Nature abhors a vacuum and when the UN National Security Council fails to act, the U.S. jumps into the breach – often to disastrous effect. (Photo: Britannica)

Since this is the last Focal Points post, I thought I should write about one of my core foreign policy beliefs. Along with Foreign Policy in Focus and most of those who span the spectrum from liberal to left, one of our most pressing concerns is U.S. intervention in foreign affairs.

It began with the Barbary Wars (1801–1805 and 1815) against Morocco and the independent Ottoman Empire provinces Tripoli, Algiers, and Tunis. How  we have come full circle — beginning our foreign intervention in Arabic-speaking countries and returning in the 21^st century. But the original intervention was to halt piracy of American merchant ships and concomitant hostage-taking, payable to the rulers of those states. It wasn’t to protect our oil interests or to establish a footprint in the Middle East, as today.

Foreign intervention wouldn’t be such a hot-button issue if the United States weren’t expected — and seemingly glad — to take the lead in deciding when a state’s sovereignty is no longer to be respected. In fact, tyrants in many states, Syria for instance, hide behind the concept of state sovereignty and commit horrible crimes against their own people in order to retain power. But determining that and leading the charge against such a government should not fall to the United States.

In the absence of world government, an idea that has been a complete non-starter since it enjoyed its moment in the sun after World War II and the introduction of nuclear weapons, the designated arbiter of international order (after the United States) is the UN Security Council. But difficulty that the member states — United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France — experience in forming a consensus can render the Security Council ineffectual.

Obviously, if the Security Council and not the United States were ordaining intervention on sovereign soil when a state is committing crimes against its people, the United States could avoid bearing the brunt of the blame from those opposed to intervention. All the superpowers in the world are a lot for terrorist such as Al Qaeda or the Islamic State to take on in retaliation.

A key issue is that the Security Council is crippled by vetoes or the threat of vetoes. I recently wrote about a paper written in March 2015 titled Failure to Protect: Syria and the UN Security Council by Dr. Simon Adams, Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, a project of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies of the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

… much of the blame for failing to help end the devastation of Syria lies with Russia and China. They vetoed United Nations Security Council draft resolutions holding the Syrian government accountable for crimes against humanity. … Dr. Adams wrote:

With each failure of the Security Council to hold the Syrian government accountable for its actions, President Bashar al-Assad’s forces deployed more extreme armed force. This, in turn, strengthened the most uncompromising and severe elements within the armed opposition, especially those with external sources of sustenance. The net effect has been to turn Syria into the world’s worst case of ongoing mass atrocities, civilian displacement and humanitarian catastrophe.

… The use of the veto in a mass atrocity situation is inconsistent with the aspirations of a 193-member General Assembly that no longer believes that sovereignty should constitute an unrestricted license to kill. … In particular, there is growing pressure to uphold the UN’s 2005 commitment to prevent genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing. … Issues relating to humanitarian access, negotiating a political solution and ending impunity for mass atrocities remain complex and fraught with political danger. But the inability to successfully resolve any of them after four years of conflict constitutes a catastrophic historic failure on behalf of the Security Council. [Emphasis — and extra-emphasis added.]

… The cruel truth is that there is no easy solution to the suffering of the Syrian people, but that does not mean that the Security Council has to choose between invasion and inaction.

A 2010 paper by Citizens for Global Solutions titled The Responsibility Not To Veto: A Way Forward goes beyond the Responsibility to Protect.

In October 2005 the United Nations’ (UN) member states unanimously endorsed the responsibility to protect (R2P). … This principle affirmed that each state had ‘the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity’ as well as ‘their incitement’ (paragraph 138). Moreover, should any state be found to be ‘manifestly failing to protect their populations’ from these four crimes, the world’s governments committed themselves ‘to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council, in accordance with the Charter’ (paragraph 139).

Thus

This paper proposes that the permanent five members of the UN Security Council (P5) should agree not to use their veto power to block action in response to genocide and mass atrocities which would otherwise pass by a majority. The concept of the ‘responsibility not to veto’ (RN2V) has been discussed in a variety of international forums for nearly a decade as an element of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). However, while the Member States of the United Nations (UN) unanimously endorsed the ‘responsibility to protect’ principle in October 2005, the P5 have yet to operationalize it. Adopting an agreement which removes the use of the veto in cases of genocide and mass atrocities would be one step to implementing the R2P agenda.

It might have helped Rwanda and Kosovo.

Although Rwanda’s 1994 genocide is not a case where a P5 member threatened a veto in order to stop a proposed military intervention, it is relevant because it demonstrates the potential power that P5 members can exert over the Security Council’s decision-making process in response to mass atrocities. … several P5 members, notably France, the UK and the US, used their influence during the Council’s private deliberations to prevent the deployment of a reinforced peacekeeping operation in the first few weeks after the genocide began in April 1994. Kosovo 1998-9 This episode of threatened veto power occurred in the context of the ethnic cleansing carried out by Serbian forces in the territory of Kosovo during 1998 and 1999. Throughout 1998, NATO members on the Security Council tried informally to secure a Chapter VII resolution authorizing the use of force to prevent Serb forces conducting ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Germany and Italy were particularly insistent that NATO obtained the Security Council’s blessing before engaging in military action. Russia and China, however, made it equally clear that they would not sanction any use of force against the authorities in Belgrade because they viewed Kosovo’s crisis as an internal problem for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. … As Adam Roberts noted, NATO decided that ‘it could have been more difficult to get public support for a military action which had actually been vetoed in the UN, and the whole process might expose divisions in the alliance.

