Monthly Archives: September 2015

How Putin is using Syria to distract Russians from issues closer to home

The New York Times reports: A funny thing happened on the way to the United Nations General Assembly, where President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia will speak on Monday for the first time in 10 years.

In the weeks leading up to the meeting, the war in Ukraine all but disappeared from the state-run television channels that monopolize news coverage in Russia. In its place: War in Syria!

There was Dmitry Kiselyov, the infamous news anchor who repeatedly accused Washington of plotting every step of the Ukraine crisis, instead damning the Islamic State. “The barbarian caliphate in the Middle East is an absolute evil, slithering in the direction of Russia,” he said, “But we have a firm ally in the Middle East: Syria. To surrender it means inviting terrorists to come to us.”

With that, Mr. Kiselyov introduced a report by a prominent war correspondent, formerly stationed in eastern Ukraine, who filed the latest in a series of dispatches suggesting that the valiant Syrian military could not win on its own.

The Kremlin’s effort to change the conversation at home to Syria marks an important, if ultimately temporary, shift. It shows that Mr. Putin’s military and diplomatic moves leading up to the United Nations meeting are aimed as much at his domestic audience as the international front. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Russian troops in Syria could end up helping ISIS, report claims


The Guardian reports: The deployment of Russian troops in Syria could end up helping Islamic State as they have been sent to areas where they are most likely to fight other groups opposed to Isis, according to a new report.

The Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) report comes ahead of a US-Russian summit meeting at the UN on Monday, when Barack Obama will question Vladimir Putin on the intention behind Russia’s deepening military involvement in Syria, according to US officials.

The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani – also in New York for the UN general assembly meeting – rejected suggestions that his country was operating in concert with Russia against Isis. “I do not see a coalition between Iran and Russia on fighting terrorism in Syria,” Rouhani said. [Continue reading…]

The Associated Press reports: Iraq will begin sharing “security and intelligence” information with Russia, Syria and Iran to help combat the advances of the Islamic State group, the Iraqi military announced Sunday.

A statement issued by the Iraqi Joint Operations Command said the countries will “help and cooperate in collecting information about the terrorist Daesh group,” using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.

Iraq has long had close ties with neighboring Iran and has coordinated with Tehran in fighting the advance of IS — which controls about a third of Iraq and Syria in a self-declared caliphate. Iranian commanders have helped lead Iraqi Shiite militiamen in combat. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Hezbollah joins Russia, Iran, Syria and Iraq in ‘4+1 Alliance’

NOW reports: A leading pro-Hezbollah daily claimed on Tuesday that the party has joined a new counter-terror alliance with Moscow and that Russia will take part in military operations alongside the Syrian army and Hezbollah.

Al-Akhbar’s editor-in-chief Ibrahim al-Amin wrote that secret talks between Russia, Iran, Syria and Iraq had resulted in the birth of the new alliance, which he described as “the most important in the region and the world for many years.”

“The agreement to form the alliance includes administrative mechanisms for cooperation on [the issues of] politics and intelligence and [for] military [cooperation] on the battlefield in several parts of the Middle East, primarily in Syria and Iraq,” the commentator said, citing well-informed sources.

“The parties to the alliance are the states of Russia, Iran, Syria and Iraq, with Lebanon’s Hezbollah as the fifth party,” he also said, adding that the joint-force would be called the “4+1 alliance” – a play on words referring to the P5+1 world powers that negotiated a nuclear deal with Iran.

The Al-Akhbar article came hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly reached an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow over the latter country’s major military build-up in Syria. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Thousands enter Syria to join ISIS despite global efforts

The New York Times reports: Nearly 30,000 foreign recruits have now poured into Syria, many to join the Islamic State, a doubling of volunteers in just the past 12 months and stark evidence that an international effort to tighten borders, share intelligence and enforce antiterrorism laws is not diminishing the ranks of new militant fighters.

Among those who have entered or tried to enter the conflict in Iraq or Syria are more than 250 Americans, up from about 100 a year ago, according to intelligence and law enforcement officials.

