Syria’s Interlocking Conflicts: Jonathan Spyer, Jerusalem Post, Nov. 11, 2016 — The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces announced last Friday the commencement of an operation to conquer the northern Syrian city of Raqqa.
Assad Gloats as Obama Exits: Max Boot, Commentary, Nov. 3, 2016 — That was quite an interview that Syrian dictator Bashar Assad gave to foreign reporters. As recounted by Anne Barnard of the New York Times, it was a study in surrealism.
Russia Sends Warplanes, We Send Messages: John Robson, National Post, Oct. 31, 2016 — So now the UN Human Rights Council is after Vladimir Putin and Bashar Assad.
Trump, Israel and the Middle East: Dr. Mordechai Kedar, Arutz Sheva, Nov. 11, 2016 — Any attempt to assess Donald Trump's Middle East policy faces real difficulties as it is reasonable to assume that he lacks the requisite knowledge, deep understanding and most certainly the experience for dealing with the Middle East…
The United States, Syria, and Chemical Weapons: An Unfinished Symphony: Assaf Orion, INSS, Oct. 6, 2016
Putin in Syria: Chechnya All Over Again: Oliver Bullough, New York Times, Oct. 11, 2016
Why Russia and Iran Are Abetting the Syrian Government: Harold Rhode, JCPA, Oct. 9, 2016
Israel in the Trump Era: Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post, Nov. 12, 2016
SYRIA’S INTERLOCKING CONFLICTS
Jonathan Spyer
Jerusalem Post, Nov. 11, 2016
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces announced last Friday the commencement of an operation to conquer the northern Syrian city of Raqqa. The operation was designated “Euphrates Wrath.” Raqqa is the capital of the “Caliphate” maintained by Islamic State. In tandem with the effort currently under way to recapture the Iraqi city of Mosul from ISIS, the loss of Raqqa would represent the final eclipse of the Islamic State as a quasi-sovereign entity. At this point, it would revert back to the guerrilla/insurgent/ terrorist force which it constituted prior to the outbreak of the Syrian civil war.
Conquering the city is likely to be a slow business. However, the final outcome is not in doubt. The Islamic State, whose main slogan in Arabic is Baqiya watatamadad (remaining and expanding), has in reality been contracting since the high point of its advance in the autumn of 2014. Its eventual demise, at least as a quasi-state entity, is assured.
But Syria is host not only to the war against ISIS, but to a series of other, interlocking conflicts. And one of these additional conflicts pits the two main candidates for the leading role in the fight against ISIS in Raqqa against one another.
Observe: there is in Syria today no less than five identifiable conflicts taking place. These are Turkish-backed Sunni Arab rebel and Islamist organizations against the Assad dictatorship; Western backed SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces, dominated by the Kurdish YPG) against ISIS; Kurdish YPG against the Assad regime; the aforementioned Sunni rebels against ISIS; and lastly, the Sunni rebels against the SDF.
The problem for those seeking to cobble together a force to take Raqqa city –and by so doing destroy the Islamic State – is that the two eligible forces to carry out this action are the mainly Kurdish SDF, and the Turkish- backed, mainly Islamist Sunni rebels – but these forces are at war with one another! After the SDF announced the commencement of the Raqqa campaign this week, Turkish President Recep Tayepp Erdogan expressed his opposition to the decision, repeating his assertion that the Kurdish YPG are merely “another terror organization… a side branch” of the PKK.
Following the SDF’s announcement, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford met with Turkish Chief of Staff General Hulusi Akar in Ankara. After the meeting, Dunford said that the US would work together with Turkey to develop a longterm plan for “seizing, holding and governing” the city.
Dunford stated that the US believed that the largely non-Arab SDF “wasn’t the solution” for “holding and governing” largely Sunni Arab Raqqa. A judicious reader will notice that Dunford’s statement doesn’t say that the SDF is unsuitable for the job of capturing the city, only for holding it afterward.