As well as Darfur.

The debate in this case revolved around how international society should respond to the mass atrocities that occurred during a civil war which centered on Sudan’s western province of Darfur. In this episode, the major controversy concerned the informal threats made by the Chinese and Russian governments to veto any Security Council resolution which might authorize the use of military force, or even serious economic sanctions, against the military junta in Khartoum. Despite much rhetoric emanating from Washington which condemned what it referred to as the ongoing genocide in Darfur – especially in the run up to the 2004 presidential election campaign – no UN member state ever came close to contemplating military intervention. … In this sense, the Russian and Chinese threats served as convenient diplomatic camouflage for the unwillingness of Western (or any other powers) to even seriously threaten military action against Khartoum.

The issue is even more nuanced. You are urged to The Responsibility Not To Veto: A Way Forward in its entirety. Finally, it mentions the solution of a task force.

‘A principal aim’ of US policy in the Security Council ‘should be informal, voluntary mutual restraint in the use or threat of a veto in cases involving ongoing or imminent mass atrocities. The P-5 should agree that unless three permanent members were to agree to veto a given resolution, all five would abstain or support it. This should apply, in particular, to resolutions instituting sanctions and/or authorizing peace operations in situations when mass atrocities or genocide are imminent or underway.’

The post With Strong Security Council U.S. No Longer Interventionist of First Resort appeared first on Foreign Policy In Focus.

Domestic success is predicated on a certain degree of peace. (Photo: Flickr/CSIS)

Hillary Clinton has some impressive goals for the United States. And it is conceivable that, to whatever extent, she can even achieve them. These include (courtesy of NPR):

Make public college debt-free. Fund universal pre-K. Create a comprehensive background check system and close loopholes. Give the government a role in setting insurance rates. Waive deportation and give undocumented residents a path to legal status. Enact an infrastructure plan that also serves as a stimulus to the economy. Raise capital gains taxes [We will overlook her coziness with Wall Street for the moment.]

But what does domestic-policy success avail us if the United States is fighting a major war? It is common knowledge that when it comes to foreign policy, Hillary Clinton gives many of us on the left the heebie-jeebies. A blurb on the issues page of her official campaign website suggests traditional Democratic overcompensation on defense, but to the nth degree: “Military and defense[:] We should maintain the best-trained, best-equipped, and strongest military the world has ever known.”

The extent to which Russian President Vladimir Putin considers Ms. Clinton a nemesis (and Donald Trump a potential ally) can be seen in a new article by Simon Shuster at Time. But, obviously, no American election should be decided by which candidate the leader of another superpower prefers. The real issue, without going into detail, is her policy toward Russia, summarized by Jeffrey Sachs at Huffington Post.

… she championed a remarkably confrontational approach with Russia based on NATO expansion to Ukraine and Georgia and a new nuclear arms race that will cost American taxpayers more than $355 billion over a decade.

There we have the two weakest links of Hillary Clinton foreign policy bundled into one. She is likely to increase tensions with Russia, thus putting us at risk of war with nuclear weapons, the modernization of which she champions.

To put it another way, an aggressive stance toward Russia and more nuclear weapons would cancel out domestic initiatives and achievements. After all, what good is paid parental leave if the United States is waging a major war and not only is there no money left over from defense for such programs, but, the number of families left standing to benefit from these programs is, shudder, drastically diminished?

Bottom line: Without a visionary policy that works toward alleviating tensions with, not confronting or attacking, other countries, domestic policy successes count for little.

The post Hillary Clinton’s Platform Lacks a Firm Footing appeared first on Foreign Policy In Focus.

The United States underestimates the awe in which Russia holds U.S. technology. (Photo: American Free Press)

Russia has long been suspicious of United States and NATO missile defense installations in Europe. In what amounts to a tacit admission of how limited missile defense is, the United States insists it is disingenuous for Russians to think the systems are targeted against them. Missile defense doesn’t stand a chance against Russia’s large arsenal; it is intended for a starter nuclear-weapons program like the United States thought Iran was developing at one time. The United States, however, overlooks and chooses to ignore, the awe in which Russia holds the its ability to develop and perfect technology.

At The Hill, Greg Thielmann writes:

Given the technical inability of Europe-based EPAA interceptors to engage Russian strategic forces, Moscow’s accusations seem either insincere or paranoid. But as explained by Andrey Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, NATO continuing to work on Aegis missile defenses makes it appear to Moscow “that the system was directed against Russia from the very outset and not against Iran or any other hypothetical threat in the Middle East.” He adds: “This Iranian factor creates additional anti-Western momentum in Russia, which is widely used by state propaganda.”

“Given that missile defense has been a driver of tensions between Moscow and Washington since Ronald Reagan launched his Star Wars plan to render ballistic missiles ‘impotent and obsolete,’” writes Thielmann, “one of the best ways to achieve reassurance and avoid provocation would be to alter the existing timetable for deploying more capable missile defenses in Europe.” Slow it down, that is.

Better yet, dismantle missile defense, both because it is lucky if it could work against one anti-ballistic missile and because it makes Russia think we are creating a shield behind which to launch a surprise attack. Thus is Russia motivated to build more nuclear weapons and delivery systems to compensate for those that might be intercepted.

The post Missile Defense in Europe Needlessly Provocative appeared first on Foreign Policy In Focus.

The Nordic countries, such as Finland, may actually be more American than the United States.

Americans tend to think that the Nordic countries’ generous social services programs come at the expense of economic opportunity, partly because of what seem to be high taxes. But that may be a myth. In the Atlantic, Uri Friedman quotes Hillary Clinton, who spouts the conventional wisdom about the differences between the United States and the Nordic countries.

