A brutal cold spell could kill refugees. Paris COP21 delegates need to discuss this climate issue.

By Paul Driessen and Joe D’Aleo*

Even after the latest Paris massacres – and previous radical Islamist atrocities in the USA, France, Britain, Canada, Spain, India, Iraq, Syria, Nigeria and elsewhere – politicians absurdly say hypothetical manmade global warming is the greatest threat facing humanity. In reality, fossil fuel contributions to climate change pose few dangers to people or planet, and winters kill 20 times more people than hot weather.

After being assured snowy winters would soon be something only read about in history books, Europe was shaken by five brutally cold winters this past decade. Thousands died, because they were homeless, lived in drafty homes with poor heating systems, or could not afford adequate fuel.

It could happen again, with even worse consequences. “Millions of desperate people are on the march,” Walter Russell Mead recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “Sunni refugees driven out by the barbarity of the Assad regime in Syria, Christians and Yazidis fleeing the pornographic violence of Islamic State, millions more of all faiths and no faith fleeing poverty and oppression without end.”

Where are they heading? Mostly not into neighboring Arab countries, most of which have yanked their welcome mats. Instead, if they’re not staying in Turkey, they’re going north to Europe – into the path the extremely cold “Siberian Express” has increasingly taken. Germany alone could face the challenge of feeding and sheltering 800,000 to 1,000,000 freezing refugees this winter.

If a blast of frigid Siberian air should hit, temperatures in parts of eastern and northern Europe and the western Former Soviet Union could become 70 degrees F (39C) colder than cold spells in much of the Middle East. During the coldest Siberian outbreaks, it gets as lethally cold as -40F (-40C).

Northern and eastern Europeans are largely acclimated to such cold. However, for refugees from regions where winters average 20 to 30 degrees warmer, makeshift houses or tents will make their sojourn a bone-chilling experience. Europe’s exorbitant energy costs, resulting from its obeisance to climate chaos credos, could make this an even worse humanitarian crisis.

However, to listen to the UN, many world leaders, environmental NGOs, scientists from the climate alarm industry, and their sycophant media – especially on the eve of their Paris 2015 global warming summit – threats from cold weather are not supposed to happen. Just 15 years ago, the German paper Spiegel proclaimed, “Good-bye winter: In Germany bitter cold winters are now a thing of the past.” That same year, a British Climate Research Unit scientist said “children aren’t going to know what snow is.”

The media dutifully repeated similar claims each year, until unbelievably cold, snowy winters began hitting in 2008/09. In December 2010, England had its second-coldest December since 1659, amid the Little Ice Age. For five years, 2008-2013, snow paralyzed travel in England and northern and western Europe. Not surprisingly, the same media then blamed manmade global warming for the harsh winters.

In reality, natural Atlantic Ocean cycles lasting around 60 years control winter temperatures in Europe and Eastern North America. When the North Atlantic warms, “blocking high pressure systems” largely prevent warm Atlantic air from reaching Europe.

There is also a strong correlation between the sun’s geomagnetic activity and these blocking-induced cold winters in Europe. The five brutally cold winters ending in 2012/13 had the lowest level of solar geomagnetic activity in the entire record, dating back some 90 years.

When the North Atlantic is warm and the sun’s geomagnetic patterns are weak, these blocking patterns keep warmer Atlantic air out of Europe. Frigid air from off deep snows in Siberia can then more easily invade from the east, bringing sub-zero cold and heavy snows. That’s what happened from 2008 to 2013.

The ocean and solar factors eased in 2013, and th e last two years have seen more Atlantic air and milder winters. However both solar and ocean patterns are starting to return to the situation where cold invasions are more likely. That could usher in nasty surprises for the Middle Eastern refugees.

Even this year’s early winter October cold brought news stories about Syrian children becoming sick amid exposure to colder weather than they were used to. In Austria, adults and children alike were already complaining about the weather and wishing they could go home.

In fact, cold weather kills 20 times more people than hot weather, according to a Lancet medical journal study that analyzed 74 million deaths in 384 locations across 13 countries. It should be required reading for the 40,000-plus bureaucrats, politicians, activists and promoters who will soon descend on Paris, to enjoy five-star hotels and restaurants while blathering endlessly about dire threats of global warming.

They should ponder the fact that the Lancet study reflects normal societies in peaceful countries. Even there, many more people die each year during the four winter months than in the eight non-winter months. Indeed, there even the United States experiences some 100,000 Excess Winter Deaths per year.

In the United Kingdom, the winter death rate is about twice as high as in the USA: excess winter deaths range up to 50,000 per year – due to the UK’s poorer home insulation and heating systems, and much higher energy costs cause d by its climate and renewable energy policies.

The refugees’ excess winter death toll could well be even greater, due to the high cost of European energy and the migrants’ extreme poverty, poor nutrition, inadequate clothing and blankets, preexisting diseases, and makeshift housing: tents, trailers and other dwellings that have little or no insulation or central heat.

Systematic misinformation about the dangers of fossil fuels and hot versus cold weather has helped make this crisis much worse than needs be. Climate alarmists will thus bear the blame for thousands of avoidable deaths among refugees this winter, especially if the Siberian Express invades once again.

The Paris climate conferees need to focus on humanity’s real and immediate dangers: this rapidly growing refugee crisis, abysmal EU economies and job losses – and the billions worldwide who still lack the adequate, reliable, affordable energy required to end their crushing poverty, malnutrition, disease and early death, by ensuring clean water, proper sanitation, modern hospitals, lights, refrigerators and plentiful food. The climate conferees must address the following much more pressing questions.

How is climate change more important than safeguarding refugees who are already suffering from cold weather? Should conferees be focused on hypothetical future manmade climate chaos, while EU nations squabble over who will take how many refugees and potential terrorists, amid a possible winter crisis? What contingency plans do they have for another bout of frigid weather possibly invading the continent?

When a million refugees are freezing in squalid conditions with inadequate shelter, food, heat, clothing and medical care, and 1.3 billion people still do not have electri city – why would the world commit to spending billions on alleged future global warming catastrophes? As Bjorn Lomborg puts it, why would the world also want to give up nearly $1 trillion in GDP every year for the rest of this century, to avert a total hypothetical (computer modeled) temperature rise of just 0.306 degrees C (0.558 F) by 2100?

Where will the money come from to combat growing war and terrorism, aid the millions displaced by these horrors, rebuild devastated cities, put millions of people back to work, and bring electricity and better lives to billions of others – if we continue this obsession over global warming? Do humans really play a big enough roll in climate change to justify these incomprehensible price tags? Where is the actual evidence? Not computer models or press releases – the actual evidence?

It would be an unconscionable crime against humanity, if the nations gathering in Paris implement policies to protect our planet’s energy-deprived masses from hypothetical manmade climate disasters decades from now, by perpetuating poverty and disease that kill millions more people tomorrow.

