Foreign Affairs: "From SEALs to All-Out War: Why Rushing Into Yemen Is a Dangerous Idea"

One appreciates that an article that is designed to appeal to Tumpists must be slanted toward Saudi Arabia.  Slant aside, this is is an important article; one that contains an point of view that should be seriously considered..  I hope it is read seriously by those who can give our president sober advice., including moderate Republican friends of mine.


Foreign Policy
From SEALs to All-Out War: Why Rushing Into Yemen Is a Dangerous Idea
BY JON FINER . FEBRUARY 9, 2017 - 1:01

The first foreign-policy crisis of the Trump administration may well involve a country most Americans could not find on a map. Already, the new president has signaled his intention to increase military involvement in Yemen, putting Iran “on notice” and warning that it was “playing with fire,” following a Iranian ballistic-missile launch and an attack on a Saudi vessel just off the Yemeni coast by Shiite Houthi rebels. Days earlier, President Donald Trump green-lighted a risky special operations raid against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) that led to the death of a U.S. Navy SEAL and numerous Yemeni civilians.
When Sen. John McCain questioned the portrayal of that raid as a “success,” Trump and Press Secretary Sean Spicer earned further criticism for lashing out that such comments dishonor American dead and aid the enemy. As is often the case with Trump’s comments on policy, they quickly become the focus of media attention, rather than what the administration is actually doing — or what the facts are on the ground.

The impoverished Gulf nation is actually marred by two separate but overlapping conflicts.

The first, which predates the Arab Spring uprising that swept longtime dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh from power in 2012, is a counterterrorism fight waged by Yemeni government, with U.S. support, against AQAP, al Qaeda’s most virulent franchise.
The second, and more damaging conflict, is a civil war between the government of Yemen and the Houthi minority, which was expected to last a matter of weeks, and maybe months, but is now well into its third year. It began when Houthi militia fighters descended on the capital Sanaa in late 2014 and soon evicted the government of President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a close partner [sic.]of the United States.

Getting more deeply embroiled in Yemen’s first war without a strategy for resolving the second would be a mistake.
 Instead, if new Secretary of State Rex Tillerson wants to make an early diplomatic contribution, then there is a confounding but vital mission with his name on it: de-escalating a Yemen civil war that is damaging U.S. interests and should have stopped a long time ago.

The civil war escalated dramatically in March 2015, with the intervention of a coalition led by Saudi Arabia, which understandably felt threatened by the turmoil on its border and by ties between the Houthis and Riyadh’s arch-rival Iran [the Saud false narrative]. The United States, which had long been urging Saudi Arabia to take greater responsibility for security challenges in its region, offered a range of support, including with intelligence, weapons sales, aerial refueling for Saudi planes, and various measures to help secure the Saudi border.

Saudi Arabia’s intervention succeeded in shoring up much of southern Yemen, where the Hadi government is seeking to reconstitute, after decamping to Saudi Arabia.

It has also come at great cost. According to the United Nations, 16,200 people have been killed in Yemen since the intervention, including 10,000 civilians. The humanitarian situation in what was already one of the world’s poorest countries, is now, after Syria, the most dire on the planet, with one in five Yemenis severely food insecure.

Meanwhile, for well over a year now, the military campaign has failed to make measurable progress, demonstrating what U.S. officials have been telling their Saudi counterparts all along — that any resolution will come through negotiation, not military victory, and that the longer the conflict drags on, the greater the cost to the Yemeni people, as well as to Saudi Arabia’s resources and reputation.

For the United States, the cost has also been significant.
The war has preoccupied key partners with an enemy that does not directly threaten the United States. Indiscriminate air strikes, conducted with American weapons and in the context of American assistance, have killed scores of non-combatants (such incidents eventually compelled the Obama administration to review and adjust our assistance to the coalition). And while Iran and the Houthis have historically maintained an arms-length relationship, the long conflict has brought them closer and led to the introduction of more advanced weapons, such as missiles capable of striking deep into Saudi territory or of threatening the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, a critical channel for maritime traffic.

U.S. interests took a further hit earlier this week when the Yemeni government in-exile, frustrated by the bloody U.S. special forces raid near Aden, said it was revoking permission for U.S. operations against AQAP, which poses a genuine threat to the homeland (the Yemeni government later said the operations could continue though asked for greater coordination).

Should he choose to accept this mission, Secretary Tillerson may be well-placed to succeed.

