The Middle East: War, Peace, and SNAFU, TARFU, and FUBAR

[Crafty_Dog]

Iraq Invites Its Own Demise
Oct 9, 2017
By Jacob L. Shapiro

As the political organization of the Middle East continues to deteriorate, some countries are starting to form new relationships with old enemies. Last week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan paid an official visit to Iran, a regional competitor that has backed different militant groups in the Syrian war. In a joint press conference after the meeting, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that Turkey, Iran and Iraq will work together to ensure that the region’s political borders do not change. The following day, Iraq’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said Iraq had officially requested that both Turkey and Iran close border crossings and halt all commercial transactions with Iraq’s Kurdish region after Kurds there voted in favor of independence in a referendum last month. The disarray in Iraq has gotten so bad that Baghdad is looking to Turkey and Iran for help controlling its Kurdish population.

Strange Bedfellows

The notion that these three countries would find common cause on any subject is counterintuitive. Turkey and Iraq have been at each other’s throats in recent years, and as recently as December 2015, they were involved in a protracted diplomatic spat over Turkish deployment of troops and armor in Iraq without the permission of the government. The Turkish troops were there ostensibly to help train Kurdish peshmerga to fight the Islamic State. Turkey also routinely bombs militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party – Turkey’s own Kurdish rebel movement – in northern Iraq without permission from Iraqi authorities. In effect, Turkey is announcing its intention to help defend the territorial integrity of a country whose integrity it regularly violates.

Turkey and Iran are also strange bedfellows. Though there has been no open antagonism between the two countries of late, both aspire to regional hegemony in the Middle East, and their long-term interests are mutually exclusive. They, for example, support rival groups in the Syrian civil war. Turkey has long opposed the Assad regime and has supported, with limited success, rebel groups of various stripes since the war broke out. Iran, meanwhile, has long been an ally of the Assad regime, which was a critical part of its strategy to forge alliances with a string of states and militant groups that allowed it to project power all the way to the Mediterranean. Tehran also put pressure on its proxy group Hezbollah to commit itself to fighting Assad’s would-be usurpers.
 
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (C) walks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (C-R) during an official welcoming ceremony following the latter’s arrival at the Saadabad Palace in Tehran on April 7, 2015. ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images
As for Iraq’s relationship with Iran, that is even more complicated. On the one hand, Shiite-majority Iran has developed a close relationship with Baghdad since Saddam Hussein’s Sunni, Baathist regime, which severely persecuted Shiites, was deposed. On the other hand, there is a deep level of enmity between Arabs and Persians that stretches back many centuries. That is why Iraq and Saudi Arabia have sought to bury the hatchet in recent months. Saudi Arabia cut ties with Iraq in 1990 after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, but efforts to repair the relationship seem to be working. A visit by influential Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to Riyadh in August was just the latest in a series of meetings aimed at creating a more cooperative relationship between Baghdad and Riyadh. Shortly after al-Sadr’s trip, Saudi Arabia and Iraq announced they would open the Tal Afar border crossing, which had been closed for 27 years, for trade.

The Kurdish Issue

The most surprising thing in all these complex relationships is that Iraq – once a major Arab power in the Middle East – has become so weak that it is reaching out to Turks and Persians to help solve its internal problems, particularly when it comes to Iraqi Kurdish aspirations for independence. From Iraq’s perspective, the enemy of its enemy is its friend, and both Turkey and Iran have taken a hard stance against their respective Kurdish populations. The regime in Baghdad doesn’t want the country to break apart, but it’s happening nonetheless. The independence vote in Iraqi Kurdistan is not a declaration of independence, but that’s only because the region knows that if it declares independence, it may very well be wiped off the map. It may not face a significant threat from Baghdad – the government there can’t even keep its own house in order – but Turkey and Iran border Iraqi Kurdistan and do not want to see the rise of an independent Kurdish state, albeit for different reasons. And the Iraqi Kurds don’t even have the support of the U.S. – which opposed the referendum – or any other foreign power on the independence issue.

Turkey’s major concern is that allowing Iraqi Kurds to declare independence could set a precedent for the region. Iran is concerned about this as well, but the bigger issue for Tehran is maintaining its relationship with Baghdad. Despite the ethnic differences between Iraq and Iran, Tehran hopes that the fact that they are both Shiite countries will be enough, over time, to forge a strong alliance between Iraq and Iran. Baghdad wants to keep its country together, and if Iran can show Baghdad that it can depend on Tehran in its hour of need, it could help make the Iraqi-Iranian relationship that much stronger.

The trouble for Iraq is that these relationships are not going to remain at the bilateral level. Turkey held military drills on the Iraqi Kurdish border the week before the referendum as a show of force and support for Baghdad’s position. Shortly after the referendum, Iranian tanks approached the Iraqi Kurdish border in Tehran’s own show of force, which was reportedly part of a military drill with Iraqi forces. But Turkey and Iran also appear to be building closer ties with each other – ties that do not include Iraq. The two sides have shown the ability to cooperate in the past, most recently by coordinating their efforts in Syria. But the rare meeting between Turkish and Iranian leaders and the prospect of military cooperation represents a step beyond previous levels of cooperation.

Their alliance can’t hold in the long term, but their mutual interests make increased cooperation possible in the short term. Neither side wants to deal with an agitated Kurdish separatist movement. And neither side sees eye to eye with the United States right now – Turkey because of U.S. support for Syrian Kurds, and Iran because its nuclear deal with the U.S. is facing great pressure in Washington. Both Turkey and Iran also are unconcerned with the strength and integrity of the region’s Arab nations.
And this is also one of the reasons this cooperation can’t last in the long run. For most of the region’s history since the death of the Prophet Muhammad, Turkish and Persian empires ruled the Middle East and its Arab population. These empires also used Kurdish populations to fight against each other – either by inciting one Kurdish group to create instability in the other country, or by using Kurdish troops as shock troops in their own armies.

The convergence of Turkish and Iranian interests will be ephemeral, but before it passes into historical patterns of antagonism, it has the potential to generate a significant alliance, one that temporarily reshapes the balance of power in the region. It decreases U.S. and Russian power in the region; it hastens the already accelerating deterioration of political stability in the Arab world; and it ensures that all the region’s various Kurdish populations will continue to only dream of independence without actually realizing it. The emergence of this reality was predictable. But that Iraq would hasten its own eventual doom by inviting the Turks and Persians in was not. Like any good story, geopolitics has its ironies.

The post Iraq Invites Its Own Demise appeared first on Geopolitical Futures.

[Crafty_Dog]

second post

Tragically, this appears to be all too true.  Even Gen. Mattis appears to be on board with fg the Kurds.

By
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Oct. 9, 2017 7:18 p.m. ET

The Iraqi Kurds held a dignified, orderly referendum Sept. 25 that conformed with all the rules of a democratic vote. Afterward, they refrained from declaring the independence that is their right and that a century of treaties promised them.

President Masoud Barzani —who has stood with America and the West against Islamic State for two years—made this crucial point: In his mind, independence can come only after patient, sustained, possibly drawn-out negotiation with Baghdad.

And yet all the region’s dictatorships immediately unleashed their ire on him and his people. From the instant the results were announced, it was a race to see which one could go further to condemn, smother, block, embargo and imprison a small population whose only crime is to express the desire to be free, to flourish as an island of democracy and peace.

We have Iraq, a supposedly federal state that in recent years has observed none of its constitutional obligations to the Kurds—yet it has the nerve to declare the referendum unconstitutional.

We have Turkey, which has traduced the rule of law in its treatment of intellectuals, journalists, lawyers, dissidents and defenders of human rights—yet asserts its offense at the affront to legal form the Kurds allegedly committed by expressing their desire for orderly independence.

We have Iran, which has temporarily suspended the Sunni-Shiite quarrel, so urgent was the need to conclude with the Turks an alliance that will allow it to deal with the irredentism of its own Kurds.

And we have the Syrian regime, butcher of its own people, divider of its own nation, now touting the unity of Iraq and declaring the Kurdish referendum “unacceptable.”

Years ago, the phrase “Gang of Four” was coined to describe a cabal of leaders who believed that the Chinese revolution had not devoured enough of its children and that the massacre had to continue. Here we have a new Gang of Four composed of Haider al-Abadi, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Bashar al-Assad and Ali Khamenei, who, in their distinctive ways, are threatening an air blockade, a land blockade, an oil embargo, a military intervention. How long before we hear the threat of rivers of blood?

Sorriest of all, when the Kurds—who have faced threats before, but sense in the Gang of Four a threat to their existence—call for help, the world, with the U.S. in the lead, finds nothing to say, averts its eyes and in so doing takes the side of the dictators. The Peshmerga were all we could talk about when we needed them to fight Islamic State. But now that the Iraqi phase of the war is almost won, we are discarding them—a disposable ally.

True, French President Emmanuel Macron mentioned the rights of the Kurdish people when Prime Minister Abadi visited Paris. Mr. Macron declared that the Kurds have long been a friend of France.   But that is not enough. In the absence of a stern and solemn warning to the Gang of Four—without a clear reminder that there is only one side to the escalation and it is theirs, without the reaffirmation of the great principles that underpin international law and universal morality—the worst may come to pass.

And France would find it difficult to carry on, without America, a fight for the honor, dignity, and the larger interest of the democracies. Don’t they urgently need, in this region, an ally with the mettle of the Kurds?

So, are we facing Munich-grade appeasement? Are we agreeing that might makes right? Will we give in to the world’s consummate blackmailers? Is the West—and the U.S. in particular—making a colossal error of judgment in not grasping that there is something suicidal about abandoning a brave and loyal ally in favor of its adversaries?

Or perhaps the Kurdish people—who are not Arabs, are secular, believe in pluralist democracy, practice equal rights for women, and have consistently protected, rescued and taken in minorities—are one more of the world’s expendable peoples.

There is only one solution: to speak up; to say calmly but firmly that there is something absurd about allowing authoritarian regimes to preach constitutional law to a people who only yesterday were under their boot; and to ensure that the Iraqi authorities respond, without delay or precondition, to the offer of dialogue the Kurds have extended to them.

Mr. Lévy is director of the documentary films “Peshmerga” and “The Battle of Mosul.” Translated from French by Steven B. Kennedy. 
Appeared in the October 10, 2017, print edition.
 


 

[Crafty_Dog]

third post



Tensions Rise Between Iraqis and Kurds After Referendum

As the threat of ISIS recedes, the risk that Iraqi and Kurdish forces could clash in the future is growing
By Isabel Coles and Ali A. Nabhan 
Oct. 8, 2017 3:02 p.m. ET

DAQUQ, Iraq—For more than three years, the weapons along a front line held by Kurdish forces in northern Iraq have been aimed at Islamic State militants occupying the nearby city of Hawija.

Now, they are pointed toward Iraqi forces who have just routed the militants from Hawija—the latest in a series of victories that have brought Islamic State to the verge of defeat in Iraq.


Islamic State’s loss of Hawija removed the last buffer between Kurdish and Iraqi forces just as tensions between their respective leaders are intensifying over last month’s referendum in which Kurds voted overwhelmingly for independence.

Up until now, the two forces cooperated for years to oust Islamic State, sharing intelligence and coordinating troop movements.

“We used to have a common enemy, but now things are changing,” said Col. Aso Ali Ahmed, a deputy commander of a brigade of Kurdish Peshmerga forces stationed near Hawija. “There may be war or there may not.”

As the threat of Islamic State recedes and the alliance between Kurdish and Iraqi forces weakens, the risk that the one-time partners will turn their guns on each other in future is growing, though leaders on both sides say they want to avoid conflict.

In the wake of the referendum, Iraq’s parliament authorized Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to deploy troops to retake areas outside the official boundary of the semiautonomous Kurdistan region that have come under Kurdish control in recent years, including during the fight against Islamic State.

Mr. Abadi also accused the Kurds of seeking to delay the Hawija operation, which was launched four days before the Kurdish independence referendum, which took place on Sept. 25. A Peshmerga official denied that.

The central government in Baghdad and the Kurds—backed by the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State—came together to fight the terror group after it overran around about a third of Iraq in 2014, setting aside differences over land and resources that have strained relations for more than a decade.

The areas taken over by the Kurds during the war on Islamic State include the oil-rich province of Kirkuk, from which the Kurds have been exporting crude without the blessing of the central government in Baghdad.

Iraq is the second-largest oil producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, and its economy is heavily dependent on oil. A significant portion of those resources are in the north, some within the Kurdistan region and some in territory controlled by Kurdish forces.

The most controversial aspect of the Kurdish referendum was the decision to conduct the vote in areas controlled by Kurdish forces outside the official boundary of the semiautonomous region of Kurdistan.

Kurdish leaders vow that they will not relinquish the territory they seized or protected from Islamic State—especially Kirkuk, which is economically and symbolically indispensable to the state the Kurds dream of declaring.

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Masoud Barzani, the Kurdish regional president, visited Peshmerga commanders in Kirkuk last week and instructed them to fortify their positions as Iraqi forces advanced in Hawija.

At one outpost on this front line, Peshmerga fighters surveyed the changing landscape on Friday, picking out the flags of Iraqi security forces and assorted government-backed paramilitary groups on the other side of the berm. The mood was relaxed, but wary.

“We don’t know what their intention is, where they are going, or what they want to do,” said Capt. Beevan Mohammed. “We won’t attack anyone, but we won’t accept anyone attacking us.”

A makeshift shrine at another outpost commemorates 21 Peshmerga fighters killed defending a stretch along the front.

“We paid for this with blood and it will take blood to make us leave,” said Cpl. Hiwa Ahmed.

So far, Mr. Abadi has eschewed force, instead imposing a ban on international flights to and from the landlocked Kurdistan region. He also threatened to seize Kurdish border crossings with Iran and Turkey, which shared Baghdad’s opposition to the referendum and staged joint military exercises with Iraqi forces to express their anger.

“We don’t want armed confrontation. We don’t want clashes. But federal authority must prevail,” Mr. Abadi said during a visit to France on Thursday, where he announced the victory in Hawija, the last territory the terror group controlled in northern Iraq.

Although the referendum doesn’t automatically confer statehood, the government in Baghdad opposed it, as did the U.S., which warned of more conflict and chaos in the Middle East.