These are the real reasons climate change is a critical moral issue. We need to we recognize that, and stop playing games with people’s lives. We must acknowledge that horrific computer model scenarios do not reflect planetary reality – and must not guide energy policy.

*Joe D’Aleo is a Certified Consulting Meteorologist and American Meteorological Society Fellow and co-founder of The Weather Channel. Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow. Climate experts Allan MacRae and Madhav Khandekar contributed to this article.

By Mike Eckel

(RFE/RL) — Jeb Bush, the Republican presidential candidate and brother of the man who ordered the 2003 invasion of Iraq, has called for deploying more U.S. troops in Iraq as part of the fight against Islamic State militants.

The hawkish comments from Bush on November 18 were a reflection of the Islamic State militancy, global terrorism and security fears have begun to dominate the race to succeed President Barack Obama in next November’s election.

The leading Democratic candidate, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was expected to give a major policy address on November 19 in which last week’s terror attacks in Paris and the ongoing air war in Syria and Iraq were expected to top the agenda.

Despite name recognition from being related to two presidents—his brother, George W. Bush, and his father, George H. W. Bush— Jeb Bush has struggled in pre-election polls. He has lagged behind more outspoken candidates like real estate mogul Donald Trump or retired surgeon Ben Carson.

But with the Paris attacks raising alarms among Washington policy makers and fears that the Syrian war is spinning further out of control, presidential candidates and Washington lawmakers have started calling for tougher action by the White House.

In a speech at the Citadel, a publicly funded military college in South Carolina, Bush said more U.S. troops should be sent as part of a larger global coalition to Iraq, where Islamic State militants have seized swaths of territory in the north, including the second largest city, Mosul.

“Radical Islamic terrorists have declared war on the Western world. Their aim is our total destruction,” Bush told an audience made up mainly of cadets. “We can’t withdraw from this threat, or negotiate with it. We have but one choice: to defeat it.”

“The brutal savagery is a reminder of what is at stake in this election. We are choosing the leader of the free world,” he said. “And if these [Paris] attacks remind us of anything, it’s that we are living in serious times that require serious leadership.”

“The United States – in conjunction with our NATO allies and more Arab partners – will need to increase our presence on the ground,” he said.

Bush, who used to be governor of Florida, did not say how many more U.S. troops would be needed, though he said he would defer to military commanders for precise numbers.

After a nearly complete withdrawal of U.S. forces in 2011, the Obama administration has gradually increased the size of the U.S. force, helping the weak Baghdad government to deal with Islamic State threat.

Today there are about 3,500 U.S. troops in Iraq, plus other soldiers from NATO and coalition members.

U.S. advisers earlier this month joined with Iraqi Kurdish forces to help them in attacking the strategic northern city of Sinjar, which had been seized by Islamic State militants in August 2014.

Obama recently ordered a few dozen U.S. special operations troops to northern Syria to help Kurdish forces there in their fight against the Islamic State.

The issue of increasing the U.S. military presence in Iraq is a fraught one for Bush, and for the entire presidential field. Obama won the presidency in 2008 in part due to his pledge to draw down the U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan after years of fighting and counterinsurgency.

He also won by criticizing Clinton who was a U.S. senator in 2002 when she voted to authorize George W. Bush to send U.S. troops to Iraq. She recently said she regretted that vote.

After losing to Obama, Clinton went on to become his first secretary of state.

Jeb Bush’s brother, George W. Bush, was president in 2003 when he ordered the invasion of Iraq, in which U.S. forces easily toppled Saddam Hussein but then struggled for years after to quell a brutal insurgency that included former Iraqi military officers, Baath party leaders and Al-Qaeda. Nearly 4,500 American soldiers were killed.

South Carolina, where Jeb Bush gave his speech, is one of the first states to conduct primary voting for parties to choose candidates, and a win there has given candidates a tremendous boost in the past.

Several bishops are saying we must resist the temptation to scapegoat all Middle Eastern refugees, since they themselves are fleeing violence similar to what happened in Paris last Friday.

“We cannot and should not blame (refugees) for the actions of a terrorist organization,” Bishop Eusebio Elizondo Almaguer, auxiliary bishop of Seattle, said Nov. 17 during the United States bishops’ general assembly.

“These refugees are fleeing terror themselves—violence like we have witnessed in Paris. They are extremely vulnerable families, women, and children who are fleeing for their lives,” said the bishop, who is chair of the bishops’ committee on migration.

Coordinated gun and bomb attacks linked to militants of the Islamic State killed 129 people in Paris Nov. 13, and wounded some 350 others. Officials have identified one of the suspected terrorists as a Syrian national who they believe posed as a refugee to gain entry into France. Several other suspected attackers, however, are French nationals.

Bishop Elizondo condemned the Paris attacks, saying, “I offer my deepest condolences to the families of the victims of the November 13 attacks in Paris, France and to the French people. I add my voice to all those condemning these attacks and my support to all who are working to ensure such attacks do not occur again – both in France and around the world.”

In response to the Parish attacks, some federal and state officials, including the governors of more than 30 states, have called on an end to the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the United States.

Bishop Elizondo commented that the screening process for refugees to gain entry into this country contains more security checks and interviews “than any arrival to the United States,” highlighting that the process can take more than two years.

Shutting out those seeking refuge from violence in their homeland is not the answer, Bishop Elizondo said. Instead, the U.S. should consider “strengthening the already stringent program,” while at the same time continuing to “welcome those in desperate need.”

He added that public officials should continue to unite in making sure the Syrian civil war reaches a peaceful resolution soon.

“Until that goal is achieved, we must work with the world community to provide safe haven to vulnerable and deserving refugees who are simply attempting to survive.”

Similarly, Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence issued a statement Nov. 16 saying that “it would be wrong for our nation and our state to refuse to accept refugees simply because they are Syrian or Muslim. Obviously the background of all those crossing our borders should be carefully reviewed for reasons of security.”

“Too often in the past, however, our nation has erroneously targeted individuals as dangerous simply because of their nationality or religion. In these turbulent times, it is important that prudence not be replaced by hysteria.”

Bishop Tobin added that “as is our well-established practice, the Diocese of Providence stands ready to assist in a careful and thoughtful process of refugee resettlement.”

And the Diocese of Cheyenne responded Nov. 18 to Governor Matt Mead’s call to stop Syrian refugee resettlement saying it is “appreciative of Governor Mead’s responsibility to ensure the safety and security of all of Wyoming’s citizens.”

The statement of Deacon Mike Leman, the diocese’s legislative liaison, added that “we hope the governor has in mind a means in which the vetting process can be measured in an expedient manner, so that a resettlement option for those fleeing from war can once again be considered.”