President Obama will take stock of the international campaign to counter the Islamic State at the United Nations on Tuesday, a public accounting that comes as American intelligence analysts have been preparing a confidential assessment that concludes that nearly 30,000 foreign fighters have traveled to Iraq and Syria from more than 100 countries since 2011. A year ago, the same officials estimated that flow to be about 15,000 combatants from 80 countries, mostly to join the Islamic State. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

U.S.-trained fighters in Syria gave equipment to al-Qaeda affiliate

The Washington Post reports: American-trained Syrian fighters gave at least a quarter of their U.S.-provided equipment to al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria early this week, the U.S. Central Command said late Friday.

In a statement correcting earlier assertions that reports of the turnover were a “lie” and a militant propaganda ploy, the command said it was subsequently notified that the Syrian unit had “surrendered” some of its equipment — including six pickup trucks and a portion of its ammunition — to Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s arm in Syria.

The acknowledgment is the latest discouraging report regarding the $500 million train-and-equip program, which Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, head of Central Command, said last week had only “four or five” trained Syrian fighters active in Syria. Since then, the military has said approximately 70 fighters have been added.

The Centcom statement called the new information on the equipment, “if accurate . . . very concerning and a violation of the Syria train and equip program guidelines.”

It said the equipment had been turned over voluntarily, adding that the New Syrian Force had indicated that on Monday and Tuesday, it “gave” the equipment to a suspected Jabhat al-Nusra “intermediary.” [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Saudi Arabia doesn’t ‘do’ refugees – it’s time to change that

By Julie M. Norman, Queen’s University Belfast

As the Syrian refugee crisis has garnered global attention in recent weeks, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have faced increasing criticism, from sources both domestic and international, for failing to open their borders to those displaced by the conflict.

On social media, political cartoons and hashtags shaming the Gulf states’ inaction have been widely shared and circulated, as have maps and human rights reports slamming Saudi Arabia and its neighbours for offering zero resettlement spaces to refugees.

Saudi Arabia has previously responded to such criticism by pointing to the estimated $700m in humanitarian aid it has given to support Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan. Then, last week, a government official told the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) that Saudi Arabia has received nearly 2.5m Syrians since the conflict began, just not as refugees.

Though the numbers claimed by the unnamed official appear unsubstantiated at best and spurious at worst, it is likely that Saudi Arabia has in fact welcomed between 100,000 and 500,000 Syrians on visas.

This very unclear data is just another sign of the fundamental problem: Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states simply don’t “do” refugees.

Continue reading →

Facebooktwittermail

While some Americans are afraid of refugees, many are not

The New York Times reports: In many parts of the country, including South Carolina, the Syrian crisis has elicited calls for compassion and offers of help: On Sept. 13, hundreds of people gathered in University City, a suburb of St. Louis, to ask the federal government to accept “as many Syrian refugees as possible” in the area, according to the St. Louis chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

This week, the mayors of 18 American cities, including Bill de Blasio of New York and Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles, sent a letter to President Obama urging him “to increase still further the number of Syrian refugees the United States will accept for resettlement.” The mayors asserted that the United States had a “robust screening and background check” system in place for refugees, who, they said, “have helped build our economies, enliven our arts and culture, and enrich our neighborhoods.”

But even before the Syrian crisis dominated headlines worldwide, resettlement agencies had noted a rise in anti-refugee sentiment in parts of the United States, said Melanie Nezer, vice president of policy and advocacy at HIAS, a Jewish nonprofit that works with refugees. In the last two decades, they have increasingly placed people in smaller communities to try to avoid the high cost of living in traditional immigrant magnets like New York and Los Angeles. At the same time, unemployment and tight budgets have prompted some local governments to fight the placement of refugees.

In South Carolina, a number of influential Upstate religious leaders have embraced the refugee program. The Rev. D.J. Horton, senior pastor of Anderson Mill Road Baptist Church, said dozens from his flock of 2,300 had already completed refugee support training. “It’s very hard to read your Bible, especially your New Testament, and refuse refuge to people who are vulnerable,” he said. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

For decades, Exxon has understood the role of fossil fuels in climate change

InsideClimate News reports: At a meeting in Exxon Corporation’s headquarters, a senior company scientist named James F. Black addressed an audience of powerful oilmen. Speaking without a text as he flipped through detailed slides, Black delivered a sobering message: carbon dioxide from the world’s use of fossil fuels would warm the planet and could eventually endanger humanity.