The root of the deep differences between the SDF and the Turkish-supported rebels are to be found not only in the soil of northern Syria. Rather, they are inextricably linked to the long insurgency fought by Turkey’s Kurds against a succession of governments in Ankara since 1984.
The fragmenting of Syria formed a historic opportunity for the Syrian Kurds, which they have seized. The PYD, the Syrian Kurdish franchise of the PKK organization, established three self-governing cantons along the Syrian-Turkish border in 2012. In 2015, against the background of the fight against ISIS, they managed to unite two of these: Jazeera and Kobani. On March 17, 2016, the ruling coalition in these areas announced the formation of the Federation of Northern Syria – Rojava.
The US since October 2015 has found the Kurdish YPG to be a formidable and useful ground partner to coalition air power against ISIS. But the Kurds themselves, while welcoming the alliance with the US, have long sought another objective, namely, to unite the three cantons – connecting Jazira/Kobani with Afrin in the far northwest of the country.
From a Turkish point of view, the prospect of a PKK-linked party controlling the entirety of the 800-km. border between Syria and Turkey is entirely unacceptable. Since mid-2015, a Kurdish insurgency is once again under way against the Turkish government. As part of the general post-coup crackdown, Erdogan this week arrested Turkey’s most prominent Kurdish politician, Salahattin Demirtas of the HDP. Since 2012, the instruments Turkey chose to use to contain the Syrian Kurds were the mainly Islamist rebel movements of northern Syria, from the more moderate elements across to Jabhat al Nusra and possibly at one time also ISIS.
By mid-2016, supporting ISIS was no longer an option, and the rebels by themselves were too weak for the purpose. So in August, Turkey boldly launched a direct intervention into northern Syria. ISIS were the ostensible target, but the clear purpose was to bisect Syria’s north, rendering a sufficient area impassable that the danger of the Kurds linking up their cantons would disappear.
This process is not yet complete. The Kurds are still west of the Euphrates, in the town of Manbij. And the crucial ISIS-held town of Al-Bab remains unconquered. The Turks would like to help their rebel clients take the town and end any further possibility of Kurdish unification. But here, in the usual labyrinthine way, other players enter the picture.
Al-Bab is close to Aleppo. It is possible that the Russians have warned Erdogan that the town remains out of bounds. But the point to bear in mind is that the process of coalition-building against ISIS in Syria is complicated by the fact that two potential members of the coalition – the US-backed SDF and the Turkish army with their Sunni Arab allies – are currently engaged in a direct conflict with one another. In this regard, it is worth noting the yawning gap between the military achievements of the Syrian Kurds and their dearth of similar successes in the diplomatic and political fields. While YPG commanders call in US air strikes against ISIS, no country has recognized the Federation of Northern Syria, and it has received little media coverage.
Dunford’s hurried visit to Ankara reflects the diplomatic state of play. Namely, that the agenda of a Turkish government, even one that openly supports Sunni jihadis, must be indulged, while that of a Kurdish ally can be dismissed. The Kurds may have little choice in the matter. But they should be careful not to find themselves quickly abandoned once Operation Euphrates Wrath is done.
Max Boot
Commentary, Nov. 3, 2016
That was quite an interview that Syrian dictator Bashar Assad gave to foreign reporters. As recounted by Anne Barnard of the New York Times, it was a study in surrealism. While his own forces and those of Iran and Russia commit war crimes to keep him in power, Assad sits in his presidential palace in Damascus and pretends that all is well. The assembled journalists asked him about the demolition and starvation of civilian areas. His response:
“Let’s suppose that these allegations are correct and this president has killed his own people, and the free world and the West are helping the Syrian people,” Mr. Assad said in English. “After five years and a half, who supported me? How can I be a president and my people don’t support me?” He gave a small giggle and added, “This is not realistic story.” This reminded me of an answer that the late Muammar Gaddafi gave when he was asked about human rights violations in Libya at a Council on Foreign Relations event. The people rule in Libya, he said, so how can the people violate their own human rights? This is dictator logic that wouldn’t fool an intelligent 10-year-old, but that apparently allows these ruthless rulers to live with themselves.
