All against all, or at least some.

I’ve let the blog languish again, as happens when I can’t be bothered to write what I’m thinking about things.  Often that happens because it’s the same shit, often even the same pile, over and over again.  Today I am inspired enough by my prescience to comment upon a particular shit show.

 

 

The Da’esh debacle in Syria/Iraq continues, and although they have been (mostly) contained and in some places pushed back, a decisive victory over them, even if one could define what that was, remains out of the question.

 

 

I proposed a viable strategy for the situation some months ago, specifically to bolster the Kurds and with them the terrorized religious minorities (Christians, Yazidis specifically) in the area.  While “our side” may not have anything I can recognize as an active strategy, the other players in the neighbourhood certainly know their interests and act, as much as they can, in those interests.

To situate things, here are the major power/interest blocs according to me:
 

·         Iran/Damascus/Hezbollah/Baghdad: Iran is the underpinning and sole hope of victory for the Shia factions in the region.  Assad gets some support from Russia, but without Tehran he would have been out of business a long time ago.  Iranian Quds Force have trained and supported Assad’s troops, as they have done the same for Iraq’s Shia militias.  Without Iran. Da’esh would have run roughshod over the rest of Iraq and taken Bagdad and who knows what else.

·         House of Saud/Jordan/non-Da’esh Iraqi Sunnis/Lebanon (minus Hezbollah)/Israel: if nothing else points out how tangled this gets, this grouping does.  I say the Saudi royal family instead of Saudi Arabia proper, as I’m certain that Da’esh has some significant support in the hoi-polloi; not a majority to be sure, but support is there.  I don’t know what proportion of Sunni tribes in the “Sunni Triangle” have held out against Da’esh, but any that have likely had support from Saudi.   Jordan was on the fence until Da’esh burned their pilot alive, but now they’re bombing the shit out of them (“the shit” is assumed; I have no BDA).  The Lebanese Army has skirmished with Da’esh (and likely al-Nusra as well) but they are not known as a formidable fighting force.  However, due to the severity of the threat to the country as a whole, Saudi is paying for $3Bn worth of armaments (from France) to boost up the Army’s capacity.  As for Israel, they’re low on Da’esh’s priority list (Hezbollah is higher) but they left to their own devices would be a problem for Israel eventually.

·         “Kurdistan”/anyone who isn’t a Da’esh compatible Sunni (includes religious minorities): This is the group without any major patronage, but also the only group(s) I think we should be directly helping.  The Kurds are pretty secular, socialist in some cases, and despite their internal divisions they are the best bet for a functional country out of that entire mess.

·         Sidelines/Wildcards: Turkey is the biggest question mark here.  They have tense relations with the Kurds (improving, but still fraught) and have been accused to helping or at least turning a blind eye to Da’esh recruiting and logistics.  I think they are letting Da’esh bleed the Kurds to weaken them, but with Erdrogan’s Islamic proclivities (e.g. support for Hamas) I’m not certain that’s all that’s going on.  Russia is keeping an oar in too, basically to put that oar in “our” spokes by keeping the region unstable.   

 

If one is being as objective as possible, few countries outside of the region have any real interest in what happens, but the nature of this is that the affected area will spread, and in fact hat is happening.  I could add to the above groups Egypt, as our brilliant intervention in Libya a few years back has allowed Da’esh to take root there.  Libya makes Da’esh a direct threat to Europe as well as much of Africa, and if Al Queda in Yemen decides to switch over and gains traction, that’s the Arabian peninsula and East Africa. 

Most of these regions have indigenous Salafist groups (Boko Haram, AQIM, Al-Shabab) so in some ways this just puts a different name on an existing problem, but it’s a whole lot of moles to whack. I’d say it’s time to sort out some spheres of influence with players like Iran, but TELL them what they will be and enforce it. 