He knows the complex politics and terrain, having served in Yemen early in his career at ExxonMobil. His close relations in the Gulf — and our Gulf partners’ purported confidence in him — could help them make the difficult decisions peace will require. He will not face the overhang of (unfounded, but also undeniable) suspicion in the wake of the Iran nuclear deal that the Obama administration tolerated Iranian meddling on Saudi Arabia’s border.

The timing may also be ripe. Saudi officials and their Emirati coalition partners have been signaling for months that they are eager to end the conflict, which they did not expect to last nearly this long. The Obama administration was making painstaking but genuine progress toward an accord until the election, after which it partners seemed more inclined to wait for the new team to arrive.

And after years of U.N.-led negotiations that sought to sell a relatively one-sided peace to the Houthis (despite what was, at best, a stalemate on the ground), the Obama administration developed and bequeathed to its successors a more balanced roadmap to which all key parties (the Saudis, the Houthis, and the Yemeni government — as well as the United States, U.N., and U.K.) grudgingly agreed.

The new approach did not reflect a more neutral stance in the conflict — the Obama administration explicitly took one side. It reflected the reality, as we saw it, that the Houthis would be reluctant to concede in negotiations what could clearly not be achieved in combat.

The main innovation in the roadmap was that, rather than requiring the Houthis to make all of the concessions up front, which they would never have agreed to do, given their relative strength on the ground, it carefully sequences the various steps that constitute each side’s key demands.

For the coalition, that means the Houthis first withdraw from the Saudi border and key cities, such as Sanaa. For the Houthis, it means the subsequent replacement of the Hadi government with one that includes more of their officials in senior positions.

All of that said, making peace between these adversaries will be extremely difficult. For one thing, the Houthis are infamously difficult to work with. When Secretary of State John Kerry met for several hours with their representatives in Oman last November, he was forced to endure a lengthy airing of historical grievances before embarking on the topic at hand. They also have a long history of violating dozens of agreements, which every Saudi diplomat can recount, chapter and verse.

Negotiating peace will also inevitably involve straining relationships with our key partners, who will need to be pushed in the right direction.

Hadi, who all relevant players acknowledge cannot govern a reconciled Yemeni state, has consistently scuttled deals that would require him leave office. His Saudi patrons have proven either unwilling, or unable, to compel better behavior and are themselves too are quick to revert to unreasonable demands — a tendency that would be reinforced if the Trump administration signals it unconditionally has Riyadh’s back.

Meanwhile, the Emiratis, who maintain a heavy troop presence in southern Yemen but have, wisely, been more focused on AQAP (the first war) than the Houthis (second), have for many months been threatening to attack the Houthi-held port of Hudeidah, a provocative step that would almost certain set back any peacemaking efforts indefinitely.

In other words, getting this done will require the United States to play hardball with both sides, and deftly — the kind of tough, cajoling diplomacy that should be right up the alley of a former CEO, guided by an adept team of State Department Arabists.

Early signs, however, suggest the new administration may take a different tack, foregoing the more balanced approach necessary to end the Yemen civil war, while aligning the United States more fully with our Gulf partners.

According to news reports the administration may soon designate Yemen a formal battlefield for U.S. troops, which would give the Pentagon and commanders in the field greater latitude to make operational decisions with less political oversight.

This approach would be fraught with risks that must be managed.

First and foremost is that the civil war, and the humanitarian and strategic catastrophe it has spawned, will not end any time soon.

The Houthis, according to one State Department official who dealt with them and refers to as “junk yard dogs,” are hardened fighters ready to dig in for the long haul.

Second, depending on their location, mission, and rules of engagement, an expanded presence of U.S. forces — while Yemeni and Saudi governments are still at war with the Houthis — could bring U.S. troops into close quarters with Iran and its proxies, with all of the escalatory potential that entails. Resisting Iranian meddling in the region is a worthy goal that the Obama administration shared and acted upon. The question, though is whether deeper — and possibly even direct — U.S. intervention on this battlefield at this time makes sense. While the Houthis fired on a U.S. ship late last year, they have not repeated that mistake since the Obama administration retaliated by destroying radars located along the coast. If President Trump chooses to put U.S. forces into the middle of a civil war, it should explain a purpose and objective more concretely than simply “pushing back” on Iran. Moreover, it must do so with its eyes open to the risks those forces would be assuming and the reality that a limited special forces mission is unlikely to turn the tide on the ground.