“We are not Denmark. … We are the United States of America. … [W]hen I think about capitalism, I think about all the small businesses that were started because we have the opportunity and the freedom in our country for people to do that and to make a good living for themselves and their families.”

Friedman himself:

Opportunity. Freedom. Independence. These words are bound up with American identity and the American Dream. The problem is that they’re often repeated like an incantation, with little reflection on the extent to which they still ring true in America, and are still exceptionally American.

Anu Partanen’s new book, The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life, argues that the freedom and opportunity Americans cherish are currently thriving more in Nordic countries than in the United States. (The Nordic countries comprise Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and Finland.)

Along, that is, with the social services programs. And what about those taxes? Friedman interviewed Ms. Partanen.

Friedman: Many Americans might say, “This all sounds great, but you guys are paying sky-high taxes. We don’t want anything to do with that.” How would you respond?

Partanen: First of all, the taxes are not necessarily as high as many Americans think. One of the myths I encounter often is that Americans are like, “You pay 70 percent of your income in taxes.” No, we do not. For someone who lives in a city like San Francisco or New York City—where you have federal taxes, state taxes, city taxes, property taxes—the tax burden is not very different [than the tax burden in Finland]. I discuss my own taxes in the book and I discovered this to be true: that I did pay about the same or even more in New York than I would have paid on my income in Finland. I’ve talked to many Nordics in the U.S. who say the same thing.

The second thing is that there’s no point in discussing the levels of taxes in different countries unless you discuss what you get for your taxes. Americans in many states, certainly, or cities—they might pay less taxes [on] their income or [on] property than Nordics do. But then, on top of that, they pay for their day care, they pay for their health insurance, they pay for college tuition—all these things that Nordics get for their taxes.

But wait: We have a huge military and the option of intervening in the hot spot of our choice. What real American would give that up for the benefits that the Nordic countries enjoy? (Oh, right. Most of us.)

The post Americans Choke on the Term “Welfare State” appeared first on Foreign Policy In Focus.

The U.S. is offering Israel $40 billion in aid over the next 10 years. Pictured: Israel Defense Forces special operations.

Some Yiddish words will live forever, and chutzpah is one of them. What better word could describe Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand for more U.S. aid after he tried to obstruct President Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran with a personal appeal to the Senate? But don’t expect aid to Israel to be a campaign topic. Both candidates favor it.

The U.S. and Israel have been bargaining since early July over a proposed ten-year U.S. aid package to Israel. The U.S. is offering Israel $40 billion in aid over that period, an increase of $10 billion a year, which the White House called “the largest pledge of military assistance to any country in U.S. history.” But that amount is not enough for the Israelis, who are demanding more.

For a recipient to bargain with a donor over the size of a handout is unusual enough, but Israel has received more U.S. aid over the years than any other nation in the world, despite having one of the highest per capita incomes in the Middle East. Israel has also benefited from its exemption from the rule that recipients of U.S. military aid must spend the money on American-made weapons.

The Israelis have nevertheless felt free to reject requests from Washington whenever it suits them. Every president since Jimmy Carter has asked Israel to freeze settlement construction, saying the settlements were an obstacle to peace. Israel has continued to build and expand settlements while objections from Washington have faded into silence. As long as this situation remains, however, there can be no peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

A powerful effort by the U.S. and its allies is needed to change the current situation, but Israel’s well-funded American supporters have so far been able to stave off any attempt to pressure Israel. Defenders of what President Obama calls America’s “special relationship” with Israel frequently describe the Jewish state as the only democracy in the Middle East, and claim it is surrounded by potential enemies. Today, 50 years after Israel’s establishment, that description no longer fits the facts.

With the fifth largest military in the Middle East, and firm backing from the U.S., Israel no longer faces danger from its Arab neighbors. For the 2 million or so Palestinians who make up some 40 percent of the population, Israel is a flawed democracy at best, one in which they are second-class citizens. For the more than 4 million Palestinians living in Israeli-occupied Gaza and the West Bank, Israel is an oppressor nation.

After capturing the West Bank from Jordan, and Gaza from Egypt, in the 1967 war, Israel proceeded to build Jewish settlements in the newly occupied territories despite the fact that the Geneva Conventions of 1945 specifically forbid a conquering nation to build civilian settlements on captive territory. Since then the U.N. Security Council has passed numerous resolutions condemning Israel’s continued settlement construction and calling for its withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. The U.S. cast a veto each time.

At Oslo in 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed an agreement with Palestinian president Yasir Arafat in which he pledged to freeze settlement building in the occupied territories and make it easier for Palestinians to travel between Gaza and the West Bank. The agreement held out a promise that the Palestinians could soon establish an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza.

But the Oslo agreement was never implemented. The massacre of 29 Palestinians in Hebron by a Jewish settler in February 1994, followed by a round-the-clock curfew on Palestinians in that city, ignited often violent Palestinian resistance. Israel’s response was harsh and indiscriminate, involving pre-dawn house raids and arrests on the West Bank, targeted assassinations, border closings, travel restrictions and the placing of hundreds of new check points throughout the West Bank. Rabin’s assassination by a right-wing Israeli in November 1995 marked the effective end of Oslo.

Since then the cycle of Israeli oppression and Palestinian violence has continued, with periods of violence alternating with periods of uneasy calm. Several negotiating sessions between Israel and the Palestinians brokered by the U.S. have faltered, doomed by the great imbalance of power between the two sides and by Washington’s refusal to intervene in behalf of the Palestinians.