The Kurdish leadership also says it doesn’t want conflict, and has called for dialogue with Baghdad, and diplomats are seeking to defuse tensions.

But there has also been aggressive rhetoric, including from leaders of some government-backed Shiite paramilitary groups known collectively as the Popular Mobilization Forces, which have fought Islamic State alongside the Iraqi military.

“Until recently there were people who said dialogue would work with the separatists, but they [the Kurds] did as they pleased because they were not dealt with by force,” Qais al-Khazaali, who heads one group that is part of the Popular Mobilization Forces, said in a recent speech.

Some of the militias within the Popular Mobilization Forces are loyal to Iran, which has been one of the staunchest opponents of the referendum and could mobilize its allies in Iraq against the Kurds.

Both sides have recruited local residents from the disputed territories in northern Iraq. It took an intervention by senior Kurdish, Iraqi and Iranian officials to end clashes last year between members of the local ethnic Turkmen minority who have joined Shiite paramilitary groups, and Kurdish forces in a town south of Kirkuk.

Among those who fought in the Hawija operation was Arab tribal leader Sheikh Burhan al-Assi, who assembled a small militia of 75 fighters to recapture his own village just yards from the new front line with the Kurds.

Mr. Assi, who is also a member of the Kirkuk provincial council, said he hoped Baghdad and the Kurds would reach an agreement. “I am not against self-determination for the Kurdish people as long as it does not infringe upon the rights of others,” he said.

—Ghassan Adnan contributed to this article.

[Crafty_Dog]

An Iraqi government official is proposing a confederal system instead of Kurdish independence, NRT reported Oct. 9. Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) official Fazil Mirani said a confederacy would be a good option — unless Baghdad seeks preconditions — that would allow Kurdistan to enjoy independence without secession from Iraq. A confederal system would require the Iraqi parliament to pass a constitutional amendment, which Mirani says is unlikely to happen. This proposition is among the latest following the Sept. 25 Kurdish independence referendum.

[Crafty_Dog]

Although the Islamic State is on the run in most of Iraq, the fight for power, autonomy and resources among Iraq's ethnic and sectarian groups is only just beginning. This struggle will be most evident in the territories disputed by the Iraqi government Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Arbil, most of which voted in the Kurdish independence referendum last month. The prize of the dispute is the oil-rich province of Kirkuk. After a tense four-day standoff between the Kurdish peshmerga, Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and the pro-Baghdad Shiite-led Popular Mobilization Forces, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered the ISF, the Federal Police and the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service forces to move into the city of Kirkuk early on Oct. 16 to secure federal bases and installations in the area.

Prior to Islamic State's rapid advance across western and northern Iraq in 2014, Kirkuk province and its infrastructure was largely controlled and administered by Iraq's federal government. The Iraqi army provided much of the province's security while Baghdad's institutions — such as the North Oil Company and the North Gas Company — ran and controlled Kirkuk's oil and natural gas industry, home to about 300,000 barrels per day of production. But as the Iraqi army collapsed in Mosul in the north and Hawija in southwestern Kirkuk province, it withdrew from the city as the Islamic State closed in. The militant group even briefly captured the K1 military base outside the city of Kirkuk. Kurdish peshmerga fighters forced Islamic State fighters from K1 military base and many of the surrounding oil fields and were able to prevent them from taking control of the city as well. The Kurds took advantage of the situation by gaining control of the city, control that Baghdad doesn't want to give up over territory that it considers rightfully under central government control. Evidently, the Iraqi military advance is geared at securing the oil and gas infrastructure as well as the K1 military base.

The KRG will not want to give up its valuable leverage, but that doesn't mean it wants to start a war either. Two Kurdish parties — the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) — on Oct. 15 issued a statement calling for "an unconditional, responsible and constructive dialogue" with Baghdad over the referendum results. There were even rumors on social media suggesting that both parties agreed to certain concessions they would afford Baghdad in negotiations on Kirkuk, such as removing the Kirkuk governor, freezing the referendum results for one year, and joint ISF and peshmerga control of the K1 military base, along with other installations in Kirkuk. There may be a deal in the works between Baghdad and the KRG — or at least elements of the Kurdish government more willing to negotiate with Baghdad — to reduce tension by allowing the ISF to control some of the facilities in the region. Al-Abadi's recent announcements called for Iraqi forces to work with the peshmerga to secure the installations. And KRG President Massoud Barzani knows that conflict will undercut his Western support, leading him to order the peshmerga not to initiate any conflict, but allowing them to respond if Iraqi forces fire first.

While the broader dispute over Kirkuk's status is between Baghdad and Arbil, the struggle for Kirkuk is much more complicated. Kirkuk is a multi-ethnic city of Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen and other groups. Many of Kirkuk's non-Kurdish populations did not support the referendum. This is critical because the fight against the Islamic State in Hawija was led in part by Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces. Although these forces are technically under the control of al-Abadi, they are a conglomeration of dozens of militias, some of which are closer to Iran and al-Abadi's political rivals. In the region around Kirkuk, two of the more powerful militias are Turkmen militias that are linked to the Iran-backed Badr Organization. There have already been sporadic skirmishes between militias and the PUK peshmerga, most recently in the past week in Tuz Khurmatu, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) outside of Kirkuk. Al-Abadi has so far only ordered the Iraqi military and police force to move into the city — not the Popular Mobilization Forces. It is possible that by moving in more trusted forces first, al-Abadi is seeking to prevent a real conflict from erupting. Additionally, keeping the Popular Mobilization Forces out of Kirkuk means they are likely to be mobilized to Sunni-populated Anbar province instead, where the Islamic State still remains. This raises another set of problems for Baghdad.

What remains to be seen over the next few days is how the various moves will play out. Tensions in the region are high and the movement of forces comes with risk. There have already been unconfirmed reports that the Kurdish peshmerga have reinforced the city, sending in the elite Heza Rashaka unit, which was used to secure control of oil installations in March. There are been reports of the peshmerga destroying four Iraqi Humvee vehicles. Various KRG officials also said that Popular Mobilization Forces have been involved in the operation, despite al-Abadi's conflicting statements. At least seven Popular Mobilization Forces militiamen have allegedly been killed in Kirkuk's Hay al-Sanna. As Stratfor expected, the next phase of Iraq's conflict is underway.

[Crafty_Dog]

second post

Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) have quickly captured critical infrastructure points in Iraq's Kirkuk province and in the surrounding areas. After beginning its operation overnight Oct. 15, the Iraqi military has reportedly taken control of the North Oil Company and North Gas Company headquarters, Kurdistan's K1 military base, the Bai Hassan oil field and the Baba Gurgur and Avanah domes of the Kirkuk oil field. Currently, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) claims to still hold some of the oil fields in the area.

The Iraqi government's purpose for the operation is to reassert federal control over the disputed province of Kirkuk's most strategic assets, which fell under the control of the Kurdish peshmerga after the Islamic State rose to power there in 2014. But the pace of the ISF's advance appears to have been hastened by newly exposed splits within both the two main Kurdish political parties and the region's powerful but divided peshmerga military.
Iraq's Kurds, A Divided People

For years, the political scene in Iraqi Kurdistan has been dominated by two parties: the KDP, which is closely associated with the powerful Barzani family, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which is tied to the similarly powerful Talabani family. In the Kurdistan Regional Government, the KDP is the ruling party, but in the eastern portions of Iraqi Kurdistan — including the heavily disputed province of Kirkuk — the PUK is dominant. Moreover, Kurdistan's peshmerga forces are divided between loyalty to the KDP and to the PUK. The majority of the region's peshmerga units remain directly controlled by either PUK or KDP political bureaus, and only a few report to the politically blended KRG government itself.

These differing chains of command have led to conflict. Soon after the start of last night's ISF advance, peshmerga forces under the control of the PUK reportedly received orders to withdraw from Kirkuk and to allow Baghdad's forces to take control of various installations. These events may have been the result of a prearranged agreement between the PUK's leadership — or, at least its Talabani factions — and the central government in Baghdad, which the Talabani family has courted closely. The Iraqi Oil Ministry's statement that both sides of the conflict agreed to avoid fighting around Kirkuk's oil fields provides further evidence that a deal was struck with the PUK.

The PUK's decision to withdraw has earned it intense criticism from the KDP, which has been sending in more KDP peshmerga brigades to reinforce Kurdish positions in Kirkuk. Right now, the PUK and the KDP seem more divided than ever, and there is a high risk of intra-Kurdish conflict during the coming days and weeks. In addition to reports of fighting between Kurdish and Iraqi forces, there have been indications of conflict between the PUK and the KDP's respective arms of the peshmerga. Eyewitnesses even report Kurdish civilians angrily protesting the perceived departure of PUK peshmerga forces from Kirkuk.
Increasing Uncertainty

In the aftermath of last month's Kurdish independence referendum, the Talabani-led faction of the PUK has pushed to work closely with Baghdad, believing the referendum was an attempt for Kurdish President Masoud Barzani to consolidate political control. Indeed, Bafel Talabani, the son of recently deceased PUK leader Jalal Talabani, went on television Oct. 12 to call for a de-escalation of conflict between Arbil and Baghdad and to urge the creation of a joint administration between the two that would run Kirkuk. However, it also appears that some of the PUK's peshmerga are more loyal to a splinter faction of the group led by Kosrat Rasul. These forces have actually been working alongside the KDP, reinforcing the group's positions in Kirkuk.

It is possible that Baghdad's moves in Kirkuk province were not initially intended to culminate in seizing the city itself. Statements by PUK-linked officials suggested that the goal was to take over the K1 military base on the outskirts of the city, as well as the oil and natural gas fields located in the province's hinterlands. But strong military pushback from the Kurds could have led to an operational decision to make a move onto the city — something the PUK might not have bargained when it made its alleged deal with Baghdad. And at this point, an Iraqi or Kurdish civil conflict could be on its way, whether any party intended it.

In the coming days, outside powers including the United States will likely try to exert pressure on Baghdad and Arbil to end the conflict. Meanwhile, Turkey has said that it backs Baghdad's moves against the Kurds, despite the fact that it has supported the KRG against Baghdad in the past. Turkey's choice can be attributed to its contentious relationship with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has also reportedly become involved in Kirkuk, as well as Turkey's overall disapproval of Iraqi Kurdistan gaining greater autonomy. The PKK was one of the Kurdish units to remain at the frontlines against the Islamic State the longest, and the group has even called for Kurds looking for an alternative means of resistance to join the PKK instead of the peshmerga. The more active the PKK becomes in the dispute, the more support Turkey will lend to Baghdad.
The Threat of Ethno-Sectarian Fighting

The events in Kirkuk have developed rapidly and have sharpened divisions within military and government groups. But perhaps the biggest question surrounding the conflict right now is whether or not it will devolve into broader sectarian fighting. Underlying sectarian disputes in the region have recently been exacerbated by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's decision to replace the Kurdish governor of Kirkuk, Najmadin Karim, with the Sunni Arab Rakan Said. The move is an especially sensitive one, given the Arabization campaign that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein led to curtail Kurdish nationalism.

Sectarian tension is set to grow even more if Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMUs) become more involved in the conflict in Kirkuk. The bulk of the PMUs in Kurdistan are made up of Brigades of Turkmen Shiite and Arab Shiite — and the Arabs and Turkmen were two of the largest regional minority groups to oppose the Sept. 25 independence referendum. And though the PMUs have not been very involved in the fighting so far, they participated in the takeover of Hawija from the Islamic State in southern Kirkuk province. It's possible that the PMUs — particularly the Iranian-supported Turkmen brigades — will move into Kirkuk once the ISF consolidates control. There are already unconfirmed reports that Hadi Al-Amiri and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, two key PMU commanders, have entered the city. Finally, there is the sectarian conflict between the Shiites and Kurds and the Sunnis. Turkmen Shiites and the Kurds have both been accused of displacing and ejecting Sunni Arabs and Sunni Turkmen from both the region and their governments as a response to Islamic State's rise.

Even if outside powers can end the fighting between the ISF and the KRG, underlying tension between Kirkuk's rival factions and sects will likely endure. Over the last few years, a shared enemy, the Islamic State, forced many of these groups to cooperate. But now that the threat of the Islamic State is dwindling, their differences have been thrown into sharp relief.

[Crafty_Dog]

Assault on the Kurds
Defeat for the U.S. allies in northern Iraq is a victory for Iran.
Iraqi forces advance towards the city of Kirkuk during an operation against Kurdish fighters, Oct 16.
Iraqi forces advance towards the city of Kirkuk during an operation against Kurdish fighters, Oct 16. Photo: ahmad al-rubaye/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
By The Editorial Board
Oct. 16, 2017 7:01 p.m. ET
156 COMMENTS

A central tenet of the Trump foreign policy, a work in progress, has been that the U.S. would rebuild its relationship with America’s allies. That commitment is being put to the test in northern Iraq.

On Monday Iraq’s army, assisted by Iranian forces, launched a major assault on the Kurds in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. Across the length of America’s recent history with Iraq, we have had no more reliable ally than Iraq’s Kurds and their fighting force, the Peshmerga.

So far the Trump Administration has said little about the attack on the Kurds. “We’re not taking sides, but we don’t like the fact that they’re clashing,” President Trump told reporters at the White House Monday. “We’ve had, for many years, a very good relationship with the Kurds, as you know. And we’ve also been on the side of Iraq, even though we should have never been in there in the first place. But we’re not taking sides in that battle.”

But if the U.S. allows one of its most visible allies to be defeated in the Middle East, make no mistake: Other allies in the region will notice and start to recalculate their relationship with the Trump Administration.

The Iraqi Kurds, to be sure, have contributed to their current plight. Kurdish President Masoud Barzani went forward with a needless independence referendum last month, despite pressure from the U.S. not to hold the vote. The pro-forma vote gave the Baghdad government a pretext to play the nationalist card and retake Kirkuk.

Kirkuk is a multi-ethnic city that lies just south of Iraq’s Kurdistan, an autonomous region whose borders abut Iran and Turkey. The Kirkuk region is also rich in oil. The Kurds gained control of Kirkuk in 2014 after Iraq’s army famously fled under attack from Islamic State, which seized control of Mosul in June that year.