“It is important to remember that these are our fellow human beings who are fleeing the same kind of terror that occurred last week in Paris. By denying them sanctuary, we play into the hands of terrorists. We believe that this is not an either or issue. Measured steps can and should be taken to ensure safety while also allowing that Wyoming continues to be a welcoming place.”

Since the Syrian civil war began in March 2011, more than 4.1 million Syrians have fled their homeland. Most are in Turkey and Lebanon, but many are seeking asylum in Europe and the United States.

In September the Obama administration announced that the United States was to take in 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year. To date, the country has already accepted about 1,800 refugees from Syria.

Candidates for resettlement are vetted by several federal agencies, which takes 18-24 months on average. According to the BBC, about half of applicants are approved for resettlement, and the American process is much stricter than that in Europe.

But some officials, such as FBI director James Comey, worry that United States intelligence in Syria isn’t good enough to prevent “gaps” in the process.

Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican presidential candidate, told ABC, “There is no background-check system in the world that allows us to find that out, because who do you call in Syria to background-check them?”

House Speaker Paul Ryan called Nov. 17 for a “pause” in Syrian refugee resettlement in the United States to allow Congress to “verify that terrorists are not trying to infiltrate the refugee population.”

Ryan added that “Our nation has always been welcoming. But we cannot let terrorists take advantage of our compassion. This is a moment where it’s better to be safe than to be sorry.”

Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has introduced a bill that would place new restrictions on the entry of Iraqi and Syrian refugees to the United States.

Several governors, however, have indicated they will continue to welcome Syrian refugees, including those of Utah, Colorado, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Washington, Vermont, and Hawaii.

Lebanese security forces raided a warehouse of explosives and suicide belts belonging to Daesh (Islamic State) in the Lebanese city of Tripoli Tuesday afternoon, Al-Hayat, the pan-Arab newspaper, reported.

An official source told Al-Hayat that the warehouse is considered the Lebanese security forces’ biggest target since they started tracking Daesh militants.

Lebanese internal security forces were monitoring phone calls in the warehouse district since arresting Ibrahim Al-Gamal, who was detained before detonating himself in a coffee shop in Jabal Mohsen district in conjunction with twin bombs which went off in Burj Al-Barajneh district killing more than 40 persons last Thursday.

The attack was claimed by Daesh, and occurred on the same day security forces arrested a man in Tripoli with a suicide belt.

Lebanese security forces have arrested nine people, most of them Syrian nationals, over last week’s twin bombings in Beirut that killed 44 people, the interior minister said Sunday, reported AFP.

“Until now the detained include seven Syrians and two Lebanese, one of them a [would-be] suicide bomber and the other a trafficker who smuggled them across the border from Syria,” Interior Minister Nuhad Mashnuq said in a televised press conference.

Thursday’s attacks hit a busy shopping street in Burj Al-Barajneh, a Shia suburb where Hezbullah is popular.

“The whole suicide bombing network and its supporters were arrested in the 48 hours following the explosion,” Mashnuq said.

He said the Syrians were detained in a Palestinian refugee camp located in Burj Al-Barajneh and a apartment in the capital’s eastern district of Ashrafieh that had been used to prepare the explosive belts.

The initial plan was apparently to send five suicide bombers to a hospital in the neighbourhood, Mashnuq said, but heavy security forced the attackers to change their target to a densely populated area.

Original article

Due to unfolding regional events, the shifting geopolitical dynamics within the Arab states, the changing nature of the bilateral relations between Israel and the Palestinians, and the strong Western desire to bring an end to the conflict, the conditions are ripe to reach a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.

By Dr. Alon Ben-Meir*

The upheaval sweeping the Middle East suggests that it will be extraordinarily difficult if not impossible to resume the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and reach a successful outcome. On the contrary, because of the prevailing political conditions and the continuing rise of extremism in both communities, the resumption of peace talks is as timely as it has ever been and these conditions may, in fact, lend even more urgency in the search for a peace agreement. Moreover, waiting for these raging conflicts to settle down before resuming the peace negotiations is not an option. Many of these violent conflicts will last for years and may well get much worse before they presumably create a more conducive environment to restart the talks in earnest.

There are six fundamental reasons that explain why the present geopolitical environment is conducive for the resumption of peace negotiations and why outside constructive intervention has become sine qua non to reaching an equitable peace with security.

First, the regional turmoil: Contrary to common wisdom, the turmoil sweeping the Middle East, the convergence of multiple conflicts, and future uncertainties have created new compelling circumstances that support the resumption of peace talks. Whereas the regional conflicts – particularly in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen – distract attention from the currently less violent Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the relative low level of violent clashes is deceiving and cannot be taken for granted. As the Palestinians’ frustration continues to grow, so does the risk of an even greater violent flare-up, which can be avoided. Recent violent disturbances in Jerusalem and several Israeli cities only attest to this eventuality.

Although the Netanyahu government denies any connection between the occupation and the violent frenzy sweeping the region, most Israelis and moderate Palestinians are alarmed about the possibility that ISIS will find, if it hasn’t already, fertile ground among radical Palestinians who detest the Israeli occupation and their own leaders more than they loathe ISIS.

It is true that this has not manifested itself in any significant way as of yet, but it is only a question of time (even if defeated in Iraq and Syria) when ISIS will establish active cells to act against both Israelis and moderate Palestinians.

Opening Israeli-Palestinian negotiating channels would prevent such an outbreak and would allow the Arab states to focus on the present danger posed by ISIS and the Sunni-Shiite proxy war (led by Iran and Saudi Arabia) over regional hegemony.

Second, the Arab States’ eagerness to end the conflict:  The Arab states have for more than two decades been calling for an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on a two-state solution, which was formalized by the introduction of the Arab Peace Initiative in 2002.

With the exception of Egypt and Jordan (who forged their own peace agreements with Israel in 1979 and 1994, respectively), the rest remain tied to their position not to normalize relations with Israel before the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is settled.

Interestingly, many of the Arab states in the Gulf and North Africa have developed clandestine relations (including exchanging intelligence) with Israel over the past ten years, and they no longer view Israel as an enemy but instead as a potential ally against their common enemies—Iran and ISIS. As they see it, once peace with Israel is established, they can create a crescent from the Gulf to the Mediterranean that will be a formidable bloc against the Iranian crescent, which includes Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.

Third, the Arab Peace Initiative (API): The API is still on the table and can provide an overall umbrella for the negotiations, which would allow the Arab states to lend significant psychological and practical support to the Palestinians and the peace process. Furthermore, since Israel is particularly keen on ending the Arab-Israeli conflict, the API provides a clear road map to peace between Israel and the Palestinians in the context of a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace. The US and the EU can use their leverage on the Israeli government to also embrace the API, particularly since the majority of Israelis, including former top security officials, strongly advocate for the adoption of the API.