Gaza meanwhile has endured repeated Israeli air strikes and three full-scale invasions by Israel troops, along with a nine-year blockade that Israel imposed in 2007 after the Gazans elected a Hamas-led government. As a result of Israel’s actions, that densely populated territory has seen the collapse of its economy and a broken infrastructure. Homes, schools and public buildings destroyed or damaged by Israel bombing have yet to be rebuilt, and a majority of Gazans now rely on United Nations handouts to survive.

On the West Bank, meanwhile, hundreds of new homes for Israelis are under construction. Earlier this month, State Department spokesman John Kirby described Israel’s latest authorization of new settler housing as “fundamentally undermining the prospects for a two-state solution.” In fact, the prospects for a two-state solution had already faded. The number of settler homes has steadily increased over the years, so that today 600,000 Israelis live in the West Bank, and thanks to government subsidies more are moving in.

The territory is criss-crossed by highways intended for settler-use only and barred to Palestinians. Netanyahu declared after Israel’s last election that there would be no Palestinian state on his watch, and several members of his government  have openly declared their opposition to a two-state solution. According to Deputy Prime Minister Tsipi Hotovely, “God willed all of Palestine to Israel. This land is ours.”

Such statements issuing from a close ally of the West undoubtedly arouse anger in the Arab world and may even influence the handful of young Arab immigrants to Europe who turn to violence. Yet Israel’s continuing occupation is seldom mentioned in public discourse, and it’s a safe bet that it won’t be a prominent issue in the race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Consequently, an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement based on two independent states will remain a distant hope, and American taxpayers will continue subsidizing a military occupation that deprives millions of
Palestinians of their freedom.

The post Missing from the Debate: U.S. Aid to Israel appeared first on Foreign Policy In Focus.

The IMF finally acknowledged that neoliberalism’s boom-and-bust cycles stifle growth in developing countries. Pictured: IMF chief Christine Lagarde. (Photo: the Telegraph)

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) June 2016 research report “Neoliberalism: Oversold?” which was described as “a political bombshell … that caused a near-panic among advocates of free market policies” by the Foreign Policy analyst Rick Rowden [Note 1], what ‘capital account liberalization’ brings to developing countries is “the pervasiveness of booms and busts” rather than growth. “In addition to raising the odds of a crash, financial openness has distributional effects, appreciably raising inequality……. There is now strong evidence that inequality can significantly lower both the level and sustainability of growth.” [Note 2]

As China happens to be in the middle of the capital account liberalization process with a view of making its Renminbi (RMB or China Yuan) freely convertible in the international FX market, Beijing would probably adopt a new growth strategy with reference to such an IMF conclusion. In fact, Beijing is facing a new headache after Brexit because its previous plan of using London, alongside Hong Kong (a special administrative region in China), as another major offshore clearing center for RMB may not work out as expected, were the secessions of Scotland and Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom to materialize. To find a Plan B, several Chinese scholars have immediately called for the removal of this clearing center from London to Frankfurt or Brussels. However, the long-term future of European Union (EU) and Euro are also in danger of deformation or even disintegration amid the rampant emergence of localism, racism and protectionism.On the other hand, the One Belt One Road (OBOR) framework can be regarded as formally in shape after China has reached the “16+1” agreement with almost all the Eastern European nations [Note 3]. For the buildup of this Silk Road economic zone which encompasses 65 countries across Asia, Europe and Africa, China has to shoulder tremendous funding provision in the coming 50-70 years. Given the gigantic size of debts, intensive stress of risks and lengthy period of generating investment return, Beijing may have no choice but to maintain the control over the ‘capital account’ of international payment until after 2100 so as to prevent the RMB exchange rate from being tortured by the never-ending volatility abroad, thus hindering its development.

If Beijing realizes that the RMB cannot be freely convertible by the end of the 21^st century, one of the options available would be to at least triple Hong Kong dollar’s (HKD, a freely convertible currency) circulation volume and speed up its velocity to suffice the necessary financial flexibility and capacity required for China’s efforts in making RMB a major transaction currency second (now the world’s 5^th with 1.76% of SWIFT global financial settlement data) to the USD, and tuning the OBOR zone’s economic growth in a stable manner.

Given the immense scale of the OBOR trade zone, HK’s present economic size is too small (only half of London and a quarter of Tokyo, see the table below), usable land is too little (compared to the wide plain river bank of London and Paris), and human talents are not diversified enough. To overcome these issues, Beijing has to imitate the historical territorial expansion of many other metropolises by merging Hong Kong with its neighboring city Shenzhen to become a special economic zone (HK+SZ).

*1^st July 1943 city of Tokyo merged with Tokyo Prefecture to become Tokyo Metropolis

**GDP (USDbn): Brookings Institution 2014 est PPP-adjusted (listed in Wikipedia)

***GPCI: Global Power City Index 2015

http://www.mori-m-foundation.or.jp/pdf/GPCI2015_en.pdf

The mode of the HK+SZ merger can take reference from the 1991-2000 reunification of Germany and Berlin which cost a total of 2 trillion Deutsche Mark, as well as the reunion of Vietnam and Yemen.

Some of the key arrangements include [1] relocating the London Metals Exchange (which is already a subsidiary of the HK Stock Exchange) to HK; [2] using favorable conditions to encourage banks of Eastern European, African, Middle Eastern and Shanghai Co-operation Organization countries to open branch offices in the low rent SZ districts, and  HSBC and Standard Chartered Group to register back in HK; [3] merging the HK and SZ Stock Exchanges and adopting regulations compatible with the EU’s MiFID rules; [4] inducing the OBOR enterprises to raise funds via HKEx listing or issuing bonds here, be them Islamic or in RMB or HKD.