After the Iraqi forces abandoned the region, the Peshmerga became the primary reason that Islamic State was never able to consolidate its control of northern Iraq. Arguably, the Kurds, backed by U.S. air power, saved Iraq by giving Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi time to reconstitute his nation’s army into a fighting force capable of driving Islamic State out of Iraq’s major cities, with the help of the Peshmerga.

Possibly the phrase “no good deed goes unpunished” originated in the Middle East. Having taken back Mosul from Islamic State, Mr. Abadi now wants to drive the Kurds back into their northern Iraqi homeland. But the strategic details of this attack on the Kurds are important. Iraq’s offensive includes Iran. According to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, Iranian-backed militias and the 9th Iraqi Armored Division moved toward Kirkuk last week to support the Iraqi army.

The Abadi government in Baghdad is under constant pressure from Shiite Iran to align itself against the interest of Iraq’s Sunni populations in the north and west. It follows that after Iraq’s progress on the battlefield against Islamic State, Iran would encourage the Iraqis to drive the Kurds out of Kirkuk.

Notice this is all happening within days of President Trump decertifying the Iran nuclear deal, based in part on the assumption that Europe will support U.S. efforts to resist Iran’s ballistic-missile program and its penetrations across the Middle East. But what will the Europeans or our allies in the Middle East conclude if we abandon one of our oldest regional allies, the Iraqi Kurds?

The U.S. no doubt has lost much of the political leverage it had before the Obama Administration pulled out of Iraq in 2011. But abandoning the Kurds to an Iraq-Iran Shiite alliance would only deepen U.S. losses.

Before Iraq and the Kurds go to war, the U.S. could insist that Iraq reaffirm the autonomy of Iraqi Kurdistan and also that it work out an agreement to share revenue from the region’s oil reserves. The alternative to such a modus vivendi for Prime Minister Abadi is a capable Kurdish fighting force in a state of permanent insurrection.

The U.S. owes a debt to the Kurds. Abandoning them now would damage America’s credibility, and not least Mr. Trump’s ability to enlist allies against Iran’s expansion across the Middle East. The assault on Kirkuk matters.

[Crafty_Dog]

second post:

The Global Consensus Against the Iraqi Kurds
Oct 17, 2017

 
By Kamran Bokhari

Iraqi government forces took control of the Kurdish-dominated city of Kirkuk on Oct. 16, part of a growing dispute between the Kurdistan Regional Government, which held an independence referendum last month, and the government in Baghdad. While Iraq’s disintegration as a country has been apparent for years now, this latest dispute indicates that the situation isn’t going to get any better. It’s unlikely that Iraqi Kurdistan will achieve independence, even though the majority of voters supported independence. What’s more, this issue has drawn in a number other countries, most notably Turkey and Iran, which encouraged Baghdad to quell the growing Kurdish separatist movement.

Long at Odds

The latest reports suggest that Baghdad’s security forces are facing little resistance from the forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government, which governs Iraq’s northern Kurdish region. The KRG has controlled the oil-rich Kirkuk province, just south of Iraqi Kurdistan, since 2014, when Iraqi forces abandoned the area as Islamic State fighters approached. Iraqi soldiers have now taken over key energy and military installations. Much of this can be blamed on divisions among the Iraqi Kurds themselves – the region’s second-largest party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, cut a deal with Baghdad and Tehran and withdrew its forces from the region when the Iraqi army advanced. The move comes three weeks after 93 percent of Iraqi Kurds voted in favor of independence in a referendum held by the KRG, which wants to form an independent Kurdistan that would include areas well south of the current autonomous Kurdish region, including Kirkuk.
 
Members of the Iraqi Kurdish security forces stand guard at a checkpoint in Altun Kupri, 25 miles south of Irbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq on Oct. 16, 2017. SAFIN HAMED/AFP/Getty Images

Baghdad and Irbil have long been at odds. After the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, Washington helped the country devise a new political system that would allow the Shiites – who are a majority in Iraq – to dominate the central government and the Kurds to enjoy regional autonomy. But this new polity suffered from two main flaws. First, it marginalized the Sunni minority, which led to a massive insurgency that resulted in the rise of the Islamic State. Second, it led to a bitter struggle between the Shiites and the Kurds, as the Kurds continued to push for more autonomy, especially over the right to export hydrocarbons and expand their power southward.

For many years, the friction between the Shiites and the Iraqi Kurds was contained because of the Sunni insurgent threat. The two sides engaged in multiple rounds of negotiations to resolve their dispute over control of oil and gas resources and revenue sharing. But they were never able to reach an agreement. Landlocked, the KRG needed partners to help it export oil without the assistance of the central government; it therefore forged close ties with bordering Turkey.

Baghdad was furious with both Irbil and Ankara, but it could do little to disrupt the arrangement between the Iraqi Kurds and the Turks. This became the status quo, until the Islamic State emerged in 2014 and seized Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul. When the Iraqi army retreated from Mosul, which is just south of Iraqi Kurdistan, it presented both a threat and an opportunity for the Kurds.

It was a threat because it left the Kurds vulnerable to an IS attack. It was an opportunity because the departure of Iraqi forces from the region could allow KRG forces to seize additional territory. The failure of the Islamic State to expand into Kirkuk left this region firmly under the KRG’s control. After a three-year struggle, the liberation of Mosul last July created the conditions for the Kurds to make a move toward full sovereignty. And with the IS threat receding, the conflict between the Shiites and the Kurds became the biggest challenge facing the country.

Broader Implications

If Iraqi Kurdistan were to move from being an autonomous region in Iraq to an independent state, it would have serious implications for the security of neighboring states, especially Turkey and Iran – the region’s two strongest powers. The Turks and the Iranians are locked in a long-term struggle for influence in Iraq and Syria, as well as the wider Middle East. When Turkey helped the KRG with energy exports, it was actually an attempt to counter the influence of Iran, which sees the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad as an ally.

But when it comes to Kurdish independence, the Turks and the Iranians actually have some interests in common. Both countries have their own Kurdish separatist movements – although the movement is stronger in Turkey, which has the largest Kurdish population of any country in the Middle East. They both, therefore, opposed the Iraqi Kurds’ move toward independence. It would be in both their interests for the Iraqi government to retake Kirkuk.

Buoyed by Turkey and Iran, Baghdad is pushing ahead to contain the Iraqi Kurds. It is also deeply encouraged by the fact that the United States opposes the Kurdish move toward sovereignty. The KRG has been a key ally of Washington – in many ways, a far closer partner than the Iraqi central government given Baghdad’s close ties with Tehran. But Kurdish independence is not in the American interest because it would further aggravate the existing conflicts in the region. If Washington supported the creation of an independent Kurdistan in Iraq, it could encourage the Kurds in Syria and Turkey to also push for independence, which would create far more problems between Turkey and the United States.

The U.S. will therefore try to mediate a truce between Baghdad and Irbil, but it will mainly try to stay out of the issue as it did when Iraqi forces took Kirkuk from the KRG. Turkey and Iran will be much more deeply involved given that it has more direct implications for them. Both want to prevent the Iraqi Kurds from claiming independence and from expanding southward. But that is the extent of their shared objectives.

In the end, the Iraqi Kurds will remain pawns in the power struggle between regional and global powers. As for Iraq, it will continue to be a failed state – internationally recognized as a country but effectively unable to act like one.

The post The Global Consensus Against the Iraqi Kurds appeared first on Geopolitical Futures.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/247203/kurdistan-iran-united-states?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=a11c27f59b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_10_18&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-a11c27f59b-207194629

[G M]

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/247203/kurdistan-iran-united-states?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=a11c27f59b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_10_18&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-a11c27f59b-207194629

W.T.F.??

Why are the Kurds being abandoned? This pisses me off to no end.

[Crafty_Dog]

second post

For the record, I would like to register my deep concern that by abandoning the Kurds, we are accepting that the Iranians will have uncontested control all the way to the Mediterranean; indeed with our active campaign against DAESH/ISIS under President Trump we have actively enabled this outcome!

It may well be that when Trump took office it was too late for the outcome to be otherwise, and certainly in Sec Def Mattis we have a man whose integrity, warrior spirit, leadership, and vision that we respect mightily , , , but , , ,

How are we going to get in Iran's face over the nuke deal given this context?

What meaning our friendship now given we look the other way instead of backing the Kurds?

I know this is all very complicated (the Kurds are fragemented, the implications with Turkey, etc etc) but I'm thinking this may prove to be a very big error.

IMHO it would have been better to back the Kurds, establish base(s) there, etc as the beginning of an Israeli-Jordanian-Kurd-Saudi alliance (Egypt joining in when it saw our intention.  (With the Kurds as a refueling point, Israeli options  against Iran increase dramatically too).

Note this article published in the Jordan Times:  http://www.jordantimes.com/news/region/defeat-daesh-raqqa-may-herald-wider-struggle-us

[G M]

F*ck Turkey. The Kurds are much more important. I hate our foreign policy structure.

second post

For the record, I would like to register my deep concern that by abandoning the Kurds, we are accepting that the Iranians will have uncontested control all the way to the Mediterranean; indeed with our active campaign against DAESH/ISIS under President Trump we have actively enabled this outcome!

It may well be that when Trump took office it was too late for the outcome to be otherwise, and certainly in Sec Def Mattis we have a man whose integrity, warrior spirit, leadership, and vision that we respect mightily , , , but , , ,

How are we going to get in Iran's face over the nuke deal given this context?

What meaning our friendship now given we look the other way instead of backing the Kurds?

I know this is all very complicated (the Kurds are fragemented, the implications with Turkey, etc etc) but I'm thinking this may prove to be a very big error.

IMHO it would have been better to back the Kurds, establish base(s) there, etc as the beginning of an Israeli-Jordanian-Kurd-Saudi alliance (Egypt joining in when it saw our intention.  (With the Kurds as a refueling point, Israeli options  against Iran increase dramatically too).

[Crafty_Dog]

I share the sentiment, but having them commit against us is not a small thing e.g. they could start enabling refugee flows again, facilitate Russian naval movements out of Crimea through the Bosphorus into the Mediterranean e.g. the Russian port in Syria, not to mention the possibility of invading parts of Syria etc.

I do not opine on this, I merely note the complexity.

Question: At some point do we not have to trust that Mattis knows best? 

[G M]

I share the sentiment, but having them commit against us is not a small thing e.g. they could start enabling refugee flows again, facilitate Russian naval movements out of Crimea through the Bosphorus into the Mediterranean e.g. the Russian port in Syria, not to mention the possibility of invading parts of Syria etc.

I do not opine on this, I merely note the complexity.

Question: At some point do we not have to trust that Mattis knows best? 

How much of this is the deep state pulling levers despite what the appointees are trying to do?

[Crafty_Dog]

I could be wrong, but I sense that Mattis and McMaster have a certain Big Army/Marine perspective on the Middle East.  This includes being willing to see Israel as a PITA for what the mission they have been given with regard to the Arabs (Sunni, of course).  Think e.g. of Marine general Zinni in the run-up to the Iraq War strongly warning against it.

I must acknowledge that what I advocated a couple of posts ago would require a considerable investment of bandwidth.  Mattis/MacMaster may well feel we don't have that bandwidth to spare with the Nork nukes and the Chinese SCS issues front and center and may feel that if we solve the Norks first we may find it easier to communicate effectively  with the Iranians.

Of course by not backing the Kurds at this critical juncture it seems to me that we have made it even harder to persuade the Iranians to back off the nukes-- perhaps this is why Mattis was hinting in his congressional testimony a week or so ago that staying in the Iran nuke deal was in our interest.  Arguably this distinguishes President Trump's decision to decertify the deal (a matter of US law, not the deal itself- if I have this right). 

Yes this kicks the sanctions issue over to Congress (a good thing IMHO to force Congress to do its fg job and commit itself) but it also kicks the can down the road as to what we do if/when the Iranians tell us to fk off and sprint for the nukes.

I am reading chatter that some serious players are saying the the Norks are three months away.  Is not the reality similar with the Iranians?

WE MUST BE PREPARED TO HAVE OUR ASSUMPTIONS SHATTERED.

[Crafty_Dog]

Second post

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Irans-very-good-week-507929

[ccp]

we screw over the Kurds again.

 

[Crafty_Dog]

AND I'm not seeing how this makes an already exceedingly difficult and dangerous hand against the Iranians near impossible short of all out war , , , as best as I can tell.

[G M]

I share the sentiment, but having them commit against us is not a small thing e.g. they could start enabling refugee flows again, facilitate Russian naval movements out of Crimea through the Bosphorus into the Mediterranean e.g. the Russian port in Syria, not to mention the possibility of invading parts of Syria etc.

I do not opine on this, I merely note the complexity.

Question: At some point do we not have to trust that Mattis knows best? 

How much of this is the deep state pulling levers despite what the appointees are trying to do?

https://amgreatness.com/2017/10/21/how-the-state-department-is-undermining-trumps-agenda/

How the State Department is Undermining Trump’s Agenda
By The Editors| October 21, 2017



Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has isolated himself from his own department and allowed subordinates to fill a handful of top positions with people who actively opposed Donald Trump’s election, according to current and former State Department officials and national security experts with specific knowledge of the situation.

News reports often depict a White House “in chaos.” But the real chaos, according to three State Department employees who spoke with American Greatness on the condition of anonymity, is at Foggy Bottom.

Rumors have circulated for months that Tillerson either plans to resign or is waiting for the president to fire him. The staffers describe an amateur secretary of state who has “checked out” and effectively removed himself from major decision making.

Hundreds of Empty Desks
About 200 State Department jobs require Senate confirmation. But the Senate cannot confirm nominees it does not have. More than nine months into the new administration, most of the senior State Department positions—assistant and deputy assistant secretary posts—remain unfilled.

What’s more, the United States currently has no ambassador to the European Union, or to key allies such as France, Germany, Australia, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia. Meantime, Obama Administration holdovers remain ensconced in the department and stationed at embassies in the Balkans, Africa, and the Middle East.

The leadership vacuum has been filled by a small group opposed to the president’s “America First” agenda.

At the heart of the problem, these officials say, are the two people closest to Tillerson: chief of staff Margaret Peterlin and senior policy advisor Brian Hook, who runs the State Department’s in-house think tank.

Peterlin and Hook are longtime personal friends who current staffers say are running the department like a private fiefdom for their benefit and in opposition to the president and his stated policies.

‘Boxing Out’ Trump Supporters
The lack of staffing gives the duo unprecedented power over State Department policy. Since joining Tillerson’s team, Peterlin and Hook have created a tight bottleneck, separating the 75,000 State Department staffers—true experts in international relations—from the secretary. As the New York Times reported in August, “all decisions, no matter how trivial, must be sent to Mr. Tillerson or his top aides: Margaret Peterlin, his chief of staff, and Brian Hook, the director of policy planning.” In practice, however, that has meant Peterlin and Hook make the decisions.

More important, sources who spoke with American Greatness say, Peterlin and Hook have stymied every effort by pro-Trump policy officials to get jobs at the State Department.

Margaret Peterlin
Margaret Peterlin

“Peterlin is literally sitting on stacks of résumés,” one national security expert told American Greatness. Together, Peterlin and Hook are “boxing out anyone who supports Trump’s foreign policy agenda,” he added.

Peterlin, an attorney and former Commerce Department official in the George W. Bush Administration, was hired to help guide political appointments through the vetting and confirmation process. She reportedly bonded with Tillerson during his confirmation hearings, and he hired her as his chief of staff.

Brian Hook
Brian Hook

Peterlin then brought in Hook, who co-founded the John Hay Initiative, a group of former Mitt Romney foreign-policy advisors who publicly refused to support Trump because he would “act in ways that make America less safe.” In a May 2016 profile of NeverTrump Republicans, Hook told Politico, “Even if you say you support him as the nominee, you go down the list of his positions and you see you disagree on every one.”

Hook now directs the department’s Office of Policy Planning, responsible for churning out policy briefs and helping to shape the nation’s long-term strategic agenda.

NeverTrumpers on Parade
In September, Peterlin and Hook hired David Feith, a former Wall Street Journal editorial writer and the son of Douglas J. Feith, one of the architects of the Iraq War. Feith shares with Peterlin and Hook a deep dislike for President Trump. Feith, according to one State Department employee with knowledge of the hire, had been rejected by the White House precisely because of his opposition to the president and his policies. Peterlin and Hook forced him through anyway.

Incredibly, even the State Department’s spokesman, R.C. Hammond, was an outspoken NeverTrumper before the election, frequently tweeting jibes and barbs at the candidate. Hammond, a former aide to Newt Gingrich, is now the face and one of the leading voices of U.S. public diplomacy.

Many of these anti-Trump hires have occurred in the face of a hiring freeze Tillerson imposed earlier this year following an executive order to review agency and department staffing, along with the White House’s request to cut the State Department’s budget by 30 percent. But rather than put a check on untrustworthy career bureaucrats, the move had the opposite effect of empowering the president’s opponents.

State’s anti-Trump climate has shut out several top-notch foreign policy hands.

Kiron Skinner, founding director of the Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie Mellon University and a fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, worked on Trump’s national security transition team and was hired as a senior policy advisor. She was considered for the job Hook now has in the Office of Policy Planning. But she was isolated from career staffers and quit after a few days.

At least Skinner managed to get into the building. Another former Reagan Administration staffer with decades of experience in U.S.-Russian affairs and international economics had spent months in 2016 campaigning for the president in critical battleground states, including Pennsylvania and Ohio. As soon as Trump won the election, this experienced analyst and several other pro-Trump associates were passed over for State Department jobs. It’s to the point that even internship candidates are being rejected if they volunteered for the Trump campaign.

Tillerson or No, Personnel is Policy
When he agreed to take the top diplomat’s job, Tillerson reportedly asked President Trump for autonomy‚ and got it. Unfortunately, his leadership style has changed from his days running ExxonMobil. In his definitive history of ExxonMobil, journalist Steve Coll described Tillerson’s approach as open and informal. By contrast, Tillerson’s modus operandi at state has been described as isolated, unapproachable, even “draconian.” 

In government today, the maxim that “personnel is policy” is truer than ever. As a result, the State Department mirrors the management style not of its leader, but of Tillerson’s chief aides who are at odds with the president’s stated foreign policy agenda.

Tillerson this week told the Wall Street Journal he would remain on the job “as long as the president thinks I’m useful.” But whether it’s Tillerson behind the secretary’s desk, or CIA Director Mike Pompeo, or any other foreign policy hand, a State Department staffed with opponents of the president is hardly useful to Americans who voted to reject the failed foreign policies of the past two administrations.

President Trump made “draining the swamp” a cornerstone of his campaign. How can he drain the swamp if the swamp dwellers control his administration and drown out voices of his most innovative supporters?

[Crafty_Dog]

Please post  in  "Trump Administration" and "US Foreign Policy" as well.

[Crafty_Dog]

In Stratfor's Fourth-Quarter Forecast, we outlined how Turkey, Iran and the United States would continue to support Baghdad's position against the Kurdish independence referendum and how mounting pressure would cause Kurdish infighting to worsen. Kurdish President Massoud Barzani's decision not to run for re-election shows how heavily that pressure has weighed on him and his party. But far from uniting his people, Barzani's decision is likely only to widen the divisions.

Iraqi Kurdistan may soon be governed by new leaders, but bitter rivalries and social divisions will endure. Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani announced that he will not extend his term when it expires Nov. 1, after he apparently gravely underestimated how the central Iraqi government in Baghdad would react to the KRG's independence referendum Sept. 25. Since the referendum, Iraqi federal troops have retaken control of disputed territory and critical infrastructure previously held by Kurdish forces and conflict among and within different Kurdish political parties has increased.

Though Barzani is stepping down from his role as president, he plans to remain active in politics as head of the KRG's High Political Council. Meanwhile, other figures in the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) may take a more active role in the Kurdish government. On Oct. 29, the region's parliament approved to split the majority of the presidency's functions three ways between the prime minister and the Cabinet, the parliament, and the judiciary — which are all largely under the control of or are directly influenced by the KDP. This indicates that Barzani may be aiming to maintain his lead from behind the scenes.

As Barzani prepares to step down from the presidency, power within the KDP and the Barzani family may begin to shift. Barzani's nephew and current prime minister, Nechirvan Barzani, for example, is in a position to assume more political power. Nechirvan is known to have a contentious relationship with Barzani's eldest son and current head of the Kurdistan Region Security Council, Masrour Barzani, who like his father supported the independence referendum. If Barzani is stepping down from the presidency to deflect criticism away from the KDP for the referendum, it would be counterproductive for Masrour to assume more responsibility in the Kurdish government since he could face the same criticism as his father. Nechirvan, on the other hand, opposed the referendum and could represent a new era of leadership after the referendum, particularly in the eyes of Iraqi Kurdistan's neighbors Turkey and Iran.

Since the referendum, KRG politics have become more volatile. Iraq's Kurdish population is split along several ethno-sectarian and partisan lines, which have a history of coming into conflict. Now, in the wake of Barzani's announcement, dormant rivalries may again awaken. Already, powerful Kurdish parties such as the Gorran Movement and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) have reported attacks on their offices and on members of parliament. Major political figures within KRG politics have long been able to manage these bitter political divisions. Leaders such as Jalal Talabani of the PUK, Nawshirwan Mustafa of the Gorran Party and Massoud Barzani were crucial in maintaining a united front. But Mustafa and Talabani both passed away earlier this year, and now that Barzani is planning his own political exit, the next leaders of Iraqi Kurdistan have their work cut out for them

[Crafty_Dog]

second post

Hamas Pursues Reconciliation - with Hizballah and Iran
by IPT News  •  Nov 1, 2017 at 2:30 pm
https://www.investigativeproject.org/6849/hamas-pursues-reconciliation-with-hizballah

====================

https://www.investigativeproject.org/6825/hamas-rejoins-iran-terrorist-axis

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.facebook.com/DoreGold/videos/10154804237977676/?hc_ref=ARQXz-Hzn9AqrO5rAp6ogrx14p8U2bOk3nCP_HHAR0BgCxvFwYqXmG93NlMuCXW29JU

[Crafty_Dog]

insight, analysis and commentary from Stratfor’s Board of Contributors and guest contributors who are distinguished leaders in their fields of expertise.
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Iraqi Kurdistan is one step closer to achieving its dearest ambition of self-determination. In a historic (if not entirely unexpected) move, an overwhelming majority of voters in Iraqi Kurdistan recently opted to create an independent state. Since the Sept. 25 referendum, nationalist fervor has spread like wildfire through the regional capital of Arbil and the smaller towns surrounding it as Kurds celebrate the long-awaited step. But without proper planning, the region's dream of building a functional state may prove elusive.
More Questions Than Answers

In many ways the seeming victory has already backfired, leaving the region and its people with more problems to solve than ever. With the exception of Russia and Israel, most of the international community staunchly opposed the referendum for fear of the instability it might bring to an already volatile region. Moreover, Iraq's immediate neighbors, Turkey and Iran, are concerned that any success the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has in breaking away from Baghdad will inspire their own large Kurdish populations to do the same.

Amid the political and diplomatic fallout of the vote, KRG President Massoud Barzani announced his resignation and declared that Arbil would not make any immediate moves toward claiming independence, even offering to freeze the implementation of the referendum's result. But the gestures were not enough to appease Iraq's central government, which demanded that the KRG nullify the vote's outcome. Until Baghdad and Arbil resolve the many points of controversy between them, the referendum will continue to be little more than an opinion poll in practice.

Among the hotly contested issues surrounding Kurdish statehood are questions about borders, energy resources, refugees and the ethnic Arab communities living in Iraqi Kurdistan — all of which have featured prominently in recent commentary and debate. One important aspect of Iraqi Kurdistan's future that has yet to receive much attention, however, is water security.
Fertile but Fragile

With an average annual rainfall of between 300 and 1,000 millimeters, the fertile valleys of the KRG have largely escaped the desertification threatening the rest of Iraq and its neighbors. According to government statistics, 95 percent of urban households and 62 percent of rural households in Iraqi Kurdistan had access to safe water sources prior to the Islamic State's rise. By comparison, less than 75 percent of urban households in Iraq proper had access to the same resources. (Because of the extremist group's activities, these figures are much lower and more difficult to accurately assess today.)

Yet scarcities do exist, and in many cases they have been exacerbated by political, socio-economic and environmental factors. Since 2007, Iraqi Kurdistan — like the rest of the surrounding region — has suffered severe drought, reduced snowmelt and groundwater depletion as high as 40 millimeters in some areas. To make matters worse, insufficient environmental regulations, aging distribution networks, inadequate sanitation, years of civil war and water use in upstream countries have further diminished the region's water supplies. As is true in so many places, mismanagement and neglect stemming from assumptions of abundance have proved even more detrimental than climate change to the availability of water. Several estimates predict that the average water discharge from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers will drop by anywhere from 50 to 80 percent by 2025, and though there are few clear estimates for the rivers flowing into Iraq from Iran, most are equally dire.

Compared with the rest of Iraq, the KRG has achieved a stronger system of governance, more developed infrastructure and higher standards of living for its people — all advantages that would serve the region well in the event that it becomes its own country. But Iraqi Kurdistan has few concrete policies in place for dealing with the problems of transnational water sharing that are bound to arise. Not for lack of trying, though; the KRG has always prioritized water security. In 2012, Arbil's Ministry of Planning worked with the U.N. Development Program to produce a needs assessment that devoted roughly a third of total investment into the region until 2020 to water, sanitation and the environment. Kurdish leaders also considered several programs designed to tackle overconsumption and sanitation needs.

Most of Arbil's existing water agreements, however, are with Baghdad. Should the region gain independence, it would have to negotiate and sign its own water-sharing deals with countries upstream. Chief among them are Turkey and Iran, from which nearly 60 percent of Iraqi Kurdistan's renewable water flows. But striking new bargains with these countries will not be easy, because Ankara and Tehran — both of which have made their displeasure with the concept of Kurdish independence clear — are unlikely to treat with Arbil. Turkey has already proved unwilling to sign an accord with Iraq on the use of the Tigris River's resources. Iran, meanwhile, has been extremely vocal in its opposition to the Kurdish referendum; Kurdish officials fear it will further dam the river, delay the construction of pipelines and shut down border crossings in retaliation for the referendum.

Until Baghdad and Arbil resolve the many points of controversy between them, the referendum will continue to be little more than an opinion poll in practice.

Building a Sustainable Future

Water scarcity could cause the simmering ethnic tensions in Iraqi Kurdistan to bubble to the surface as well, especially in the disputed oil-rich region of Kirkuk. Home to ethnic Arabs, Turks and Kurds, Kirkuk boasts a large agrarian community that relies on the waters of the Little Zab River to survive. On the tributary, which flows from Iran to join the Tigris River, rests the Dukan Dam. Built in 1955, the Dukan Dam is one of three main dams in Iraqi Kurdistan and holds 1.3 million cubic meters of water. Dips in its supplies have created friction in the region before; any future shortages will likely do the same, reinforcing local Arabs' perception that the allocation of fewer supplies is simply a means of pushing them out of the area.

Distributing limited resources among competing ethnic groups is no easy feat, and the Kurdish government will have to tread with care. In hopes of becoming more self-reliant in meeting the region's water and electricity demand, the KRG's Water Ministry plans to build 20 new dams to supplement the 17 that already exist. Although the move could bring several long-term benefits, it also risks ratcheting up tension with Baghdad in the event that the dams constrict the flow of rivers feeding into the rest of Iraq. As an upper riparian state wedged between more powerful hostile neighbors, Iraqi Kurdistan will need to use its water access as an instrument of peace, working with the central government in Baghdad to overcome their differences and find compromises that are equitable.

Water is crucial not just to farming or daily consumption, but also to the health of the nation's economy. The KRG still lacks many of the financial characteristics of a country: Baghdad currently controls the region's air space and periodically threatens its oil sales. Iraq, moreover, allocates some 17 percent of its annual budget to the long-term development of the Kurdish region. As Arbil presses for independence, it must take these factors into account, as well as the poor track record that nearby states have in cooperating on water issues.

But perhaps the KRG's leaders will learn from these failures, rather than perpetuate them. History has shown that while water can be a difficult issue for countries to manage, often overshadowed by religion, ethnicity, patriotism and ego, it is not impossible. Iraqi Kurdistan has reached a rare crossroads, where it can make a choice to protect future generations from scarcity or become yet another state thirsty for water.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=3474

[Crafty_Dog]

Daniel Pipes on Trump, Iran, and a Fast-Changing Middle East
L'Informale (Italy)
November 13, 2017
http://www.meforum.org/7022/daniel-pipes-on-trump-iran-and-a-fast-changing

[Crafty_Dog]

This is all quite interesting, but I wish it would address the implications of Iran's arc to Lebanon, the prospects for war with Israel, and the budding Saudi-Israeli alliance:

Nov. 16, 2017 Iran has been quiet about Moscow and Riyadh’s newfound friendship – and the weapons that friendship has procured.

By Jacob L. Shapiro

Last month, well before Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman purged the government of potential rivals, his father, King Salman, did something unprecedented as well: He visited Russia, Saudi Arabia’s erstwhile enemy. After the visit came the usual slew of announced business deals that promise a lot but deliver little. On Nov. 13, however, Russia’s Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation announced that it would provide Saudi Arabia with its sophisticated S-400 air defense missiles. King Salman’s visit appears to have delivered real cooperation.

A Relationship Redefined

That Saudi Arabia and Russia would redefine the nature of their relationship is surprising in its own right. These were two countries firmly on opposite ends of the Cold War. But even more jarring is that Iran, Saudi Arabia’s regional rival, has been silent. Iran and Russia have a complicated relationship in their own right, one marked for centuries by suspicion and distrust. But in recent years they had set aside their differences, becoming military allies to save Bashar Assad and destroy the Islamic State. Now, Russia is promising to supply Iran’s biggest enemy with air defense missiles – and Iran hasn’t made a peep. Something doesn’t add up.

Consider Russia’s position in the Middle East. Most observers claim that by partnering with Iran to save the Assad regime, Russia enhanced its influence in the region at the expense of the United States. This is a misunderstanding. Russia’s intervention was actually pretty limited. At the height of its involvement, it had only 30-75 fighter jets and helicopters operating in the country. Its commitment was small but successful, insofar as it prevented the Syrian government from falling and the Islamic State from rising.

But it did not undermine U.S. strategic goals in the Middle East. If anything, it enhanced them. When the Syrian civil war started, the U.S. was determined to remove Assad. Yet there weren’t enough moderates for it to train and arm, and in any case, the Islamic State looked as though it may take Damascus for itself. And so the United States prioritized its fight against IS over its fight against Assad. Russia was, in effect, helping the U.S. do its dirty work. For all the bluster surrounding their relations, the U.S. and Russia have been coordinating their efforts in Syria in pursuit of a common goal for years.
Russian S-400 Triumph medium-range and long-range surface-to-air missile systems ride through Red Square during the Victory Day military parade in Moscow on May 9, 2017. NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP/Getty Images

Now that Assad has been saved and the Islamic State’s caliphate vanquished, the question is: What comes next? With IS out of the picture, the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Israel, Russia, Turkey and Iran – which had if nothing else a common enemy – no longer have a reason to cooperate with one another. Life after IS is actually more difficult for Russia than life with it. Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are all competing to fill the power vacuum left by the group’s departure, and Russia’s long-term interests don’t align with any of theirs.

Unlike the Islamic State, all three countries have the power to threaten Russian interests directly. Take Turkey, for example. It can cut off Russia’s access to the Mediterranean by closing the Bosporus. It competes with Russia in the Caucasus. And as it strengthens, it will begin to project power into the Balkans, another region in Russia’s sphere of influence.

Iran, like Turkey, has interests in the Caucasus. It also shares a border with Central Asia and Afghanistan – another Russian sphere of influence where Iran can cause serious problems for Moscow.

And Saudi Arabia, for its part, poses two challenges of its own. First, Saudi Arabia can still influence global oil prices, where even small fluctuations can hurt the Russian economy. Second, Saudi Arabia is the worldwide leader in exporting jihadism, a threat to a country like Russia, which has a large minority Muslim population that is fast increasing.

Russia has met these challenges not by choosing one country to align with but by trying to forge better relationships with all of them. Its relationship with Turkey is rocky but sustainable. (In fact, in September, Turkey signed its own agreement to receive S-400s from Russia.) Its relationship with Iran is solid but not without drama. A Russian announcement in August 2016 that it was using an Iranian air base for attacks in Syria set off a short-lived political controversy in Iran, sparking backlash from Iranian politicians who felt Russia’s use of the base violated Iran’s Constitution. Now Russia is reaching out to Saudi Arabia, and besides the agreements on military cooperation, Moscow secured a promise from King Salman during his visit last month to stop Saudi proselytizing to Muslims in Russia.

Russia is cultivating other ties too. Officials from Moscow have met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu several times this year and have kept lines of communication open over Hezbollah’s potential acquisition of advanced weaponry. Russia has also expressed some support for various Kurdish groups vying for independence in the region. Moscow has, for example, kept open its embassy in Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, throughout the contentious independence referendum.

And while Russia has said it does not support the PYD, the Kurdish political party in northern Syria, in its push for independence, it nonetheless invited the group to a congress comprising all relevant parties to discuss Syria’s future – much to the chagrin of Turkey, Iran and anti-Assad Syrian opposition groups.

Silence and Blindness

Russian foreign policy can be disruptive, but it would be a mistake to think of it as monolithic or unchanging. The Cold War, for all its faults, simplified foreign policy. (Simple doesn’t mean easy.) It was unclear whether the U.S. or USSR was more powerful. Regions like the Middle East became battlegrounds to see which one was. The U.S. had its allies (Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey) and the USSR had its allies (Egypt, Syria, Iraq). Sometimes countries switched sides, but ultimately it was a zero-sum game, with each side trying to weaken the other.

But the Cold War has been over for more than two decades. Today’s Russia is not yesterday’s Soviet Union. The U.S. and Russia actually share some long-term interests in the Middle East. Neither wants to see any one country dominate the entire region. Washington and Moscow want parity; they prefer that the region’s countries compete with one another rather than cause problems for them. In a perfect world, the U.S. would be embroiled in the Middle East and Russia would be free. But theirs is not a perfect world, so Moscow’s primary objective is to make sure the problems and ambitions of the Middle East stay in the Middle East.

This altogether different strategy of containment brings us back to Iran – and its silence on the budding Saudi-Russia friendship. Iran does not think it needs to attack Saudi Arabia head on. The government in Tehran believes Saudi Arabia will eventually collapse under the weight of its own problems, and that, in the meantime, the best thing Iran can do is engage Saudi Arabia in expensive and time-consuming proxy wars. Iran may not particularly like Russia’s providing Saudi Arabia with S-400s, but it can look past this particular issue because none of its red lines have been crossed. Russia is, after all, still playing an important role in helping the Assad regime – a key Iranian ally – retake the parts of Syria it has lost in the war. That is worth more right now than a public denunciation of some missile acquisitions.

But just because Iran is silent doesn’t mean it is blind to what’s happening. And just because Iran and Russia have cooperated in recent years doesn’t mean their relationship is ironclad. Russia cannot be everything to everyone in the region, and at some point it will be forced to make difficult decisions. In the meantime, pragmatism reigns. By improving relations with Saudi Arabia, Russia is hedging the bets it placed on Iran. By keeping quiet, Iran continues to reap what benefits it can from Russia’s moves. News about the S-400s doesn’t change much, but it underscores just how quickly change can come

[Crafty_Dog]

second post

Turkey, U.S.: Turkish Foreign Minister Says U.S. Won't Arm Kurds

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that following a conversation between the presidents of Turkey and the United States Nov. 24, U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to close down the supply of weapons to the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in Syria, CNN reported. Washington originally agreed to supply the Syrian Democratic Forces — a group dominated by the YPG — with lethal aid in May, in support of the operation to retake the Syrian city of Raqqa from the Islamic State. Following Cavusoglu's statement, the White House officially announced "pending adjustments" to the level of support provided for U.S. allies on the ground in Syria, but mentioned no specific groups or intentions. As Stratfor wrote on Nov. 22:

While Turkey shares common goals with the United States in finding a meaningful political transition and limiting Iran, the Kurdish question remains a critical dividing factor. U.S. support for the SDF, which is dominated by the People's Protection Units (YPG), has angered the Turks, whose first priority in the conflict remains to limit Kurdish expansionism, even at times to the detriment of Syrian rebels they also support. Frustrated by Washington, Ankara has attempted to work closer with Moscow, especially through the Astana process.

[Crafty_Dog]

The always interesting to read Caroline Glick:

http://carolineglick.com/portents-of-a-quagmire-in-syria/

[Crafty_Dog]

Tehran Is Winning the War for Control of the Middle East
by Jonathan Spyer
Foreign Policy
November 21, 2017
http://www.meforum.org/7034/tehran-is-winning-war-for-middle-east

[DougMacG]

Tehran Is Winning the War for Control of the Middle East
by Jonathan Spyer
Foreign Policy
November 21, 2017
http://www.meforum.org/7034/tehran-is-winning-war-for-middle-east

They are right; at this moment Iran is winning.  But Syria is not much of a win as a failed state, the Kurds will never stop fighting back, Russia has its own motives, Saudi survival depends on stopping Iran, Israel has become a major power, and Iran lost its Obama-Kerry ally.  No more plane loads of free cash are coming.

"Tehran has proved to have severe difficulties in developing lasting alliances outside of Shiite..."

That takes us back to the Sunni-Shia majority map:


Assuming some forces fight back, Iran's longer term success will be limited to controlling the Shia portion of Iraq, which is what we feared in the Iraq war.  They will stir up trouble elsewhere, but not control the region.

That the Saudis and Sunni areas including Egypt and Jordan (and the Kurds) need to partner with the US and Israel is a good thing.  

The region is less strategic to the rest of the world than previous decades due to other sources of oil and the collapsed price of oil.  Their biggest export is terror.  Reaching some elusive peace or power equilibrium would slow the flow of refugees out of the region.

I don't know the strategic value of Syria and Lebanon anymore if they are failed states.  That area potentially gives Iran, Russia or China a port to the Mediterranean.  Why don't we have our dealmaker President negotiate travel passageways and commerce lanes through the region for all the parties at some point in exchange for an end to the fighting?  

"Mohammed bin Salman, at least, appears to have signaled his intent to oppose Iran and its proxies across the Arab world. The game, therefore, is on. ..."

By 'game' they mean war which is mostly proxy war.  The forecast for the region is (continuing) war and it will not end with one unified Caliphate.  It will end up divided, with new borders I assume.

The US should approach this region as a permanent war.  Not go all in and minimize our ground presence but not leave the region to its own demise either.  We can keep showing them ways they could stop fighting, like having self determination in Iraq, but we may wait hundreds of years for them to see the benefit.

[Crafty_Dog]

Iran Reshapes the Middle East
 
By George Friedman
Iran has always seen itself as being in competition with the Arab states for domination of the Persian Gulf. Its ambitions were put on hold in the late 1980s, at the end of an eight-year war with Iraq that cost Iran more than a million casualties. The war ended in a military draw, but strategically it blocked Iran’s hopes for expanding its power westward. The war against the Islamic State, particularly in Iraq, has opened that door again.

The Iranian Surge

The primary burden of the fighting in Iraq fell on the Iraqi army, coupled with several Shiite militias, which fought a long battle of attrition to defeat IS. Embedded in the Iraqi army, and in direct control of the militias, were Iranian advisers. The United States had advisers and troops there too, but the Iranians were far more effective at gaining influence in the predominantly Shiite army. The U.S. reluctantly accepted this state of affairs – it needed IS defeated, but it didn’t want to absorb the casualties that would result from the long, grinding battle that was required. Instead, the U.S. relied on airstrikes.

There obviously had to be some degree of coordination among the Iraqi forces and militias – enough, at least, to prevent fratricide. That means there had to be some coordination with Iranian advisers, who were effectively commanding some units of the Iraqi army. How much coordination is unclear, but IS was defeated in the end, and Iran was left in control of at least a significant portion of the military force in Iraq. Given Iran’s influence and presence around Basra in southern Iraq, the Iranians are in a powerful position inside Iraq, with no major forces in position to contain them. And they are free to send more forces into Iraq if they wish.

Iran is also in a strong position in Syria. Together, Iran and Russia have prevented the collapse of the Assad government. Lebanon’s Hezbollah has been deeply involved in the fighting in Syria, with a large number of Iranian officers deployed with it, and Iranian forces are scattered in support of Assad’s Syrian army. The Russians are already discussing an endgame in which Assad regains the parts of Syria he lost. Whether that happens or not, the pressure is off the Assad regime now. Moreover, Russia has already said it plans to reduce its presence in Syria, which leaves the Iranians as the primary influence on the Syrians, deepening a relationship that existed even before the civil war broke out.

Yemen is another area of Iranian strength. In Yemen, bordering Saudi Arabia to the south, the Iranians are supporting the Shiite Houthi rebels. As the Houthis grew stronger in recent years, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and others launched airstrikes against them. The airstrikes failed to defeat the Houthis, and now they’re even more powerful. A missile was fired from Yemen toward Riyadh early this month. It was allegedly an Iranian-made missile, and a warning to the Saudis to get out of Yemen.

It is important not to overstate Iran’s strength. It is clearly influential, and the door to more power is open, but Iran is not yet positioned to exert decisive military force in the Middle East. At the same time, Iran’s achievements shouldn’t be understated either. It is the most influential power in Iraq and has a significant number of forces there. It more or less controls the most powerful military force in Lebanon and has limited capabilities in Syria. It also has at least advisers in Yemen.

Finally, Iran has even made inroads in Saudi Arabia’s sphere of influence. Qatar’s relationship with Iran is part of the reason it has been boycotted by much of the Arab world.


The Potential Coalition

Saudi Arabia is currently the greatest threat to Iran’s ambitions. In the 1960s, when the Shah of Iran was still in control, Iran fought a war against the Saudis in Oman. Their relationship remained hostile after the Iranian revolution. Part of the issue is religion: Saudi Arabia is the heartland of Sunni Islam, Iran of Shiite Islam. But there are deeper issues.

The first is oil. The domination of oil resources by the Saudis and related principalities on the west coast of the Persian Gulf created a perpetual threat to Iran because of the military power it bought. In addition, U.S. guarantees to Saudi Arabia intended to assure the flow of oil supplies from the Persian Gulf gave the Saudis an invulnerability that their own military force couldn’t provide.

