Category Archives: Analysis

This community in Alaska is relocating because of climate change

Climate Progress reports: As erosion and rising seas destroy their land, residents of Newtok, Alaska, are hopeful that their community can be saved before the threats of climate change engulf their village.

About 500 miles west of Anchorage, the Yup’ik Eskimo community has begun the elaborate process of relocating their village nine miles away from its current location. The community has become a news centerpiece in recent years, commonly being referred to as “the sinking village.” The devastating effects of the world’s changing climate are predominately evident in Newtok, and it is being considered as a possible national model for moving entire communities that are facing the effects of climate change.

The State of Alaska is currently seeking a portion of a nearly $1 billion National Disaster Resilience Competition (NDRC) grant which helps to move and assist threatened villages and adapt to the threats posed by climate change. In the NDRC proposal released Friday, Alaska State officials are proposing $62.6 million of the NDRC grant money be used for relocating 62 families from Newtok to new homes in a town called Mertarvik. They are also seeking funding $162.4 million in relief for for three other vulnerable areas — Emmonak, Galena and Teller. Newtok is the only community that has begun a physical move thus far. [Continue reading…]

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Britain struggles with its portrayal of Muslim citizens

H A Hellyer writes: This week at the conference of Britain’s ruling party, the Conservatives, prime minister David Cameron raised the issues of extremism and integration in Muslim British communities. Last week, the “Britishness” of one of the Muslim contestants in The Great British Bake Off, a television cooking show, was queried, and a Muslim woman who models for H&M found herself at the centre of a similar experience. The Muslim cook in a headscarf, Nadiya Hussain, won the contest to wide acclaim. But in 2015, the issue of “Muslims and Britain” still does not seem to have been resolved, even though it has been discussed for quite some time.

When Mariah Idrissi accepted an offer to model for fashion retailer H&M while wearing her headscarf, she probably expected some opposition from mainstream society. Yet, few could have quite predicted the barrage that came from some quarters. An otherwise reasonable conservative English commentator, Peter Hitchens, took the opportunity to raise the alarm. He suggested that it wouldn’t be long before Britain had “veiled Muslim Cabinet ministers, TV newsreaders and judges” and that this was “all part of a slow but unstoppable adaptation of this country to Islam”. As a result, non-Muslim women would eventually be pressured to “conform” by disappearing “beneath scarves and shrouds”.

It was a rather peculiar claim. Britain is a tolerant democracy, with a special role for the Anglican Church. All of that ensures that faith is generally respected within the confines of the rule of law. Already, there are Muslim women with headscarves who serve the United Kingdom as civil servants and lawyers – why would Cabinet ministers or judges prove to be some kind of dreaded milestone? The excellent journalist Fatima Manji is already a popular face on TV screens via her work on Channel 4. Has that, somehow, led to undue pressure on even her colleagues to wear headscarves, let alone the rest of the British population? Obviously not.

But Hitchens is hitting at a particular issue, as is Mr Cameron, and others, albeit from a variety of angles. The issue remains: is it possible for Muslims to be discussed in public discourse simply as British citizens, rather than problematic in some way? [Continue reading…]

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The ‘Iranian project’ is making Assad trust Moscow more than Tehran

Christoph Reuter writes: Just as in Damascus, Latakia and Jabla, increasing numbers of hosseiniehs — Shiite religious teaching centers — are opening. The centers are aimed at converting Sunnis, and even the Alawites, the denomination to which the Assads belong, to “correct” Shiite Islam by way of sermons and stipends. In addition, the government decreed one year ago that state-run religion schools were to teach Shiite material.

All of this is taking place to the consternation of the Alawites, who have begun to voice their displeasure. “They are throwing us back a thousand years. We don’t even wear headscarves and we aren’t Shiites,” Alawites complained on the Jableh News Facebook page. There were also grumblings when a Shiite mosque opened in Latakia and an imam there announced: “We don’t need you. We need your children and grandchildren.”

In addition, Iranian emissaries, either directly or via middlemen, have been buying land and buildings in Damascus, including almost the entire former Jewish quarter, and trying to settle Shiites from other countries there.

Talib Ibrahim, an Alawite communist from Masyaf who fled to the Netherlands many years ago, summarizes the mood as follows: “Assad wants the Iranians as fighters, but increasingly they are interfering ideologically with domestic affairs. The Russians don’t do that.” [Continue reading…]

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Putin’s holy war in Syria

Ian Bateson writes: Since the start of his third term, Putin has fostered a close alliance with the Church, relying on it to champion his decisions in overwhelmingly Orthodox-identifying Russia. Religious justifications for actions have become an increasingly important part of Putin’s propaganda strategy at home. Last year Putin justified annexing Crimea by declaring it “sacred” and “like the Temple Mount in Jerusalem for Muslims and Jews” — despite the fact it was only incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1783.