Fourth, Hamas’s new disposition: The Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Egypt, are in a position to exert political and material pressure on Hamas to formally adopt the API, which will provide common denominators with Israel about the principle idea of a two-state solution. Consistent with the API, on more than one occasion Hamas has clearly stated that it is willing to negotiate a peace agreement with Israel based on the 1967 borders. This is not to suggest that Hamas is ready and willing to make the necessary compromises to achieve peace, but it does suggest that Hamas also understands that Israel is there to stay and is now looking for ways to accommodate the Israelis in return for easing the blockade and eventually lifting it altogether, bringing an end to the occupation.

Fifth, the US position: President Obama may well be more inclined at this particular juncture in his presidency to breathe new life into the peace process. However, he realizes that any resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations fashioned along the line of previous negotiations with US mediation will fail, not only because of political factionalism in Israel and among the Palestinians, but also because he is domestically constrained to pressure Israel unilaterally, especially during presidential elections.

That said, Obama stated in March 2015 that the US is reassessing the situation and is considering a different approach to tackle the conflict. Given that the US has a moral and material stake in Israel’s well-being and is committed to its preservation, it is in a position to shape and influence any international initiative to achieve that very objective.

Notwithstanding the fact that Israel has enjoyed tremendous political support from both Congress and the American people, there is a definite shift among the public and leading politicians toward putting the blame on Israel for the continuation of the conflict. By demonstrating tough love, the US can fulfill its moral obligation to best serve Israel’s national security and preserve it as an independent Jewish and democratic state, which for nearly all Israelis is their most cherished dream.

Sixth, the EU’s growing stakes in peace: Given the increasing turmoil in the Middle East, the EU is more eager than ever before to play a larger role in settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which they view as another flash point that adds more fuel to the regional fire. Europe is suffering from domestic Islamic radicalization and considers the resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as one of the central components to significantly reducing radicalization at home while protecting its extensive interests in the region.

Moreover, the European community has come to the conclusion that Israel’s intransigence is behind the stalemate and that by not acting now, they will in fact render serious disservice to Israel which they view as an important strategic ally, especially from a security perspective.

In spite of the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement throughout Europe, they prefer to avoid taking such punitive action against Israel without the support of the US. That said, they appear to be determined to formulate a joint action plan led by France in an effort to end this debilitating seven decades-old conflict, which is bound to explode to their and their regional allies’ detriment.

A careful review of the above suggests that due to unfolding regional events, the shifting geopolitical dynamics within the Arab states, the changing nature of the bilateral relations between Israel and the Palestinians, and the strong Western desire to bring an end to the conflict, the conditions are ripe to reach a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.

That said, neither Prime Minister Netanyahu nor, to a lesser extent, President Abbas will come forth with a framework for peace where critically important compromises must be made.

A change of leadership will be necessary to bring this about, but that can happen only under intense US and EU pressure.

*Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

The stories told and the maps shown in the classrooms of the future are going to be decided in the outcome of the current crises that envelop our European fraternity. From military threats in the east to the refugee flows and open warfare on our streets as the result of two and a half decades of unhinged unilateral neo-imperialist policy on the part of the United States; Europe stands at a crossroads. The actions that we take in the coming months can turn back the clock back into an age of conflict and separation, or into an era of, however cliché it may sound, unity and strength.

Though crisis may strain our faith in the establishment, it is only through crisis that true progress can be achieved. However, accomplishing this requires a leadership that not only inspires, but actively capitalises on these challenges for a greater realpolitikal goal. Many would argue that Merkel has the leadership required to steer the union into a political federation. Yet, if this were the case, by now we should have seen far more aggressive moves towards achieving that dream.

During the recent annexation of the Crimean peninsula, Europe had a great opportunity to bolster its union. Though, according to some, direct support of the Ukranian government may not be the ‘correct’ thing to do, using the crisis as a catalyst for the rapid creation of a European Armed Forces, through campaigns to gain popular support, would have been the most profitable outcome for Europe as whole. Junker may have called for the creation of a European Army, and we may be on that path now, but it was too little too late, at least within the context of the Crimean situation. Instead, we find ourselves in an uncomfortable powerplay between the British and the Germans in the midst of a different crisis that weakens the position of the federalists. Europe must learn to mobilise support, enlighten its citizens and strengthen its democratic processes in order to most effectively force legislation through that will fortify the creation of a political union.

We may find ourselves in the rising tide of right-wing, conservative and reactionary movements across the continent, electing leaders that are openly against this child of ours which has brought us closer together than ever before, but true leadership is about convincing people of a vision, a better world, not heeding the not yet formed opinions of the electorate. The Polish may now seem to be opposed to a strong Europe, but had the establishment seized the opportunity in the early months of 2014, to convince their people and their representatives that the forces of Europe should combine under one command, for our safety, the support would most likely have been guaranteed.

The more immediate crises may seem like the greatest threat to European political integration ever to face us, but really, they are the greatest opportunity for the furtherance of the federalist dream in the early 21st century. Handled inappropriately, the cost could be the very integrity of the project itself. Handled appropriately, with a vision in mind, at a decisive tempo, reaching out to the citizens, anything is possible. A European intelligence service, one united border patrol, the creation of the European Armed Forces, a common migration institution, a federal fiscal policy to fund these; that is how we must act and spin the story, not by inaction and closed borders. Like an explosion, one does not need to wait for chaos to settle down, one can steer it and much like a rocket, propel oneself with its force.

By aiming at the grassroots, we can force their representatives to change their minds; we can implement an agenda which will finally allow Europe reach its full, independent, potential. See the challenges that stand before us not as a catalyst for reactionary forces, but as an opportunity for change, change that combined with strong leadership, can be used to shape history for the better.

On Wednesday, an Internet message allegedly from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) showed a photograph of the alleged bomb — improvised explosive device (IED) — that brought down a Russian airliner in the Sinai Peninsula killing more than 220 passengers and crew.

The picture was published in the radical Islamic English-language magazine, Inspire, with the caption “Image of the IED used to bring down the Russian airliner.” The photo shows an empty can of Schweppes Gold, a non-alcoholic beverage sold in Egypt, as well as other components used to create the IED.

More than 16,500 improvised explosive devices were detonated — or discovered before detonation — against U.S. military personnel deployed in Afghanistan in 2011 proving that the improvised explosive device (IED) is the current terrorists’ and insurgents’ weapon of choice, according to a government report obtained by the National Association of Chiefs of Police’s Explosives and Incendiary Devices Study Group.

According to officials at the Department of Defense, IEDs will most probably be encountered in present and future conflicts due to being relatively inexpensive to develop while their effectiveness is proven by the number of military deaths and casualties, as well as the destruction of military vehicles and other assets. And that doesn’t include those IEDs developed by domestic terrorists on the U.S. mainland that will be encountered by police bomb squads.