At the moment, Saudi Arabia is facing extreme difficulties. The decline in the price of oil has created economic and political problems for Riyadh, which has always used its oil wealth to maintain stability. The introduction of a 32-year-old crown prince, and his decision to arrest some of the key figures in the kingdom, creates a level of internal instability that is unpredictable.

Given this domestic situation, Saudi Arabia’s ability to protect itself from Iran is unclear. The Saudis have already demonstrated the limits of their air power in Yemen. The historical expectation was that first the British, then the Americans, would guarantee their national security. But that was when the Persian Gulf was an indispensable supplier of the world’s oil. The price of oil is down, but as important, the sources of oil have multiplied, along with producers’ eagerness to sell it. Saudi oil is simply not that important anymore.

The Saudis have been reaching out to the Israelis. Israel can certainly provide military hardware. But the fact is that Israel could be facing its own threat from Iran, and its military is actually relatively small and isn’t designed for large-scale foreign deployments. Because of the size of its force, Israel can’t sustain extended, high-attrition warfare of the sort Iran endured in the 1980s. So the Iranians can threaten Israel with the one strategy that is most dangerous to it: a war of attrition. It’s a distant possibility but one that Israel must consider. Simply put, Israel can’t promise Saudi Arabia much more than materiel, no matter what the Saudis offer in return, and materiel is the one thing the Saudis have in abundance already.

The greatest long-term threat to Iran’s interests, however, is Turkey. The Turks face a fundamental geopolitical question. When the Iranians were relatively confined, Turkey was able to focus on domestic affairs, not venturing deeply into Syria or Iraq. But now, Turkey must decide whether it can live with Iran as the major regional power, or it must assert its own claims on the region. Turkey, by geography and inherent military capability, can block Iran if it chooses to make the effort and take the risk, but at the moment it is working with Iran, particularly on Kurdish issues. Eventually, Turkey will have to choose between the Kurdish issue and the broad strategic issue. Part of that will be determined by the U.S. position on various Kurdish factions and the U.S. vision for dealing with Iran.

A Test of U.S. Disengagement

The U.S. is capable of containing Iran but only with a substantial force. The U.S. has been at war since 2001. At this point, it doesn’t have a clear strategy for the Middle East. In Iraq, the American approach has been to block both Sunnis and Shiites from dominating the country – while reducing the number of U.S. forces present. This left it in the position of having to rely on forces controlled or influenced by Iran to defeat the Islamic State. In Syria, U.S. strategy has been to create a proxy force to overthrow Assad. That has failed. American guarantees to Saudi Arabia and Israel are still in place, but what they mean at this point is unclear. Israel has no need for direct U.S. involvement except under the most extreme war-of-attrition scenario. As for the Saudis, the guarantee the U.S. gave and delivered on during Desert Storm was a very different situation. Oil prices and supply being what they are, it’s not clear what that guarantee is worth.

The U.S. is not configured to deal with the new reality – one that it helped create by invading Iraq and then leaving it, and by supporting the Arab Spring in Syria, which turned into a disaster. These U.S. policies led to the rise of IS, and the fight against IS in turn opened the door to Iran in Iraq and, to a lesser extent, in Syria. Washington has been obsessed with Iranian nuclear capabilities and didn’t anticipate that Iran’s conventional capability and political influence would turn out to be more effective. At this point, it’s not clear what the American interest is in the region and what price it’s prepared to pay to pursue it.

The Middle East has a new and radically different shape. For the moment, Iran has been freed to assert itself. But it still has a long way to go to assert significant power. Apart from the United States, it faces a potential coalition of Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey. Each has its weaknesses, but Iran does too, and together they can manage the problem and probably will. Don’t forget the Sunni jihadists, either. Defeated in the guise of IS, they have merely dispersed, not surrendered. And Iran has been their enemy. Thus the Iranian surge must be placed in context. It has changed the dynamic of the Middle East, but it remains vulnerable.

[DougMacG]

"the Iranian surge must be placed in context. It has changed the dynamic of the Middle East, but it remains vulnerable."

One vulnerability of Iran is dissent from within.  Is there a way we could unleash that if they extend themselves beyond proxy wars to invading Saudi or Israel? 

Another vulnerability of Iran, same as Saudi, is the low price of oil.  What else do they produce, rugs?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Iran

"Attrition" in war refers to the willingness of leaders to let their soldiers die.  What the US and Israel lack is inability to supply ground troops in the region.

It looks to me like more of the same in the Middle East until someone realizes that peace, self determination and a free economy is a better route.  GDP per capita is 8 times higher in Israel than in Iran.  That is not interesting to others in the region, but conquering destroyed lands and people is.

[Crafty_Dog]

Lefty Jewish magazine The Tablet

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/250592/realism-and-the-kurds?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=ff11d94195-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_11_30&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-ff11d94195-207194629
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Why do the Kurds and their struggles arouse so little interest or sympathy or solidarity around the world? It is because of the doctrine of political “realism,” of which the greatest theoretician is Henry Kissinger—and, to be sure, Kissinger, as practitioner of his own theory, was the founder of America’s tradition of betraying the Kurds. The Kurds in Iraq in the early 1970s staged a rebellion against the Baathist dictatorship in Baghdad, and they enjoyed some American support. But, in 1975, Kissinger, as secretary of state, deemed the rebellion to be no longer in the American interest, and America’s support disappeared. With what consequences? The Kurds suffered terribly. Baathism flourished in Iraq. And, in time, the United States ended up at war with the Baathists, anyway.

Realism, the doctrine, affirms that, in matters of international affairs, the strong count, and the weak do not. That is because realism entertains a utopia, which is that of stability. And stability can be achieved only by a concert of the big and the powerful. It cannot be achieved by the small and the weak. Therefore realism is hostile to rebellions for freedom, hostile to small nations, hostile to invocations of morality or principle—hostile with a good conscience, on the grounds that, in the long run, the stability of the strong is better for everyone than the rebellions of the weak. Realism is, in short, an anti-Kurdish doctrine.

What good are the Kurds, anyway? From a realist standpoint, I mean. They are good for short-term interests, and not for long-term interests. Kissinger used them in the 1970s, and then tossed them away. The Reagan Administration in the next decade was content to see them gassed by Saddam Hussein. And in our own time? We needed the Kurds to fight the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, and they did fight. They are the heroes of the anti-Islamic State war. They ought to be parading in triumph along the boulevards of Manhattan and Paris. They are, in what appears to be their great majority, visibly the most progressive population in the Middle East, outside of Israel—self-reliant, tolerantly and beautifully Muslim, accepting of Yazidis and Christians and even of Jews, relatively open to women’s rights, reliably allergic to the mad totalitarianisms and apocalyptic fantasies of the modern age. But now that, for the moment, the insane Caliphate has been mostly defeated, our short-term interests have come to an end. And no one wants to hear about the Kurds.

Bernard-Henri Lévy has been telling us about the Kurds. A few months ago in Tablet, I commented on one of his journalistic documentaries of the Kurdish struggle in Iraq, The Battle of Mosul, and just now I have seen his other such documentary, Peshmerga, which might be regarded as Part One of the same film. The two films together are a feat of military journalism, stirring, appalling, and revealing. They are immense—Peshmerga more beautifully filmed, The Battle of Mosul more intense, both of them face-to-face with military courage and brotherhood and death. If these films were a poem, they would be composed in heroic verse. There is, in truth, something Homeric in the films. There are many extraordinary and dreadful aspects. I am writing in the minutes after having seen Peshmerga, and I cannot say that I have rebounded from having watched the prematurely white-haired Kurdish general, who, we learn, was shot and killed directly after the camera turned away from him—the general who seemed so high-spirited as he led his troops in battle, so animated, so confident, whose brother weeps to the camera, the general whose face we see once again as a photograph on a poster, presented as a martyr of the Kurdish cause.

But ultimately the most striking aspect of these two films is the articulation of political values by the Kurds themselves, some of them civilians, the rest of them soldiers. Words tumble from their lips that could never tumble from the lips of the man currently occupying the White House in Washington, D.C. These people are fighting for civilization, and know they are doing so, and say they are doing so.

Civilization, though, is not a category within the realist imagination. Realism is a matter of power, and civilization is a matter of principles. A realist analysis can explain many things, but it cannot explain why the Kurds have persistently fought, over the generations. It cannot see that a persistent rebellion in the name of civilization might amount to power, if only we would give it a chance. A realist analysis cannot see that our own power has to rest on something more than our own power, if it is to remain a power. It cannot see, therefore, what is obvious in Bernard-Henri Lévy’s magnificent films, which is that, in a world of vicious political movements and dangers on every side, the Kurds are our friends and allies, and perhaps they are our conscience. They gaze at the camera. We gaze back. They speak to us. We have nothing to say back to them.

The betrayal of the Kurds—will this be the black mark on our era, similar to the black mark of betrayal that fell across the foreheads of generations past, in the face of other persecutions and struggles for liberty? Twice now I have exited a hall where BHL’s Kurdish films have played, each time with my heart pounding and my head bowed in shame.

***
Paul Berman writes about politics and literature for various magazines. He is the author of A Tale of Two Utopias, Terror and Liberalism, Power and the Idealists, and The Flight of the Intellectuals.

[G M]

If the Kurds want to become the darlings of the UN and the "global community", all they have to do is swear to push the Jews into the sea and start sending bomb vest clad peshmerga into Israeli busses and schools.

[DougMacG]

“Let me reiterate Israel’s policy: We will not allow a regime hell-bent on the annihilation of the Jewish state to acquire nuclear weapons. We will not allow that regime to entrench itself militarily in Syria, as it seeks to do, for the express purpose of eradicating our state,” said Netanyahu.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/arab-media-12-iranians-killed-in-israeli-strike-in-syria/
-----------------------
[I was hoping to see news of a strike like that with Bush-Cheney hitting Iran's nuclear sites and with Trump striking NK sites.]

This helps to answer the geopolitical questions posed here in the last couple weeks about who will stop Iran's advances.  The more Iran advances, the more resolve there should be to stop them on the part of ... Saudi, US, Israel, Gulf States, Egypt, and others?  Does Russia want Iran to dominate the region?

[ccp]

cut a deal with S. Arabia's Mohammed Bin Salman:

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/12/04/report-jared-kushner-rex-tillerson-feud-deepens-over-middle-east-policy/

Sec of State Tillerson against..........

I agree with Tillerson.  Haven't we learned enough ?

[Crafty_Dog]

PLEASE let's really minimize the use of Breitbart!

Surely there must be a better source for the same info?

[Crafty_Dog]

Some interesting between the lines considerations here , , ,

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/12/pentagon-increases-weapons-lebanon.html

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/middle-east/trump-administration-assad-moscow-youre-not-winning

The Trump administration wants you to know that Syrian strongman Bashar Assad isn’t doing as well as he, or his Russian and Iranian allies want you to think, and that’s why they’re going to have to agree to some concessions at U.N.-sponsored talks in Geneva, rather than retaking the country as Assad has vowed to do.

Senior administration officials gathered a small group of journalists Monday to walk them through how they see Assad’s chances at winning the peace – spoiler alert: not much, because the regime’s forces are in tatters, the economy is on Russian- and Iranian-provided life support, and Syrian troops have used scorched-earth tactics that breed future rebellion.

The officials were fighting back against a message they say is spread by Russian, Iranian and Syrian media to portray the conflict as won and done, with Assad the inevitable victor, well on his way to retaking the country. The narrative also dictates that the mostly Sunni Arab refugees who fled should stay where they are outside Syria, troublemakers-turned-wards of the international community – but Assad would welcome that same international community’s hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to rebuild a country shattered by the regime’s own crackdown.

The U.S. backs the off-and-on U.N-brokered Syrian peace talks in Geneva, saying that it doesn’t see a future for Assad but not demanding his ouster as a precondition for talks. Russia has proposed a competing peace conference in the Black Sea resort of Sochi with the Syrian government and rebels in attendance – a notion the Trump administration rejects, together with what they see as a Russian-backed campaign to present the Syrian crisis as a fait acompli.

In contrast to the occupant of the Oval Office who regularly downplays Russian influence operations, these Trump officials wanted to fight back with what they see as the facts on the ground in Syria as observed by the U.S.-led coalition and U.S. intelligence.

They started by ticking off the cost of the civil war thus far, “provoked” by Assad in 2011 by his harsh crackdown on protests:

    The Assad regime has killed around half a million Syrians and wounded far more;
    There are 5 million-plus estimated internally displaced Syrians;
    There are 6 million-plus refugees outside the country;
    Several million Syrians are living beyond the regime’s reach.

“The Assad regime controls less than half of Syria’s on pre-war population…and less than half of its populated territory,” the lead official said, speaking anonymously as a condition of describing the administration’s assessment of the war.

He described a Syria that is an economic shell of its former self:

    The country remains sanctioned by the U.S., the U.N. and the European Union, for crimes including using weapons of mass destruction against its own people;
    Syria has no exports of value compared to pre-war economy and is dependent on cash handouts and bulk transfers of oil and wheat from Iran and Russia “just to subsist”l
    Unemployment is near 50 percent;
    The currency has lost most of its value, and faces 50 percent inflation;
    Syria’s infrastructure has suffered between $200 to $300 billion in damage and the regime’s major allies, Iran and Russia, are unlikely to be able to help with reconstruction because they are facing their own economic issues at home;
    Syria was an oil exporter, but the regime now controls only a third of the country’s oil and gas resources;
    13.5 million Syrians are dependent on international assistance to survive, more than half of the country’s pre-war population;
    The regime generates only half a billion dollars in revenue annually, down from a 2010 estimate of $21 billion, but the government spends $2.7 billion annually, and is thought to have run out of cash reserves, meaning it requires infusions of cash from Russia and Iran to keep the state running and the military operations going.

“The bottom line is, [Assad] can’t afford his own war effort without significant assistance from Iran and Russia,” the lead official said.

And that military effort is struggling, with an army severely damaged by six years of war, especially the grueling 2016 battle to take Aleppo.

“The narrative that the Russian media, the Syrian regime media, the Iranian media and their friends have constructed is that Aleppo represented…a clear regime victory, and the regime’s military capacity has grown,” and that they’re in a mopping-up phase against rebel elements, the lead official said. “The Aleppo operation actually depleted the regime’s own military capabilities significantly in terms of manpower and heavy weaponry,” as well as providing a gut punch to their morale and organization.