The major benefit of this HK+SZ merger is that, without the need to rely on a politically and financially unstable European FX clearing center for a not-fully-convertible RMB which may become the dominant settlement currency for the trades (Current Account) within the OBOR zone, all the developing countries’ enterprises can enter directly into the sizable HK stock and bond markets to raise the necessary non-USD funds (Capital Account-PIs and Loans) for their domestic primary and secondary productions as well as infrastructural construction. It could greatly ease their present problems of borrowing capital funds from the USD markets and also shelter their domestic economic activities by staying away from the volatile FX market in the West (e.g. Asian financial crisis 1997-8).

While the Western financial institutions are fond of high frequency trading or big shorts, peoples in the developing countries simply want to improve their daily livelihood by, for example, having a clean toilet at home. Given the IMF’s admission of Neoliberal economic policies’ weaknesses, developing countries including China, Brazil, India, Kenya, Sri Lanka and alike would have a legitimate justification to resist the Western pressure to opening the Capital Account, thus paving their own way of cultivating economic growth with a stable currency.

From the Realists’ perspective, the Third World’s diminishing dependency on USD and the Western economies would undeniably threaten the United States’ superpower status. The U.S. could of course bypass the IMF to prevent this from happening by, say, tightening its ‘Contain China’ policy to trigger a OBOR miscarriage. However, the question is: are we going to have a world war (of hate) as what Francois Holland, Donald Trump and Larry Kudlow have been suggesting [Note 4]?

[Note 1]

Foreign Policy, “The IMF confronts its N-word”, July 6, 2016.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/06/the-imf-confronts-its-n-word-neoliberalism/

[Note 2]

IMF, “Neoliberalism: Oversold?”, June 2016.

https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2016/06/pdf/ostry.pdf

[Note 3]

OSW, “China on Central-Eastern Europe: ‘16+1’ as seen from Beijing”, April 14, 2015.

http://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/osw-commentary/2015-04-14/china-central-eastern-europe-161-seen-beijing

[Note 4]

CNBC, “Kudlow on Trump’s two homers: Pence and a promise for a declaration of war”, July 16, 2016.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/16/trumps-two-homers-pence-and-a-promise-for-a-declaration-of-war.html

The post IMF Disavows Neoliberalism appeared first on Foreign Policy In Focus.

President Erdogan is pursuing ethnically narrow, Turkish-chauvinist, domestic and foreign policy. (Photo: Russia Today)

Cross-posted from View from the Left Bank.

Some Background

The aftershocks of the failed military coup in Turkey are resonating. Nearly 2,500 upper level military personnel, including more than 100 generals sacked and many arrested. 6,000 members of the judiciary, who sometimes challenged Tayyip Erdogan’s policies, fired along with 8,000 Turkish policemen. Several hundred people were killed, thousands wounded.

While considerable confusion remains concerning the origins of the recent Turkish coup attempt, the geopolitical outlines of where “post-coup” Turkey is headed are coming into focus. A little background on the flurry of Turkey’s diplomatic initiatives that preceded the recent “coup attempt” are in order. As they were intense suggesting that a shift in Turkey’s political posture was in order. Besides initiating an extensive purge of the Turkish military and judiciary, Turkish President Erdogan appears to be setting Turkish regional political posture on a new direction.

Erdogan is pursuing an ethnically narrow, Turkish chauvinist domestic and foreign policy. The repression at home is closely connected to his regional foreign policy initiatives that are taking shape. His domestic moves come in the aftermath of the crackdown of some regional allies, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and the Ennahda party of Tunisia. In the face of growing opposition because of chronic mismanagement, Ennahda, essentially the Tunisian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, was forced to retrench and cede some of its power. In part, Erdogan’s current violent crackdown on dissent can be seen as a kind of pre-emptive move, an effort to deny the military an opportunity at some later date to seize power a la Egypt. At first glance it appears that the repression has succeeded, at least in the short run.

From all appearances, domestically Turkey under Erdogan, never that openly democratic a place, has become that much more authoritarian over the past two years. Freedom of press has been severely repressed with journalists arrested. After what looked like a political settlement with the country’s Kurds was in the making, Erdogan backed away and has treated the country’s largest minority with increasing repression that has included several massacres of Kurdish villages in the southeast.

More recently Erdogan pushed through legislation in the Turkish parliament that eliminates immunity for parliament members from persecution, opening the door to crack down on the country’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party, which brings together different strands of Turkey’s democratic movement. It is as if Erdogan was preparing for something even bigger, a “something” that became more obvious in the aftermath of the attempted coup when a wholesale wave of repression (see below) was unleashed.

Erdogan has pursued a domestic heavy hand in order to eliminate opposition to his regional policy whose outlines include denying the Kurds of Syria any opportunity to become an independent state, refocusing Turkey’s regional policy somewhat away from Europe and NATO. The shift entails making overtures, strengthening relations with a number of regional powers, especially Iran, Russia and Israel.

By all appearances, Turkey is starting to distance itself from Washington and NATO — the question is to what extent. To what degree will this affect the presence of one of Washington’s main military bases, Incirlik, in the southeastern corner of Turkey? It is easy for too many to forget that the United States has hydrogen and atomic bombs at Incirlik and that when there is turmoil the shadow of nuclear war is not far away. It is estimated that as many as 80 nuclear weapons, both hydrogen and atomic bombs are housed there in striking distance of most of the Middle East and southern Russia.