Specifically, Iraq as a country is history, much the same can be said for Syria.  The Saudis are concerned about a “Shia Crescent” from Iran to Lebanon, but exactly what they can do about it is questionable.  I could suggest that Saudi and Jordan act together to redraw their borders to take in the Sunni areas of western Iraq, but I’m sure there are many practical reasons not to do that, and a lot of them likely tribal.

All we can (and should) do is to help establish a viable Kurdistan, one that can stand against all comers.  This will piss off the Turks, but they aren’t our allies anymore in anything more than name so I’m not inclined to care.  I would go so far as to say that it’s in Turkey’s interest to shed some Kurdish territory to this end, but of course that will never happen.  Iran will likely have some issues with this too, but I’m even less inclined to worry about that. 

How much blood and treasure Western countries should put into keeping Da’esh down is difficult to answer.  Obviously the people directly affected should be doing the heavy lifting, but how much and what kind of help should we provide?  I would say more than we are now, and more importantly WE MUST HAVE A COHERENT PLAN for whatever we commit.  A sound strategy, the right force mix, and the Saudis paying the bills are the keys to our optimal (realistic) end state.   

 

On the current trajectory the big winners are Assad, Iran and Hezbollah.  That group alone should cause sensible people on the West to want to engineer a better (for us) outcome. Not going to happen of course, so I guess we'll just watch and see what does.  

Make a desert and call it peace

The IDF is hip-deep in Gaza again, and just like last time there is no real end in sight:

The bitter fighting in the Shejaiya neighbourhood in the eastern part of Gaza City, which has caused heavy civilian casualties and the deaths of some 13 Israeli soldiers, could mark a turning point in this crisis.

That, sadly, does not necessarily mean that the conflict has reached its peak.

The Israeli military still believes that it has more of its mission to complete.

Indeed, Hamas fighters may be emboldened by their ability to inflict pain on the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and they too may not want an immediate halt.

But the fact that the battle has moved into a heavily-populated urban area with reports in some cases of house-to-house fighting means that the civilian death toll will rise markedly.

With it will come added pressure from outside to end the operation once and for all.

The "pull back to the 1967 borders" two-state solution is the default position of the UN, but the current fighting is an example of what Israel has to look forward to if they do that. Gaza was vacated by Israel in 2005, and the reward for that has been constant terrorism from the "liberated" territory.

I 100% guarantee that if the Palestinians stopped trying to kill them and behaved like civilized neighbours (see Jordan for an example) public opinion in Israel would swing away from the ultra-Zionist settlers and find compromise on territorial issues. 1967 borders aren't going to happen (Syria ain't getting the Golan back and East Jerusalem probably isn't going anywhere) but trade would normalize and some permanent borders could be agreed on.

"[E]nd the operation once and for all" huh? There is only one way that would happen, and the current term for that is a choice between "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide". In any other age if a more powerful nation had a neighbour like Hamas, the entire population would be put to the sword to remove an existential threat. That's the only way to solve a problem like this, as Ender Wiggen could tell you.

As the linked article states, there are a lot of differences between this operation and the last one (Cast Lead) in 2009. Hamas' weaponry has upgraded across the board, from longer range rockets which can reach pretty much all of Israel to cutting-edge anti-armour weapons in the street fighting. The former is unacceptable, the latter a tactical problem which will increase Israeli casualties, and might under other circumstances have curtailed what is essentially a punitive raid.

What completely changes the game are the infiltration tunnels radiating out from Gaza. The purpose of these is as sally ports to run attack and kidnap groups out into Israel. The blatantly murderous intent these display is something no government could ignore (and expect to survive), and Netanyahu has a real challenge on his hands.

If relations with Egypt were actually good (although they aren't terrible at present) Israel could co-ordinate with them for a set of huge transient camps, and push the entire population out of Gaza long enough to search and destroy any jihadi/Hamas types who really want to fight (read: die) and more importantly, the entire arsenal and all of the tunnels. If you're not allowed to kill them all, you can certainly cripple their ability to hurt you, it's just a question of how much of the latter the IDF can accomplish this time around.