A number of DOD divisions, including all of the military branches, have been pursuing counter-IED (C-IED) efforts leading up to June 2005 when DOD established the Joint IED Defeat Task Force, followed in 2006 with the creation of the Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) to lead and coordinate all DOD actions to defeat IEDs.

“From fiscal years 2006 through 2011, JIEDDO has received over $18 billion in funding, however, DOD has funded other C-IED efforts outside of JIEDDO, including $40 billion for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles,” states the Government Accountability Office report.

GAO analysts reported in February 2012 that DOD does not have full visibility over all of its C-IED efforts. DOD relies on various sources and systems for managing its C-IED efforts, but has not developed a process that provides DOD with a comprehensive listing of its C-IED initiatives and activities.

In response to a GAO recommendation that the Secretary of Defense direct JIEDDO to develop an implementation plan for the establishment of DOD’s C-IED database including a detailed timeline with milestones to help achieve this goal, DOD officials said that a revision of DOD’s Directive No. 2000.19E will contain a new task requiring combatant commands, the military services, and DOD agencies to report C-IED initiatives to JIEDDO.

GAO analysts stated in their report: “This would include programming and funding pursued by a military service, combatant command, or other DOD component, in addition to activities funded by JIEDDO. In January 2012, DOD estimated it would complete draft revisions to DOD Directive 2000.19E in early 2012, but as of July 2012, Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) officials stated that the revised draft was under review at the OSD level, and therefore, not issued.

The gap between men and women in health, education, economic opportunity and political representation has closed by 4% in the past 10 years, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2015, which launched Wednesday. In economic terms, the gap has closed by only 3% with progress towards wage equality and labor force parity stalling markedly since 2009/2010.

The slow pace of progress in bridging the gap in economic opportunity between women and men means that women are only now earning the amount men did in 2006, the year that the Global Gender Gap was first produced. Extrapolating this trajectory suggests that it will take the world another 118 years – or until 2133 – to close the economic gap entirely.

With no one country having closed its overall gender gap, Nordic nations remain the most gender-equal societies in the world. As last year, the leading four nations are Iceland (1), Norway (2), Finland (3) and Sweden (4) – with Norway overtaking Finland. Denmark (14) and Belgium (19) slipped out of the top ten while Ireland (5) gained three places. Rwanda (6) which entered the Index last year for the first time gained one place. The Philippines (7) gained back two places consolidating its place in the top ten. Nicaragua (12) is still the highest ranking country from Latin America but drops out of the top ten. Three new countries join the top ten: Slovenia (9) climbed 14 places, while Switzerland (8) and New Zealand (10) both gain three places.

Elsewhere, the United States (28) loses eight places since 2014, due to slightly less perceived wage equality for similar work and changes in ministerial level positions. Other major economies in the top twenty include Germany (11), France (15) and the UK (18).

Among the BRICS grouping, the highest-placed nation remains South Africa (17), supported by strong scores on political participation. Russia (75) is next, followed by Brazil (85) which lost 14 places this year due to growing wage gaps and a decline in the number of women in ministerial level positions. China (91) lost 4 places while India (108) gains 6 spots.

In or out? Britain will decide on its future in Europe with a referendum once negotiations with the EU have been concluded. A delegation from the Parliament’s constitutional affairs committee went to London on 16 and 17 November to discuss the upcoming EU membership referendum with ministers, parliamentary committees and think-tanks. We spoke to committee chair Danuta Hübner, a Polish member of the EPP group, about her findings and the upcoming negotiations.

Q: What impressions did you get from the visit to London?

D.H.: The value of this visit lies in the fact that we spoke to all layers of public authority, as well as people representing political parties.

It’s not about the issues that are on the agenda for negotiations. The problem lies much deeper. I think that the British are really seeking their identity today. They want to identify themselves in the context of Europe.

The major message we got from the no camp was that the results of the negotiations do not matter. Whatever the results will be, they are against. From Labour we have heard that no matter what the result will be, they will vote to stay. That also shows how divisive the issue is and how divided society.

My problem is to what extent the results of the negotiations will matter in the referendum. This is important for us, because making concessions is a process which also has its cost. However, we have a long history of negotiations and we usually find a solution, so I think we will find solutions here.

Q: According to the polls the referendum will be very close. What factors do you think will decide it?

D.H.: The big unknown, which might influence also the referendum and make it very tight, is the current security situation in Europe and the world. It was clear from the discussions that security will be the number one issue and the economy less so. They are very critical about the way we handle the migration and refugee crisis. We were surprised that they see Europe as a negative factor. We know very well with security, with terrorism and the refugee crisis we will not make it individually, but even together unless we show solidarity, it will not be solved.

Q: What role should the European Parliament play in the upcoming negotiations?

D.H.: The Parliament is legally fully involved in the process. Its major role is at the end for the endorsement of the outcome. It cannot happen without Parliament.

We want them to stay. We made it clear that nobody is going to win with the UK leaving the European Union. That’s why our message was strong. We want you to stay with us, but it is up to you to decide. But think long term and think about the world around and isn’t it better to be in a bigger Europe. Europe even with the UK is a small continent.

Source: European Parliament News

By Adam Patterson*

Similar to the ongoing crises in Iraq and Syria, the conflict in Yemen has effectively devolved into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Although the theater in Syria is complicated and multifaceted, the civil war in Yemen has a relative polarity. However, the seeming simplicity of the sectarian breakdown between Shi’ite and Sunni combatants belies the external pressures that influence the ongoing strife throughout Yemen.

In terms of open martial antagonism, the combatants are broadly aligned along sectarian parameters, with even the local al-Qaeda insurgents gaining a reputation for alliances of convenience with the Saudi military. The tribal-based Houthi movement, Ansar Allah (Partisans of God), has been receiving its own external assistance. The Houthi rebels, who practice the Zaidi sect of Islam (a subsection of Shi’ism that is similar to Sunnism in many respects), have received assistance from Iran’s Quds force, which has also played a major role in backing the Assad regime in Syria, a host of Shi’ite militias in Iraq, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

This leaves a sort of Sunni-Shi’ite axis along which most of the fighting breaks down, and an ongoing catalyst for armed escalation throughout the region. In this framework, many of the ongoing tensions are defined by each party’s either covert or explicit allegiance to the power players in Tehran or Riyadh. What ensues between Saudi Arabia and Iran is a prolonged power struggle that is neither a direct engagement nor a sort of cold war, but one that rests within some tenuous middle ground of ongoing proxy war maneuvering.

Riyadh and Tehran’s geopolitical relationship is a classic example of two powers vying for whatever upper hand can be found irrespective of auxiliary factors. Questions around military escalation in foreign countries are only relevant if they are too taxing for either Saudi Arabia or Iran (damage to local civilian populations or infrastructure is a tertiary consideration at best). One of the primary factors that makes this pattern of engagement so easy for both parties is that potential allies and antagonists can be divided neatly along sectarian lines. Saudi Arabia has found it easy to ally with Sunni insurgents, while Iran has found amenable Shi’ite partisans in Hezbollah and the Syrian Alawites.

