Israel, Palestine and Iran

[OutByEaster?]

2 hours ago, blandy said:

I think we (the UK) should have a strong (enough) military to defend ourselves, and our allies against malevolent actors, but that it should be a last resort, and a deterrent, not a tool of international influence beyond "we will protect the UK and our genuine friends from attack". We should not go beyond that. The idea that we can spread democracy to areas that have no tradition of it, or that we can "free oppressed people" in the Middle East or elsewhere is proven wrong again and again. We do more harm than good. Whether it's Libya, Syria or Iraq (2nd time). Clearing Saddam out of Kuwait was, on balance, right when he invaded in 1990/1. But that's where it should have stopped. There are vile people in control in Syria, Iran, Israel, Russia and so on, but we can't change that, and the people there overall don't want the West deciding their futures. Stay out of it, militarily. There are pretty dire people in charge in the US, Australia, Hungary etc. too, and we wouldn't dream of trying to militarily address that - their people elected their leaders. Leave them be, use diplomacy, sure, but the notion of force is inconceivable and so it should be in the Middle East.

I agree absolutely with all of that in sentiment, but I don't think it's kept up with the reality of where we are - all the stuff about oppressed people, and about interference in other nations, the stuff about democracy and morality and doing the right thing, all of that I agree with. I think where we probably diverge is on "We (the UK)".

Since Thatcher and Ron changed the world and we let the markets take over everything, the "We" that the British army represents isn't the British people, it isn't democracy and it isn't some form of moral international diplomacy - that stuff's dead, assassinated by successive US Presidents. "The UK" is the UK's corporate interest - same as it is in the US and in other developed Western nations that live within the US economic bloc. We don't do more harm than good - you're looking at the wrong indicators - profits are up.

The "We" that our armed forces represent are financial interests that are based in the UK, whether they're banks, energy companies or whatever and the malevolent actors that threaten "us" are financial interests and energy companies and whatever that are based in other nations or economies - we didn't go to war in Iraq/Kuwait to clear out bad Saddam - we went because he'd started trading with the wrong people and threatened bottom lines, we went to Afghanistan to protect gas interests, we sparked a war in Syria to try to remove Assad after he started trading with the wrong people rather than because he's a nutcase and, I fear, young British men will continue to die in Iraq and Iran until control of their resources belongs to the "right" economies. 

I very much hope that your thinking is correct and we'll leave the region - I think that's the right thing to do, but the decision will be made at Citibank and at BP and Royal Dutch Shell and Lloyds and all of those places, the places where our politicians and our armed forces get their orders - it'll be made with a spreadsheet, not a moral compass - and I don't think they'll give a monkeys if it's the right thing to do or not - very few published accounts include a column for the dead.

I hope there's still some semblance within the senior command structures of our armed forces of their existing to protect and serve the British public first and foremost - but frankly the evidence of the last fifty years isn't exactly convincing.

 

 

 

 

[blandy]

3 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

we didn't go to war in Iraq/Kuwait to clear out bad Saddam - we went because he'd started trading with the wrong people and threatened bottom lines, we went to Afghanistan to protect gas interests, we sparked a war in Syria to try to remove Assad after he started trading with the wrong people

If by "we" you mean the UK then I think you're completely wrong, and I think facts, actual known facts suggest I'm right.

First Gulf war, Saddam got kicked out, then the war stopped. 2nd one, yes, American Neo-cons for the reasons you suggest.

Afghanistan, absolutely no. The US went because it wanted to kick someone after the twin towers The UK later sent a few troops with the statement that (Labour's John Reid" he hoped a shot would not be fired - the aim was support to rebuilding Taliban destroyed schools, Dams, hospitals, an protecting the women and children particularly from the Taliban's horrors. Sure it escalated (unsurprisingly to many) but it was nothing to do with "gas".

Syria  - the UK didn't start any war there. Our UK involvement has been very small, and has largely been about killing various murderous nut jobs, from the air.

There's an element of token support to the US, as an ally, but that's pretty much all it is - tokenism.

But each to their own views and all that.

[peterms]

27 minutes ago, blandy said:

Afghanistan, absolutely no. The US went because it wanted to kick someone after the twin towers The UK later sent a few troops with the statement that (Labour's John Reid" he hoped a shot would not be fired - the aim was support to rebuilding Taliban destroyed schools, Dams, hospitals, an protecting the women and children particularly from the Taliban's horrors. Sure it escalated (unsurprisingly to many) but it was nothing to do with "gas".