They described the Syrian army as a hollow force:

    Since Aleppo, Syrian regular forces are so depleted that they have been forced to use their own elite military troops for major operations;
    Only two units are left that can conduct offensive operations: the Tiger Forces commanded by Brig. Gen. Suheil Hassan; and the 4th Armoured Division, commanded by the president’s brother, Maher al Assad;
    The regime relies increasingly on foreign forces to fight, including Lebanese Hezbollah, and Iraqi and Afghan Shi’ite foreign fighters provided and commanded by Iranian Quds Force military advisers.

The official said a recent battle for the town of Abu Kamal, which the regime billed as the final step in the Syrian campaign to take territory back from ISIS, had few Syrians taking part.

“It was almost entirely non-Syrians, who were essentially, as far as we can tell, commanded by the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) and Lebanese Hezbollah…with mostly Russian air cover,” the official said.

Not only are Assad’s troops so weak that they need Russian and Iranian help to take new territory — they don’t have enough top troops to hold it, the officials said. The Syrian forces leave behind a ragtag band of older, “poorly trained…poorly led” troops to police the newly regained territory, and time and again, they are run off by ISIS. Then the main Syrian force backed by Iran and Russia needs to attack again to win the area back – a yo-yo phenomenon that most recently happened in the Palmyra-Deir-Ezzor corridor.

“What that tells us is there is just not enough cream cheese to spread over the bagel there,” one of the officials said.

When Assad’s forces take an area, they do so brutally and they don’t have the resources to follow up with most basic government services, much less reconstruction. The combination means they leave a seething population ready to take up arms the next time they see a chink in the regime’s armor.

“If the regime just continues doing what it’s doing, and trying to consolidate control, absent meaningful political change inside Syria, we think you’ll see Syria fall back into large-scale civil war,” the lead senior official said. “The grievances are sharper now than they were at the beginning of this conflict.”

And that’s further complicated by the presence of “destabilizing spoilers” like al Qaeda, and the diminished-but-still-there ISIS.

“If you don’t…stabilize the territories where you’ve eliminated them, they can come back,” the official said of ISIS, adding that there are already signs the group is reverting to acting as a clandestine terror organization, or even a mafia-style criminal organization to survive.

And the Syrian government can barely police, employ and feed those in the territory it controls, mush less provide for a war-shattered country, he said.

“When we look at what would it take to make a peace sustainable in any country, the Syrian regime does not have it,” the official said. The officials would not share how many troops the U.S. might be willing to commit in future, to keep the peace.

CORRECTION NOTE: This story was corrected to indicate that 13.5 million Syrians, not 5 million Syrians, are dependent on international assistance to survive, more than half of the country’s pre-war population

Kimberly Dozier is executive editor of The Cipher Brief. Follow her on Twitter @KimDozier.

[Crafty_Dog]

Dec. 4, 2017 Israel is devising a strategy to deal with a rising Iran.

By George Friedman

Israel fired missiles at a base near Damascus, Syria, over the weekend. According to Syrian news agency SANA, two Israeli missiles were shot down. Arab media reported that the target was an Iranian military base. After the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel would not tolerate Iranian forces in Syria. Israel previously had chosen not to conduct airstrikes on this reported Iranian base as it had done against other targets – mostly Hezbollah weapons convoys – in Syria. Israel obviously knew this site was well protected, proven by the fact that it had anti-missile capabilities.

Israel has had very limited involvement in Syria. In fact, it has had limited involvement in much of the upheaval that has been sweeping the Middle East. Given Netanyahu’s statement and the substantial public coverage of this airstrike, it would seem that the Israelis are on the threshold of changing this policy. And in changing the policy, Israel is adding to the complexity of a rapidly changing Middle East.

Benjamin Netanyahu Israel
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opens the weekly Cabinet meeting at his Jerusalem office on Nov. 26, 2017. GALI TIBBON/AFP/Getty Images

Iran’s Rising Power

Last week, I wrote about the fact that since the defeat of the Islamic State, Iran has emerged as a major power in the region, with the potential of becoming the dominant power. Historically, Iran has been a defensive power, hemmed in by Russia, Turkey and the leading global powers, Britain and then the United States. As a result, for example, Iran was divided between Russia on one side and Britain and the U.S. on the other during World War II. It has also faced powerful Sunni forces in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula. In the 1980s, it fought an eight-year war with Iraq that cost it a million casualties and ended in a military draw and a strategic victory for Iraq. Iraq had room for maneuver, invading Kuwait, but Iran had little.

To increase its security, it needs to break out of its encirclement. It has long desired, since before the Islamic Republic emerged, to become the dominant power in the Persian Gulf, both to secure its western frontier against another war with Iraq and to dominate the oil fields. Given the opening that the collapse of the Islamic State provided, Iran must try to take advantage. The goal is to achieve a fait accompli against great powers like the United States and regional powers like Turkey, Israel and Russia.

One of the focuses of Iran’s power is Lebanon, where Iranian-supported Hezbollah is based. Hezbollah also operates in Syria, but a substantial number of Iranian advisers are also there, supporting the Syrians. The Russians are pressing for a peace settlement, based on their reasonable assertion that the Assad regime, with Russian and Iranian support, has effectively won the civil war. The Americans have not rejected the idea out of hand, but it’s not clear what the terms might be.

Whether or not there is a peace agreement, the fighting is declining, and the need for Iranian advisers has declined as well. Bashar Assad reportedly opposes a large Iranian presence in Syria after a settlement, but if Iran wants to create substantial infrastructure to permanently base Iranian forces, then now is the time to do it: The heavy fighting is over, but the Syrians can’t afford to do without the Iranians yet.

This is not as easy as it sounds, since the logistics of basing large numbers of troops in Syria is complex. But if the Iranian goal is to be the dominant power between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean, this is a move it would have to make. It would lock in Assad as an ally and put Iran in a position of dominating Lebanon and surrounding western Iraq’s Sunnis from the west and the east. Iran would also have forces near the Turkish border, also in the west and the east.

The Israeli Dilemma

Whether Iran intends to engage Israel is not clear. From the Israeli point of view, a large, permanent presence of troops in Syria could recreate a strategic problem Israel hasn’t had to cope with since after 1973. Israel has had to deal with Hezbollah, but there has been no substantial threat from Syria. Rocket fire from the war there has occasionally landed in Israel, but there has not been a conventional threat that would require permanent deployment of substantial Israeli forces on the Golan. But the situation may not stay this way forever.

The attack over the weekend was designed to tell the Iranians that their more ambitious plans will be met by pre-emptive Israeli strikes. Since the Iranians had to have anticipated this, they likely won’t be deterred. The opportunity is too great. Ideally, the Israelis would use air and missile strikes to destroy Iranian facilities before they are in place. But if Iran will accept the cost, it can surge forces in, presenting Israel with too many targets to destroy.

At a certain point, air power alone isn’t going to be enough. The Israelis faced this in the 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel launched primarily an air campaign, which ultimately failed to neutralize Hezbollah. Some missions still require large-scale ground forces. In 2006, the Israelis didn’t think the prize was worth the price. But if the Iranians manage to create a large presence in Syria, airstrikes might not be sufficient in the event of war. And launching ground operations would mean potentially heavy Israeli casualties.

Israel must somehow block an Iranian presence from emerging. But if Iran is determined, Israel’s efforts will not be enough. Israel then must decide on a strategy for dealing with a strong Iranian force in both Syria and Lebanon while also avoiding a costly ground war. This may not be possible. In that case, Israel will need to strengthen Saudi Arabia, and above all to reach an understanding with Turkey. Turkey has historically been uncomfortable with a powerful Iran, and having an Iranian presence on Turkey’s western border in force will make the Turks even more uncomfortable. Israel and Turkey, whose relations now are pretty good, could have a common interest in containing Iran, and a Turkish-Israeli coalition would force Iran to be very careful.

The Iranians have broken out of their box, and now all of the players in the region need to consider how this affects their strategy. What we saw this weekend seemed to be the start of Israel’s response. But the Israelis have not shown their full hand yet, and it seems to me that they don’t like the hand they are going to have to play.

[Crafty_Dog]

•   Turkey, Syria: There are several reports of Turkish troop movements in northern Syria, including near Syrian Defense Forces positions in Afrin. Meanwhile, Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army elements have reportedly formed a 22,000-strong “national army” to support Turkish operations in northern Syria. Turkey has been claiming that it’s going to launch a major operation in Afrin “any day now” for the past two months. Is this time different? We need to take the temperature of the Turkey-Russia relationship and survey the conflict map in Syria to see if Turkey or any of the other forces may be seeing any tactical openings.

[Crafty_Dog]

Reality Check


By Jacob L. Shapiro


In Syria, an Attack on Russia’s Narrative


Russia will now have to demonstrate that it can finish a job it said was already done.


It has been less than a month since President Vladimir Putin declared a successful end to Russia’s intervention in the Syrian civil war and announced the imminent withdrawal of Russian forces from the country. Not even a fortnight later, Islamist militants conducted a deadly mortar attack against Russian forces in Syria.
The Syrian civil war is not over, and it won’t be anytime soon. The short-term damage to Russia’s public relations campaign is acute. But far more important is whether Russia is getting dragged into its very own Middle Eastern morass, and what this means for the various forces competing for power in Syria.
 

Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) toasts with Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu at a reception for military servicemen who took part in Syrian campaign at Grand Kremlin Palace on Dec. 28, 2017, in Moscow, Russia. MIKHAIL SVETLOV/Getty Images

On Jan. 3, Russian business daily Kommersant reported that an Islamist mortar attack on Hmeimim air base on Dec. 31 had knocked out four Su-24 bombers, two SU-35S fighters and a military transport aircraft. Russia’s Defense Ministry disputed the specifics of the Kommersant report but not the attack itself. The ministry said that the base had come under mortar fire from a “mobile militant subversive group” and that two Russian soldiers had been killed in the attack.

At this point, it is hard to know for sure the extent of the damage at Hmeimim. Kommersant is generally a reliable source of information and has little reason to fabricate this story. In addition, at least one Russian war reporter posted photographs on social media purported to show the damaged aircraft, though it is not yet possible to confirm their authenticity. If we accept for a moment that the reports are true, it was a highly destructive attack. We don’t know how many aircraft Russia has stationed at Hmeimim currently, but at the height of Russia’s Syria intervention in 2016, it had about 70 aircraft and 4,000 personnel at the base. Recently, Russia’s defense minister said 36 aircraft had returned to permanent bases in Russia. If Kommersant’s reporting is correct, that would mean at least 20 percent of Russia’s air assets at the base – and half of its SU-35S fighters stationed there – were damaged.

The extent of the damage is important for establishing the degree of the damage done to Russia’s image, but for that information we will have to wait. Either way, we can say for sure that the attack occurred and took Russian forces by surprise. Russia’s Defense Ministry has already announced that Russia will expand the security zone around the base and that Russian troops will now be responsible for its security – not Syrian troops, as had been the case. Whichever version of events – or combination of them – is true, it doesn’t change the fact that this is a major blow to Russia’s carefully crafted image. A few more incidents like this one will make it very difficult for Russia to pretend that its Syria intervention has achieved its goal.

Lost in the focus on this attack are the numerous other military operations Russia has undertaken in Syria just this week. Earlier on Jan. 3, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported that an Mi-24 helicopter crashed near Hama military airfield, killing both pilots. Meanwhile, on the same day, Reuters reported that Russian air assets supported a Syrian army assault on a rebel group just east of Damascus. Putin did not set a date for the withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria when he announced victory last month, and recent activity on the ground hardly suggests that Russia will be pulling the bulk of its forces out anytime soon. If anything, Russia will now have to demonstrate that it can finish a job it said was already done.

The question now becomes what the future of Syria looks like. Russia has tried to engineer a diplomatic solution that effectively locks in the status quo. At the moment, none of the entities competing for influence in Syria can gain an upper hand. The problem for Russia is that no one, except perhaps the Syrian Kurds, is interested in maintaining the status quo. The status quo does not suit Iran, which wants to see the full restoration of the Bashar Assad regime and Damascus’ resumption of its role as Iranian proxy and linchpin in Iran’s dream to project power to the Mediterranean. It also does not suit Turkey, which just this past week lent its support to the creation of the “National Army,” a 22,000-strong force that will reportedly fight Assad, the Islamic State and the PKK Kurdish militant group but whose first target is to be Syrian Kurds in Afrin. Assad’s regime, for its part, would like to have its country back without having to kowtow to any one power, and that means keeping Russia on the ground in Syria indefinitely to help in its efforts to reconquer the country.

[Crafty_Dog]

Drone Swarm vs. Russian Base in Syria
Posted: 09 Jan 2018 11:00 AM PST
The Russians have been using drone swarms against the Ukrainians to good effect (blowing up ammo dumps).  Here's one being used against a Russian base on the coast of Syria.

Recount as reported by the Russian MoD reported it this morning:

Security system of the Russian Khmeimim air base and Russian Naval CSS point in the city of Tartus successfully warded off a terrorist attack with massive application of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) through the night of 5th – 6th January, 2018.

As evening fell, the Russia air defence forces detected 13 unidentified small-size air targets at a significant distance approaching the Russian military bases.
Ten assault drones were approaching the Khmeimim air base, and another three – the CSS point in Tartus. Six small-size air targets were intercepted and taken under control by the Russian EW units. Three of them were landed on the controlled area outside the base, and another three UAVs exploded as they touched the ground.
Seven UAVs were eliminated by the Pantsir-S anti-aircraft missile complexes operated by the Russian air defence units on 24-hours alert. The Russian bases did not suffer any casualties or damages.

The Khmeimim air base and Russian Naval CSS point in Tartus are functioning on a scheduled basis. Currently, the Russian military experts are analyzing the construction, technical filling and improvised explosives of the captured UAVs.

Having decoded the data recorded on the UAVs, the specialists found out the launch site.

It was the first time when terrorists applied a massed drone aircraft attack launched at a range of more than 50 km using modern GPS guidance system. Technical examination of the drones showed that such attacks could have been made by terrorists at a distance of about 100 kilometers.