Saudi Arabia occupies a relatively privileged geographic position in the Middle East, insofar as Daesh (“Islamic State”) is much more menacing to the Syrian and Iraqi governments. There has been relatively little attack from Daesh along the Saudi border as the group seizes territory previously under regime control. Thus curtailing the group has remained a lesser priority for the House of Saud.

There has been longstanding speculation that sources within Saudi Arabia have been backing and supporting Daesh through various covert means, in part because their belligerence in Syria and Iraq has whiplashed against the Iranian-backed regimes in Damascus and Baghdad. One of the longstanding and most withering criticisms of Saudi foreign policy is that Riyadh has made a habit of exporting Wahhabism and jihadi extremism as a political weapon, which has spilled into lands as far away as Chechnya and Indonesia. This has insured the dual leverage of friendly elements (or militias) in outside states, as well as a sort of counter-pressure against potentially unfriendly governments.

Iran’s gambit in Yemen seems to represent a sort of counter to this. Yemen’s strategic value to foreign policy decision makers in Tehran lies in Iran’s ability to bring the conflict, in a very real sense, into Saudi Arabia’s backyard. They have much to gain, and very little to lose, by exacerbating the conflict that festers south of the Saudi border. The kingdom has remained wary of serious commitment of ground forces, and their airstrikes appear to be coordinated so as to in part benefit the local al-Qaeda insurgents (another instance of implicit Saudi support for militant Wahhabi proxies). However, the Houthis have been steadfast in combating the Sunni insurgents, and there appears to be no indication any sort of drawdown will be happening in the near future. This has drained Saudi defense resources, forcing them to redirect a substantive portion of their military spending and air power at a conflict whose resolution will offer them little more than a return to regional stability once suppressed. Beyond that, there are no grand tactical or political benefits, nothing enormously momentous or positive that can be feasibly carried beyond the theater in Yemen.

This represents an ideal investment for Iran in terms of undermining Saudi reach in the Middle East. At this juncture, Tehran has very little to lose by exacerbating the Yemeni conflict. Though in no way parallel phenomena, a resolute and defiant Houthi insurgency would also provide counter-pressure against the Saudis to match the Sunni insurgency that is wearing down the Tehran-backed regimes in Syria and Iraq.

However, the outlook for the Houthi rebels and their effective alliance with Iran remains unpredictable. Saudi Arabia has made a policy of aggressively closing off flight and maritime space, making it difficult if not outright impossible for Tehran to supply the Houthi rebels. Meanwhile, Iran’s behavior suggests that the ongoing strife in Yemen serves a propaganda purpose. Tehran’s power players are attempting to subvert the longstanding (and arguably dubious) contention that Iran is uniquely disruptive or destabilizing to the Middle East as a whole, and doing so by arguing that Saudi Arabia’s embargoing of aid to Yemen is cruelly indifferent to the plight of the Muslims who live within its borders. As Riyadh and Tehran compete for the hearts and minds of Arabs, building up Saudi Arabia as a callous and self-interested brute could be potentially valuable for Tehran, especially as the kingdom is seen by many in the region as the main backer of Daesh in Iraq and Syria.

The Saudi air campaign has had a devastating impact on the people of Yemen. Various estimates place the vast majority of blame for the well over 2,000 civilian casualties in the past six months on the Saudi-led coalition. The kingdom has effectively declared entire cities to be military targets, indiscriminately razing entire neighborhoods. This has only fed into Iran’s ongoing condemnation of the House of Saud, with Tehran leveraging the line that the Saudis are amoral power players with a nihilistic attitude toward the lives of their fellow Muslims. In the midst of this, Saudi Arabia is stuck with both the civilian refugee aftermath of the conflict as well as the consequences of prolonged and heavy military investment.

Throughout the summer of 2015, Iran’s actions vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia pivoted toward a withering agitprop, with both Iranian policymakers and media entities conflating Saudi Arabia’s actions with Saddam Hussein’s brutality, as well as persistently broadcasting a reel of harrowing war footage. Given the harsh conditions that many Yemenis face as the Saudi-led coalition continues to bomb the country, it has been easy for Iran to use the conflict as a means of portraying Al Saud as callous. Many of the Saudi airstrikes seem to be executed with the sole intent of industrial sabotage . There was a report of warplanes hitting a water bottling plant in Hajja province which is part of a greater pattern that could harm civilians more resoundingly than military forces. Certain dispatches indicate that Saudi airstrikes have effectively flattened entire neighborhoods.

Recent evidence indicates that the diplomatic polarity between Houthi rebels and Hadi loyalists is becoming even more entrenched with Saudi-backed president-in-exile Abdrabbo Mansour Hadi announcing in early October that he was severing all diplomatic ties with Iran. This seems to present a final marker that the separation between the Houthis and Hadi loyalists is definitely drawn along Saudi-Iranian lines. This recent diplomatic termination came on the heels of the Saudis capturing an Iranian fishing vessel destined for Yemen, which turned out to be loaded full with arms intended for the Houthi rebels. This latter pattern is an especially useful tactic for Iran, because a full embargo blocks both humanitarian aid as well as weapons shipments – and a ship seemingly carrying food and medical aid could also be stowing hidden arms stockades.

Iran and Saudi Arabia are in no position to immediately curtail the power of the other, but Iran’s gambit in Yemen could portend a greater shift in the soft power of both countries, at least in terms of their association and image. Saudi Arabia has apparently been aggressively hustling for PR experts and general public image consultants in Washington, a sign that this aspect of their diplomatic edge could well be waning.

U.S. President George W. Bush famously hailed Iran as an alleged member of the tripartite “Axis of Evil.” Since 2014, Iran has made open business of countering Daesh in both Iraq and Syria by directly assisting both local governments, as well as by supplying and propping up Hezbollah in Lebanon and backing the group in Syria. Hezbollah’s efforts and the more covert actions of the Quds force have been instrumental in fighting Daesh on multiple fronts. If Saudi Arabia’s connections with localized Sunni insurgency are ever revealed as serious and pronounced, their image as reliable diplomatic partners could be tainted while Iran’s is burnished.

About the author:
*Adam Patterson is a Washington, DC-based analyst of international security topics, with a special focus on insurgency and conflict in Arab states.

Source:
This article was published by Gulf State Analytics

By Adam Garfinkle*

At times like these, in the immediate aftermath of a convulsive and repulsive terrorist attack like that of this past Friday evening in Paris, it is a good idea to repair to basics. Doing so helps one to calm down, which is essential because, as Elena Bonner once observed, “fear gives bad advice.” It also forces us to balance the urge to “do something” with the need to think first about what is both wise and possible to do. I am content to let others “sound the tocsin,” blame and admonish far and wide, and adopt Churchillian-toned aspirational language. Let me now then merely think a bit on paper about a few basics, and do so in view of an audience in hopes that it might help others to get a grip as well.