Assad’s giggle was a chilling touch. So, too, was this: “Mr. Assad joked about his love of technology—’I follow the gadgets on a daily basis’—and noted with pride that 4G mobile phone technology had been introduced in Syria during the war.” So Syria has seen nearly 500,000 dead and more than 10 million refugees, but all is all well because at least some of the survivors have access to 4G!
What this interview suggests is that Assad is living in a state of denial, or, at least, doing a good job of putting up a front of denial for visitors. It is hard to know whether there is better or worse than if he were actually bragging about all the people that he is killing, wounding, and torturing. It suggests he is utterly disconnected from the horrors for which he is responsible. That, of course, means he has no compunctions about inflicting more horrors in the future.
The interview made plain that he is not going anywhere: “He promised that a new era of openness and dialogue was underway in Syria and said that he was thinking ahead about how to modernize Syrians’ mentality after a war that he believed his forces were assured of winning. Mr. Assad ruled out political changes until then and declared that he planned to remain president at least until his third seven-year term ends in 2021.”
There is little reason at the moment to doubt that he can last until 2021 and beyond–even if he cannot control the entire country by then, he has managed to consolidate his rule over a rump portion. Now his Russian and Iranian allies are hell-bent on destroying the last bastion of regime resistance in Aleppo. Russia has been warning that it will end a short moratorium on bombing Aleppo on Friday. The only force capable of arresting the Assad-Iran-Russia war machine is the United States. Our aircraft continue to fly over Syria bombing ISIS positions, but they leave the worst perpetrators of war crimes untouched. And that is unlikely to change as long as President Obama remains in office. No wonder Bashar Assad is sitting pretty. He will outlast the American president who called for his overthrow.
RUSSIA SENDS WARPLANES, WE SEND MESSAGES
John Robson
National Post, Oct. 31, 2016
So now the UN Human Rights Council is after Vladimir Putin and Bashar Assad. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Unlike, say, the Russian president, who is undoubtedly shaking … with laughter. What can these people do to him?
It is a relief to see any UN body take time out from its sinister Israel fixation. And it matters to document atrocities even when everybody knows they’re happening. The rule of law does not work by “everybody knows” even when everyone currently does. And as with Yad Vashem’s Names Recovery Project, the dignity of the victims requires an effort to record what was done to them as individuals. Reducing them to a blurry mass is what the villains hope to accomplish.
Nevertheless, the entire venture has an air of dangerous fatuity about it. The problem isn’t squeamishness about naming the perpetrators directly before the investigation. If this were a real legal proceeding, it would be appropriate to preserve the presumption of innocence even when everybody does know. The problem is confusing empty words with effective deeds, a kind of habitual fantasy bred in domestic politics with lethal consequences when applied internationally.
Reuters says “Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, had earlier called for major powers to put aside their differences and refer the situation in eastern Aleppo to the International Criminal Court.” But don’t you see, you silly pompous man, that a key “difference” between the major powers here is that the Russian government wants to commit these atrocities and the others wish they’d stop?
A British resolution to investigate Aleppo was adopted 24-7, with Russia and dependably villainous China against, and 16 abstentions, which gives you some idea what the UN is worth as the world’s conscience. As for Britain’s “junior Foreign Office minister” telling journalists the Russian air campaign on behalf of the murderous Syrian tyrant “is shameful and it is not the action or leadership that we expect from a P5 (permanent member of the UN Security Council) nation” I can only quote Professor Plum from the movie Clue, “You don’t know what kind of people they have at the UN.” Putin occupies Stalin’s P5 seat, for goodness sake.