Keep in mind that in the recent decade the United States has had a difficult time “reigning in” its regional allies. Supposed allies in the war in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States were behind the scenes at each other’s throats as the Pakistani intelligence agency gave support to the Taliban (and still does) that U.S.-led armies were trying to defeat.

The Obama Administration’s relations with two other strategic allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, are extremely strained, most recently over the Obama Administration’s support for the Iran nuclear deal which basically short-circuited any pipedreams that Washington was preparing military intervention against Teheran which both the Saudis and Israelis supported. The personal relations between Obama and Netanyahu, and Obama and the royal family have never been worse. Perhaps that means less than meets the eye with the US Congress voting record-breaking military aid to Israel and the administration selling enormous amounts of arms to the Saudis.

The strategic alliances remain in place, but not without historically unprecedented strains as Israel, Saudi Arabia and now Turkey embrace, each in their own manner, their own narrow, jingoistic regional nationalist goals which bode ill for the people of Yemen, the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, and more generally, regional peace. These are three countries with strong militaries; all have expansionist regional goals that sooner or later are bound to collide against one another.

They all understand that today, the United States – despite its military might – is politically weaker and cannot dictate policy as it did in the past. These same countries also understand that U.S. Syria policy is in shambles and it is about to backfire on their national territories, either in terms of increased terrorist activities, unmanageable refugee problems or some combination thereof.

Turkey and Syria

As one columnist aptly put it “Post-Coup Turkey will be distinctly Eurasian.” Having been repeatedly rebuffed in its efforts to join the European Community – which in the end is the result of little more than European racism against a Muslim country – Turkey is “turning east.” At the same time tensions between Ankara and Washington over Syrian policy have essentially boiled over, over the Kurdish question.

All this is playing out in both Syria and Iraq at the present moment where the alliance of forces involved is shifting, if not coming apart. Turkey has been a key link in the Syrian crisis, providing an open gateway to Syrian Islamic rebels entering Syria from the north, that included military, political support. Turkey fears the consequences of an independent Kurdish state on its southern border that Washington is trying to put together.

Whatever is happening domestically within Turkey, regionally, Turkey is cooling to its role of being one of Washington’s main, if not the main, whipping boys in Syria. The Turks are coming to the understanding, as did the Russians and Iranians – and perhaps even the Israelis – that the dismemberment of Syria will destabilize the entire region that much more and affect their national security. Of course the Turks have come to this realization late in the game, only after it became more evident that Assad would not fall the way that Khadaffi and Saddam Hussein did.

Turkey “Makes Nice” with Russia, Israel and Iran

There are unquestionable signs of the Turkish shift. The shifts suggest a fluid system of regional alliances and adversaries, made complex by the presence of both regional and global players. These shifts are admittedly difficult – but not impossible to follow. Sooner or later, in this case the Turkish coup crisis, the main themes previously refined behind closed doors have burst forth in the open.

As relations with Washington and NATO become more strained, those with regional powers, Russia, Israel (yes, Israel) and Iran are warming as Ankara has been on a “let’s make nice” campaign with all three – suggesting that when the political will is there, countries that appear at odds with one another can find common ground and do so rather quickly. The United States is annoyed and embarrassed that the Erdogan government has alleged “an American hand” in the present coup attempt (as if Washington never engaged in such!). What is more, as an Indian commentator has pointed out, “The Turkish allegation has no precedent in NATO’s 67-year old history – of one member plotting regime change in another member’s country through violent means.”

Can it be a mere seven months ago that Turkey shot down a Russian jet fighter that had wandered somewhere near the Turkish-Syrian border? At the time, edged on by NATO, it looked as if relations between Ankara and Moscow, neighbors with a long history and important trading partners, were headed for the dumpster. Angry words were exchanged, Russia cut off trade relations and tourism. But lately, a few weeks prior to the attempted coup – or whatever it was – the two “made nice” to one another. As MK Badrakumar points out,

Russian President Vladimir Putin did on Sunday what no major western leader from the NATO member countries cared to do when he telephoned his Turkish counterpart Recep Erdogan to convey his sympathy, goodwill and best wishes for the latter’s success in restoring constitutional order and stability as soon as possible after the attempted coup Friday night.

Having been repulsed by the economic integration that it sought with the European Union, Turkey is more and more gravitating towards putting its economic eggs within a Eurasian basket. Turkey is once again warming to what is referred to as the Balkan Stream Megaproject, a Russian-based project to link central Europe and western Eurasia in an energy pipeline nexus from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Mediterranean in the South.

At the same time Turkish-Russian relations rebounded, tensions between Turkey and Israel lessened as well. Washington’s two key strategic allies had gotten into a diplomatic tiff (it was never more than that) after Israeli commandos attacked the MV Mavi Marmara attempting to bring humanitarian aid and to break the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza. Ten died and several dozen participants on the ship were wounded or injured. But less than a month ago, on June 27, 2016, a new deal was announced in Ankara by Israeli Prime Minister Binali Yildirim. My reading of the deal is that Israel, anxious to break out of its regional isolation has agreed to most of the Turkey’s terms, including Turkish access to Gaza to build a hospital there.

Since the Iranian nuclear deal was reached last summer (July, 2015), Turkey and Iran have been quietly improving economic relations. Turkey is wooing Iran as a potentially lucrative market of trade and investment. Despite the fact that the two countries are on opposite sides of Syrian conflict, there are reports that the two countries have plans to increase trade over the next two years by $30 billion. That Iran hopes to maintain its good relations with Turkey can be seen in Teheran’s support of Erdogan’s crushing “the coup.” Iranian foreign minister (and University of Denver Korbel School of International Studies graduate) Mohammad Javad Zarif voiced support for Turkey’s “brave defense of democracy.”