“In the first place, there is general scientific agreement that the most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels,” Black told Exxon’s Management Committee, according to a written version he recorded later.

It was July 1977 when Exxon’s leaders received this blunt assessment, well before most of the world had heard of the looming climate crisis.

A year later, Black, a top technical expert in Exxon’s Research & Engineering division, took an updated version of his presentation to a broader audience. He warned Exxon scientists and managers that independent researchers estimated a doubling of the carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in the atmosphere would increase average global temperatures by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius (4 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit), and as much as 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) at the poles. Rainfall might get heavier in some regions, and other places might turn to desert.

“Some countries would benefit but others would have their agricultural output reduced or destroyed,” Black said, in the written summary of his 1978 talk.

His presentations reflected uncertainty running through scientific circles about the details of climate change, such as the role the oceans played in absorbing emissions. Still, Black estimated quick action was needed. “Present thinking,” he wrote in the 1978 summary, “holds that man has a time window of five to ten years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical.”

Exxon responded swiftly. Within months the company launched its own extraordinary research into carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and its impact on the earth. Exxon’s ambitious program included both empirical CO2 sampling and rigorous climate modeling. It assembled a brain trust that would spend more than a decade deepening the company’s understanding of an environmental problem that posed an existential threat to the oil business.

Then, toward the end of the 1980s, Exxon curtailed its carbon dioxide research. In the decades that followed, Exxon worked instead at the forefront of climate denial. It put its muscle behind efforts to manufacture doubt about the reality of global warming its own scientists had once confirmed. It lobbied to block federal and international action to control greenhouse gas emissions. It helped to erect a vast edifice of misinformation that stands to this day. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

How do we get people to care about the environment? What if we’re asking the wrong question?

Brooke Jarvis writes: [Chris] Jordan is a photographer who once referred to himself, while joking with Stephen Colbert, as a paparazzo of garbage. Before going to [the Pacific atoll] Midway, he spent years trying to visually represent the baffling scale on which we produce and scrap the materials of consumer society. He explored ports and scrap yards, photographing immense, looming walls of crushed cars and oil drums, shipping containers and pallets, and later began creating digital composites to illustrate statistics too vast for the human brain to compute: a forest made from the cigarette butts thrown out every 15 seconds in the United States; a swirl of hundreds of thousands of cell phones, the discards of a single American day.

He’d created other series in the past — nature scenes, studies of alleys and puddles and urban trees bathed in the glow of neon signs — but nothing felt relevant to contemporary culture until he began trying to make the grand scale of human waste visible. It was his way of hunting the perpetual, elusive quarry familiar to environmentalists: a message that can get people to care.

But over time this work began to feel cold and conceptual, almost numbing. Jordan began to doubt that it could accomplish the breakthrough he wanted. So he started searching for something different: a way to help people make a powerful emotional connection to a broken world.

That’s when he heard about what happens to many Laysan albatrosses on the verge of flight. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Technology is implicated in an assault on empathy

Sherry Turkle writes: Studies of conversation both in the laboratory and in natural settings show that when two people are talking, the mere presence of a phone on a table between them or in the periphery of their vision changes both what they talk about and the degree of connection they feel. People keep the conversation on topics where they won’t mind being interrupted. They don’t feel as invested in each other. Even a silent phone disconnects us.

In 2010, a team at the University of Michigan led by the psychologist Sara Konrath put together the findings of 72 studies that were conducted over a 30-year period. They found a 40 percent decline in empathy among college students, with most of the decline taking place after 2000.

Across generations, technology is implicated in this assault on empathy. We’ve gotten used to being connected all the time, but we have found ways around conversation — at least from conversation that is open-ended and spontaneous, in which we play with ideas and allow ourselves to be fully present and vulnerable. But it is in this type of conversation — where we learn to make eye contact, to become aware of another person’s posture and tone, to comfort one another and respectfully challenge one another — that empathy and intimacy flourish. In these conversations, we learn who we are.