International, especially UN, pressure to cease operations is unlikely to sway the Israeli government (or people) as Israel has few friends there and those friends still have their back. Any slackening of pressure strengthens Hamas' position, so now we wait and see who blinks first. Whatever happens, it won't be "once and for all".

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.

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.

They could make a lot of glass with all that sand...

America has always feared that a nuclear Iran would lead to a Middle Eastern arms race. Speaking at a regional security forum in Riyadh earlier this week, Saudi Arabia’s Prince Turki Al-Faisal (former ambassador to the US and intelligence chief) stepped up the pressure. The NYT reports:

Prince Turki said at the forum on Monday that an Iranian quest for nuclear weapons and Israel’s presumed nuclear arsenal might force Saudi Arabia to follow suit…
“It is our duty toward our nation and people to consider all possible options, including the possession of these weapons,” Prince Turki was quoted as saying.

In case anyone had any lingering doubts about the characteristics of America's fade from the World Policeman role, this will give an indication. It is however the logical result of previous and current US and international policy toward hard-case regimes around the world.

North Korea figured this out a long time ago, and the mere suspicion that they might have (lot of qualifiers here) functional nukes will keep the merely pushy or adventurous away from military action. Libya cut a deal a few years back and relinquished "all" their WMD, particularly the nuclear aspects. We can see how well that worked for Qaddafi, and for Saddam Hussein before him, and the lesson to Iran was clear: proliferate or die.

Iran's nuclear program has taken some knocks of late, but nothing short of a massive and carefully targeted air attack and/or a suicidal Special Forces attack on the tunnel complexes that hide it will stop it in the medium term. In the long run anything can be rebuilt, but it's pointless to worry about that with the current problems we face.

I didn't predict the Saudis wanting nukes, but it didn't surprise me when I read it. The Saudis want them for standard deterrence purposes, so they don't fall into my "despot fail safe" pattern above. The US still has their back, but that too could change and the Saudis play the Monarchical long game. If things go totally off the rails and we see a Mid East nuclear arms race, I REALLY can't predict where that will go. Not that I can usually predict anything in particular; if I could do that I'd be getting paid for this.

Pakistan is falling apart, and you can be sure the Americans won't get all of their nukes when the centre completely fails to hold. There are a number of places with money who could buy some through existing contacts, and I would be shocked if feelers were not already extended.

It will never happen, but an ideal stop-gap deterrence for the Saudis already exists: Israel. It would be domestic politics suicide for the House of Saud, but I'm sure the Israelis could (for significant financial inducement) "rent" an extension of their nuclear umbrella against a common foe. Israel is already strategic depth for the Saudis whether it's intended or not, regardless of what the Americans may guarantee the Saudis in the future.

Here's my AotF strategic calculus to get that result. Iran's government and a good slice of the population hates Israel, (for no good historical reason, but no matter) and Israel takes this seriously. I am assuming a great deal with this next bit, but if Iran attacked Saudi Arabia, I can't see Israel standing idly by. This would likely take the form of opportunistic attacks on Iranian targets through Saudi airspace. The reason this might happen is that Saudi is the closest thing Israel has to an ally in the region since Turkey flaked out. There is some affinity with the Kurds, but that isn't going to be a strategic asset to Israel in the near future.

Conversely, if Iran nukes Israel the Saudis will have lost a de facto ally and it will be completely up to the (now) unpredictable Americans to save Saudi bacon from Iran. This is the strategic depth I was taking about; the advantage to the Saudis in keeping Israel around is that they have a lot of skin in the game, whereas the Americans could decide they don't care what happens between Iran and Saudi.

Even two years ago it would be unthinkable that the Americans would abandon the Saudis, but perceived National Interest can change quickly. For the time being, anyone attacking Israel can count on the Americans lining up against them, but that isn't eternal either. Egypt is getting some sort of Islamist government as I write this, so Israel is now the only proxy the US has in the area.