The involvement of the US in Afghanistan has for decades been linked with gas interests.  The immediate precipitating cause of the invasion was that they had fallen out with their former friend and protege bin Laden, but Afghanistan's importance as a geographically key part of the exploitation of the oil and gas reserves of the wider region has been a central reason for US interest.

This piece, written just after the US attack in 2001, discusses these background issues.

Quote

Oil and gas are not the reason the US has attacked Afghanistan, but Afghanistan has long had a key place in US plans to secure control of the vast but landlocked oil and gas reserves of Central Asia. Though the primary US motivation is to destroy Osama bin Laden’s sanctuary in Afghanistan, another, rather more pecuniary objective is also on the agenda, particularly in the search for an alternative government in Kabul. With the Taliban out of Kabul and the search for a new Afghan government on center stage, one criterion on Washington’s mind will be how best to make Afghanistan safe for a couple of billion-dollar pipeline investments.

In the case of the great natural gas and oil fields of Turkmenistan, immediately north of Afghanistan, the US government has for a decade strongly supported plans by US-led business groups for both an oil pipeline from Turkmenistan to the Arabian sea via Afghanistan and a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan. Such pipelines would serve important US interests in a number of ways:

• Drawing the Central Asian oil states away from the Russian sphere of influence and establishing the foundation for a strong US position
   

• Thwarting the development of Iranian regional influence by limiting Turkmenistan-Iranian gas links and thwarting a plan for a Turkmenistan-Iran oil pipeline to the Arabian Sea.
   

• Diversify US sources of oil and gas, and, by increasing production sources, help keep prices low
   

• Benefiting US oil and construction companies with growing interests in the region
   

• Providing a basis for much-needed economic prosperity in the region, which might provide a basis for political stability.

For much of the 1990s the United States supported the Taliban’s rise to power, both by encouraging the involvement of US oil companies, and by implicitly tolerating Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, two of its key regional allies, in their direct financial and military support for the Taliban. The Taliban, which is committed to a particularly primitive vision of Sunni Islam, had the added advantage for the US of being deeply hostile to Shia Muslims in neighboring Iran (as well as within Afghanistan).

A crucial condition for building the pipelines is political stability in Afghanistan, and for a time the US believed the Taliban could provide just that. Had it not been for the Taliban’s apparent tolerance of the former US-supported Osama bin Laden, and the Taliban’s highly visible extremely repressive attitude to women and other social issues, the US would most likely have continued its support for the Taliban, and the construction of the pipelines would have got underway in the late 90s. Certainly Iran believed that the US was behind Pakistani and Saudi support for the Taliban as part of a long-term plan to contain Iran. But as so often before, US foreign policy based on the principle of "my enemy’s enemy is my friend" helped generate the conditions that allowed the New York and Washington atrocities to be conceived.

The key to Central Asian politics is economic development in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, all of which are amongst the poorest parts of the former Soviet Union. Most are authoritarian dictatorships of the most dismal kind. For the past ten years the US has been wooing the governments of these countries, and opening the doors for profitable investment by US companies.

Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan make up the eastern side of the Caspian Sea Basin, beneath which lie oil reserves to rival those of Saudi Arabia and the world’s richest reserves of natural gas. If you read the trade newspapers and websites of the world oil industry, words like "fabulous", "huge", "enormous" flow across the pages describing the Caspian Sea Basin gas and oil fields. But more importantly, these words go together with "undeveloped", "isolated" and "politically unstable". There are billions of dollars to be made there, but the possibility of realizing these fabulous profits hinges on one crucial issue: how is the gas and oil to get to its potential markets? While the countries of Central Asia may be floating on a sea of hydrocarbon, they are far from both actual seas and centres of industry. – and deep in the heart of Islam...

The reference to supporting the Taliban as a way to contain Iran is also interesting, in view of the more recent way that Isis has been at times tolerated or supported as another threat to and drain on Iran.

[villakram]

6 hours ago, Awol said:

Yes, exactly.

The level of religious nuttery is also widely misunderstood. The ‘defender of the Shia faithful’ piece is real, but is also instrumentalised as a means of enforcing regime control at home & creating military power abroad - generating militias etc as force multipliers. 

Nor does it stop the IRGC cooperating with supposed ideological enemies. It funds Hamas (Sunni), trained AQ (Sunni) in Lebanon to build truck bombs prior to AQ attacks on US embassies in East Africa, & sheltered top AQ officials in Iran itself for years after 2001 Afghan invasion. 

All to say Iran is a realist international actor pursuing a strategy to increase its regional power & influence. Terrorism is usually the tactic of choice, but where core interests are involved they’re prepared to employ conventional force to supplement their militias, see Iraq & Syria 2012 - present.

Happily, the lot currently in Downing St clearly have no interest in replaying the ‘great game’ in Asia. The one big decision I’d like to see is getting the few hundred UK troops currently deployed as trainers in Iraq out, then staying out.

The corollary to that will be standing back, watching the massacres unfold   as the region slowly shreds itself, drop these ludicrous delusions about arresting this or that horror-bag and saying very frankly that it ain’t our problem. 

If the Americans still think the Middle East is worth the candle then they’re welcome to it. 
 

Sigh, it's so depressing over here. Hardly a single voice saying something sensible along those lines.

As a profit and loss exercise, Iran is already winning since the assassination given the extra money the US has had to spend beefing up security and that's only with the threat of doing something. As it in their neighborhood, they can take their time and see how big the US money pit is.

With full SCO membership on the horizon, they don't need to do an awful lot. Of course the US knows this, hence much of the current going on.

Given the US/France/Britain carry on in Syria/Libya, I wouldn't go around throwing too many stones and accusations regarding AQ, and absent reputable sources (i.e., not intelligence agencies), the Iran plus AQ stuff reads all too much like the Cheney/Bush Iraq playbook.

 

[peterms]

Also see the US "Silk Road Strategy Act", first passed in 1999 - this extract is from the 2006 revision.

It sets out clearly that the US sees the energy resources of the region as vital to US interests, and that involvement in countries in the region, and the maintenance of military bases, is required to pursue US energy interests.

Quote

SEC. 202. United States interests in the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

Congress makes the following findings:

(1) The economic and political stability of the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus has a direct impact on United States interests.

(2) Stability, democratic development, protection of property rights, including mineral rights, and rule of law in countries with valuable energy resources and infrastructure, including Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan, are important to safeguard United States energy security.

(3) Preventing any other country from establishing a monopoly on energy resources or energy transport infrastructure in the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus that may restrict United States access to energy resources is important to the energy security of the United States and other consumers of energy in the developed and developing world.

(4) Extensive trade relations with the energy-producing and energy-transporting states of Central Asia and the South Caucasus will enhance United States access to diversified energy resources, thereby strengthening United States energy security, as well as that of energy consumers in developed and developing countries.

(5) Stability in the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus is important to the security interests of the United States.

(6) In order for the United States to maintain bases for its troops in the proximity of the military conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States should seek to maintain good relations with the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

 

[Awol]

22 minutes ago, villakram said:

Given the US/France/Britain carry on in Syria/Libya, I wouldn't go around throwing too many stones and accusations regarding AQ, and absent reputable sources (i.e., not intelligence agencies), the Iran plus AQ stuff reads all too much like the Cheney/Bush Iraq playbook.

No problem. If you’re interested then I’d recommend starting with: Assaf Moghadam (2017) Nexus of Global Jihad: Understanding Cooperation Among Terrorist Actors. Columbia Uni Press. 

Chapter and verse on how these organisations interact with states and each other. 

If you’re still interested after that I’m happy to send you the reading list from my Terrorism MLitt course - two years old now but all still relevant, peer reviewed and serious scholarship. 

Edit: spoiler - you won’t believe how important Sudan was as a facilitator for international terrorism. 

Edited January 4, 2020 by Awol

[blandy]

1 hour ago, peterms said:

The involvement of the US in Afghanistan has for decades been linked with gas interests.  The immediate precipitating cause of the invasion was that they had fallen out with their former friend and protege bin Laden, but Afghanistan's importance as a geographically key part of the exploitation of the oil and gas reserves of the wider region has been a central reason for US interest.

This piece, written just after the US attack in 2001, discusses these background issues.

 

49 minutes ago, peterms said:

Also see the US "Silk Road Strategy Act", first passed in 1999 - this extract is from the 2006 revision.

It sets out clearly that the US sees the energy resources of the region as vital to US interests, and that involvement in countries in the region, and the maintenance of military bases, is required to pursue US energy interests.

The first para I've quoted contains something of an overstatement and an understatement - The immediate precipitating cause of the invasion was that they had fallen out with their former friend and protege bin Laden - I mean "fallen out". A bit more than that. They were really, really cross, what with the twin towers attack and everything. And he was never a protege of the US. His family had links with George Bush Snr, through the Oil industry, but Osama was no protege, nor friend.