Of course, we can find empathic conversations today, but the trend line is clear. It’s not only that we turn away from talking face to face to chat online. It’s that we don’t allow these conversations to happen in the first place because we keep our phones in the landscape. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

How GCHQ tracks web users’ online identities

The Intercept reports: There was a simple aim at the heart of the top-secret program: Record the website browsing habits of “every visible user on the Internet.”

Before long, billions of digital records about ordinary people’s online activities were being stored every day. Among them were details cataloging visits to porn, social media and news websites, search engines, chat forums, and blogs.

The mass surveillance operation — code-named KARMA POLICE — was launched by British spies about seven years ago without any public debate or scrutiny. It was just one part of a giant global Internet spying apparatus built by the United Kingdom’s electronic eavesdropping agency, Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ.

The revelations about the scope of the British agency’s surveillance are contained in documents obtained by The Intercept from National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden. Previous reports based on the leaked files have exposed how GCHQ taps into Internet cables to monitor communications on a vast scale, but many details about what happens to the data after it has been vacuumed up have remained unclear.[Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Pope Francis at the UN: ‘Any harm done to the environment, is harm done to humanity’

Pope Francis addressing the United Nations General Assembly today: The work of the United Nations, according to the principles set forth in the Preamble and the first Articles of its founding Charter, can be seen as the development and promotion of the rule of law, based on the realization that justice is an essential condition for achieving the ideal of universal fraternity. In this context, it is helpful to recall that the limitation of power is an idea implicit in the concept of law itself. To give to each his own, to cite the classic definition of justice, means that no human individual or group can consider itself absolute, permitted to bypass the dignity and the rights of other individuals or their social groupings. The effective distribution of power (political, economic, defense-related, technological, etc.) among a plurality of subjects, and the creation of a juridical system for regulating claims and interests, are one concrete way of limiting power. Yet today’s world presents us with many false rights and – at the same time – broad sectors which are vulnerable, victims of power badly exercised: for example, the natural environment and the vast ranks of the excluded. These sectors are closely interconnected and made increasingly fragile by dominant political and economic relationships. That is why their rights must be forcefully affirmed, by working to protect the environment and by putting an end to exclusion.

First, it must be stated that a true “right of the environment” does exist, for two reasons. First, because we human beings are part of the environment. We live in communion with it, since the environment itself entails ethical limits which human activity must acknowledge and respect. Man, for all his remarkable gifts, which “are signs of a uniqueness which transcends the spheres of physics and biology” (Laudato Si’, 81), is at the same time a part of these spheres. He possesses a body shaped by physical, chemical and biological elements, and can only survive and develop if the ecological environment is favourable. Any harm done to the environment, therefore, is harm done to humanity. Second, because every creature, particularly a living creature, has an intrinsic value, in its existence, its life, its beauty and its interdependence with other creatures. We Christians, together with the other monotheistic religions, believe that the universe is the fruit of a loving decision by the Creator, who permits man respectfully to use creation for the good of his fellow men and for the glory of the Creator; he is not authorized to abuse it, much less to destroy it. In all religions, the environment is a fundamental good (cf. ibid.).

The misuse and destruction of the environment are also accompanied by a relentless process of exclusion. In effect, a selfish and boundless thirst for power and material prosperity leads both to the misuse of available natural resources and to the exclusion of the weak and disadvantaged, either because they are differently abled (handicapped), or because they lack adequate information and technical expertise, or are incapable of decisive political action. Economic and social exclusion is a complete denial of human fraternity and a grave offense against human rights and the environment. The poorest are those who suffer most from such offenses, for three serious reasons: they are cast off by society, forced to live off what is discarded and suffer unjustly from the abuse of the environment. They are part of today’s widespread and quietly growing “culture of waste”.

War is the negation of all rights and a dramatic assault on the environment. If we want true integral human development for all, we must work tirelessly to avoid war between nations and between peoples.

