducing harm, saving lives and keeping prospects for a political deal alive. Cease-fire talks between the United States and Russia, tormented though they may be, remain the best way to achieve this.
Although Russia has denied it, it is clear that Moscow considers Mr. Assad’s survival crucial to protecting its interests in Syria, which include combating jihadism, preserving intelligence and military assets, and asserting that Russia is a geopolitical player in the Middle East. Russia has unflinchingly protected the Assad government both militarily and at the United Nations Security Council.
Indeed, Mr. Assad seems to enjoy practically unlimited leverage over Russia. Despite narrowly escaping American punishment for using chemical weapons by surrendering his stockpile of deadly nerve gas and other poisons in 2013, Mr. Assad has felt free to continue using toxic commercial chlorine gas. Even though Russia moved toward political compromise when it provisionally withdrew from Syria in March, Mr. Assad was not inclined to give peace talks a serious chance. In both cases, Russia fell back in line with Mr. Assad’s defiant brutality.
There are probably limits to Moscow’s deference to Mr. Assad’s blood lust, but it is unclear what they are. This is what makes an American escalation in Syria so dangerous.
American supporters of intervention, including the vice-presidential candidates, often say that the United States should create a no-fly zone in Syria to protect civilians from Mr. Assad and Russia’s bombs. But imagine how this might work: An American warplane enforcing a no-fly zone would risk fire from a Russian-made antiaircraft battery or fighter. (Just this week Russia shipped new antiaircraft systems to Syria.)
This risk clearly worries advocates for the use of force within the Obama administration. They are said to favor increased air support for the Syrian rebels that would avoid direct confrontation with the Russians. But small-scale, targeted bombing is unlikely to change Syrian behavior, so to be effective the strikes would have to escalate. (Alternatively, ineffective strikes could be ended, but this would make the United States look incompetent.) This would ultimately lead to a violent response, which would compel the United States to retaliate against Russian and Syrian government ground targets.
As conflict spiraled and casualties increased, so would international pressure for another costly, protracted and thankless American-led ground intervention to enforce peace, which domestic opinion in the United States would not support. While Russia’s real appetite for a political solution in the Syria conflict is unclear, it is wiser to test unknown political limits than unknown military ones.
Some of those advocating more intervention in Syria believe that as the so-called indispensable power, the United States has an ethical responsibility to reduce the suffering caused by Syrian and Russian bombing of civilians. Another camp of interventionists criticizes what it sees as President Obama’s weakness, heartlessness and strategic myopia, and wants the United States to stand up to Russia and assert its intention to remain a major geopolitical player in the region.
The liberal interventionists seem to have forgotten that it is no longer the 1990s. Disastrous forays in Iraq and Libya have undermined any American willingness to put values before interests. Meanwhile, the second group of interventionists seem to have forgotten that Syria has been Moscow’s client since early in the Cold War — a situation Washington was willing to live with when the geostrategic stakes were much higher.
The United States does, in fact, have a clear Syria policy: Roll back the Islamic State by way of the air campaign and American-supported Syrian rebel forces, coordinating with Russia to the extent possible; provide extensive humanitarian support; and continue to press for a sustainable cease-fire and a negotiated political transition involving Mr. Assad’s eventual departure. It may be frustrating, but against the alternatives, it is the only sensible course of action.
Certainly, the Syrian government and Russia have manipulated the cease-fires, using them as cover for continuing offensives. Nonetheless, fragile though they have been, these deals ratchet down the overall level of violence and save lives.
The deal struck by Mr. Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, for the United States and Russia to coordinate counter-jihadist operations and restrain opposition and government military activity was intended to produce a durable cease-fire, promote more effective humanitarian operations and re-energize political talks. Although it has fallen apart, the next step, unsatisfying as it may be, is to try again.
Steven Simon, a professor at Amherst College, was the National Security Council’s senior director for the Middle East and North Africa from 2011 through 2012. Jonathan Stevenson, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and a fellow at Cullman Center, was the council’s director for political-military affairs for the Middle East and North Africa from 2011 to 2013