Pepe Escobar’s Article in Asia Times

In an article entitled “Hell Hath No Fury Like A Teflon Sultan” Pepe Escobar, writing for The Asian Times (and republished elsewhere) talks in detail about the unfolding of the Turkish coup. A little about Escobar before proceeding. Pepe Escobar is a Brazilian journalist whose specialty is global political developments, otherwise known as geo-politics. He writes what might be called “Gonzo political economy” (a la Hunter Thompson). Funny and  irreverent, I have found that like British journalist and long time Middle East commentator, Robert Fisk, and former Indian diplomat, Bhadrakumar Melkulangara, he is always worth reading. Escobar seems to have pretty good sources “with the powers that be” (like Seymour Hersh) and that if he is not on the mark, he is close.

According to Escobar, although the origins of the coup attempt – or is it “coup attempt” – remain murky, what is emerging from the chaos is that Erdogan is engineering a geo-political shift in Turkey’s politics that could have far-reaching consequences. The problem here is NOT that the U.S. engages in conspiracies. A good part of U.S. foreign policy – the dark side, that is – is filled with them. The problem is teasing out the genuine conspiracies from the bogus ones.

At this point there are two contradictory explanations (probably more actually) to what happened. One line of reasoning is that this whole episode is little more than what is called “a false flag” operation initiated by Erdogan himself to purge his internal enemies so that he can pursue his shift in regional policy without internal opposition. The other explanation is that the coup is the work of the C.I.A. (and thus the Obama Administration) working through well-financed Turkish Muslim in political exile in the United States Fethullah Gulem, who engineered the coup because Erdogan is drifting away from playing the role the United States wants him to play (i.e., shifting position on Syria, disagreements over the Kurds, the Eurasian drift.)

It is still too early to tell which of these scenarios, in whole or in part, are valid, i.e., what did happen in Turkey these past days and why. But what is less debatable is the geopolitical shift that Erdogan is attempting to engineer, although the extent of the shift and what it means to Turkey’s relations with the United States and NATO are still up in the air.

The essence of Escobar article are the following points:

1. That the preliminary evidence suggests that the coup was something of a staged operation in which Erdogan had a hand – Escobar gives many examples of his suspicions. He is careful though NOT to openly call it an Erdogan-engineered conspiracy, although the evidence presented in the article certainly suggests as much. Melkulangara’s first post-coup analyses seem to point in the same direction.
2. Escobar downplays the role of Fetullah Gulen, the Obama Administration and the C.I.A. in orchestrating the coup, although he does not rule it out. If the Obama Administration was involved, he thinks, it is because of the split in the ruling class between the Obama Administration itself and “the Beltway/Neo-Con/CIA axis” – in which the differing elements of the U.S. global power structure are actually working against one another.

An interesting and from where I am sitting, not incredible, hypothesis.

All this suggests that the origins of the coup continue to remain murky although, regardless, its consequences are becoming clearer – a geopolitical shift in Turkey’s regional political role that is bound to cause tensions with Washington and NATO – and has already forced Turkey to mend fences with Russia, Israel and Iran. The question remains to be seen – a minor shift or something actually pulling Turkey into new geopolitical waters.

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Burned by coups in the past, Turks prefer even autocratic President Erdogan to military rule. Pictured: Soldiers involved in the Turkish coup surrender. (Photo: Ynet News)

A few days back, Turkey witnessed an unsuccessful military coup. The coup attempted to overthrow the Erdogan government and install military dictatorship.

Amidst all the hysteria and chaos, Turks took to the streets to protect their democratically elected government. As a result, the coup failed, and President Erdogan is still in power.

However, even though the military coup in Turkey failed, it left several questions unanswered.

The events and happenings of the coup have become common knowledge by now. Turkey did not go the way of Egypt, and in the process, the Turks taught us all a very important lesson. The military coup did not fail of its own accord — it failed because the people rose up against it.

Thousands of Turkish people came out on the streets, stirred further by the Islamic call to prayer, and challenged the coup. The police did not succumb before the highly-trained military personnel.

There were several casualties, and following the coup, there have been numerous arrests. The conspiracy theories aren’t dead either, with some even propagating the ridiculous claim that Erdogan himself organized the coup.

Yet, in the midst of it all, the role of Western media remained dismal and below par. In fact, there was hardly any journalism to be seen at all! It was all propaganda.

International Media and the Turkey Coup Reports

Let us begin with everyone’s favorite, Fox News. The “strategic analyst” was happy to exclaim that if the coup succeeds, “we win.”

In fact, Lt Col Ralph Peters went a step ahead, writing on the Fox News website:

That tragically failed coup was a forlorn hope, not an attempt to take over a country. Turkey is not a banana republic in which the military grasps the reins for its own profit. For almost a century, the Turkish armed forces have been the guardians of the country’s secular constitution.

Not wanting to be outdone, Sputnik went a step ahead and projected the images of Turkish people protesting against the coup as “celebrating” it! The New York Times, trying hard to get some extra page views probably, decided to seize the moment and indulge in its dislike for President Erdogan by reminding everyone of his “controversial rule”.

Also, The Telegraph defined the army as “the guardian of Turkey’s secular constitution” — mind you, guardians of the constitution that were trying to topple a constitutionally legitimate government!

But it was painful to see The Daily Beast, a publication that I actually follow, too falling prey to propaganda. According to The Daily Beast, President Erdogan was denied asylum in Germany (even though he never sought it in the first place). Again, facts? Nope!