If the UN looks grotesque as the world’s conscience, it is utterly feeble as its policeman. For the other crucial “difference” is that Moscow is prepared to bring the massive power of its modern military establishment to bear in Syria, while the West has dithered until intervention risks great power confrontation and the UN has no army with which to “arrest” those who violate “international law.” I am not indifferent to atrocities or aggression. But I have a realistic sense of what can be done about them. I very much wish U.S. President Barack Obama had acted on his “red line” in Syria five years ago instead of preening, equivocating and golfing. But he didn’t and now it’s too late. And you need to be able to tell the time and know the score in such matters.
There are choices here. You can take a grimly realistic view of the world in which atrocities are routinely committed by people too powerful to be stopped or punished, and take what you can get in this ghastly geopolitical jungle. Or you can take a militantly idealistic view and seek to impose justice globally though the heavens fall … on you, an approach frequently described as Wilsonian, though Woodrow Wilson actually shared the regrettably common habit of combining what Teddy Roosevelt called “the unready hand with the unbridled tongue.”
Roosevelt called such people “prize jackasses.” Even more to the point, and pointedly, he said: “A milk-and-water righteousness unbacked by force is to the full as wicked as and even more mischievous than force divorced from righteousness.” It is wicked to pride oneself on self-satisfied posturing from a safe distance. And it is mischievous because it exposes the do-gooders’ impotence. A Human Rights Watch spokesman said this “decisive action … sent a clear message that illegal attacks on civilians must end and that those responsible will be held to account.” But they won’t. When Russia sends warplanes and we send messages, the pen is not mightier than the sword.
Does anyone seriously see Putin in the dock, having piously laid aside his nuclear arsenal? Yet the deputy U.S. ambassador to the UN also said of the “shocking acts in Aleppo” that “those who commit them must be held accountable.” By who? What does Putin care for the UNHRC? As Roosevelt’s secretary of state Elihu Root put it, you do not “shake your fist at a man and then shake your finger at him,” or he will laugh off your threats and your reproaches. The victims in Aleppo deserve better than sanctimonious make-believe. So does the security of the West.
TRUMP, ISRAEL AND THE MIDDLE EAST
Dr. Mordechai Kedar
Arutz Sheva, Nov. 11, 2016
Any attempt to assess Donald Trump's Middle East policy faces real difficulties as it is reasonable to assume that he lacks the requisite knowledge, deep understanding and most certainly the experience for dealing with the Middle East, its history, religions, ideologies, trends, the powers that move it, wars that tear it apart, Israel and its issues, and Russian involvement in the terrible catastrophe that is Syria, whose waves are flooding Europe's shores and crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
In addition, the fact is that all through last year's campaign, Trump did not give a clear indication of a comprehensive Middle East policy, with the exception of three pronouncements: his plans to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem, his plans to open the Iran Agreement and his insistence on stopping Islamic migration to the US, including Syrian refugees. These pronouncements may have simply been aimed at attracting voters, mainly Jews, but they may also express his real intentions.
That is why I am going to base my predictions for America's Middle East policy for the next few years on the impressions I received during the past year, particularly from listening closely to Trump's speeches at public events that were broadcast by the media. First of all, the main factor behind Trump's opinions is not information or facts but his gut feelings. This is a typical trait among successful businessmen who feel that they know everything and no one knows better than they, as they say to themselves: "I am a billionaire and my adviser lives on a salary. If he were smarter than I am, he would be the billionaire and I would be earning that salary."
In Trump's campaign speeches he played on his listener's emotions, saying things like "I will make America great again!" and "I will bring back hope to the hearts of Americans!!" "I will stop Islamic migration to the USA!!" – this last declaration taking advantage of the growing anti-Islamic feeling in the USA, partly due to the terror attacks perpetrated by radical Muslims in the US on 9/11, at Ford Hood, Times Square, the Boston Marathon, San Bernardino, Orlando and more. and partly due to what is happening in Europe (unvetted migration, violence in the streets, terror in Paris, Brussels and more) and to the terrible photoraphs that are sent 24/7 from the Middle East.