To this end, there is a need to ensure the uncontested rule of law and tireless recourse to negotiation, mediation and arbitration, as proposed by the Charter of the United Nations, which constitutes truly a fundamental juridical norm. The experience of these seventy years since the founding of the United Nations in general, and in particular the experience of these first fifteen years of the third millennium, reveal both the effectiveness of the full application of international norms and the ineffectiveness of their lack of enforcement. When the Charter of the United Nations is respected and applied with transparency and sincerity, and without ulterior motives, as an obligatory reference point of justice and not as a means of masking spurious intentions, peaceful results will be obtained. When, on the other hand, the norm is considered simply as an instrument to be used whenever it proves favourable, and to be avoided when it is not, a true Pandora’s box is opened, releasing uncontrollable forces which gravely harm defenseless populations, the cultural milieu and even the biological environment.

The Preamble and the first Article of the Charter of the United Nations set forth the foundations of the international juridical framework: peace, the pacific solution of disputes and the development of friendly relations between the nations. Strongly opposed to such statements, and in practice denying them, is the constant tendency to the proliferation of arms, especially weapons of mass destruction, such as nuclear weapons. An ethics and a law based on the threat of mutual destruction – and possibly the destruction of all mankind – are self-contradictory and an affront to the entire framework of the United Nations, which would end up as “nations united by fear and distrust”. There is urgent need to work for a world free of nuclear weapons, in full application of the non-proliferation Treaty, in letter and spirit, with the goal of a complete prohibition of these weapons.

The recent agreement reached on the nuclear question in a sensitive region of Asia and the Middle East is proof of the potential of political good will and of law, exercised with sincerity, patience and constancy. I express my hope that this agreement will be lasting and efficacious, and bring forth the desired fruits with the cooperation of all the parties involved.

In this sense, hard evidence is not lacking of the negative effects of military and political interventions which are not coordinated between members of the international community. For this reason, while regretting to have to do so, I must renew my repeated appeals regarding to the painful situation of the entire Middle East, North Africa and other African countries, where Christians, together with other cultural or ethnic groups, and even members of the majority religion who have no desire to be caught up in hatred and folly, have been forced to witness the destruction of their places of worship, their cultural and religious heritage, their houses and property, and have faced the alternative either of fleeing or of paying for their adhesion to good and to peace by their own lives, or by enslavement.

These realities should serve as a grave summons to an examination of conscience on the part of those charged with the conduct of international affairs. Not only in cases of religious or cultural persecution, but in every situation of conflict, as in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Libya, South Sudan and the Great Lakes region, real human beings take precedence over partisan interests, however legitimate the latter may be. In wars and conflicts there are individual persons, our brothers and sisters, men and women, young and old, boys and girls who weep, suffer and die. Human beings who are easily discarded when our only response is to draw up lists of problems, strategies and disagreements.

As I wrote in my letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations on 9 August 2014, “the most basic understanding of human dignity compels the international community, particularly through the norms and mechanisms of international law, to do all that it can to stop and to prevent further systematic violence against ethnic and religious minorities” and to protect innocent peoples. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

As human power keeps growing, our ability to harm or benefit other animals grows with it

Yuval Noah Harari writes: This is the basic lesson of evolutionary psychology: a need shaped thousands of generations ago continues to be felt subjectively even if it is no longer necessary for survival and reproduction in the present. Tragically, the agricultural revolution gave humans the power to ensure the survival and reproduction of domesticated animals while ignoring their subjective needs. In consequence, domesticated animals are collectively the most successful animals in the world, and at the same time they are individually the most miserable animals that have ever existed.

The situation has only worsened over the last few centuries, during which time traditional agriculture gave way to industrial farming. In traditional societies such as ancient Egypt, the Roman empire or medieval China, humans had a very partial understanding of biochemistry, genetics, zoology and epidemiology. Consequently, their manipulative powers were limited. In medieval villages, chickens ran free between the houses, pecked seeds and worms from the garbage heap, and built nests in the barn. If an ambitious peasant tried to lock 1,000 chickens inside a crowded coop, a deadly bird-flu epidemic would probably have resulted, wiping out all the chickens, as well as many villagers. No priest, shaman or witch doctor could have prevented it. But once modern science had deciphered the secrets of birds, viruses and antibiotics, humans could begin to subject animals to extreme living conditions. With the help of vaccinations, medications, hormones, pesticides, central air-conditioning systems and automatic feeders, it is now possible to cram tens of thousands of chickens into tiny coops, and produce meat and eggs with unprecedented efficiency.