Pulling back to the Mediterranean, yes the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel is suddenly not to be relied upon, at the same time that Turkey is rattling its destroyers around the joint Cyprus/Israel gas projects in the eastern Med. Syria is destabilizing further by the day, and Hezbollah is making a play at a coup (again) in Lebanon. The latter is unlikely to succeed as Hezbollah's hostage "allies" in the country are starting to see daylight between Syria and Hezbollah and are getting brave now that they might have a chance.

Holy flashpoints Batman! I know I've left some things out, and I'm sure I'm missing some other stuff that going on, so it's at least this potentially messy. I don't know whether adding more nuclear weapons to the mix will make things more stable or less, but the best case is some sort of multi-sided Mid East Cold War. That certainly sounds like fun, but whatever I can imagine is a small slice of the possibilities the unpredictability of human interaction provides us with. As always, watch and shoot.

No good options

The IDF's operational forum will discuss a procedure which stipulates that the abduction of living soldiers must be prevented at any cost later this week in the backdrop of the Shalit prisoner exchange deal, Yedioth Ahronoth reported.

Since Shalit was released in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners Hamas has stressed that it will attempt to kidnap more soldiers in order to bring about the release of the remaining Palestinians held in Israel.

The IDF estimates the threat is concrete and has therefore briefed commanders on a series of preliminary actions which can help prevent kidnappings. IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz has also ordered that the commanders learn ways to actively thwart kidnappings, even at the expense of the kidnapped soldier's life.

There will be different opinions on this to say the least, but here's my $0.02: if it was me getting snatched by any of these groups (pretty much any group, really) I'd want my people to shoot the fuckers and I'd take my chances with that. Your odds of survival aren't great if taken, and I'd be damned if I'd be put in a position where hundreds of murderers could be exchanged for me. Besides, you might get lucky and only the bad guys get hit. Those odds are slim, but in that circumstance I'd take them. It's that or:

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen!

If you're so eager to die...

By Adrian Blomfield, Gaza City and Richard Spencer in Mitzpe Hila
11:13PM BST 19 Oct 2011

An unsuccessful suicide bomber released from prison as part of the deal to free Gilad Shalit, the Israeli conscript, on Wednesday vowed to fulfil a childhood ambition by "sacrificing" her life for the Palestinian cause.

As she returned to her family home in northern Gaza, Wafa al-Bis insisted she would seize any opportunity to mount another suicide mission and encouraged dozens of cheering schoolchildren to follow her example.

When the first of these released idiots kills someone there will be a hell of an uproar in Israel, but there is plenty of "I told you so" to go around.

What I would really like to see out of all of this is a compelling reason NOT to bulldoze the entire Gaza Strip into the sea and start over. I know it's not an isolated incident, but when children are raised to revere people blowing themselves up, I see that as a problem, to put it mildly. Another Operation Cast Lead would be a good start, and would send a message that the only representative democracy in the Middle East still has a will to survive after this ridiculous prisoner swap.

Backpay's a bitch

The deal was announced on Tuesday by the Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
Under the terms, more than 1,000 Palestinians and Sgt Shalit, held since 2006, will be freed, beginning in days.

As much as I have no wish to extend Sergeant (he was a Corporal when captured if memory serves) Shalit's captivity (or worse), I can reduce the wisdom of this exchange to this simple axiom: anything which gets Islamic idiots dancing in the streets is not a good thing.

The Israelis have in the past repatriated remains at an unfavourable exchange rate, so it's not a profound shock that they would do this. The only strategic upside I see to this is that there will be 1000 Hamas idiots more out of the Israeli prison system where they can do something that will get them killed, so we have that to look forward to. Otherwise, this is pretty bleak.

The precedent this sets is terrible, but the Israelis have obviously decided it was the best of a bad situation. I don't presume to have anything to teach the Israelis about dealing with their part of the world, but the calculus of this deal values the life (freedom) of one accidentally famous soldier over that of all of the people that these released terrorists and criminals will subsequently endanger.