Russian media has been adding to the religious connection by applying the same arguments it used to support separatists in Ukraine. The loosely-defined “Russian world” that the Russian media claimed to include parts of Ukraine has now been expanded to make room for Syria. On a Russian debate program a member of Russian parliament, Semyon Bagdasarov, argued that there was “no Orthodoxy or Russia without Syria” and that the historical tradition of Orthodoxy in now-Muslim-majority Syria makes it a “holy land” for Russians and “their” land.

In his weekly televised monologue Dmitry Kiselyov, head of the government-owned news agency Rossiya Segodnya, linked Russia’s military actions in Syria to the Soviet’s Union’s fight against Nazi Germany. He has made similar comparisons before, accusing Ukraine’s pro-Western government of being a fascist junta that needed to be opposed like Hitler’s Germany. This time he referred to Putin’s claim that the Islamic State posed a Nazi-like threat and required a similar coalition of opponents, calling it a “very precise” rationale for bombing Syria.

Russian media, however, seemed to reach new levels of absurdity when one anchor gave a weather report for Syria, emphasizing that the low winds and minimal precipitation had made October an ideal time for Russian airstrikes. The message seemed to be that even the weather was cooperating with Russian military intervention in Syria.

Many of the people justifying Russia’s involvement in Syria are playing to a system that requires and rewards supporting Putin’s actions once he has declared them. As Putin has re-centralized power in Russia, most governmental, media and civil society organizations function first and foremost to support him. [Continue reading…]

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How Iranian general plotted out Syrian assault in Moscow

Reuters reports: At a meeting in Moscow in July, a top Iranian general unfurled a map of Syria to explain to his Russian hosts how a series of defeats for President Bashar al-Assad could be turned into victory – with Russia’s help.

Major General Qassem Soleimani’s visit to Moscow was the first step in planning for a Russian military intervention that has reshaped the Syrian war and forged a new Iranian-Russian alliance in support of Assad.

As Russian warplanes bomb rebels from above, the arrival of Iranian special forces for ground operations underscores several months of planning between Assad’s two most important allies, driven by panic at rapid insurgent gains.

Soleimani is the commander of the Quds Force, the elite extra-territorial special forces arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, and reports directly to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Senior regional sources say he has already been overseeing ground operations against insurgents in Syria and is now at the heart of planning for the new Russian- and Iranian-backed offensive. [Continue reading…]

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Putin promotes Russia’s ‘military-industrial complex’ with cruise-missile strikes on Syria

The Washington Post reports: Russian missiles fired from Caspian Sea warships traveled more than 900 miles to strike targets in Syria on Wednesday as Syrian government forces opened a ground offensive into areas that include Western-backed rebel factions, officials said.

The bombardment marked the first naval salvos in Russia’s week-old military intervention, and another sharp escalation of Moscow’s firepower in Syria’s multi-faction civil war.

It also adds another layer of complexity to efforts at restarting talks between the Pentagon and Russian commanders on their separate military operations in Syria.

A map from Russia’s Defense Ministry showed the path of the cruise missiles crossing Iran and Iraq — which would apparently require coordination from both nations and draw them indirectly into the Russian military intervention as gateways for attacks.

Like Moscow, Iran is a key backer of Syria’s embattled President Bashar al-Assad. Iraq’s leadership has close ties with Iran, but also depends on support from the United States and Western allies.

Such a route bypasses NATO-member Turkey, where previous violations of Turkish airspace by Russian warplanes brought stern warnings from the Western military alliance.

In Moscow, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said four Russian warships carried out 26 missile strikes against 11 targets, but gave no other details.

Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, in a television meeting with Shoigu, said the missiles were fired from “the water of the Caspian Sea from 1,500 kilometers away.”

Putin added that the strikes “destroyed all the planned targets,” which he attributed to “the good preparation and the enterprises of the military-industrial complex and the good training of the personnel.” [Continue reading…]

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Russia is intensifying the Syria conflict

Sharif Nashashibi writes: The U.S.-led air campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has been a boon for the jihadist group’s recruitment efforts – to the extent that, according to American officials in late July, Islamic State has managed to offset with new recruits the number of its fighters who have been killed (between 10,000 and 15,000).

There is every reason to expect the same result from Moscow’s newly launched air campaign, together with reports of Russian troops already engaged in ground combat with Islamic State, and Iran having sent hundreds of troops to take part in a major upcoming ground campaign alongside the Syrian government, Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and other Shiite militias with Russian air cover.

Jihadists in Syria have long whipped up anti-Western and anti-Shiite sentiment to swell their ranks. To the same end, they are now also refreshing bitter memories of the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, as well as Russia’s devastation of Chechnya. The triple combination of foreign involvement by Western, Shiite and now Russian forces will likely enable a recruitment bonanza.

The Russian Orthodox Church’s description of Moscow’s campaign as a “holy war” – reminiscent of former U.S. President George W. Bush’s reference to a “crusade” against terrorism – will only add fuel to the fire.

The U.S. and Russian campaigns have certain similarities. That does not bode well for Moscow’s initiative, given that more than a year of U.S.-led airstrikes – in addition to operations by numerous ground forces in Syria and Iraq – has failed to tangibly weaken ISIS. [Continue reading…]

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Nuclear smugglers tried selling radioactive materials to ISIS

The Associated Press reports: In the backwaters of Eastern Europe, authorities working with the FBI have interrupted four attempts in the past five years by gangs with suspected Russian connections that sought to sell radioactive material to Middle Eastern extremists, The Associated Press has learned. The latest known case came in February this year, when a smuggler offered a huge cache of deadly cesium — enough to contaminate several city blocks — and specifically sought a buyer from the Islamic State group.

Criminal organizations, some with ties to the Russian KGB’s successor agency, are driving a thriving black market in nuclear materials in the tiny and impoverished country of Moldova, investigators say. The successful busts, however, were undercut by striking shortcomings: Kingpins got away, and those arrested evaded long prison sentences, sometimes quickly returning to nuclear smuggling, AP found.

Moldovan police and judicial authorities shared investigative case files with AP in an effort to spotlight how dangerous the nuclear black market has become. They say the breakdown in cooperation between Russia and the West means that it has become much harder to know whether smugglers are finding ways to move parts of Russia’s vast store of radioactive materials — an unknown quantity of which has leached into the black market.

“We can expect more of these cases,” said Constantin Malic, a Moldovan police officer who investigated all four cases. “As long as the smugglers think they can make big money without getting caught, they will keep doing it.”

In wiretaps, videotaped arrests, photographs of bomb-grade material, documents and interviews, AP found a troubling vulnerability in the anti-smuggling strategy. From the first known Moldovan case in 2010 to the most recent one in February, a pattern has emerged: Authorities pounce on suspects in the early stages of a deal, giving the ringleaders a chance to escape with their nuclear contraband — an indication that the threat from the nuclear black market in the Balkans is far from under control. [Continue reading…]

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Education for refugees can help save Syria’s lost generation

By Dorrie Chetty, University of Westminster

With the world’s focus firmly on the European response to the refugee crisis in recent weeks, attention has been diverted away from the humanitarian needs of the Middle East itself.

Only a minority of refugees have fled to Europe, with the majority of Syrians travelling across neighbouring borders to Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon. These movements of people have placed considerable pressure on already stretched public services, and children – one of the most vulnerable groups – are being severely affected.

Hundreds of thousands of them are at risk of becoming ill, malnourished, abused and exploited – and for the vast majority, they have no access to education.

A significant proportion of the 13m children reported by UNICEF as deprived of an education in the Middle East, are from Syria. With limited and interrupted education, what does the future hold for these children – and for the future of Syria?

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Iraq fears a ‘brain drain’ as educated young people head to Europe

The Washington Post reports: Compared to many Iraqis, Mohammed Falah concedes that his life isn’t so bad. He has a career, a home.

Nonetheless, the 24-year-old civil engineer from Baghdad plans to fly to Turkey next week to join the surge of migrants and refugees making a bid for a better life in Europe. It is part of what Iraqi officials describe as a new “brain drain” as young graduates seize what they perceive as a rare opportunity to leave a country racked by violence.

More than 50,000 Iraqis have left the country over the past three months, according to the United Nations, joining the hundreds of thousands making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean.

Nearly 3.2 million people have been forced to leave their homes since Islamic State militants began to seize Iraqi territory early last year — the fastest-growing displacement crisis in the world.

Iraqi officials, however, say a disproportionate number of those leaving are not among the displaced, but educated young men who can afford the journey.

“I saw this wave of young people who were going, many of my friends going, and I saw this as a chance,” said Falah, who hopes to make it to Germany. “I’m in a better position than many people, but I want to make a better future for my family.”

Unlike many displaced families who make the potentially deadly journey together, Falah plans to leave his wife and 6-month-old daughter behind in Baghdad, hoping they can join him legally once he has settled.

The Iraqi government does not keep figures on the number leaving, but Joseph Sylawa, a member of the Iraqi parliament committee for migration and displacement, said the number is estimated to be as high as 1,000 a day.

“It’s a death blow,” he said. “Without its young people, Iraq will never be able to rebuild.” [Continue reading…]

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Is a third Palestinian intifada on the way – or has it already begun?

Peter Beaumont writes: A weekend of febrile violence in the West Bank and east Jerusalem has led to growing fears of a third Palestinian intifada. One of the latest victims was a 13-year-old boy killed by Israeli forces during clashes outside a refugee camp in Bethlehem.

Abdel Rahman Shadi, who lived in Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem, was struck in the chest by Israeli fire and died after undergoing emergency surgery in Beit Jala hospital on Monday – the second youth to be killed in 24 hours.

There is concern among diplomats and analysts in the region that the escalating violence could turn into a new intifada, or uprising. Four Israelis were killed in attacks by Palestinians on Friday and Saturday.

The front page of one mass-circulation newspaper on Sunday stated simply: “The Third Intifada.” Elsewhere in the Israeli media, columnists were more circumspect. Some asked whether the latest events fitted the pattern of the two previous intifadas, which began in 1987 and 2000, and if not, how the current escalation could be curbed before becoming one.

Not only in the Israeli media has the question been asked. The issue was given added urgency by the Facebook posting of Muhanad Halabi, a 19-year-old Palestinian student who stabbed two Israeli men to death in the Old City on Saturday, who linked his actions directly to a “third intifada”. [Continue reading…]

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Don’t politicize women’s bodies

Ayesha S. Chaudhry writes: Since the days of colonialism, Muslim women have become hyperpoliticized pawns in larger ideological struggles, and women’s bodies bear the burden of marking which “side” a society belongs to, by either donning the veil or removing it. Europeans are not the only ones politicizing women’s bodies – Muslim-majority countries have engaged in similar tactics, expressing their commitment to Islamism (e.g. Iran today, Saudi Arabia) or secularism (Iran under the Shah, Turkey) through forced veiling or de-veiling.

Neither forced veiling nor de-veiling actually serves the interests of women, though secularists argue that de-veiling “saves” women from patriarchal oppression, and Islamists argue that veiling “saves” women from an objectifying male gaze that turns them into sex objects. In both arguments, a woman’s emancipation or subjugation is measured by the amount her body is covered or uncovered. Both arguments infantilize women, expressing a profound mistrust in their ability to make decisions in their own self-interest. Caught in the middle, Muslim women simply cannot win.

In this context, it is especially important to put women first, to give women space to chart their own journeys, and to allow the veil and lack thereof to have meanings beyond their patriarchal origins. [Continue reading…]

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New study indicates Earth’s inner core was formed 1-1.5 billion years ago

Phys.org reports: There have been many estimates for when the earth’s inner core was formed, but scientists from the University of Liverpool have used new data which indicates that the Earth’s inner core was formed 1 – 1.5 billion years ago as it “froze” from the surrounding molten iron outer core.

The inner core is Earth’s deepest layer. It is a ball of solid iron just larger than Pluto which is surrounded by a liquid outer core. The inner core is a relatively recent addition to our planet and establishing when it was formed is a topic of vigorous scientific debate with estimates ranging from 0.5 billion to 2 billion years ago.

In a new study published in Nature, researchers from the University’s School of Environmental Sciences analysed magnetic records from ancient igneous rocks and found that there was a sharp increase in the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field between 1 and 1.5 billion years ago.

This increased magnetic field is a likely indication of the first occurrence of solid iron at Earth’s centre and the point in Earth’s history at which the solid inner core first started to “freeze” out from the cooling molten outer core.

Liverpool palaeomagnetism expert and the study’s lead author, Dr Andy Biggin, said: “This finding could change our understanding of the Earth’s interior and its history.” [Continue reading…]

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‘Why are the Russians bombing my ambulances?’

Michael Weiss writes: Dr. Ammar Martini has a simple question he would like answered: “Why are the Russians bombing my hospitals and ambulances?”

One of the cofounders of Orient Humanitarian Relief, a non-profit that provides medical treatment and educational services in northern and central Syria, Martini was recounting to The Daily Beast how Russian airstrikes in the Idlib countryside Saturday destroyed a part of his emergency ambulance center. “They destroyed four or five of our vehicles,” he said. “These attacks were specifically targeting Orient.”

Below is a video Oubai Shahbandar, a former Pentagon officials turned Orient employee, shared The Daily Beast, showing the charred vehicles. “If the Russians think ambulances are legitimate terrorist targets,” Shahbandar emailed, “imagine what they’re going to do to the rest of Syria.”

It’s been a dark week for medical volunteers, all around. A Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan was struck repeatedly on Saturday by U.S. warplanes. 19 were killed, the majority of them hospital workers. Colonel Brian Tribus, the U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan, said that any powdered medical facilities constituted “collateral damage” against legitimate Taliban targets threatening U.S. forces in the area. Doctors Without Borders countered that there were no militants in or around its facility, and accused the American military of a “war crime.” That isn’t clear, at this point. But what is apparent is that the Kunduz hospital attack is a major violation of the standards U.S. forces have set for themselves. A military investigation is underway, and the Pentagon has now retracted its initial claim that American soldiers were under threat.

Russia, too, nearly hit a separate Doctors Without Borders hospital in a refugee camp in Al Yamdiyyah, Latakia. According to McClatchy, “The bomb struck in the village just a few hundred yards from the actual border, wounding several townspeople, local residents said. The Doctors Without Borders hospital apparently was not damaged.” However, Dr. Jawad Abu Hatab, a heart surgeon at the hospital, told the news agency that he believed Russia had been targeting the site and missed.

So far, 80 percent of Russia’s air sorties in Syria have hit decidedly non-ISIS targets, mainly in the center, north, and west of the country. That’s where, in addition to civilians, a grab bag of opposition fighters ranging from hardline Islamists to al-Qaeda to U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army units have all had bullseyes painted on their backs. [Continue reading…]

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Anti-imperialism 2.0: Selective sympathies, dubious friends

Charles Davis writes: The new imperialism is caring a bit too much about the suffering of people who are being brutalized by a regime which is not currently an ally of the United States – and the new anti-imperialism is not giving a damn at all, solidarity that extends beyond the border permissible only if the drawing of attention to their plight could not possibly be used as ammunition by the “humanitarian” militarists of the American empire. The world, in this view, is divided into but two camps: those with America and those against it, with the good anti-imperialist’s outrage dialed up if the atrocity can be linked to the United States, as well it should be, but dialed down to total silence if it’s not.

This is, of course, the “anti-imperialism” of the reactionary, in more than one sense: How a person of the left responds to a pile of dead women and children is in effect dictated by how the U.S. government itself responds, the advocate of the poor and forgotten consigning foreigners to their fate – “not our problem, pal,” as one popular liberal congressman essentially put it on cable TV – if their interests have the misfortune of being perceived as aligned with America’s, the left’s commitment to internationalism abandoned for an inverted form of muddled nationalism that sees U.S. imperialism as not just one factor to consider in a complex world, but the only factor relevant in how we in the imperial core should view what happens on the rest of the globe. And if your cause is sullied by the perception it’s America’s cause too? The leftist sounds just like that liberal who sounds like Pat Buchanan: Sorry, pal, if you wanted our solidarity you should have been born somewhere that better lends itself to a black-and-white anti-imperial critique. [Continue reading…]

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Putin views Obama as being in ‘panicked retreat’ from the world

Paul Goble writes: Vladimir Putin views Barack Obama as being in “panicked retreat” because of the latter’s decision to extricate the US from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and believes that it would be foolish not to exploit the possibilities that such a drawdown in American power present, according to Konstantin von Eggert.

But in doing so, the Moscow analyst says, Putin has opened the door to even more problems for himself as the conflict continues not only internationally but at home where most Russians and especially Russia’s predominantly Sunni Muslim community oppose his support of Assad.

In the short term, von Eggert argues, Putin has achieved five goals by his Syrian actions:

First, he has forced Obama to meet with him because, as a result of Syria, Obama “simply could not refuse dialogue with Putin” given the stakes.

Second, Putin has succeeded in reducing the importance of Ukraine for Washington and thus making it less the defining issue of the West’s relations with Moscow.

Third, Putin has “sent an unambiguous signal to the not-very-numerous allies of the Russian regime: ‘if things are going badly for you, we won’t throw you over,’” a message by which the Kremlin leader wants to contrast himself with the behavior of the United States.

Fourth, “participation in the Syrian civil war is giving [Russia] a chance to demonstrate what the latest Russian arms are capable of,” something useful not only to influence others but to attract new orders for Russia’s arms exporters.

And fifth, “Putin has made it clear to the entire world and above all to the United States that the principle of the sovereign right of any regime to do what it finds appropriate on its own territory is for him inviolable.”

Putin’s moves in this regard reflect a fundamental difference between the West and Russia. Western leaders get involved in foreign affairs “by necessity.” Putin in contrast sees foreign actions as “one of the main (if not the chief) component parts of his legitimacy in the eyes of his compatriots.”

Moreover, von Eggert continues, “Obama and his entourage have the dislike of using military force characteristic of Western leftists while Putin considers [the use of such force] as the key element of world politics.” For him, respect is everything because people “‘respect the strong but beat the weak,’” as he has said many times. [Continue reading…]

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Russian attacks seem designed to expose the U.S. as a feckless ally of Syrian rebels

The Wall Street Journal reports: Russia has targeted Syrian rebel groups backed by the Central Intelligence Agency in a string of airstrikes running for days, leading the U.S. to conclude that it is an intentional effort by Moscow, American officials said.

The assessment, which is shared by commanders on the ground, has deepened U.S. anger at Moscow and sparked a debate within the administration over how the U.S. can come to the aid of its proxy forces without getting sucked deeper into a proxy war that President Barack Obama says he doesn’t want. The White House has so far been noncommittal about coming to the aid of CIA-backed rebels, wary of taking steps that could trigger a broader conflict.

U.S. officials said Russia’s targeting of its allies on the ground was a direct challenge to Mr. Obama’s Syria policy. Underlining the distrust, the Pentagon decided against sharing any information with Moscow about the areas where U.S. allies were located because it suspected Russia would use that information to target them more directly or provide the information to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

“On day one, you can say it was a one-time mistake,” a senior U.S. official said of Russia’s strike on one of the allied rebel group’s headquarters. “But on day three and day four, there’s no question it’s intentional. They know what they’re hitting.”

U.S. officials say they now believe the Russians have been directly targeting CIA-backed rebel groups that pose the most direct threat to Mr. Assad since the campaign began on Wednesday, both to firm up regime positions and to send a message to Mr. Obama’s administration. [Continue reading…]

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While the U.S. was busy color-coding rebel brigades, Russia invaded Syria

The Wall Street Journal reports: British and U.S. military leaders first discussed the idea of creating a rebel army in Syria in late 2011, but didn’t have political backing to proceed. Two years later, Mr. Obama authorized a limited arm-and-train program to battle the regime, led by the CIA.

To identify rebel brigades eligible to receive support, the Americans created a color-coded ranking system. Green dots were assigned to brigades deemed acceptable to all parties. Yellow dots went to borderline groups. Red dots were for radicals. Since the system’s inception, the U.S. and its allies have continued to squabble over which groups belonged in which categories, officials said.

The vetting process set up by the Americans stunned partners in the region. They complained that the White House’s risk-averse approach put U.S.-backed rebels at a disadvantage to the Assad regime, whose Russian and Iranian allies moved more swiftly and decisively.

“The Americans color-coded; The Russians invaded,” a senior Turkish official said. [Continue reading…]

The New York Times reports: After acknowledging that only four or five American-trained Syrian rebels were actually in the fight there, Pentagon officials said last week that they were suspending the movement of new recruits from Syria to Turkey and Jordan for training. The program suffered from a shortage of recruits willing to fight the Islamic State instead of the army of President Bashar al-Assad, a problem Mr. Obama noted at a news conference on Friday.

“I’m the first one to acknowledge it has not worked the way it was supposed to,” he said. “A part of the reason, frankly, is because when we tried to get them to just focus on ISIL, the response we get back is, ‘How can we focus on ISIL when, every single day, we’re having barrel bombs and attacks from the regime?’ ” [Continue reading…]

Rosa Brooks writes: Iraqis, Afghans, and Syrians are just as brave as Americans: In fact, residents of all these states have endured vastly more hardship and bloodshed over the last decade than most Americans see in a lifetime. They’ll fight, and fight fiercely, for the causes they hold dear. When their interests and priorities (as they understand them, not as we understand them) align with ours, train-and-equip missions can be extraordinary successful. But when we ignore the interests and priorities of our partners — through our own ignorance of culture and history, or through a paternalistic conviction that we understand what’s good for them better than they do — train-and-equip missions are doomed to end in failure and humiliation. [Continue reading…]

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