The fate of animals in such industrial installations has become one of the most pressing ethical issues of our time, certainly in terms of the numbers involved. These days, most big animals live on industrial farms. We imagine that our planet is populated by lions, elephants, whales and penguins. That may be true of the National Geographic channel, Disney movies and children’s fairytales, but it is no longer true of the real world. The world contains 40,000 lions but, by way of contrast, there are around 1 billion domesticated pigs; 500,000 elephants and 1.5 billion domesticated cows; 50 million penguins and 20 billion chickens. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Why are the Gulf states so reluctant to take in refugees?

By Rana Jawad, University of Bath

Europe’s reaction to the refugee crisis has hardly been a calm and considered one; with fences erected and border controls reinstated, the continent’s governments are struggling to agree on a response.

But at least Europe’s governments are acting. In the Middle East, things are rather different. In particular, the Arab Gulf States are catching serious flack for their response to the crisis – or rather, their failure to respond.

One big question is reverberating in the minds of the general public, expert observers and policy-makers; why have the Gulf states, who are among the richest countries in the world, not taken in any Syrian refugees? There’s no need to rewrite the commentary that’s already out there: many articles have provided useful statistics and background information on the international conventions and treaties the Persian Gulf countries are signed up to, and their failure to honour them.

What all this misses, though, is the general lack of social justice and a social welfare ethos in the Persian Gulf and Middle East in general. This is a complex story about the mindset of a region in disunity and disarray.

Continue reading →

Facebooktwittermail

Long before the refugee crisis, the world’s powers had failed the people of Syria

Rula Jebreal writes: More than two weeks have passed since the lifeless body of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi washed ashore on a Turkish beach, forcing the world to confront the tide of Syrian asylum seekers massing at Europe’s borders. In the grim aftermath, the international response has both impressed and disappointed, as millions of hero-citizens have taken to the streets to demand compassion and offer support—and millions of others have countered with bigotry. A few countries have cracked open their borders; too many others have slammed them shut. Yet, as debate has raged over how best to respond to the crisis, there has been shockingly little discussion as to why the refugees are fleeing Syria—and how the last four years of botched international policy has helped trigger the refugee exodus.

Of the thousands crossing the Mediterranean, most are fleeing the orgy of violence unleashed four years ago by President Bashar al-Assad against the citizens of his own country. That violence burst into view with the death of another young boy, 13-year-old Hamza al-Khateeb, whose brutal murder at the hands of police in the town of Daraa served as a kind of bloody prologue to the drowning death of Aylan Kurdi. Much like Kurdi, al-Khateeb was swept up by events far bigger than he was; after joining friends and family at an April 2011 protest, he was detained and then tortured. As images of al-Khateeb’s mutilated young body circulated across the Internet, mass protests erupted across Syria—from Daraa to Damascus, Aleppo to Homs—only to be met by the full, punishing force of the Assad military.

If the world’s powers had set their red line then, at the torture of al-Khateeb and the regime’s decimation of Daraa, it is possible that there might have been no refugee crisis today. But instead of supporting the revolution when it was a largely unarmed affair, the globe’s power players turned Syria into a geopolitical chessboard, actively sponsoring various sides of the conflict without concern for the civilian population. The United States and its Gulf allies pumped money and weapons into a murky constellation of rebel factions, empowering Al Qaeda affiliates that indirectly spawned the rise of the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS. Meanwhile, Russia and Iran funneled weapons, training, and funding to Assad and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia, ensuring that the regime stayed afloat even as it subjected an untold number of Syrians to industrial-style torture and the terror of barrel bombings. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Putin supports Assad in ‘fighting terrorism’

CBS News: Charlie Rose: So you would like to join the United States in the fight against ISIS? That’s part of why you’re there [in Syria]. Others think that while that may be part of your goal, you’re trying to save the Assad administration because they’ve been losing ground and the war has not been going well for them. And you’re there to rescue them.