As your article says, "Oil and gas are not the reason the US has attacked Afghanistan". It's simplistic in the extreme (I think) when people say it was. But you're right, or the articles are - of course the USA has interests in the stability and rule of law in all sorts of places, and also in having access to energy resources in those places. The world is a safer place with stability, rule of law and all the rest. It's also true that the US does much to destabilise regimes it doesn't see as aligning with, or which are hostile to its interests. Russia, China do the same. Israel, Iran, Saudi - regional powers all do exactly that.

[peterms]

23 minutes ago, blandy said:

Osama was no protege, nor friend

They were on the same side, for a while, with bin Laden fighting alongside the mujahadeen, and US money and arms being channelled to the mujahadeen via Pakistan, another of those large, covert CIA programmes.

US involvement is not about making the world a safer place.  It is keen on stability where that furthers its interest, and keen on instability and the breakdown of the rule of law where that might benefit the US.  I don't suppose we're disagreeing on that.  But I really don't think the other countries you name come anywhere near the US in the destabilising stakes.

[peterms]

 

[chrisp65]

Imagine a Labour PM being unavailable for comment, on an extended holiday whilst the US is assassinating people and we leave the EU in a few weeks time.

 

 

 

 

[peterms]

49 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Imagine a Labour PM being unavailable for comment, on an extended holiday whilst the US is assassinating people and we leave the EU in a few weeks time.

 

Mustique come back?

Sorry.

[HanoiVillan]

2 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

Imagine a Labour PM being unavailable for comment, on an extended holiday whilst the US is assassinating people and we leave the EU in a few weeks time.

Indeed, it certainly is impossible to imagine that the media wouldn't be making the most enormous story ever out of it. However, since he has a distinctly less than stellar record when it comes to publicly opining about Iran, it may be better for everyone if he maintains his current monastic silence.

[Awol]

Well, this is interesting.. Worth reading the entire thread. 

 

[chrisp65]

Oh I have no doubt that our best action would be to cancel all flights and broadband around Mustique. Much less chance of him accidentally shagging someone and causing our hostages in Iranian prisons more harm.

I just can’t imagine Kuenssberg not doing a live door stepping of Corbyn at Butlins or wherever he holidays if he was currently PM.

Not that she and the BBC have a bias, its just a series of understandable glitches.

[peterms]

14 minutes ago, Awol said:

Well, this is interesting.. Worth reading the entire thread. 

 

Really?  I spent minutes trawling it, and it's the usual gibberish, knee jerks, retailing received opinion and so on.

What have I missed that is worth reading?  Can you link to it specifically, rather than the whole mess?

[peterms]

This, however, is a thread which conveys a little more.

 

[Awol]

24 minutes ago, peterms said:

Really?  I spent minutes trawling it, and it's the usual gibberish, knee jerks, retailing received opinion and so on.

What have I missed that is worth reading?  Can you link to it specifically, rather than the whole mess?

I thought it was just a thread of three Trump tweets? He said the US has identified 52 Iranian targets (one for each hostage taken by them in 1979), to be hit immediately, should there be any retaliation against US assets or people for the drone strike that killed Suleimani. 

I thought that was quite a significant development, even if written in the usual crayon. 

[Chindie]

The pushing of a general as something more sinister to justify assassinating him is a bit grim.

I imagine the US would be apoplectic if their top ranking general got killed by an Iranian drone.

[Keyblade]

1 hour ago, Chindie said:

The pushing of a general as something more sinister to justify assassinating him is a bit grim.

I imagine the US would be apoplectic if their top ranking general got killed by an Iranian drone.

Hell, you can just as easily stretch the definition of terrorist to include Trump (or Obama before anyone brings up that canard), and you just know the US would nuke whoever hypothetically assassinated one of them in retaliation, but they can do it to others with impunity. Might really is right I guess.

[Davkaus]

4 hours ago, Awol said:

I thought it was just a thread of three Trump tweets? He said the US has identified 52 Iranian targets (one for each hostage taken by them in 1979), to be hit immediately, should there be any retaliation against US assets or people for the drone strike that killed Suleimani. 

I thought that was quite a significant development, even if written in the usual crayon. 

And he specifically calls out some as being important cultural sites. Do you think it's just that he doesn't know, or that he doesn't care he's just admitted to preparing to violate the Geneva convention?

Him threatening war crimes is nothing new. Iran should try the "no terrorist. No terrorist. You're the terrorist" line.

Edited January 5, 2020 by Davkaus