Avoid the Terrorist Trap

Perhaps the best essay ever written on the kind of challenge before us today dates back more than forty years, to July 1975. That is when David Fromkin’s “The Strategy of Terrorism” appeared in Foreign Affairs, before perhaps most of the readers of these blogospheric words were born. Fromkin identified terrorism as a weapon of the weak, a trap of sorts designed to provoke stronger forces into acting on the basis of fear in counterproductive ways. Those counterproductive ways could take several forms: foolishly exaggerating a terrorist enemy’s power and legitimacy; doing things that betray one’s core values or alienate natural or objective allies; spending huge sums of public money to prevent tactics that terrorists have no intention of reusing; and more besides.

One example Fromkin gave came from FLN tactics in Algeria in the mid-1950s. The French government at the time claimed that Algeria was not a colony but a department of France, and that all citizens enjoyed equal rights and respect. But when the FLN bombed a cinema, the police rounded up only Arabs, no French colonists, giving lie to the pretense. Alas, the French have a vaguely similar problem today, except now it is playing out in France proper, not Algeria.

One does not have to go back so far into history to find other examples. Unfortunately, one of those examples involves the United States, its passage through history is far from over, and its very existence remains unrecognized by most. One of the legacies of the 9/11 attacks has been a bureaucratized paranoia that undermines the confidence and verve that have been integral to the vitality of American society throughout its history. The distorted formation of the Department of Homeland Security and the massive TSA bureaucracy are very expensive, and most of the money we spend year after year is spent by rote and mostly in vain. Somewhere Ayman al-Zawahiri is sucking oxygen, and he probably smiles regularly at the thought of how little al-Qaeda’s operations cost compared to how many billions of dollars we have spent ever since.

Indeed, we have even let one nutcase of a man, Richard Reid, trick us into making harmless middle-aged men and women remove their shoes and belts before boarding an airplane for more than a decade. How many shoe bombs has TSA discovered and defused in all this time? None.

We have also flooded our trains, subways and busses with omnipresent announcements to notice “something suspicious.” Every time we do such things to obvious excess, we betray our freedom and optimism and, by showing how easy it is to scare us, actually make us more alluring targets for future attack.

Instead of questioning the growing shadow of the lumbering security state, amazingly, our salon intellectuals, media, and much of our political class prefer to wax indignant over intelligence and surveillance programs that have a track record of quiet success, and strain to shut them down…..at least until we yo-yo ourselves back to prudence after the next attack. Thus the strategy of terrorism slowly succeeds.

What has this to do with what happened on Friday evening and since? François Hollande’s statement that the Friday attack was “an act of war,” and France’s rapid retaliation by air against targets in Raqqa, did much to raise the status of the Islamic State from the desultory, hybrid proto-state it is to something grander that it is not—at least not yet. No doubt domestic politics affected Hollande’s choice of language, for he does not wish to cede political ground to Marine Le Pen, lest by a sin of omission he help to make her the next President of France—but still. If France is at war, every day that the Islamic State remains ensconced in its territory is a day that France has failed to win that war. But France cannot win a war in the Levant with airpower alone, and as it, along with the British, demonstrated in Libya in 2011, its airpower is less than massively impressive in any case.

Similarly, suggestions that NATO invoke Article V, as it did at European behest after 9/11, shower ISIS with symbolic power it does not deserve and that it anyway should be denied. There is nothing wrong with solidarity and a good deal that is right with it, but it should be a quiet and stoic solidarity forged by effective deeds—of which there are a great many left to do among democratic allies—not a glitzy kind purchased by a spurt of elevated vocabulary words.

As for French aerial attacks, no one can yet say (in public) with confidence what they destroyed. It is worth remembering, however, that the people of Raqqa, as well as of Mosul, are in a very tough spot. The vast majority are not premillenarian fanatics wishing to goad on the great global holy war of the end of days—quite possibly the aim of the small core of delusionists surrounding Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. But neither are they eager to be repressed and killed in large numbers by a criminal Alawi regime in Damascus or by murderous Shi‘a militias directed via Baghdad from Tehran—or left to the abject chaos of having no governing order at all. Wayward French, American, and Russian bombs tend to force such people into putting up with the order of the status quo, no matter how heinous, as the lesser evil compared to no order at all. That translates into an objective advantage for the Islamic state.

Semi-serious bombing by otherwise serious air forces also, of course, reinforces the Islamic State propaganda narrative that the infidels have declared war against Islam, and greatly aids its recruitment efforts. Very likely, the feckless American use of airpower since September 2014 has had exactly that result. What this means, it seems pretty obvious, is that if Western countries determine that deploying violence has a role in solving the ISIS problem, that violence must have a prominent Sunni Muslim component if it is to undermine the ISIS claim, and it must be a deployment meant not for signaling purposes or to tender wagers about escalation dominance, but to intimidate, suffocate, and, yes, actually defeat the enemy.

Defeating the Enemy is Hard; Planning for What Comes After is Harder

If basic number one is don’t foolishly help the bad guys with their strategy of terrorism, what is basic number two? It is that destroying a relatively weak enemy is easy compared to building a stable peace in its wake. Or, as P.J. O’Rourke once memorably put it, it’s one thing to burn down the shithouse, another to install plumbing.

Alas, not even the prior destruction phase is all that easy, and how that might get done will shape the environment for any subsequent effort to put the region back together. (History tells us so: Messrs. Sykes and Picot could draw all the lines they liked on a map nearly a century ago, yet the arrival of General Allenby’s army the very next year and the exigencies of occupation and administration rendered those lines rapidly obsolete.) So even assuming that, somehow, a coalition can be assembled to defeat the Islamic State on the battlefield in the Levant, here exactly is where things would get very, very complicated. Let us count the ways.

First, ISIS is a problem only because the Assad regime in Syria is the prior problem, and standing behind that murderous regime is Iran and Russia. ISIS arose from the U.S. shattering and subsequent premature abandonment of Iraq, two errors in sequence that produced one compound mess. But the fuel that fed ISIS most and allowed it to deepen and spread has been the Syrian civil war, in which the regime has killed upwards of 300,000 Sunni civilians, forced four million more to leave the country, and created unknown numbers of internally displaced persons. ISIS initially struggled, mostly in vain, to fill a vacuum and stop mass murder, because no one else would try—not other Sunni Arab states and not the United States. This must be acknowledged. We can call ISIS all the nasty names we like, and of course we’re not obligated to nominate it for the Nobel Peace Prize. But we cannot readily fix a problem whose origins we refuse to understand.