Vladimir Putin (through translator): Well, you’re right. And it’s my deep belief that any actions to the contrary in order to destroy the legitimate government will create a situation which you can witness now in the other countries of the region or in other regions, for instance in Libya, where all the state institutions are disintegrated. We see a similar situation in Iraq.

And there is no other solution to the Syrian crisis than strengthening the effective government structures and rendering them help in fighting terrorism. But at the same time, urging them to engage in positive dialogue with the rational opposition and conduct reform. [Continue reading…]

Aron Lund writes: the Kremlin has every reason to continue blurring the already indistinct dividing line between “extremist” and “moderate” rebels upon which Western states insist. Even though this neatly black and white categorization of Syria’s murky insurgency is at least partly fiction, it remains a politically indispensable formula for Western states that wish to arm anti-Assad forces. Which is precisely why erasing this distinction by extending airstrikes against all manners of rebels as part of an ostensibly anti-jihadi intervention, may turn out to be Putin’s long-term plan.

Blanket attacks on Syrian rebels on the pretext that they are all “al-Qaeda” would lead to much outraged commentary in the Western and Arab press. But to the Russian president it doesn’t matter if you think he’s Mad Vlad or Prudent Putin. He isn’t trying to win hearts and minds, least of all those of the Syrian rebels or their backers. Rather, he is trying to change the balance of power on the ground while firing missile after missile into the West’s political narrative.

Whatever one thinks of that, it is a big and bold idea of the sort that sometimes end up working. [Continue reading…]

While Putin reinforces the perception that the Assad regime is inseparable from the Syrian state, Scott Lucas writes: In Syria, the “state” and the “regime” are not the same thing. The state is the apparatus that administers the country and provides services, including education, health, and official papers that allow Syrians to marry, register property, or travel outside the country. The regime is a collection of informal networks based on personal, family, community, religious, and other ties that control the upper ranks of the state apparatus.

Before the uprising, most Syrians had an informal understanding of this distinction, particularly in areas of the country where social services were well-provided. In short, they were able to draw a line between the local branch of the Ministry of Water Resources, to which they could appeal if they had problems with their water supply, and the plainclothes officer from the Political Security Directorate who came inquiring at their door.

During the war, the regime has managed to blur this distinction to its advantage. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Who is Putin really protecting Assad from?

Mark N. Katz writes: Although the West may not like Assad, Russian officials and commentators are saying, his authoritarian regime is preferable to an even worse one that IS would establish that would pose a real threat to Western, as well as Russian, interests. Furthermore, Assad regime forces are needed in order to stop IS from taking over more — or even the rest — of Syria. Western insistence that Assad must step down, then, is foolish since this would gravely weaken the forces fighting against IS. The West should work with Moscow and the Assad regime against the common IS threat, and not against them.

This argument is based on the premise that the Assad regime is actively fighting against IS. There have been numerous reports, though, that the Assad regime and IS have actually not been fighting with each other, or not doing so very much. A widely quoted study by IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center at the end of last year noted that the Assad regime’s “counterterrorism operations…skew heavily towards groups whose names aren’t ISIS. Of 982 counterterrorism operations for the year up through Nov. 21 [2014], just 6 percent directly targeted ISIS.”

In February of this year, Time reported on a Sunni businessman with close ties to the Assad regime describing various forms of actual cooperation between the Assad regime and IS, including how the Assad regime buys oil from IS-controlled oil facilities, how Syria’s two main mobile phone operators provide service and send repair teams to IS-controlled areas, and how Damascus allows food shipments to the IS capital, Raqqa.

At the beginning of June 2015, US Embassy Damascus “accused the Syrian government of providing air support to an advance by Islamic State militants against opposition groups north of Aleppo.” In July, Turkish intelligence sources claimed that “an agreement was made between the Assad regime and ISIS to destroy the Free Syrian Army in the country’s north.”

Why would the Assad regime not fight against IS and even cooperate with it? Both of them have an interest in weakening their common foes: Syrian opposition groups supported by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other countries. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail