I love it when a strategy comes together...

Bashar al-Assad, President of rump Syria, thinks that the Americans don't know what they're doing in the region. That's not explicitly what he said, but that's what this amounts to:

Asked whether coalition airstrikes are helping him, Assad said that the bombardments -- the Obama administration's preferred military tactic in the fight against the Islamic State -- aren't enough. "Troops on the ground that know the land and can react are essential," Assad told journalist Régis Le Sommier. "That is why there haven't been any tangible results in the two months of strikes led by the coalition. It isn't true that the strikes are helpful. They would of course have helped had they been serious and efficient."

Despite the wishful thinking of some in the West when he came on the scene to replace his father, Hafez al-Assad of "Hama rules" fame, Bashar (Opthamologist by training) is a chip off the old despotic block. I suspect that's more nurture than nature, but he has in any event survived in an environment which would have exposed and destroyed him for any weakness. In fact, the entire region is like that.

The Baath regime in Syria as in Iraq is bad news, but it was (pretty much) equal-opportunity bad news. Christians, Alawis and other non-Sunni minority groups survived as well as anyone could in Syria until things came apart in 2011. Being an enemy of the State was what would get you tortured and killed, and as brutal as that is it's something you could avoid, i.e. you weren't born into it.

Enter Da'esh/IS/ISIL/Al Queda/etc. The decendants of the Moslem Brotherhood old Hafez decimated in Hama, they are rabidly intolerant Sunni militias, so intolerant that most Sunnis don't want to live under them either. The non-Sunnis who remain have been forced to side with Assad in sheer self-preservation. In that case the "enemy of their enemy" is their only hope.

Does that mean that we should work with him? Well, that depends. In an ideal world where we all love each other and some rare zombie virus makes people turn nasty, no. In the real world where things are a lot greyer than that you don't work with a murderous sadistc regime unless of course they are less distasteful than the alternatives.The question: is Assad sufficiently less off-putting than Da'esh/Al-Queda/Nusra to be worth propping up?

I won't pretend that this is a simple decision, but I'll zoom out enough to try to put it in perspective. Until 2003, Iraq and Syria were "stable". Not Parliamentary-Rule-of-Law stable, but most people could go about their daily lives with little chance of violence which counts as stability in most parts of the world. Once the Americans broke Iraq (that is neither ideological nor debatable at this point) the whole region began to creak. The eventual result was the so-called "Arab Spring" which succeeded only in the place it began, in Tunisia. Egypt got the government it thought it wanted in the Muslim Brotherhood, but quickly realized that having the military run things was not so bad after all. Syria tried to reform but that only exposed how brittle the power structure was and of course it shattered.

Shit gets tribal pretty quickly in situations like that (civil war) and the surviving enclaves are the Alawis (Assad's "tribe") and the Kurds. The Syrian Kurds' only chance of survival is to amalgamate with the Iraqi Kurds and I have said before this is where I think we should put our efforts. Erdrogan and the Turkish government; in his/their effots to re-create the Ottoman empire has/have placed themselves in opposition to NATO's interests and should be booted out of the alliance. I mention this because the Turks are the single biggest impediment to carving out a stable safe-haven for people fleeing Da'esh.

The Iranians also have Kurdish issues, but they are a bit more pragmatic and are actively supporting their militias fighting Da'esh. Should we co-operate with them? How I work it out is that worst-case scenario, Iran spreads its' (Shia) "Islamic Republic" to parts of Iraq; that is still less miserable than Daesh/Al Queda. This would defacto split off Iraqi Kurdistan to join up with Rojava. In case you wonder why I think we should support that, go read this.

Are the Kurds perfect? Not by a long shot, but as far as I can tell they are better than all regional alternatives. My information is not based on personal experience, but by all accounts their internal tribal issues don't turn into oppressing other people which is all that I can ask of a group. The real litmus test is "would I take a trip there [Iraqi Kudistan]?". The answer in this case is "yes" because even as in infidel Westerner I would be as safe there anywhere other than home. Their proposed constitution looks pretty Socialist (not surprising, Kurdish Workers' Party and all) but Disestablishmentarianism is the law of the land making it unique in the region since Turkey has purged Ataturk.

Coming back to Assad, the Social Contract of the Rojava Cantons (linked above) recognises the "territorial integrity of Syria" which brings it in line with the rump Baath state. This is potential common ground, but there is no way the Cantons would let Assad back in control. What I don't know is what the Iranians would think about cutting loose their link to Hezbollah, inevitable if the current power structure is dissolved.

That could be grounds for some old-school "sphere of influence" talks between the US, Saudis and Iranians. The tradeoff could be recognition of defacto Iranian expansion into Iraq, sans "Sunni Triangle" in exchange for cutting the Levant loose. The Saudis would have cause to dislike this, but it wouldn't change much on the groud so it might not be a deal breaker. Hezbollah has bled a great deal for the Assad regime (really for Iran) so it's unlikely Iran would cut ties, but they would gain more Shia in Iraq than they'd lose in Lebanon so who knows?

The region (and many others) has a preference for backing "the Strong Horse". Assad's Syria was that in the immediate area for many years; it is so no longer, but it can still do a lot of damage. The Alawis are a fairly despised minority in the ME, but so are the Kurds, Christians, Yazidis, etc. I see common cause there, but there are a lot of Great and Regional Power interests to overcome before the underdogs can band together. Get rid of Assad and the Baath Party and we could work with non IS Syria against Da'esh and in spite of Erdrogan. I deduce Iran as the lynchpin of this, with Russia having some say, maybe just as an extraction plan for the Baath ruling elite.

There's your angle Obama; you still have a chance to actually earn that Nobel Peace Prize. Fat chance the USA does anything this coherently thought-out with an understanding of the region and history, but the regional players understand these things. Somebody will do something but it probably won't be us.

We'll hold 'em, you hit 'em

I've said for some time that the Saudis should be directly involved in the mess they helped create with Daesh in Syria/Iraq, and their planes are a good start. So far there has been no official commitment to sending the Royal Saudi Army in to get dirty, but it's apparently not completely off the table. They certainly have the resources to make an impact regionally, and I imagine getting some more combat experience for their troops would be a plan also.

The concern comes from various quarters about the incursion of Saudi troops to hit Daesh and Assad (as they would want to) on the basis of Iran and the Shia in general getting bent out of shape. If there was in fact some June 1914-syle delicate balance of power in the region this would have some merit, but as things stand the Saudis don't give a flying about Iran as long as America has the House of Saud's back, nor are "we" too fussed about keeping Tehran happy.

The feared Sunni-Shia "civil war" is already happening so the Saudis doing the dirty work of removing Assad would cut the Gordian knot of disturbing the power balance which most seem to fear messing with. Reports also have airstrikes on al-Nusra, another slightly-less bloodthirsty Salafist outfit and no more a friend to us than Daesh is.

There is always the problem of the power vacuum, and hitting all of the players might seem a good idea. The only problem I see with hitting Assad is that he represents the only remaining protection (besides the Kurdish areas) for religious minorities in Syria. The Alawi sect that the Assads hail from is adjudged heretical by "proper" Muslims and they won't last a week if the Baath party goes down completely, likewise the remaining Christians and garden-variety Shia.

In the meantime the squeeze is being put on the money-making and administrative soft underbelly of Daesh, which has them scrambling to adjust. Strikes on Daesh forces besieging Kurdish etc. villages in Syria have taken some pressure off, and a further degrading of the materiel Daesh scored from the Iraqi and Syrian armies will degrade their advantage. The tanks, APCs and artillery they took from Mosul are hard to hide and useless to you if you do manage it. That is a lesson the Germans on the Normandy front in WW2 learned the hard way, and that was without smart bombs.

A random though along that track; A-10s have been deployed to theatre, but what is ideal for killing vehicles and even easier to base are AH-64D (or better) Apaches, especially "Longbow" ones. Base a few of those close behind the friendly lines and you'll be able to break up any vehicular attack in minutes.

That's tactics, but also public relations. Already the US is making some more friends as it saves them from Daesh, and confidence that the lines will hold will take the humanitarian pressure off as people stay put or return to their homes. Putting hardware where the locals can see it, making them feel like it's "theirs" has an intangible but very real morale effect.

I'm not holding my breath to see Saudi M1A2s sweeping to Damascus, but you never know. Latest I've heard of the Iraqi Army is that it's as useless as it was in Mosul so SOMEBODY has to pick up the slack.

Kill 'em all

I don't feel that yesterday's post was particularly coherent, a result of distractions and trying to fit it to the catchy title I came up with. This time I'll do what I usually do and write the title to fit the post. OK, cleverness failed me, but this one at least is to the point.

Western leaders are making dire pronouncements about doing something to ISIL/Islamic State, so something will happen, but two questions leap to mind. The first is "what"; the second is "how". There is already concern about mission creep, and the mission hasn't even been defined yet. The follows is my thumbnail sketch of the strategic problem posed by those assholes.

They are smack in the middle of the Middle East, straddling the increasingly irrelevant border between two failed or failing states. Their pernicious medieval nihilism, rated by at least one local resident as "worse than Genghis Khan" (who was at least religiously tolerant) is also drawing in like-minded psychopaths from around the world, like the one (apparently a Brit) who executed James Foley, constantly swelling the ranks.

I have heard the terms "counter-terrorism" and "counter-insurgency" in peoples' attempts to put a name on what needs to be done, but I have a simpler word: War. The self-proclaimed "Islamic State" is setting itself up for failure, a victim of its' own success. By making a functioning state, with its' own economy and services, you give us things that we can attack. So far it's been artillery positions, vehicles and checkpoints, but with an expansion of effort it can be a whole lot more.

In the global view, it's an ideology, really a nihilistic death cult and as an idea you can never eliminate it. Some form of Islamic violence has been around for centuries and it will continue, the issue is to minimize the damage it can do. We need to kill them in heaps and the only way to do that is when they bunch together, like they are now. We also need to limit their resources, so follow the money.

Apparently for some time now ISIL has been selling oil from seized oil fields to the rump Syria controlled by Assad. This represents the first thing I'd take away from them, even before liberating territory. You then pump that oil and sell it to finance your operations, but I can't imagine Obama'd have the stones to do that when even Bush II didn't. Concurrent with that wreck every bit of military hardware and transport you can see to weaken them militarily. Give reliable local auxiliaries (read: the Kurds, possibly Jordan) whatever they need by way of armament and logistic support. The Iraqis have Iran to backstop them, so they can sink or swim.

Osama bin Laden's grand plan was to "bleed to bankruptcy" the USA, and he did a fair job of it, but it wasn't fatal. Knocking the current set of idiots in ISIL back to a manageable local menace will require a large investment, but as opposed to Operation Iraqi Freedom there is a clear and undisputed reason to pitch in for this job. I'd be leaning on the Saudis to underwrite a lot of this and use self-interested local troops to minimize your boots on the ground.

Even in decline, the USA remains the only power capable of driving this bus, mostly due to the airpower requirements. Whoever is coordinating operations, there has to be a coherent plan, and mine already represents the 70% solution. You'll never actually kill them all but they need a serious culling and disrupting, so bring on the A-10s and Apaches, and keep the weapons and ammo flowing to Erbil.

A new Thirty-Years War?

I stole this from Jerry Pournelle's mail bag at Chaos Manor. Put aside some time and read it, I found it enlightning, albeit it asks some more questions.

By: David P. Goldman
A one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is upon us. It won’t arrive by Naftali Bennett’s proposal <http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/181501#.U6dRlvmwJcQ> to annex the West Bank’s Area C, or through the efforts of BDS campaigners and Jewish Voice for Peace <http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/> to alter the Jewish state. But it will happen, sooner rather than later, as the states on Israel’s borders disintegrate and other regional players annex whatever they can. As that happens, Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria is becoming inevitable.
Last week’s rocket attacks from Gaza failed to inflict many casualties in Israel—but they administered a mortal wound to Palestinian self-governance. Hamas launched its deepest strikes ever into Israel after the IDF cracked down on its West Bank operations following the murder last month of three Israeli boys, arresting nearly 900 members of Hamas <https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/12643-israel-has-arrested-896-palestinians-since-12-june> and other terrorist groups. Humiliated in the territories, and unable to pay its 44,000 Gaza employees <http://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-decides-to-go-for-broke/> , Hamas acted from weakness, gambling that missile attacks would elicit a new Intifada on the West Bank. Although Fatah militias joined in the rocket attacks from Gaza, for now the Palestinian organizations are in their worst disarray in 20 years.
The settlers of Judea and Samaria have stood in the cross-hairs of Western diplomacy for two decades, during which the word “settler” has become a term of the highest international opprobrium. Yet the past decade of spiraling conflicts in the Middle East have revealed that what is settled in the region is far less significant than what is unsettled. Iran’s intervention into the Syrian civil conflict has drawn the Sunni powers into a war of attrition that already has displaced more than 10 million people, mostly Sunnis, and put many more at risk. The settled, traditional, tribal life of the Levant has been shattered. Never before in the history of the region have so many young men had so little hope, so few communal ties, and so many reasons to take up arms.
<http://cdn1.tabletmag.com/wp-content/files_mf/population1524.png>
Source: U.N. World Population Prospects <http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/unpp/panel_indicators.htm>
As a result, the central premise of Western diplomacy in the region has been pulled inside-out, namely that a resolution of the Palestinian refugee issue was the key to long-term stability in the Middle East. Now the whole of the surrounding region has become one big refugee crisis. Yet the seemingly spontaneous emergence of irregular armies like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) now rampaging through northern Mesopotamia should be no surprise. The misnamed Arab Spring of 2011 began with an incipient food crisis in Egypt <http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MB02Ak01.html> and a water crisis in Syria <http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MC29Ak02.html> . Subsidies from the Gulf States keep Egypt on life support. In Syria and Iraq, though, displaced populations become foraging armies that loot available resources, particularly oil, and divert the proceeds into armaments that allow the irregulars to keep foraging. ISIS is selling $800 million a year of Syrian oil to Turkey, according to one estimate <http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/business/2014/06/turkey-syria-isis-selling-smuggled-oil.html> , as well as selling electricity from captured power plants back to the Assad government. On June 11 it seized the Bajii power plant oil refinery <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/12/world/middleeast/the-militants-moving-in-on-syria-and-iraq.html?hp&_r=1> in northern Iraq, the country’s largest.
The region has seen nothing like it since the Mongol invasion of the 13th century. Perpetual war has turned into a snowball that accumulates people and resources as it rolls downhill and strips the ground bare of sustenance. Those who are left shiver in tents in refugee camps, and their young men go off to the war. There is nothing new about this way of waging war; it was invented in the West during the Thirty Years War by the imperial general Albrecht von Wallenstein, and it caused the death of nearly half the population of Central Europe between 1618 and 1648.
As a result of this spiraling warfare, four Arab states—Libya, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq—have effectively ceased to exist. Lebanon, once a Christian majority country, became a Shia country during the past two decades under the increased domination of Hezbollah. Nearly 2 million Syrian Sunnis have taken refuge in Lebanon, as Israeli analyst Pinhas Inbari <http://jcpa.org/article/syrian-war-is-reshaping-the-region/> observes, and comprise almost half of Lebanon’s total population of 4 million, shifting the demographic balance to the Sunnis—while the mass Sunni exodus tilts the balance of power in Syria toward the Alawites and other religious minorities, who are largely allied with Iran. Jordan, meanwhile, has taken in a million Syrian Sunnis, making Palestinians a minority inside Jordan for the first time in a generation. A region that struggled to find sustenance for its people before 2011 has now been flooded with millions of refugees without resources or means of support. They are living for the most part on largesse from the Gulf States, and their young men are prospective cannon fodder.
The remaining states in the region—Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran—will alternately support and suppress the new irregular armies as their interests require. Where does ISIS get its support, apart from oil hijacking in Syria and bank robberies in Mosul <http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/06/12/isis-just-stole-425-million-and-became-the-worlds-richest-terrorist-group/> ? There are allegations that ISIS receives support from Turkey <http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/17/pipes-turkeys-support-for-isis/> , the Sunni Gulf States <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/14/america-s-allies-are-funding-isis.html> , and Iran <http://jcpa.org/article/isis-irans-instrument-regional-hegemony/> . Pinhas Inbari <http://jcpa.org/article/isis-irans-instrument-regional-hegemony/> claims that Shiite Iran is funding Sunni extremists “to be certain that a strong Iraqi state does not emerge again along its western border.” There are equally credible reports that each of these powers wants to stop ISIS. Saudi Arabia fears <http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/05/isis-saudi-arabia-qaeda-terrorism-syria.html> that Sunni extremists might overthrow the monarchy. Turkey fears that the depredations of ISIS on its border will trigger the formation of an independent Kurdish state, which it has opposed vehemently for decades. Iran views ISIS as a Sunni competitor for influence in the region.
To some extent, I believe, all these reports are true. The mess in the Middle East brings to mind the machinations around Swedish intervention in the Thirty Years War between 1627 and 1635, when France’s Cardinal Richelieu paid Sweden’s King Gustavus Adolphus to intervene on the Protestant side in order to weaken France’s Catholic rival Austria. At different times, Protestant Saxony and Catholic Bavaria allied with France, Austria, and each other, respectively. France and Sweden began as allies, briefly became enemies, and then were allies again. Looming over this snake-pit of religious, dynastic, and national rivalries was the figure of Albrecht von Wallenstein, the Austrian generalissimo who twice saved the Empire from defeat at the hands of the Protestants. Wallenstein, commanding a polyglot mercenary army with no national or religious loyalty, played both sides, and Austria had him murdered in 1634.
There is more than coincidence to the parallels between the Middle East today and 17th-century Europe. Iran’s intervention into Syria’s civil conflict inaugurated a new kind of war in the region, the sort that Richelieu practiced in the 1620s. Iran’s war objectives are not national or territorial in the usual sense; rather, the objective is the war itself, that is, the uprooting and destruction of potentially hostile populations. With a third of Syria’s population displaced and several million expelled, the Assad regime has sought to change Syria’s demographics to make the country more congenial to Shiite rule. That in turn elicits a new kind of existential desperation from the Saudis, who are fighting for not only the survival of their sclerotic and corrupt monarchy, but also for the continuation of Sunni life around them. Today Iraq’s Sunnis, including elements of Saddam Hussein’s mainly Sunni army and the 100,000 strong “Sons of Iraq” force hired by then-U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus during the 2007-2008 surge, are making common cause with ISIS. Tomorrow they might be shooting at each other. The expectation that the waves of sectarian and tribal violence that have caused national borders to crumble across the Middle East will die down in 30 years may be both incredibly grim and wildly optimistic.
***
In the background of the region’s disrupted demographics, a great demographic change overshadows the actions of all the contenders. That is decline of Muslim fertility, and the unexpected rise in Jewish fertility. The fall in Muslim birth rate is most extreme in Iran and Turkey, with different but related consequences. When Ayatollah Khomeini took power in 1979, the average Iranian woman had seven children; today the total fertility rate has fallen to just 1.6 children, the sharpest drop in demographic history. Iran still has a young population, but it has no children to succeed them. By mid-century Iran will have a higher proportion of elderly dependents than Europe, an impossible and unprecedented burden for a poor country. Iran’s sudden aging will be followed by Turkey, Algeria, and Tunisia.
<http://cdn1.tabletmag.com/wp-content/files_mf/popover65.png>
Source: U.N. World Population Prospects <http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/unpp/panel_indicators.htm>
Iran’s disappearing fertility is in a sense the Shah’s revenge. Iran is the most literate Muslim country, thanks in large part to an ambitious literacy campaign introduced by the Shah in the early 1970s. As I showed in my book How Civilizations Die (and Why Islam Is Dying, Too), literacy is the best predictor of fertility in the Muslim world: Muslim women who attend high school and university marry late or not at all and have fewer children. This has grave strategic implications, as Iran’s leaders unabashedly discuss.
Between 2005 and 2020, Iran’s population aged 15 to 24, that is, its pool of potential army recruits, will have fallen by nearly half. To put this in perspective, Pakistan’s military-age population will have risen by about half. In 2000, Iran had half the military-age men of its eastern Sunni neighbor; by 2020 it will have one-fourth as many. Iran’s bulge generation of youth born in the 1980s is likely to be its last, and its window for asserting Shiite power in the region will close within a decade.
The Obama Administration wants to contain Iranian aggression by accommodating Iran’s ambitions to become a regional power. As the president told <http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-02/obama-to-israel-time-is-running-out> Bloomberg’s Jeffrey Goldberg in March, “What I’ll say is that if you look at Iranian behavior, they are strategic, and they’re not impulsive. They have a worldview, and they see their interests, and they respond to costs and benefits. And that isn’t to say that they aren’t a theocracy that embraces all kinds of ideas that I find abhorrent, but they’re not North Korea. They are a large, powerful country that sees itself as an important player on the world stage, and I do not think has a suicide wish, and can respond to incentives.” Any deal with Iran is therefore a good deal from Obama’s point of view. But that is precisely wrong: Iran does not have a suicide wish, but it knows that it is dying, and has nothing to lose by rolling the dice today.

POTUSeless

Honestly I don't know where to turn right now, the world is spinning out in so many places. It is of course of no import to the grand scheme whether I'm tracking everything or not, but it is a big deal (it turns out) when the USA can't do it.

I am profoundly unimpressed with the current POTUS, but it is not a partisan or ideological attack I make when I say that he is worse-than useless in his current job. "Worse-than" for a number of reasons, but particularly since leadership of the (still) most powerful nation in the world is a zero-sum game, i.e. if he's occupying the top position nobody more capable can be.

The USA has a number of internal problems, being deeply indebted (mostly to their greatest strategic rival) being one of them, but their ability to project power is still unrivalled. Things would certainly be different on the foreign policy front were G.W. Bush still in charge, but since that can't happen (even if it were advisable and I don't suggest that) would things be any better around the world had Romney won the last Presidential election?

Let's start by enumerating the bigger strategic threats to the US and various other distractions, in descending order.

Threat #3: China's encroachment in the South China Sea and environs

In the big picture this is hugely destabilizing to world trade and the economic development of countries in the region. It is also something only the US Navy can be an effective counterweight to. There was a "pivot to Asia" bruited about recently, but again just saying something doesn't make it true. The Chinese aren't playing around here, and if you want to stop them you’d better be prepared to park a carrier task force over the Spratleys or Paracells, etc. in support of the most legitimate national claim under international law. And use it if push comes to shove.

I rank this one in last place for strategic threats, but it approaches zero if you decide to let the Chinese run the area. There are hundreds of millions of people on that region who would rather that didn't happen, for whatever that's worth.

Threat #2: The Islamic State, formerly Sunni Iraq and eastern Syria

ISIS/L has metastasized into a regional jihadist vortex, drawing in violent Muslim extremists from around the region and increasingly around the globe. They are firewalled in the north by the Kurds and nervously watched from all other points of the compass, the Shia government of rump Iraq and Iran doing the closest thing to heavy lifting right now.

The US didn't want to get involved in Syria, and I don't fault that since we are seeing with the looting of military stores in Mosul a Salafist organization with American military equipment, something widely predicted should the US arm the Syrian rebels. Turns out it happened anyway since the US backed the wrong horse (Maliki) in Iraq.

No however is the time to start whacking those jihadi moles. It's not a free-fire zone but the next best thing which is a great chance to kill a whole lot of assholes the world could really do without. This would be light on boots on the ground but could be used judiciously in support of limited goals, e.g. securing the Jordanian and Kurdish border areas. You support the outposts of civilization in the region but learn the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan and eschew the nation-building part of it. Killing them there prevents them from coming here.

Threat # 1: The Border

Central America is coming apart and people in desperation are sending their children north to the US in belief (well-founded if not technically accurate) that they won't be deported. Obama is trying hard to bury his head in the sand over this one, but with 350,000+ immigration cases backed up in US courts and upwards of 60K unaccompanied minors this year alone fetching up along the Rio Grande things are well out of hand.

Bleeding hearts who would abolish the border (another pesky "social construct" to be wiped out no doubt) have zero grasp of basic math, but let me put this in the starkest terms I can. There are TOO MANY PEOPLE IN THE WORLD. Specifically, there are too many people in the world with lower standards of living than we (working and middle class Westerners) have, about 5 Billion of them. They can't all come to the developed countries or those countries will cease to function as developed countries, and the whole world will look like Nigeria (failing state) or worse.  Think the L.A. from Elysium without the space habitat.

What to do? Start with enforcing the immigration laws already on the books. Then, dismantle the "War on Drugs" and send all those resources into Central America to clean out the root causes of the panic immigration. Bugger going after the drug distribution networks, just shoot-on-sight anyone on the streets with a gun. Go after the guns and kill with extreme prejudice any of the gang-bangers who want to fight it out. The US can put together intelligence cells to track insurgent groups better than anyone else, and I can make a case that stabilizing Central America (and ceasing to fuck with Mexico) would do more for the medium to long-term security of the US than the Middle East, possibly even China..

Distractions

1. Ukraine is setting into a counter-insurgency phase and at the moment (some rumours aside) the Russians have backed off. As I hypothesized a while back, Putin has taken the low-hanging fruit (Crimea) but realizes that the Donbas is more trouble than it's worth. This keeps things on NATO's radar, but it is now mostly a European problem.
2. Africa. There is a persistent Ebola (variant) outbreak in West Africa which deserves having an eye kept on it, and the continent is still awash in jihadi groups (AQIM, and Boko Haram the most visible) who need pruning.
3. Afghan elections/final drawdown/status of forces. Karzai's out, but the squabbling commences over alleged fraud and run-offs.

The big and the small all require leadership, the sort that believes in what they're doing. Since Obama only objective was to dismantle US power projection he's largely managed that, but it doesn't really get troops or the population rallying around the flag for some dirty work overseas, or even in your own back yard.  Romney is looking prescient for his attitude toward Russia, even if I disagree on the threat Russia really presents to us.  More of a mystery is domestic politics, but we know Romney knos how to run things so I really think he was the President the US needed, but instead they got the one they deserve.  Do better next time America, for you own sake as well as the world.

 

Don't Look a Gift Airstrike in the Targeting Package

There is always a time when it is better to keep your mouth shut, and for the Americans this is one of those times.

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki of Iraq has told the BBC he supports an air strike on Islamist militants at a border crossing between Iraq and Syria.

Military and rebel sources say the strike took place inside Iraq, at the Qaim crossing, although Mr Maliki said it was carried out on the Syrian side.

I didn't find it in a quick look on the interwebs, but the US government has actually complained about Syria hitting ISIL/S  positions in Iraq, although it seems that it was a border position so it may or may not have been in Iraq proper.  Regardless, it doesn't mean that you have to (or want to) take sides with either Assad or Iran, but like it or not ISIL is by far the greater threat to all concerned. 

There was another interesting article (not surprising) about how cheap it is to mount a terrorist attack.  This was written in the context of ISIL having millions of dollars in cash (at least $82M) and the potential mayhem which could be financed with that.  Certainly this is of interest to pretty much everyone, and anything which attrits ISIL strength and resources is a step to the good.

What is not widely considered in this situation is that the US has other tools to use against trans-national entities, particularly the financial system.  I understand bombs and operations, but I confess ignorance as to the intricacies of tracking money movements, it suffices for me to know that unless you're moving bags of cash via courier computers can track you.

The "so what?" of this is that while America has a hard time picking a dog in this fight, they should walk softly and carry the big stick.  Time will come to start swinging said stick, but until then they should work in the background (as I hope that they are) throttling cashflows out of ISIL Iraq and let the local players sort each other out.

This approach pre-supposes a coherent foreign policy from the USA, and I haven't seen anything like that, at least not a functional one, during this administration.  Were I running the show, I'd backchannel Iran and set some Lines of Control, e.g. no Iranians west of X, no Americans east of X.  With some ground rules, you don't have to co-ordinate with your "enemies" and risk of escalation/expansion is greatly reduced.

Whatever.  Iraq looks to be devolving into provinces, but with the Ottomans no more whose provinces exactly is the question.  The obvious answer for rump Iraq (Shia) is Iran (most of the way there already), the Sunni area most likely a dysfunctional no-go area for the time being, but Kurdistan looks like it might just make it.  They already have trading relations with Israel (oil), which gives them the better part of an alliance with the most-effective and tech-savvy military in the region, and tourism and investment are both looking good.  The Kurds not being Arabs and having been kicked around by both Arabs and Persians have much in common with Israel, and there is some hope there.

It's an ill wind as blows no-one some good (as they say) so (mixed metaphor alert) let's hope someone makes lemonade from this mess.

Status of Farces

If Syria wasn't enough proof that there's no pleasing the Arab world, we have this:

Iraq's military is awaiting President Obama's decision on air strikes.
On Wednesday, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Martin Dempsey, warned that the US military still lacked sufficient intelligence to take action. He told a congressional hearing that pilots would have difficulty knowing who they were attacking from the air.

Asked if the intervention might come too late, Gen Dempsey said: "There is very little that could have been done to overcome the degree to which the government of Iraq has failed its people. That is what has caused this problem." 

ISIS has exploited deep resentment among Iraq's minority Sunni Arabs, who have long accused Mr Maliki of discriminating against them and monopolising power.

A spokesman for Mr Maliki's Dawa party, Zuhair al-Nahar, said the prime minister had met Sunni Arab and Kurdish leaders and that they had "come out in a united stand".
"My message from all the leaders in Iraq is that they feel abandoned, that they want America, Europe, the UN, to take immediate action to rectify the military situation," he told the BBC.

Context is important here.  Al-Maliki is of course the man the US propped up (before Iran took that over) as leader of Iraq, and the same man, likely under Iranian influence, who refused to ratify a Status of Forces agreement which would maintain a US military presence in Iraq.  When you sow the wind...

The situation in Iraq is immediately dire, but as shown in advance of the Anbar Awakening, Salafist groups like Al-Queda rapidly wear out their welcome through oppressive lifestyle rules backed up by summary maimings, executions and overall thuggish behaviour.  From all accounts this current version, ISIS/L is the worst of the worst of that ilk, but with a bunch of temporary allies who will likely splinter away before too long.

ISIS' recent successes are clear evidence of the superiority of morale in warfare.  While it may not be the 3-1 vs materiel of Napoleon's aphorism, the wholesale collapse of Iraqi Army forces shows that it is a factor.  In fact, all other things being even approximately equal, it is the dominant factor.  No amount or quality of armaments will win the day for you if you cut and run.

Where things are relatively equal, good troops will hold their ground and sharp commanders will exploit opportunities, as the Kurds have done in Kirkuk.  I have no dog in this fight, but as I've said before, if "we" should support anyone there it should be the Kurds.  The Kurdistan can of worms is already open, particularly since the Syrian civil war.  They and the Turks seem to be approaching some sort of stability, and overall look to be building a decent sort of country. 

A sensible American foreign policy would have them helping people who like them, particularly as countries like that are in short supply these days.  With that fantasy out of the way, what will Obama decide to do?  Leaving aside the internal constitutionality of the President unilaterally committing military forces to foreign wars (since that seems to be the defacto situation), This is NOT Syria, and there is a side to back.  As the Kurds are also looking after refugees from Mosul, helping them also has a humanitarian dimension.  I don't know what Obama's dithering will eventaully produce, but American forces would have secure bases in Iraqi Kurdistan.  I'd start with A-10s and Apaches with associated FACs (Forward Air Controllers) and develop the situation from there.  The time for that to start was last week but it's not too late to make a difference.

As for the "rest" of Iraq, Gotterdammerung approaches.  The Sunni minority is for the moment aligned, will they or nil they, with ISIS.  This at least is the perception of the Shia majority, and perception is reality in situations like this.  At this point the only real question is the magnitude of the bloodbath.  There is not anything realistic the international community can do to prevent that, but mitigation is certainly possible.

The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend, but at least a less-pressing threat; here I refer to Iran.  The US is talking to them, a good thing in general, but why do I just know that the US will not manage to improve the overall situation through these contacts and common interests?  I'd like to blame this on the hardliners in the Iranian government, but...

No-one can say what things would look like in the region had the US not overthrown Saddam Hussein, but without doubt Syria was at least an indirect result of that action.  The current Iraq situation is 100% due to the situation in Syria, including the fact that ISIS had run up against too much opposition in Syria.  The low-hanging fruit of the disgruntled Sunni minority in Iraq beckoned, and since nature abhors a power vacuum, in they swept. 

As mentioned earlier, the current ISIS/Baath/Sunni coalition likely has a short half-life, I'll go with my gut and say that it'll start to crack within the next month even without external intervention.  This will be affected of course by countervailing influences of a sectarian civil war with the Shia, so moderate (reasonable) Sunnis are between a rock and a hard place for sure.  What suggests itself to me from this is to carve out a safe area contiguous with the Kurdish area for Sunni refugees.  The Kurds are the linchpin of any kind of security/stability in the region and hopefully that is realized (not rocket science; I came up with it after all) and more importantly, acted on.

 

Geopolitical whack-a-mole

I've let this languish for a while, but things are getting interesting again, so time to take a closer look.

Things are on "simmer" in the Ukraine with some signs that the Russians have decided that the low-hanging fruit has fallen (Crimea) and Donetsk has hit the point of diminishing returns.  Trends at this point look like Putin has withdrawn support, or at least most of it, from the militias in east Ukraine and will use them as a tacit bargaining chip with the new government.  In the meantime, NATO tries, still, to figure out what to do about the whole thing.

 Could be a good time for another "Reset" button; the US and Canada (especially Canada for some reason) are out of sync with our continental allies (and the French, not part of NATO) in terms of how to deal with Putin and Russia.  My prescription for the situation is to continue with the tripwire reassurance measures we are taking with our eastern NATO members, but cease the "containment" or expansion efforts into what Russia considers its' sphere of interest/near abroad. Russia these days should be a European problem, time for them to step up and shift some assets east.

Just as well that things are off the boil there, as things in both south-east Asia and the Mid-East are getting hotter.  China is really pushing its' egregious claims to the entire South China Sea+ and is not far from a shooting war with Vietnam over that oil rig in the Spratley Islands.  If there is a group who won't knuckle under to China in the region it's Vietnam; they've given their (much) bigger neighbour a bloody nose more than once and that's not the sort of thing China forgets.  That said, Japan remains the only regional power with a navy which can challenge the People's Liberation Army Navy, but only locally.  To really stand up to the PLAN the US Navy is essential to the regional players.

Pivot to Asia?  So far I don't see it or there'd be a couple of carrier groups cruising around the contested areas daring the Chinese to try something.

At this time of course arrives the whirlwind sown by the US when it knocked over Saddam Hussein.  ISIL, the Islamic State in the Levant, Al-Queda's bastard spawn from Syria, has routed the Iraqi army from Mosul, Tikrit and Falluja in the most embarrassing possible way and taken, at least temporarily those cities and some lesser ones beside.  The threatened march on Baghdad will be stopped, by Iran if need be, and this upsets almost every apple cart in the region, but it's an ill wind which doesn't blow anyone some good.  This exception, and the only probable (maybe even only possible) salvation for Mosul and northern Iraq are the Kurds. 

The possibility of apocalyptic (for the region) sectarian civil war is a distinct one, as this could be "warre to the knife" between Sunni and Shia.  The evaporation of the (Shia) Iraqi army in the north has allowed the Peshmerga to roll into and occupy Kirkuk, and it's unlikely that Baghdad will get it back.  The Kurds will likely build their Kurdistan while the Sunni and Shia Arabs kill each other.  If however it is necessary for the US to support a reliable party in the area, the Kurds are the only game in town.

Obama is again talking, but you can't claim that "everything's on the table" and then instantly say that there will be no US troops on the ground.  ISIL has no chance to create a caliphate out of their recent gains, but they have done a lot of damage and won't go down without a fight.  This isn't time for half-measures.  This is time for Green Berets and smart-bombs, with the Peshmerga as the new Northern Alliance; you have problems, I offer solutions.  Now we see what kind of half-assery Obama can come up with for all of these situations.

Better the devil you know...

Completely and totally predictable, inevitable even:

"There were always Christians in Qusayr -- there were around 10,000 before the war," says Leila, the matriarch of the Khouri clan. Currently, 11 members of the clan are sharing two rooms. They include the grandmother, grandfather, three daughters, one husband and five children. "Despite the fact that many of our husbands had jobs in the civil service, we still got along well with the rebels during the first months of the insurgency." The rebels left the Christians alone. The Christians, meanwhile, were keen to preserve their neutrality in the escalating power struggle. But the situation began deteriorating last summer, Leila says, murmuring a bit more before going silent.

"We're too frightened to talk," her daughter Rim explained, before mustering the courage to continue. "Last summer Salafists came to Qusayr, foreigners. They stirred the local rebels against us," she says. Soon, an outright campaign against the Christians in Qusayr took shape. "They sermonized on Fridays in the mosques that it was a sacred duty to drive us away," she says. "We were constantly accused of working for the regime. And Christians had to pay bribes to the jihadists repeatedly in order to avoid getting killed."

This is about Syria of course, but it can be any Muslim-majority country anywhere in the world as soon as the non-Muslim minorities lose protection. Assad, being from a religious minority himself was the only protection the Christians, Alawis and Druze had from the influx of Salafist idiots who pop up like mushrooms as soon as repressive but stable regimes start falling. Iraq, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, now Syria are seeing the same pattern as al Queda and others rush to exploit the ensuing power vacuums resultant from the respective regime changes.

Solutions? Bullets and Hellfires again I'm afraid, as there is no reasoning with fanatics. The Americans will grease the skids for the jihadis as they have since Iran in 1979 with lamentably predictable results for anyone who doesn't want to live in a dystopian throwback to the imagined "golden age of Islam" of the 6-7th C; in practical terms "the Stone Age" as mentioned in the linked Spiegel article.

I previously suggested setting up border enclaves for the Christians and Druze, and the Golan Heights would serve this purpose well. If Israel will offer citizenship to any non-Muslims who want to re-settle there, they will have a chance to do-over the South Lebanon buffer zone to protect themselves from Hezbollah and whatever Syria metastasizes to post-Assad. It also would strengthen Israel's de-facto annexation of Golan, and in the zero-sum world of the Middle East that which makes Israel stronger makes worse groups (pretty much everyone in the immediate neighbourhood) weaker.

Of course I don't know anything about Muslims so it's all paranoid right-wing fantasy that they drive out everyone who won't knuckle under to them, right? Sorry Genie, the real world isn't what they teach in school these days (if it ever was, to be fair) and Anglo-Saxon males and/or the USA are not the authors of all the ills of the world.

The 11th plague of Egypt?

Holy fuck, here we go:

CTVNews.ca Staff

Date: Sunday Jun. 24, 2012 10:42 AM ET

Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood has defeated former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq in the Egyptian presidential runoff election.

The country's election commission declared Morsi the winner of Egypt's first free elections by a narrow margin over Shafiq, the last prime minister under deposed leader Hosni Mubarak.

The commission said Morsi won with 51.7 per cent of the vote versus 48.3 for Shafiq.

A lot has been said about what will happen with the Arab world's most populous country under the thumb of the Salafists, but I will add my mite to it. I don't have anything original to add to this, but when big bad things happen I should at least acknowledge them.

While I'm here, the mess in Syria is getting more so (messy) especially with them shooting down that Turkish F4 recce plane a few days ago. Turkey is meeting with NATO under Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty while the Syrians strenuously deny any hostile intent. This is as well, as the Turks would smash what is left of Assad's military in short order, and it's possible that Turkey is looking for an excuse to do so. It is unlikely that this will go to Article 5 (an attack on one is an attack on all), but the Turks don't need any help if they decide to go for it.

Lots of fun in the Mediterranean, slightly more than average potential for widespread mayhem in fact. If the Ikwhan manage to implement their entire platform in Egypt, particularly the "kill all the Jews" part there will be a good time had by all. This is facetious of course and possibly misleading, as even a united and motivated Egyptian Army has no chance against Israel and they know it.

As I write this it is still possible that the Egyptian Army will pull an Algeria a la 1991 and say "no, we don't think so" to Islamists running the place. This didn't work so well there (though the gov't/military won in the end) so all bets are off. The only prediction I'm comfortable standing behind right now is that things are unlikely to be boring over there. For the record, "exciting" is not something you want too much of in your life if you're most people, and most people are.

Watch and shoot...

Demographic Adjustment

I was going to go with something about Syria, how the UN and a number of countries have finally decided that slaughtering your civilians in a reign of terror to uphold your regime is a "bad thing", but what's the point?  Gaddaffi was thrown over for much less, the only reason I can see being European economic (oil) interests and a complete lack of understanding of the internal dynamics of Libya.  Since Syria has no oil worth mentioning and Assad is inexplicably given a pass in the international community as a "reformer", I guess his timing was good on this one to capitalize on the intervention fatigue which has come in wake of Libya.

Hmm, looks like I'm talking about this anyway. I'd like to say that this is what happens when I start writing without a plan, but sometimes it happens even with one.  To take this topic as far as I can now see a point in doing, perhaps people did in fact learn something about knocking over the strongman leaders of cobbled-together states.  This could explain the lack of definitive action vs. Assad, but that gives too much credit to institutions which have failed to learn from pretty-much anything else in recent and more remote history.  The disintegration of Libya for example has already spawned an Islamist/Tuareg takeover of half of neighbouring Mali, a direct result of that conflict.

Tito and Yugoslavia, anyone?  Not exactly ancient history and there are plenty more where that came from.  There are no neat endings/answers short of forcible partition (a la Kosovo, as bad an example as that is) so what else do we have?  As always there is lots going on under rocks of various sizes the world over but I am finding myself to be caring less and less about it.  Posing problems without solutions (or at least management) is not my style, and I honestly don't know what to expect in Syria. 

Given the resources I would chop it up I guess, but there's no winning in that part of the world short of some Old Testament ethnic cleansing.  One of my recent posts noted the willingness of a large part of Egyptian society to do this to Israel, but Arabs have been trying to re-do what the Romans did nearly 2000 years ago without success for 60+ years so it's almost boring (from this distance anyway) now.

One thing I have to say is that I'm becoming fond of the idea of a few hardcore Islamic states popping up in certain places.  My rationale is that this gives you something that you can attack as it concentrates terrorist idiots wonderfully.  Northern Mali? A good opportunity to kill a bunch of guys the world will not lament passing; it worked in Iraq and it's working to some extent in Somalia and Yemen right now so it's not without precedent.

And this takes us to Diversity as a policy.  It doesn't work.  People don't like "us" all that much, they REALLY don't like "them" in any quantity too near them.  This is as politically incorrect as all get-out, but it's a demonstrable fact.  The divide can be racial, though far more often it's religious/ideological/cultural, and the more of those differences you combine the worse the animosity is.  The answer to this would seem to be "split them up" would it not?  Yes, but...

People are even in our "enlightened" age essentially tribal and will almost always at least temporarily expand their "us" net to sweep in those with relatively minor differences when faced with a real "other".  Subdividing people too much would destroy these accommodations, so as much as I think maps need to be redrawn, more consideration and less zeal needs to be brought to bear on the process.  And yes, moving people around is the best way to accomplish this effectively (Greece and Turkey in the 1920s).

Back to Syria to close things out, here's a proposal: carve away a section for the Alawites, Christians and Druze along the Lebanese/Israeli border, leave the Sunnis the rest of it, maybe taking off the NE corner as a contribution to "Kurdistan".  Lots of hardship associated with this and a lot of other problems (Turkey's reaction to the Kurdistan idea not the least of them) but you know, omelets, eggs, etc.

Arab Spring, Jewish Winter

There wasn't a lot to say in defence of the previous Middle-Eastern regimes which were overthrown last year, but a certain stability can be said, and in practical terms that counts for a lot.  Not only from the perspective of the Powers that be, but for people on the ground who although they aspired to a new system are now finding themselves nostalgic for the old bosses.

That is the case in Tunisia for example, and some people in Libya (although the latter are not likely to have wanted a change in the first place), but Egypt is a different story.  I don't have a lot to say about this since it speaks for itself.  This is from a rally held by the new Islamist government:

Safwat Higazi : We can see how the dream of the Islamic Caliphate is being realized, Allah willing, by Dr. Muhammad Mursi and his brothers, his supporters, and his political party. We can see how the great dream, shared by us all - that of the United States of the Arabs... The United States of the Arabs will be restored, Allah willing. The United States of the Arabs will be restored by this man and his supporters.
The capital of the Caliphate - the capital of the United States of the Arabs - will be Jerusalem, Allah willing.
[...]
Safwat Higazi : Our capital shall not be Cairo, Mecca, or Medina. It shall be Jerusalem, Allah willing. Our cry shall be: "Millions of martyrs march toward Jerusalem." Millions of martyrs march toward Jerusalem.
Crowds : Millions of martyrs march toward Jerusalem.
Crowds : Millions of martyrs march toward Jerusalem.
Safwat Higazi : Millions of martyrs march toward Jerusalem.
Crowds : Millions of martyrs march toward Jerusalem.
Ceremony leader : Banish the sleep from the eyes of all Jews.
Come on, you lovers of martyrdom, you are all Hamas.
From the eyes of all Jews...
Come on, you lovers of martyrdom, you are all Hamas.
Banish the sleep from the eyes of all Jews.
Come on, you lovers of martyrdom, you are all Hamas.
Forget about the whole world, forget about all the conferences.
Brandish your weapons... Say your prayers...
Brandish your weapons... Say your prayers...
And pray to the Lord.
From the eyes of all Jews...
Come on, you lovers of martyrdom...
Banish the sleep from the eyes of all Jews.
Come on, you lovers of martyrdom, you are all Hamas.
[...] 