Finally, the longer the conflict with the Houthis continues, the more AQAP will continue to benefit from our, and our partners’, divided focus, as it strengthens its hold on ungoverned territory. Increasing counterterrorism operations in the absence of a viable government partner could also backfire, since such missions tend to be less effective at best, and at worst can increase the likelihood of mishaps like the January 29 raid.

Every new secretary of state has to prioritize. This means balancing between the issues you choose to tackle, and those that must be addressed. Yemen’s civil war probably falls somewhere in between. Given the crush of higher-profile global challenges, Tillerson could easily give it a pass. But if he does, things could continue to escalate quickly, all of its damaging qualities will get worse, and a solution will be even further out of reach. Now may be the best chance he has to give it a shot.
   

It intrigues me that France, Germany, and Russia retain an interest in the Newspaper Spoon offerings; and I'm always gratified when I get a hit from a Muslim-majority country, since I so often oppose positions taken by Saudi Arabia, in particular its Yemen genocide in which both the United States and Great Britain are complicit; and its support of Salafi Jihadists in Syria.

Russia was Europen at the end of the 19th Century and I continue to think of  it as European.  Dostoyevsky first published The Brothers Karamazov serially, one chapter at a time, in a French monthly magazine.  I can't help but think how powerful Europe would be if Russia were to adopt European values and join the European Union.  I know what many of the obstacles are.  Do any of you see a hope for a n accommodation?

Pageviews by Countries Entry Pageviews United States 73 France 46 Germany 26 Russia 13 Indonesia 3 Brazil 2 Canada 2 Greece 2 Netherlands 2 Philippines 2

Maybe the World doesn't have time for Trump to get up to Speed

This Times article should have been written by H. L.Mencken after reading a Kafka novel:

1)     The "president" of  Yemen was installed, not elected; he was run out of the country because he was unacceptable to those who held power in that country;  he fled to Saudi Arabia and resigned his presidency; at Saudi Arabia's demand he withdreew his withdrawal, and now command a portion of the port city of Aden, but only because of Saudi Arabia's naval and air support.

2) .   The "president" condemns the United States for killing civilians, and his patron, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is killing thousands of civilians, and starving millions of them with its naval blockade.  "Finally, Sir, have you no shame?"

3)  And the final kicker: the "president" withdraws permission for United States' ground operations, which he ha no power to prevent, because the Trumpists listed Yemen as a "terrorist" country.   Utterly pointless.

Ah well.  But it does illustrate how poorly Tuumpists are educated in the realities of even so poor a country as Yemen. Until they get up tospeed, it is better, after all, to leave Syria to Russian "kindless."

Read the article.  Think of Menchen.  Wish he were still with us.

The New York Times

Yemen Withdraws Permission for U.S. Antiterror Ground Missions

By DAVID E. SANGER and ERIC SCHMITTFEB. 7, 2017

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Women walk past graffiti denouncing strikes by U.S. drones, in Sanaa, Yemen. CreditKhaled Abdullah/Reuters

WASHINGTON — Angry at the civilian casualties incurred last month in the first commando raid authorized by President Trump, Yemen has withdrawn permission for the United States to run Special Operations ground missions against suspected terrorist groups in the country, according to American officials.

Grisly photographs of children apparently killed in the crossfire of a 50-minute firefight during the raid caused outrage in Yemen. A member of the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, Chief Petty Officer William Owens, was also killed in the operation.

While the White House continues to insist that the attack was a “success” — a characterization it repeated on Tuesday — the suspension of commando operations is a setback for Mr. Trump, who has made it clear he plans to take a far more aggressive approach against Islamic militants.

It also calls into question whether the Pentagon will receive permission from the president for far more autonomy in selecting and executing its counterterrorism missions in Yemen, which it sought, unsuccessfully, from President Barack Obama in the last months of his term.

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Mr. Obama deferred the decision to Mr. Trump, who appeared inclined to grant it: His approval of the Jan. 29 raid came over a dinner four nights earlier with his top national security aides, rather than in the kind of rigorous review in the Situation Room that became fairly routine under President George W. Bush and Mr. Obama.

The raid, in which just about everything went wrong, was an early test of Mr. Trump’s national security decision-making — and his willingness to rely on the assurances of his military advisers. His aides say that even though the decision was made over a dinner, it had been fully vetted, and had the requisite legal approvals.