True, there was never a shortage of Palestinian misanthropes to lob rockets into or snatch more people out of Israel, so it's possible that this doesn't elevate the threat in the area, at least not in the big picture. I just hope that the IDF will be allowed off the leash enough to provide some disproportionate riposte to any Hamas celebratory violence. You might as well kill a lot of their fighters; the exchange rate is 1000-1. Hopefully Gilad spends some of his backpay on a nice vacation.

More Oil = Less Blood in the Levant, More in the Orient?

Today we'll see if sleeping on the revelations (see June 14's post) of massive reserves of recoverable oil in Israel has produced anything worthwhile. I don't know where I'm going with this yet, so strap in...

I am on record repeatedly here as a defender of Israel; not everything they do, but the right of the place to exist as a Jewish state. It's not a lot of real estate, it's in a (forever) rough neighbourhood, and if the Palestinian Arab recent arrivals can argue a "Right of Return", certainly Jews have priority of claim to everything west of the Jordan.

At the end of the day might makes right, and the Israelis have been a lot more restrained than I would have been facing a group of people who wanted (and repeatedly tried) to wipe my people from the earth. The fact that there are Palestinians still in the West Bank and Gaza is proof of that restraint, with all of the attendant misery on both sides that has come from it. A lot of that restraint, as mentioned in the FP article I referenced, comes from skittish Westerners scared of pissing off the Arabs.

I can't imagine that 2,000 years of anti-Jewish sentiment will disappear from Europe if Israel can suddenly supply them with petroleum, but it is to be hoped that more rationality could result. More interesting to me is the effect of this sort of sustainable windfall on Israel's security policy.

Americans are not entirely enamoured of the amount of money their country sends to Israel every year. I could add that a similar amount of money (c. $2B/y) has been going to Pakistan, a place that can't seriously be considered an ally of the US, but that's just for perspective. The latter is already being throttled back for being unreliable, but in any event the gravy train is over for all concerned as Uncle Sam is skint.

I will make the argument here that a more secure Israel will be a more stable bulwark in the Mid-East. They could of course go nuts and ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip or some such, but on past practice I consider that unlikely, as justifiable as Gaza's current government would seem to make it. This is good news for the local Arab countries too, particularly their soldiers. A strong Israel with the best and most modern armed forces in the area will dissuade a future Nasser from trying again; a weakened Israel with no US support might be a tempting target and result in a bloodbath on both sides. Even worse, if Israel was facing disaster, what would stop them from nuking their tormentors?

Of course this gives energy-and-everything-else starved Egypt a motive to invade, but as noted above it ensures Israel's means to resist all comers. In short, I can't see any way in which an energy and financially secure Israel will make things worse in that part of the world. Iran could go even farther off the rails and do something crazy once they have nukes but if Pakistan hasn't let one slip yet I don't see that happening either, and payback would be the end of Iran as we know it.

Much as a certain amount of restraint was necessary during the Cold War and later during the (very) recently lapsed Pax Americana due to the ability of superpowers to do a lot of damage, weakness or perceived weakness is the trigger for invasions and other adventurism. The Americans are overstretched, so the Chinese are playing war games with their weaker neighbours over the Spratly Islands. In that case a combination of oil reserves and no strong counter to the ravenous (of resources) Chinese could plausibly lead to war with at least Vietnam and Taiwan.

This suggests to me that it's time to switch my focal point to the Far East, as that is where some real movement could take place. Pakistan or North Korea could completely collapse and China could skirmish or worse with many of it's neighbours; yes the centre of gravity has definitely shifted. There will continue to be stuff happening in the Mid East, but I don't see much actually changing (globally) because of it. China throwing it's weight around will be QUITE different. I'm waiting to see American carrier groups defending communist Vietnam against free-market (ish) China. "The End of History" my ass.

Israel vs. OPEC?