If that doesn't tell you what the Muslim Brotherhood is all about there's nothing that will.  All the aspiring democrats who demonstrated in Tahir Square last year now have these clowns, who make a significant majority of the Egyptian population, to deal with.  Oh yes, this hope and change thing is working fantastically.  Nice work again, America: making the world safe for the return of the Caliphate one expediently abandoned ally at a time.

Paying the bus you throw your allies under

The Obama administration intends to resume funding for Egypt’s military, despite congressional restrictions and objections from human rights and democracy advocates.

For months, the money for Egypt — more than $1.5 billion, with the bulk earmarked for the military — has been withheld amid that country’s crackdown on pro-democracy groups, including several U.S.-based organizations with close ties to political parties in Washington.

A law passed by Congress in December forbids funding unless the State Department certifies that Egypt is making progress on basic freedoms and human rights.

But Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is close to announcing plans to bypass those restrictions on national security grounds, according to senior administration officials and others who have been briefed on the deliberations but were not authorized to speak publicly. The administration believes failure to provide the funds would risk worsening already fraying ties with Egypt’s leaders, most notably the Egyptian military, which still controls the country.

At least I'm far from being alone in thinking that this is a bad idea. Warts and all, Mubarak was the Americans' only reason to fund the Egyptian military, as he took Sadat's baton of peace with Israel and carried it for 30 years. Once again the USA has abandoned an immediately politically inconvenient (and admittedly at least partially despotic) ally to forces inimical to America's national interests.

This is the trajectory of last year's "Arab Spring", and the 1979 Iran (Islamic) revolution should provide a model for what is likely to come in most of these countries. The Egyptians won't start another war with Israel (outcome is certain anyway) but they can be miserable and descend into a factional Islamist terrorist-supporting state.

The idea that the US will maintain any useful influence with the Egyptian power structure is wishful thinking at best, putting arms into the hands of people who will use them against you and your interests at worst. Oh well, it's not like they haven't done it before; there is that old saw about doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results...

Yes, I've not been up to too much here and at times I feel badly about that. However (and I know I've said this before) it often feels that I've nothing new to say. Anyway, I'm less busy than I have been for the last couple of months so there will likely be more from me here. You have been warned...

Pick a Flashpoint, any Flashpoint...

The one prediction I'll make for 2012 is that it probably won't start out boring. Taking the Mediterranean/Middle East/South Asia alone, there is unrest and tension from the Pillars of Hercules to North Korea. Algeria is a barely contained powder keg, Libya is a disaster waiting for extremists to take over, and Islamists are posed to or have taken power in Tunisia and Egypt. That's just North Africa.

Moving into the Med, the Turks are firing into the sea adjacent to Cypriot/Israeli gas developments and one of their sabre waving exercises will likely result in an armed confrontation with Israel unless they back off. That gets interesting, as Turkey is still a NATO country,and Article 5 of the North Atlantic Charter would compel Canada and most of Europe as well as the USA to come to Turkey's aid. In practice I don't see that happening, but the Israelis have too much at stake to let the Turks push them around, so Turkey either backs away or there's a regional war.

NATO's involvement in Afghanistan is winding down, and Pakistan is moving firmly into the "enemy" camp as it destabilizes (further), so lots of potential for mayhem. I skipped Iran, but moving back to them, a lot of people are trying to figure out what game they're trying to play right now. The talk about closing the straits of Hormuz is madness and must be for domestic consumption. Even at that it's messed up, as the Iranians know damned well that even the fading US could hand them their ass in less than a day, leave off what the Gulf Sates and Israel would do to them.

Smashing Iranian military power would not be difficult, and since no-one's even thinking of invading the place I see no upside to them playing tough. Perhaps they got overly bold after bringing in that US drone, in which case some serious questions need to be asked about who is in charge of what in Iran these days. Flaunting (distant) pictures of a US carrier group is not even close to being able to seriously threaten it, so bad decisions abound in Tehran these days.

So, get your money and place your bets. I haven't even mentioned the looming holy war in Nigeria, but think of it as a cross between the Lebanese Civil War with the mess that was/is Iraq, with a population of 160M people. To be more local, any Sierra Leone/Liberia etc. machete-waving necklacing atrocity-fest on a massive scale. Oh yeah, and Sudan is bombing South Sudan already...

Lots to look forward to, and I've only hit the most obvious stuff. Hopefully your New Year doesn't involve any of these places, but in any event, the best of luck.

The ICC hands Gaddafi a shovel, and the IDF to the frontiers

Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Col Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and intelligence chief Abdullah al-Sanussi bore the greatest responsibility for "widespread and systematic attacks" on civilians.

ICC judges must still decide whether or not to issue warrants for their arrest.

The Libyan government has already said it will ignore the announcement.

Deputy Foreign Minister Khalid Kaim said the court was a "baby of the European Union designed for African politicians and leaders" and its practices were "questionable".

Libya did not recognise its jurisdiction, like a few other African countries and the United States, he added.

It was only a matter of time for this of course. Although there are lots of places Gaddafi's money would let him go safely, the more the EU closes off options for him the more he'll dig in. If he has nowhere (decent) to go without getting hounded by hypocritical European lawyers, his motivation to retire quietly is approaching zero if it's not already there.

Not a whole lot more to say about that, but there is this today as well:

Majdal al Shams, Israeli Golan

Israeli forces on high alert for Nakba Day, Sunday, May 15, failed to seal three national borders on the Golan, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip against large-scale incursions. Dozens of Syrians and Hizballah invaders were able to overrun the Israeli Golan village of Majd al Shams and hoist Syrian and Palestinian flags in the main square; Hizballah-sponsored Palestinian demonstrators breached the Lebanese-Israeli border and damaged IDF installations; and hundreds of Palestinians battered the Erez crossing from the Gaza Strip.

Debka has a very Israeli perspective on this, but the facts are not in dispute. Round two will be interesting to watch, but I'm sure the Israelis can't fail to see what will happen to them if they're soft again. The c. 700,000 Palestinians who got themselves kicked off their land 50 years ago are now pushing 5 million, drawing even with the Jewish population of Israel. Like it or not, Israel's only way to survive in any recognizable state (and preserve the life of most of its' residents) is to build a wall around itself and shoot to kill. Fire Mission Regiment, linear, prox in effect...

There are lots of young Arabs who want to die, time for them to ante up I guess. Hopefully the more sensible ones can keep away from the idiots wherever they may be and ride out this "Arab Spring". I wonder what the Summer will look like.