Mr. Trump will soon have to make a decision about the more general request by the Pentagon to allow more of such operations in Yemen without detailed, and often time-consuming, White House review. It is unclear whether Mr. Trump will allow that, or how the series of mishaps that marked his first approval of such an operation may have altered his thinking about the human and political risks of similar operations.

The Pentagon has said that the main objective of the raid was to recover laptop computers, cellphones and other information that could help fill gaps in its understanding of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, whose leaders have tried to carry out at least three attacks on the United States. But it is unclear whether the information the commandos recovered will prove valuable.

The White House continued its defense of the raid on Tuesday, making no reference to the Yemeni reaction.

Neither the White House nor the Yemenis have publicly announced the suspension. Pentagon spokesmen declined to comment, but other military and civilian officials confirmed that Yemen’s reaction had been strong.Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, denied reports that the purpose of the attack was to capture or kill any specific Qaeda leader. “The raid that was conducted in Yemen was an intelligence-gathering raid,” he said. “That’s what it was. It was highly successful. It achieved the purpose it was going to get, save the loss of life that we suffered and the injuries that occurred.”

It was unclear if Yemen’s decision to halt the ground attacks was also influenced by Mr. Trump’s inclusion of the country on his list of nations from which he wants to temporarily suspend all immigration, an executive order that is now being challenged in the federal courts.

According to American civilian and military officials, the Yemeni ban on operations does not extend to military drone attacks, and does not affect the handful of American military advisers who are providing intelligence support to the Yemenis and forces from the United Arab Emirates.

In 2014, Yemen’s government temporarily halted those drones from flying because of botched operations that also killed civilians. But later they quietly resumed, and in recent years they have been increasing in frequency, a sign of the fact that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, is considered one of the world’s most dangerous terrorist groups.

The raid stirred immediate outrage among Yemeni government officials, some of whom accused the Trump administration of not fully consulting with them before the mission. Within 24 hours of the assault on a cluster of houses in a tiny village in mountainous central Yemen, the country’s foreign minister, Abdul Malik Al Mekhlafi, condemned the raid in a post on his official Twitter account as “extrajudicial killings.”

In an interview with Al Jazeera this week, Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak, Yemen’s ambassador to the United States, said that President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi raised concerns about the raid in a meeting with the American ambassador to Yemen in Riyadh on Feb. 2.

“Yemen’s government is a key partner in the war against terrorism,” Mr. Mubarak said in the interview, adding that Yemen’s cooperation should not come “at the expense of the Yemeni citizens and the country’s sovereignty.”

The Pentagon has acknowledged that the raid killed several civilians, including children, and is investigating. The dead include, by the account of relatives, the 8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born Qaeda leader who was killed in a targeted drone strike in 2011.American counterterrorism officials have expressed growing fears about their lack of understanding of Qaeda operations in Yemen since the United States was forced to withdraw the last 125 Special Operations advisers from the country in March 2015 after Houthi rebels ousted the government of President Hadi, the Americans’ main counterterrorism partner.

The Pentagon has tried to start rebuilding its counterterrorism operations in Yemen since then. Last May, American Special Operations forces helped Yemeni and Emirati troops evict Qaeda fighters from the port city of Al Mukalla.

Al Qaeda had used Al Mukalla as a base as the militants stormed through southern Yemen, capitalizing on the power vacuum caused by the country’s 14-month civil war and seizing territory, weapons and money.

The deadly raid last month, launched from an amphibious assault ship off the Yemeni coast, was the first known American-led ground mission in Yemen since December 2014, when members of SEAL Team 6 stormed a village in southern Yemen in an effort to free an American photojournalist held hostage by Al Qaeda. But the raid ended with the kidnappers killing the journalist and a South African held with him.

The United States conducted 38 drone strikes in Yemen last year, up from 23 in 2014, and has already carried out five strikes so far this year, according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Long War Journal.

In response to the raid, Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen urged followers last weekend to attack the United States and its allies in the country.

Qasim al-Raymi, the leader of the Qaeda offshoot, likened his fighters to extremists battling American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a speech translated by SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks extremist activities and messaging.

Specialists in Yemeni culture and politics have cautioned that Al Qaeda would seize on the raid to whip up anti-American feelings and attract more followers.

“The use of U.S. soldiers, high civilian casualties and disregard for local tribal and political dynamics,” the Brussels-based International Crisis Group said in a report released last Thursday, “plays into AQAP’s narrative of defending Muslims against the West and could increase anti-U.S. sentiment and with it AQAP’s pool of recruits.”

The Sioux Water Protectors Next Challenge; a General's Personal Courage on display

Here, as far as I can tell, is the latest news on the Dakota Pipeline and the Sioux Water Protectors objections to it.  The Tribe's objections are supported by millions of Americans.  The pipeline is supported by Donald Trump, who stands to personally profit from the its completion.

The Seattle decision to divest three billion dollars in city funds from Wells Fargo, citing the bank’s role as a lender to the Dakota Access project, is a good decision.   If Hawaii has a similar investment in Wells Fargo, it should forthwith emulate Seattle.

A lot depends on the personal courage of Lieutenant General Todd T. Semonite, the commander of the corps of engineers.

General Semonite is a native of  Bellows Falls, Vermont, much injured over time by the corps.

Vermont is home to the Abenaki tribe.  One hopes that General   Semonite remembers his home.  See Historic Iroquois and Wabanaki Beadwork: The Abenaki and the Bellows Falls (VT) Petroglyphs


 We'll be watching to see if the general be man or mouse.


The New Yorker

FOR THE PROTESTERS AT STANDING ROCK, IT’S BACK TO PIPELINE PURGATORY

By Carolyn Kormann   February 3, 2017

In the waning days of the Obama Administration, it seemed that the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy might be over. But Donald Trump has different ideas.

PHOTOGRAPH BY SCOTT OLSON / GETTY

On Tuesday evening, Kevin Cramer, a Republican congressman from North Dakota, announced in a video statement that completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which had been indefinitely delayed since December 4th, “now has its final green light.” The Department of the Army had confirmed to him, he said, that it would soon issue the permit required to dig the pipeline’s last segment, under Lake Oahe, on the Missouri River, half a mile upstream from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Cramer did not mention the tribe, even though the pipeline crosses sacred tribal lands and could, if it ever ruptured, contaminate the reservation’s water supply. Instead, he focussed on his admiration for the President, who signed a directive last week expediting the pipeline’s completion. “I am so, so grateful to Donald Trump,” Cramer said, beaming into the camera, a vanity license plate reading “BAKKEN” perched on the shelf behind him. “He is a man of action.”

Cramer, for all his enthusiasm, got one significant detail wrong. As the Standing Rock Sioux quickly noted in a written response, the Dakota Access permit hasnot been granted. “The congressman jumped the gun,” Jan Hasselman, the attorney representing the tribe, told me. The acting Secretary of the Army, Robert Speer, had only instructed the Army Corps of Engineers to grant the permit, beginning the process outlined in the Presidential directive. “These initial steps do not mean the easement has been approved,” an Army spokesman told the Washington Post. The Corps will now conduct its own analysis to decide whether it can approve the permit “in an expedited manner, to the extent permitted by law and as warranted,” as the directive states. Then it will notify Congress of its decision before actually granting the permit to Energy Transfer Partners, the pipeline’s parent company.

The Army Corps has made a decision on the pipeline once before; less than two months ago, it denied the permit, resolving instead to prepare an environmental-impact statement (E.I.S.) evaluating alternative pipeline routes, potential spill risk, and the tribe’s historical treaty rights. On January 18th, the Corps formally announced the E.I.S. in the Federal Register, beginning a public-comment period that will remain open for another three weeks—unless the Corps reverses itself, as it is pressured to do by the Presidential directive, which states that it should “withdraw” the E.I.S. and consider modifying or rescinding the December 4th decision. “The writing on the wall is that it’s likely to happen,” Hasselman said. If it does, according to a statement released by the tribe, the Standing Rock Sioux will “vigorously pursue legal action” against what they characterize as “corporate interest superseding government procedure and the health and wellbeing of millions of Americans.”

Trump’s support for the Dakota Access Pipeline is of a piece with the G.O.P. platform and his “America First Energy Plan,” with its promise to “embrace the shale oil and gas revolution.” It also may be motivated by his own energy portfolio. As of last summer, according to financial-disclosure records, Trump owned between fifteen and fifty thousand dollars of stock in Energy Transfer Partners. While Trump’s campaign spokeswoman said this fall that he had sold all of his E.T.P. shares, he has provided no documentation of the sale. And whether or not he remains personally financially tied to the company, it has substantial connections to his Administration. Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Energy, Rick Perry, owned more than a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in partnership units in E.T.P. in 2015, and until the end of last year sat on the company’s board of directors. Kelcy Warren, the billionaire C.E.O. of E.T.P., donated more than a hundred thousand dollars to Trump’s campaign after he won the Republican primary. The day after he won the general election, E.T.P.’s shares were up 12.2 per cent.

For the tribe, the decision the Corps issued on December 4th was the culmination of two years of negotiation, litigation, and, finally, protest. At the time, thousands of Native Americans and their allies from across the country were camped out near the Standing Rock reservation in a show of solidarity. Many had been there for months, despite the freezing weather. Some are still there. In December, however, Dave Archambault II, the tribe’s council chairman, started urging the protesters, who call themselves water protectors, to pack up and return home. He cited the severe weather and the need to begin cleaning the accumulated garbage and detritus left by the tens of thousands of people who had camped across the area since early summer.

Intensifying security measures were also a factor. North Dakota’s senior senator, John Hoeven—who, like his Republican colleague Kevin Cramer, issued a premature statement on Tuesday night, claiming the pipeline was about to receive its final permit—announced that in the coming days and weeks there would be bulked-up security around Standing Rock. He said that he was working to secure additional federal law-enforcement resources, and reported that, in the meantime, twenty additional Bureau of Indian Affairs officers had been dispatched to the protest encampment. His message seemed clear: any upswell in protest would be quashed. And so it went. On Wednesday, after protesters moved onto land owned by E.T.P. and set up a new camp, police and National Guardsmen approached with bulldozers, sound cannons, and military trucks, and made dozens of arrests. Archambault issued a statement scolding the protesters involved, saying that they did not represent his tribe or the water protectors’ original intent. “Yesterday, some took advantage of the impending easement and used it as a call back to camp,” he wrote. “The fight is no longer here, but in the halls and courts of the federal government.”

How long the Corps will deliberate before issuing its next decision is unclear. In the meantime, a new round of pipeline opposition has begun. In Seattle, on Wednesday, the City Council Financial Committee voted unanimously to divest three billion dollars in city funds from Wells Fargo, citing the bank’s role as a lender to the Dakota Access project. And at Standing Rock the protesters remain, with others expected to return. Archambault continues to plead for people to go home. “Those who planned to occupy the new camp are putting all of our work at risk,” he said. “They also put people’s lives at risk. We have seen what brutality law enforcement can inflict with little provocation.”

Women's March in the Middle East: Rojavan Kurds

A lot of information is available on line on the impact Murray Bookchin, a Brooklyn anarchist, has had on Syrian Kurds. Worth a look. 

Whatever else you may think of them, Rojavan Kurds are feminists in the Middle East, where women's rights don't otherwise exist.

For information on the Harvard Political Review see Wikipedia.

Harvard Political Review In Syria, a Battle Between Radical Leftism and Militant Islam - Harvard Political Review 

iddle East | January 22, 2017 at 11:29 pm

In Syria, a Battle Between Radical Leftism and Militant Islam

By Miro Furtado

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Early media reports lauded the “Free Syrian Army” as the secular saviors of Syria: generals committed to overthrowing Assad and instituting an American-style liberal democracy. Five years later, the Free Syrian Army is more myth than reality (if it ever was real). Taking its place as the standard-bearer in the fight against ISIS and the regime are the Rojavan Kurds, a powerful military force conducting a radical political experiment in Northern Syria. In the middle of the war-torn Middle East, these Kurds are carving out a space of gender equality, direct democracy, and political pluralism.

A Troubled History

Understanding the long history of Kurdish nationalism is crucial to exploring modern Kurdish political dynamics in the region. The Kurdish people, today numbering around 30 million, live primarily in the Middle East, where their unique culture and language have often left them ostracized. The struggle for Kurdish autonomy is hardly new—it predates the existence of most states in the region, stretching back as far as the 19th century. Most of the conflict has been concentrated in Iraq, Turkey, and Syria, all states with considerable Kurdish populations. In all three, expression of Kurdish culture has been harshly repressed for fear their separate identity would undermine state unity.

After the Gulf War, in a boon to Kurdish nationalists, the United States and NATO established the autonomous Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq. While granting millions of Kurdish people the right to self-govern, this move also formed a rift in the movement between the internationally recognized, traditionalist Kurdish parties in Iraq, such as the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and more radical, Marxist-Leninist groups in Turkey and Syria, such as the Kurdistan Worker’s Party and the Democratic Union Party (PYD). In Syria, despite decades of political repression, the PYD enjoyed “considerable popular political support among the Kurdish population,” said Robert Lowe, Deputy Director of the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics, in an interview with the HPR.