The above, obviously, are just some instances wherein Western Media failed miserably at journalism, and excelled at propaganda. By and large, the Western media outlets failed to realize that it was not just the police that arrested the rebellious soldiers, but even the common people who, in spite of the firing, came out in large numbers and challenged the coup. They further failed to notice the ground reality; the mood on the streets was different. Anyone who even casually browsed through alternative media sources or even social networks knew that the mood was in favour of Erdogan.

You cannot really blame the media channels and publications for their fault though. Many international powers were eager to see the military coup succeed. They wanted Erdogan out of power. They badly hoped the AK Parti would fall out of favor. Blinded by their bias, it was only natural that they projected rumors and propaganda as “news”.

What more could have been expected of them anyway? Much like Egypt, in the case of Turkey as well, a good number of folks wanted a legitimate government out of power, and a military regime in place. Folks who talk the most about democracy refuse to support democratically elected governments in Algeria, Egypt, Palestine, Turkey and everywhere else if the said governments do not act as their stooges. It is never about rights; it is not about values. It is only a matter of interests.

What’s Next for Turkey?

As for the government of President Erdogan, there indeed have been some issues. However, times have not been easy for Turkey. One cannot forget the fact that Turkey has absorbed a large number of refugees. Plus, it has had its share of friction with Russia and other states, and Erdogan has faced it all really well.

Furthermore, the people of Turkey have been wrongfully vilified in Europe; supporters of Brexit have been scaring others by claiming that two million Turks are on their way to UK.

As such, it was not shocking to see the Turks rally out in support of their leader and his government.

Over the course of the next few days, further events will unfold. There have been reports (again, in Western media outlets) that some of the rebel soldiers were not even aware that they were part of a military coup. While the authenticity of such reports is yet to be verified, it’s also true that unlike Sisi’s soldiers in Egypt, the renegade soldiers in Turkey did not open fire at the general public en masse. There were many casualties, but for the most part, the rebellious soldiers exercised a good deal of restraint. The story would have been different if it were the treacherous army of Bashar al-Assad in Syria — millions would have perished in that case.

For now, it is obvious that several international media outlets do not seek stability in the world, but only operate as per the requirements of their political cravings. And finally, when it comes to foiling military coups, the people of Turkey who fearlessly acted in the best interests of their country, have schooled the world.

The post Turkish Coup Attempt Brought Out the Worst in Western Media appeared first on Foreign Policy In Focus.

Marine Le Pen stands to benefit most from attacks such as in Nice. (Photo: Politico Europe)

In a way, it’s almost worse when Islamic extremists don’t use weapons or explosives in their attack. With 9/11 – the only weapon used were boxcutters –they showed they can do just as much damage with everyday vehicles such as planes and trucks as with semi-automatic rifles (and occasionally, fully automatic), handguns, and explosives.

Meanwhile, let’s take a moment to visit what makes France a target.

It’s the largest Muslim community in Europe.

Five centuries of French oppression of Algeria.

France’s aggressiveness toward Libya, Syria, and the Islamic State.

The power it once held in Syria, Lebanon, and elsewhere in the Middle East.

The banlieues (suburbs) full of jobless young Muslim men.

President François Hollande said:

“France has been struck on the day of her national holiday,” he said. “Human rights are denied by fanatics, and France is clearly their target.”

You can change that to read that soon, “Civil rights are denied by fanatics.” Such as the far right. Marine Le Pen, president of France’s National Front, Marine Le Pen, stands to benefit the most from this attack that may, once and for all, drive most of France to adopt a staunchly anti-immigrant stance, by becoming elected next president of France.

The post Islamic Extremism Rolls Out the Red Carpet for Marine Le Pen appeared first on Foreign Policy In Focus.

By bombing Syrian rebel groups, Russia only creates more extremists. (Photo: Jamestown.org)

The average Westerner can be forgiven for wondering what Russia sees in the Assad regime. We wonder why, along with China, it vetoes UN Security Council resolutions holding the Syrian government accountable for its crimes. We wonder why it bombs all the rebel groups, when — if you’re into bombing — the Assad regime is worse for the country than any of them.

Among Russia’s main motivations are access to the Mediterranean via its naval base in Tartarus that it leases from Syria. Also, already dealing with its own Islamist extremism problem in states such as Chechnya, it doesn’t want even more of them running riot in Russia. In fact, Russia doesn’t actually seem to be propping up Assad but the Syrian government (as if it were possible to separate that from Assad). As Reuters reports:

Russia will countenance Syrian President Bashar al-Assad leaving office, but only when it is confident a change of leader will not trigger a collapse of the Syrian government, sources familiar with the Kremlin’s thinking say.

Getting to that point could take years, and in the meantime Russia is prepared to keep backing Assad, regardless of international pressure to jettison him, those sources said.

Such steadfast support is likely to further complicate already stalled peace talks with Assad’s opponents and sour relations with Washington which wants the Syrian leader gone.

“Russia is not going to part company with Assad until two things happen,” Sir Tony Brenton, Britain’s former ambassador to Russia, told Reuters.

“Firstly, until they are confident he won’t be replaced with some sort of Islamist takeover, and secondly until it can be guaranteed that their own position in Syria, their alliance and their military base, are sustainable going forward.”

Russia is missing the point about stemming the flow of Islamic extremists to Russia. By bombing them and supporting the Assad regime, it is just adding more fuel to the Islamic extremist fire and creating more incentive for Islamic extremist migration to states such as Chechnya and attacks on Russia itself.

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