Engineering decisions applied by terrorists while attacks on the Russian objects in Syria could be received from one of countries with high-technological capabilities of satellite navigation and remote dropping control of professionally assembled improvised explosive devices in assigned coordinates. All drones of terrorists are fitted with pressure transducers and altitude control servo-actuators.  Terrorists’ aircraft-type drones carried explosive devices with foreign detonating fuses.

The Russian specialists are determining supply channels, through which terrorists had received the technologies and devices, as well as examining type and origin of explosive compounds used in the IEDs.

The fact of usage of strike aircraft-type drones by terrorists is the evidence that militants have received technologies to carry out terrorist attacks using such UAVs in any country.

Some NOTES:  The swarm used what appears to be off the shelf tech.  It was a small swarm (only 13), and it was divided (two targets), which made it impossible overwhelm defenses.  It didn't fly low enough to avoid detection by anti-air.  The swarm also appears to be remotely controlled, likely as a means to provide target acquisition and terminal guidance. This allowed defense units to hack them. 

[Crafty_Dog]

Turkey Breaks With Iran and Russia
Jan 11, 2018

 
By Jacob L. Shapiro
The “Astana troika” is in danger of breaking up. After meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan, in mid-September, Turkey, Iran and Russia agreed to serve as guarantors of a cease-fire agreement in Syria. Four “de-escalation zones” were established with the goal of a six-month pause (subject to further extension) in fighting between the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime and anti-government rebels in these zones. The problem with this arrangement is that these countries don’t see eye to eye. Turkey supports the anti-government rebels. Russia and Iran support Assad’s regime. Now the two sides are accusing each other of supporting their favorites rather than keeping the peace.
 
(click to enlarge)
On Jan. 9, the Turkish Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian and Iranian ambassadors to express its concerns over the Assad regime’s advances in the Idlib de-escalation zone, the largest, most strategic and most contested of the four zones. The next day, Turkey’s foreign minister pointed the finger at Russia and Iran, insisting that Turkey’s two purported partners needed to do more to stop the Syrian regime and fulfill their duties as guarantors of the cease-fire. The same day, Yeni Safak, a Turkish newspaper known for its strong support of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, claimed that the Assad regime’s advance was coordinated with the Islamic State, with the tacit support of Russia and Iran. Turkey likes to accuse all its enemies of being in cahoots with IS, but Russia and Iran aren’t supposed to be enemies. That makes the report notable, regardless of its admittedly dubious veracity.

This isn’t the first time Turkey has had cause for concern about the actions of Russia and Iran. On Dec. 20, Reuters reported that the Syrian army, backed by Russian air support, had seized 50 villages in southern Idlib province the previous week. On Dec. 25, Anadolu Agency reported Syrian and Russian airstrikes in both Idlib and Hama provinces. On Jan. 7, TRT reported additional airstrikes in Idlib, and the next day, Anadolu reported that a Turkish military convoy in Idlib had come under fire from unknown assailants. And on Jan. 10, Syria’s state-run news agency SANA reported that Syrian government forces and allies had captured 23 new villages in the Idlib countryside.

Different Points of View

From Turkey’s perspective, the Assad regime, with Russian air support and Iran’s blessing, is attempting to assert its control over territories currently held by anti-Assad regime rebels. The victims of this offensive are civilians and moderate opposition groups that Turkey has pledged to defend.

Russia, for its part, does not accept that the terms of the cease-fire apply to all elements of the opposition. The dominant militia in Idlib is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a jihadist group whose core element is al-Qaida’s Syrian branch. Russia views HTS as a fair target and is encouraging the Assad regime to attack HTS fighters wherever they hold territory. HTS strongholds happen to be in Idlib, so that is where Russia is concentrating its resources. Eliminating jihadists, from Russia’s point of view, is a necessary part of maintaining the de-escalation zones. Furthermore, Russia expected Turkey to put pressure on HTS to give up its arms and disband when its forces entered Idlib province. Turkey has declined to do so, at times even collaborating with HTS on the ground, giving Russia the pretense it needs to support further Assad regime consolidation efforts.

It’s important to keep in mind that none of this was Russia’s preferred outcome. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the defeat of IS and the imminent withdrawal of Russian troops from Syria on Dec. 6, in part because he calculated that conditions were ripe for a political solution to the Syrian civil war. Putin’s political solution and the triumphant recall of Russian troops now seem a distant memory. On Dec. 31, at least two Russian soldiers were killed when Hmeimim air base was shelled, reportedly by jihadist militants. Russia disputed reports that a significant number of its planes were damaged in the attack. Then, on Jan. 6, 13 unmanned aerial vehicles attacked the base at Hmeimim and a logistics center at Tartus. According to Russia’s Ministry of Defense, the attacking UAVs were neutralized. The two attacks have underscored just how far Russia is from being able to pull out its forces, and how vulnerable its forces are to attack.

Russia has since made a point of providing two more details about the Jan. 6 attack. On Jan. 8, the Russian Ministry of Defense said the UAVs were of such sophistication that they “could have been received only from a country with high technological potential on providing satellite navigation and distant control of firing.” In other words: the United States. (The Pentagon has rejected these claims as ludicrous and noted that IS regularly uses primitive UAVs to attack U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces fighters in eastern Syria.) Then, on Jan. 10, the Defense Ministry’s newspaper published a report that said the UAVs had been launched from Muazzara in southwestern Idlib. The report said that this territory was under the control of “moderate opposition” forces backed by the Turkish government and that Russia had sent a formal complaint of its own to high-level Turkish officials exhorting them to ensure Turkey enforced the cease-fire.

Iran Leans Toward Russia

Iran has not made its views known on this particular incident. The presence of Iran’s foreign minister in Moscow on Jan. 10, however, as well as its own military support of Assad’s advances in Idlib, indicate that Iran’s views are more closely aligned with Russia than with Turkey on this matter, which only makes sense. Though Turkey and Iran have some interests in common, they diverge in Syria, despite prior short-term tactical cooperation against Kurdish groups. Iran looks at the Assad regime as integral to its strategy to increase its power. Turkey views Iran as a long-term rival that has amassed an impressive strategic advantage in recent months and needs to be cut back down to size. Turkey also sees that Iran, at least for now, has tied its ambitions to Russia, another long-term Turkish rival.

Nevertheless, the “alliance” among these three countries was built on a mismatch of interests. It’s a perfect example of the old adage that two’s company, three’s a crowd. The more countries you try to cram into an alliance, the more tenuous the alliance becomes. It was one thing to coordinate moves when all sides could agree that defeating the Islamic State was the main priority. But the defeat of IS eliminated the only common ground these countries had in Syria. Turkey’s ideal political solution sees Assad removed and the country stitched back together under Sunni aegis. Iran’s ideal political solution sees Assad restored but dependent on Iran and its proxies for survival. Russia’s ideal political solution is any that makes it appear strong and keeps Assad as a somewhat independent actor, neither dependent on Tehran nor fearful of Ankara’s next move. Something’s got to give.

Now these fissures are coming out into the open, just a week before representatives of Iran, Turkey and Russia are to meet to plan the Sochi Congress on Syria’s Future, scheduled for Jan. 29-30. Even the preparations for this meeting have been tense, with some Syrian opposition groups refusing to attend and Turkey insisting that it will not attend any meeting that includes the YPG, the militia representing Syrian Kurds. Russia reportedly had invited YPG representatives in October but backed off when Turkey objected. Syrian Kurdish officials insisted as recently as two weeks ago that Moscow has promised them an invitation, while Turkey maintains that Russia has agreed not to do so. Russia, for its part, has a history of supporting anti-Turkish Kurdish groups when it’s strategically useful to keep Turkey distracted.

Regardless of who attends the Sochi meeting, Syria’s future will not be decided there, or in Astana or Geneva or Timbuktu. It’s being decided on the ground in Syria right now, and it’s bringing Turkey into conflict, however unwillingly, with its historical rivals. The Astana troika may very well figure out a way to paper over these inconsistencies during the meeting in Sochi, but it’s all a charade. On the ground, the Assad regime has the upper hand and Russia is calling the shots, still very much at war. Iran is biding its time, hoping to capitalize on Russia’s eventual fatigue. Turkey finds itself backed into a corner but without the requisite strength to preserve its interests. It needs to stall, but angry comments to ambassadors won’t stop Assad or Russia, though they will produce nice headlines. Turkey is searching for a way to stop Assad, and if it can’t find one, it will be on the losing end of this breakup.

[Crafty_Dog]

•   Syria: Reuters reported that the U.S. was helping to set up a 30,000-member Border Security Force in Syria. The story was initially reported by the Defense Post, which said an inaugural class of around 230 fighters was being trained and that half of the eventual force would consist members of the Syrian Defense Forces. Turkey has responded with predictable rage, promising to attack the “terror army” and repeating its threat that military action in Afrin is imminent. The reporting here is strange. Is the U.S. actually doing this? If so, what are the implications for U.S.-Turkish relations? Are there signs that Turkey is preparing for an offensive?

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-syria-only-the-octopus-and-a-motley-crew-of-rebels-keep-iran-from-israel/

[Crafty_Dog]

second post



    Tired of holding back against the Kurdish People's Protection Units, Turkey could soon unilaterally launch an offensive on Afrin canton and possibly Manbij.
    Up to this point, Turkey has pursued military operations in Syria only after gaining Russian or U.S. support.
    If Turkey departs from this approach, it will inevitably harm its relationship with both Russia and the United States and will considerably increase the risk of a dangerous accident.

Active U.S. and Russian engagement in Syria over the past few years has crowded out Turkey's ambitions for and pursuits in the country, but now its patience is wearing thin. Turkey's primary goal in Syria is to make sure that the two cantons controlled by Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) remain isolated from each other.

Turkey had halted military operations toward this goal to avoid clashing directly with U.S. and Russian forces embedded with the YPG, but now evidence is mounting that it is planning a full-out military assault on the YPG, which would undoubtedly damage its relationship with both Russia and the United States.

Turkey had been hoping to wait out the American presence in Syria and to gain Russian authorization for a military assault on the YPG. In exchange it was willing to compromise on its desire to oust Syrian President Bashar al Assad and to work with Russia on a diplomatic solution to the Syrian civil war through peace talks known as the Astana process. But now after several years of waiting and amid a battlefield flare-up that has pitted Russian-backed forces against Turkish-supported rebels, Turkey looks to be abandoning this plan.

War With Friends

Now that the Islamic State has been degraded as a conventional fighting force in Syria, the focus of the war has shifted to the west, where Russian- and Iranian-backed loyalist forces are attempting to eradicate the last of the rebel groups, which Turkey still supports even as it engages in diplomatic talks. Over the past few months, Syrian government forces backed by Russia and Iran have launched a series of interconnected offensives to drive rebels from key terrain in the northwestern provinces of Aleppo, Hama and Idlib. Rebel forces, including several groups heavily armed and supported by Turkey, have met the latest offensive, spearheaded by the Syrian army's Tiger special forces unit to capture the rebel-held airport at Abu al-Duhur, with a fierce counterattack.

The offensive and counteroffensive have heightened tension in the Turkey-Russia relationship. Idlib, after all, is supposed to be part of a de-escalation zone according to parameters set out by Russia, Turkey and Iran during the Astana talks in Kazakhstan. Turkey blames the Syrian government for violating the de-escalation agreement most often and has demanded that Russia do more to prevent further loyalist attacks. Russia argues that the operations in Idlib target terrorist groups and are necessary, and it blamed Turkey for a drone attack on its air base in Latakia.

To confront the deteriorating relationship, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke by phone with his counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on Jan. 11. After the call, Putin announced that Turkey was not guilty of the drone attack and that it was staged to frame Turkey and undermine its relationship with Russia. Despite how adamant the two leaders are to put their differences aside and work together, the Syrian conflict will strain their relationship. As Turkey-backed rebels engage Russia-backed loyalist forces in vicious battles in northern Syria, it is clear that Russia and Turkey are engaged in a full-blown proxy war.

War With Enemies

A major reason Turkey signed on to the Astana process was to reach an understanding with Russia to exert more pressure on the YPG, but Russia has been uncompromising on the issue. Far from allowing Turkey to wage a military attack on the YPG, Russia has maintained forces in positions blocking Turkish access to Kurdish positions in Afrin and has demanded that the political party representing the YPG, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), be involved in future peace talks in Sochi, Russia. The Kremlin believes that the YPG must buy into any peace agreement for Syria, considering that the group has emerged as a key stakeholder in the conflict and has U.S. support.

Turkey, however, is just as uncompromising on the issue and is growing increasingly impatient with the strengthening of the YPG along the border with Syria. It is growing so impatient, in fact, that it may be ready to move against the YPG without Russian consent. Turkish artillery fire directed at YPG positions in Afrin increased over the weekend, and signs that Turkish forces are moving from other parts of the border to Afrin have been reported. Meanwhile, the United States has announced that it will help train and establish a Syrian border force of 30,000 fighters, including many members of the YPG. Turkey is furious at the prospect of a U.S.-YPG collaboration even after the conventional defeat of the Islamic State and will not idly accept it. 

As Turkey prepares for an attack, concerns are rising that an errant Turkish strike could cause Russian or American casualties and lead to a dangerous escalation of the conflict. This danger and the assumption that U.S. support for the YPG was temporary have prevented Turkey from waging full-out war on the YPG. But now as the United States bolsters its support for the YPG and the relationship between Turkey and Russia tightens, Turkey is appearing more and more willing to assume the risks inherent in a strike.

[Crafty_Dog]

•   Turkey: There have been notable developments in northern Syria. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has tried to walk back the announcement of the Border Security Forces, claiming news of its formation has been “misportrayed.” Turkey remains unsatisfied and continues to amass forces on its southern border. The Turkish chief of general staff and the head of Turkish intelligence are in Russia to discuss a potential military operation. The Syrian government has said that for Turkey to attack Afrin would be an act of aggression that would be responded to accordingly. What do these developments tell us about what comes next? Would Syria actually attack Turkey? Could it withstand a Turkish response?
•   Syria: The Islamic State, meanwhile, has designated nearby Idlib province an “Islamic governorate.” Let’s find out what territories the group actually holds. Can it defend what territory it has, or does it show up to weak areas, claiming them for its own, only to retreat when a larger force contests it?

[Crafty_Dog]

second post

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-16/turkey-notifies-nato-imminent-massive-invasion-syria-fight-kurds