Politics has many faces and its issues are never black and white, good or bad. Instead, they are composed of a mixture of negative and positive elements. Politics is the "art of the possible," an unending attempt to accentuate the positive and strengthen it, while accepting the negative as part of the rules of the game and an attempt to weaken its influence. The business world, on the other hand, is a world of black and white, good or bad, profit or loss. Here the picture has much more dichotomy, its colors are clear, there is only one bottom line – and it shows either a plus or a minus end result. There are intermediate periods of balance, but there is no situation of "both this and that." In business, deals are finalized, while in politics, the process is long, complex, and aimed at objectives that are often not final, not enforced in the end because of political and not business world considerations. Often, businesses have different ethical rules than those of politicians, at least when those rules do not lead to financial success.
The first question regarding Trump has to do with whether he will think like a politician or a businessman. Judging by his repeated pronouncements against the American political establishment, Republican and especially Democrat, it is reasonable to assume that Trump thinks and decides things like a businessman, and that what will guide his decisions are the questions of what he feels is best for America, what strengthens her, what best serves her interests, empowers her economy, creates more jobs, who are her enemies and who are her friends. If that is going to be his way of thinking when he turns to the issue of formulating his Middle East policy, it will probably have the following characteristics:
1. The basis for his policy will be branding the sides in the area as "friends and allies" or "enemies." That will bring him back to the terminology used by George W. Bush, who would constantly refer to countries as "our friend and ally," a term Obama was careful to avoid, because that made everyone else our "enemy." My feeling is that Trump will call Israel "our best ally" and possibly keep his promise to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem. The ideological and mental click between Trump and Netanyahu will create a cordial and warm atmosphere between the two, which will be the basis for an exchange of opinions, a meeting of the minds and cooperation in the deepest sense of the word. Trump will thus repair the situation that sullied US-Israel relations for the past eight years, while Obama lived in the White House.
That aside, there can also be a scenario in which Trump loses his patience and tells Netanyahu something like: "My dear friend, after 50 years of 'occupation' (as some Israelis call it) please be kind enough to sit down with your Arab neighbors and reach an agreement with them, and you have six months to do this. If you don't succeed, at the end of six months I will solve the problem my own way using my own methods, so for your own sake, don't let us get to that point." Trump could even justify this dictate by pointing out that he moved the embassy to Jerusalem. This "business" approach – recognizing Jerusalem in return for leaving Judea and Samaria will put Israel in a difficult position, especially since both houses of congress are Republican and it does not stand to reason that they would invite Netanyahu to deliver a speech that is in direct disagreement with the president's policies, as they did during Obama's term of office…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
The United States, Syria, and Chemical Weapons: An Unfinished Symphony: Assaf Orion, INSS, Oct. 6, 2016—In the summer of 2013, more than one thousand civilians in a suburb of Damascus were murdered in an attack by the Syrian military that apparently included use of the chemical agent sarin. Soon after, the United States issued an ultimatum, declaring that the Assad regime could well be subject to attack if it did not refrain from using chemical weapons.
Putin in Syria: Chechnya All Over Again: Oliver Bullough, New York Times, Oct. 11, 2016—The difference between Aleppo now and Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, at the turn of the millennium is that Western leaders are at least trying to save the Syrians trapped in the besieged city. A decade and a half ago, there were precious few diplomatic missions for the Chechens.
Why Russia and Iran Are Abetting the Syrian Government: Harold Rhode, JCPA, Oct. 9, 2016—The Syrian government, Russia, and Iran (SRI) are trying the change the demographic makeup of Syria. They aim to depopulate Syria of the Arab Sunnis, which, before the Arab Spring was the largest religio-ethnic group in Syria.
Israel in the Trump Era: Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post, Nov. 12, 2016—What can we expect from President- elect Donald Trump’s administration? The positions that Trump struck during the presidential campaign were sometimes inconsistent and even contradictory. So it is impossible to forecast precisely what he will do in office.