I'll take a bit to digest this, but it's certainly a game-changer:

Financial Post June 10 2011

In the first 25 years after Israel’s founding in 1948, it was repeatedly attacked by the large armies of its Arab neighbours. Each time, Israel prevailed on the battlefield, only to have its victories rolled back by Western powers who feared losing access to Arab oilfields.
The fear was and is legitimate – Arab nations have often threatened to use their “oil weapon” against countries that support Israel and twice made good their threat through crippling OPEC oil embargoes.

But that fear, which shackles Israel to this day, may soon end. The old energy order in the Middle East is crumbling with Iran and Syria having left the Western fold and others, including Saudi Arabia, the largest of them all, in danger of doing so. Simultaneously, a new energy order is emerging to give the West some spine. In this new order, Israel is a major player.

The new energy order is founded on rock – the shale that traps vast stores of energy in deposits around the world. One of the largest deposits – 250 billion barrels of oil in Israel’s Shfela basin, comparable to Saudi Arabia’s entire reserves of 260 billion barrels of oil – has until now been unexploited, partly because the technology required has been expensive, mostly because the multinational oil companies that have the technology fear offending Muslims. “None of the major oil companies are willing to do business in Israel because they don’t want to be cut off from the Mideast supply of oil,” explains Howard Jonas, CEO of IDT, the U.S. company that owns the Shfela concession through its subsidiary, Israel Energy Initiatives. Jonas, an ardent Zionist, considers the Shfela deposit merely a beginning: “We believe that under Israel is more oil than under Saudi Arabia. There may be as much as half a trillion barrels.”

What if Western foreign policy was freed from fear of another OPEC embargo? Admittedly that scenario is fantastically unlikely as things stand presently, but if it's happened once it (or something very similar) can happen again. More importantly, what happens if Israel no longer needs the USA?

Anyway, this requires some thought so I'll come back to it when I have more time; in the meantime I leave it as a mental exercise for the reader

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.

Israel, Iranian influence, and flying pigs

Jerusalem (CNN) -- Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Sunday that Israel was willing to stop attacks on Gaza if the Palestinians stop firing into southern Israel.

"If they stop firing at our communities, then we will stop firing. If they stop firing altogether, then there will be quiet," Barak said in an interview on Israel Radio.

It really is as simple as that. This should not have been a news story, as this has been Israeli policy for years. They pulled out of Gaza in 2005, and if the Palestinians really wanted peace, they'd have it.

Yes, they'd have less land than in 1948, but that's what happens when your ethnic cleansing backfires on you because your victims fight back. Every war the Arabs have started (or precipitated, if you want to be pedantic about 1967) has lost them territory. Ask the Germans about what happens to territory when you start and lose wars.

This ties to my previous post, as this intractable conflict has been held for years as "poisoning" Arab/Muslim relations with Israel. It has been an excuse, no more, and now that the troublesome Hamas regime is in Iran's pocket the Saudis and other Sunni Arabs will have more in common with Israel than with either of the Palestinian factions. Add Hezbollah to that mix and Israel becomes a strategic ally of the House of Saud.

It took no genius to see this coming, but it took toppling Saddam Hussein (remember him?) and a lot of Iranian/Syrian meddling to bring things to this pass. There are lots of things that can/will change, and as always faster and in ways different than many expect. Wither Egypt without Mubarak? It's unlikely they'll repudiate the peace treaty with Israel, but if democracy takes root all bets are off. Assad in Syria could fall, but it's unlikely that would make much difference to Israel's security situation.

What I'm waiting to see is the day when Saudi money replaces American to shore up Israel. That sounds outlandish on the face of it, but it makes a lot of sense. That (making sense) isn't a a factor in American "foreign policy" but in more traditional parts of the world the survival of the government is taken more personally. If King Abdullah can sell his elite on the necessity of Israel as a military bulwark then it'll happen. If Donald Trump becomes the next US president we may see some coherent US policy in the region, but of the two possibilities laid out here I'll be more shocked by that if it happens.