Fast forward to 2011 and the Syrian revolution. As the Syrian regime focused on other, more direct threats from government rebels to the south, government forces withdrew from north Syria, leaving the region up for grabs. According to Lowe, “the PYD grasped the opportunity and took advantage of the chaos caused by the war, the vacuum of authority, and moved quickly to assert themselves.” Lowe contended that “the PYD is a more disciplined party than any of the other Kurdish parties in Syria. It has a more powerful, coherent ideology, which perhaps enabled it to be more effective.” By July 2012, the PYD had “established dominance over most Kurdish cities in northern Syria,” said Wladimir van Wilgenburg, a political analyst based in Erbil, Iraq, in an interview with the HPR.

A new political order

The PYD formed a governing coalition known as TEV-DEM, and quickly moved to put their vision of an ideal society—known as Democratic Confederalism—into practice. Democratic Confederalism rose out of the radical leftism of the Kurdistan Workers Party and their leader, Abdullah Öcalan. In a book written while serving a life sentence in Turkey, Öcalan describes his ideal society as “a non-state political administration or a democracy without a state.” Inspired by a little-known Vermont-based anarchist by the name of Murray Bookchin, Öcalan crafted an ideology founded upon direct democracy, gender equality, and autonomy.

“If you read [the PYD’s] ideology taken to its fullest extent, they want to get rid of all state structures, national borders, and reconfigure government and society through a grassroots bottom up approach of local consensual governance,” said Lowe. “That is what they are trying to implement in Northern Syria.”

In what has been termed the “Rojavan Revolution,” this radical rejection of the nation-state has manifested itself in the form of three self governing “cantons” in Syria: Afrin, Jazira, and Kobanî, each further comprised of smaller, municipal councils. In these cantons, decisions are made not by far away party leaders, but by citizens who have to live with the direct consequences.

However, it is the Rojavan commitment to gender equality that has most struck a chord with the West. Enshrined in the Rojavan constitution is the principle that each committee must be co-chaired by one man and one woman. All-female fighting forces like the YPJ quickly became the talk of the world: Media outlets gushed over the “Kurdish Angelina Jolie,” a YPJ fighter killed in clashes with ISIS.

Life on the Ground

Implementation of Democratic Confederalism is really happening, says Lowe. “The structures are there, they have set up the councils, the civil society groups, a huge long list of organizations representing the women, the youth, the seamstresses, the embroiderers. Every aspect of society has been given a place or a role to play in the structure of the PYD reformation of society.”

The Rojavan Revolution has certainly had to reconcile its philosophy with the harsh reality of war. Radical ideology does not fill empty stomachs, provide ammunition desperately needed to fight the Islamic State, or ensure safety and security in the streets. Yet the PYD has proven itself to be highly pragmatic in the face of adversity, becoming one of the United States’ largest allies in the fight against ISIS, despite Rojavan misgivings about both the nation-state and capitalism.

For all its appeal, the system is not without its detractors. The ruling coalition in Rojava has been accused multiple times of failing to respect the political process and taking unilateral action without consulting more conservative opposition parties aligned with Kurdistan Democratic Party in Iraq. “Technically speaking,” the Rojavans should be governed by “a system of bottom up democracy, but in reality its often top-down ruled.” said van Wilgenburg. “Until now there have been no multi-party elections due to the political differences between the Kurdish parties.” Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and president of the Kurdish Regional Government, has accused the PYD of “autocracy,” and said it “suppressed other political parties by gunpoint and secretly sided with Bashar Assad’s regime to make itself a solo de facto military force on the ground.”

In 2014, Human Rights Watch documented the harassment, arbitrary arrest, and disappearance of political rivals of the PYD, including KNC-affiliated agitators, though noting that PYD human rights abuses are “far less egregious and widespread” than elsewhere in Syria. The PYD, for its part, denies holding political prisoners, and states that these men stand accused of bomb attacks, drug trafficking, and other non-political crimes.

A Solution for Syria?

Kurdish YPJ soldiers

The new Rojavan society marks a sharp departure from the authoritarianism that has been all too common in the region. But to what extend can this liberal, pluralistic, ‘confederal’ system serve as a model for the rest of Syria, and perhaps, the Middle East? “It’s certainly the hope of the Kurds,” said Lowe. “They see [Democratic Confederalism] as the solution for themselves and like to claim that [it can be rolled] out across Syria.”

There is no doubt that the confederalist model carries great potential. In a region wracked by ethnic and sectarian conflict, whether Sunni-Shia or Israeli-Palestinian, local democratic self-rule certainly sounds like an appealing solution. The Rojavan model of allowing regions with a unique cultural identity to rule themselves has already gained support in Lebanon, itself a longtime victim of sectarian conflict. And with recent territorial acquisitions against ISIS, the spread of this model may not be far off. “It’s already being expanded to areas under [PYD] control such as Manbij, and other Arab towns like Tal Abyad,” said van Wilgenburg. “Its a multi-ethnic system open to other non-Kurdish ethnic groups.”

But ethnic tension might also prove itself to be the source of the greatest challenges to broader expansion of the ideology. Simply put, the Arab majority, despite some military cooperation, is highly skeptical of Kurdish autonomy and any political ideology that might arise from it. The problem with the ideology is not necessarily what it entails, but its chief proponents: the Kurds. Even the most radical of political ideologies has to face the divisive identity politics that have dominated the Middle East for decades.

Image Source: Flickr/Kurdishstruggle

If the United States and Russia agree, Turkey will not stop Kurdish independence in Syria

This is not a good time for Washington to dither on Syria.
Russian support of an autonomous canton in northern Syrian makes sense as a stop-gap measure and seems doable if Russia and the United States can come to a common understanding.

Together, Turkey will not stand in the way of Kurdish independence.

The time to Act is now!

Al Monitor
Week in Review
Monday, January 30, 2017

Why did Russia offer autonomy for Syria’s Kurds?

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attends a news conference in Moscow, Jan. 17, 2017. 

Russia seizes diplomatic momentum on Syria

UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura praised the Russian-brokered Syria talks in Astana, Kazakhstan, which ended Jan. 24, as a “concrete step” toward implementation of United Nations Security Council resolutions dealing with Syria, commending Russia, Turkey and Iran for setting up a mechanism to ensure compliance with the cease-fire announced last month.

Russia’s diplomatic blitz did not end in Astana, however. On Jan. 27, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with Syrian opposition parties in Moscow for further discussion of a Russian draft of a new Syrian Constitution that had been offered in Astana. While representatives of the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee of the Syrian opposition and the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces refused to attend, the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), which Turkey had excluded from the Astana talks, participated in the Moscow meeting.

Maxim Suchkov reports that the draft constitution includes restrictions on the power of the Syrian presidency, with most powers deferred to the parliament and a newly created “Assembly of Regions.” Under the draft, the president would serve for seven years with no option for a second consecutive term.

Most controversial in the draft may be the decentralization of government authorities and the empowerment of local councils. “One issue that has stirred debate,” Suchkov writes, "is a provision allowing for 'autonomy of Kurdish regions,' which Russia sees as an adequate compromise for the country’s federalization. A provision stipulating equal rights for Kurds and Arabs on Kurdish territories is also remarkable. Moreover, under the proposed draft, every region in the country should be given the right to legalize the use of a language of the region’s majority — in addition to the state language and in accordance with the law.”

Not surprisingly, Suchkov continues, the draft elicited strong reactions from the parties to the conflict. “So far,” he writes, “the Kurdish issue is the most controversial. Turkey, Damascus and the Arab opposition forces all have their own caveats about the proposed autonomy — and it doesn’t please the Kurds, either, as they want more.”

This is not the first time that Russia has floated the idea of autonomy for Syria’s Kurdish regions. Al-Monitor broke the news of a Russian-mediated effort in September that broached the subject of autonomy, but was dismissed by the Syrian government.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova denied that Russia was backing autonomy for Syrian Kurds, saying, “Only Syrians can uphold their country as an integral, sovereign, multi-ethnic and multi-religious country.”

Lavrov contrasted the Russian draft with the Iraqi Constitution, which he claimed was “forced” on Iraq by the United States. “We have only offered our proposals to the Syrian parties without any intention of forcing them to adopt them,” he said. “Based on the experience of the past five years, we are convinced that practical work can only begin if specific proposals are put on the table. I hope that all Syrians will read our draft while preparing for a meeting in Geneva and that it will provide an impetus for a practical discussion of ways to achieve accord in Syria in keeping with the Geneva Communique.”

Suchkov said, “The expectation in Moscow is that, at the end of the day, the parties will share the view that extreme, uncompromising positions will mean no end to the civil war in the near future, while the proposed formula may be the best possible solution under the current circumstances.”