This means that Iranian and Russian efforts to protect Assad in recent and ongoing multilateral diplomacy must not be allowed to succeed, because if they do ISIS cannot be undone. It will regenerate like sliced up planaria in a high school biology lab. Rumors that the Obama Administration is slipping toward some kind of concession along those lines need to be not true, because that would only ensure that the civil war would become even bloodier than it already is and produce still more refugees to strain Jordan, Turkey and, of course, the European Union to and beyond their limits. A deal made largely on Russian terms will not stop the war, only reshape it.

In the longer run, ISIS represents a nightmare for both Tehran and Moscow, to the extent that it survives to become the core node of radical Sunni sectarian power. But in the short, tactical run, ISIS works like a battering ram against dysfunctional Sunni Arab states in the throes of perduring institutional decay, and that works in favor of Iranian interests, if less clearly also Russian ones. Russia and Iran are trying to save the Assad regime, not attack ISIS, even if saving Assad strengthens ISIS politically. The U.S government has no business abetting such a scheme.

Second, unfortunately, while the Russian and Iranian regimes are not potential effective partners in solving this problem, they are the ones right now with the most skin in the game. They have gone seriously if still ineffectually kinetic, while the U.S. administration has done the minimum necessarily to salve domestic pressures. This means that to gain the upper hand diplomatically and really stop the war, the U.S. government needs to torque the battlefield more decisively than Iran and Russia can do so.

But how? Even if we acknowledge the analogy of the Islamic State today to Taliban Afghanistan in the late summer and autumn of 2001, we have no Northern Alliance to leverage U.S. airpower. Of course, maybe a mere 7,000-8,000 crack U.S. troops could do the job, as some have suggested; but that seems an optimistic assessment and, in any event, this Administration is clearly not going to send them.

Third, the most likely coalition partner for that purpose the United States will not undertake itself—indeed, the only country on Syria’s border with the requisite capacity and perhaps the will to use it—is Turkey. The good news is that the Turkish leadership understands far better than the U.S. leadership does that the Syrian regime is the core of the ISIS problem. The bad news is that in recent months getting rid of Assad has taken a back seat to what is perceived in Ankara as an even greater and more urgent problem: stemming the twinned burgeoning of Kurdish nationalism and battlefield prowess.

This puts Turkish and U.S. interests at loggerheads for all practical purposes. The fact that the two governments worked out a deal a few months ago that allows the U.S. military to use Incirlik air base is passing strange, for it is based on no stable coincidence of key interests whatsoever. It is likely therefore to eventually deteriorate in acrimony, leaving U.S.-Turkish relations even worse for the wear. The Turks see ISIS as a highly dangerous but still useful last-ditch asset against Assad, and they see the Kurds as both a mortal political challenge within the Turkish Republic and as an agent weakening that last-ditch asset. Meanwhile, the Americans see the Kurds as the most effective and reliable ally available so far against ISIS.

Under such circumstances, the idea of creating a no-fly zone on the Syrian side of the Turkish border is fraught with problems. It is certainly an on-ramp for a ground force that will quickly become necessary to protect it, and the Obama Administration has made it clear that it will not provide that ground force. If the Turks provide it, it will predictably end up being pointed against the Kurds. If the Obama Administration relents and supports a no-fly zone under such circumstances, that will amount de facto to the third or fourth U.S. betrayal of the Kurds in the past half-century, depending on how one counts the tragedies of the past.

Fourth, if not the Turks, then the only other ground force that can fill the bill, in theory at least, would be some kind of Sunni mega-militia that bestrides the old border that divided Syria and Iraq—a sort of second coming of the Anbar Awakening, only larger. To train and support such a mega-militia would require a significant U.S.-led force in theater—at a minimum something like 5,000-8,000 troops. Here the good news is that many of the Sunni Arabs on both sides of the border are (literally) cousins; one can at least imagine enough affinity (‘asabiyya) among them to sustain effective cooperation. But turning a theoretical militia and an imagined affinity into a real military force that can fight and win is no cakewalk, to recall an embarrassing phrase from the past. And it would take time to make it happen, during which outrages like Paris could be expected to multiply.

Fifth—and this is really the kicker—there is no way to compose a stable peace in the area within the old borders of the Levant. Let us assume for a moment that, somehow, Turks, Kurds, and a Sunni Arab mega-militia, with U.S.-led Western help in training, arming, logistics and intelligence, join together within the next year to overshadow the current Russian and Iranian effort and roll back, if not finally crush, the Islamic State. Assume further that other Western-supported anti-Assad forces prevent the Syrian regime from taking significant advantage of ISIS’s weakening. It is easy to pretend to be Sir Percy Cox and Gertrude Bell, armed with a thick graphite harquebus and an otherwise blank map as they were in 1921, sketching out the borders of an independent Kurdistan composed of selected former Iraqi and Syrian territories, an Alawi-dominated rump Syria along the Mediterranean coast, a Sunni regional government spreading over the old Syrian-Iraqi border, and a rump Shi‘a Iraq centered on Baghdad and Basra. But who would agree to those new lines (and who would not)? Who would, enable, finance, support and enforce the new reality represented by that map?

Maybe Russia and Iran would be satisfied to have preserved a rump Alawi Syria. Maybe, somehow, the Turks could be mollified and compensated in some way as to accept a Kurdish state, if it were skillfully shrouded in symbolic conditionalities and solemnly sworn limits. Maybe the Saudis and the Gulf Arabs would come up with the massive amounts of cash needed to finance stabilization and reconstruction in a newly drawn Levant. Maybe the Egyptians on behalf of the Arab League would lead an Arab force to police the peace until it stuck on its own, and maybe NATO would support that force.

But for all these maybes to turn into a real postwar settlement, there would need to be a genuine leader—a great power with the resources, resolve, patience, reputation, and discernment to make it happen. That can only be the United States. But no one in his or her right mind thinks that can happen in the final year of the Obama Administration, and it is by no means clear that its successor would be any more willing to try—unless, of course, an American city (or two) suffers in future as Paris did this past Friday evening.

So what does this very complicated if still basic analysis tell us? It tells us that even a massive and battlefield-successful use of force against ISIS in the absence of a viable route to a regional settlement is not in itself a strategy. It is only an instrument. A truly viable strategy is, most regrettably, hard to envision right now, even as the new status quo—defined by the sudden realization that the Islamic State has a “far enemy” option—is manifestly unacceptable.

It Could Be Worse

There is, at the least, a third basic: It is that things could get even worse. They always can.

To see how, note that Israel has been dealing over the past month or so with a new kind of terrorism—terrorism not directed by any organization but a plague of anomic, one-off, lone-wolf stabbings and other forms of low-level but lethal violence. Compared to the terror of the first and second intifadas, the objective level of death and blood has been modest, but the level of anxiety it has produced is anything but modest. And that is because Israelis realize that the growth potential of this sort of terrorism is enormous, and that stopping it cannot depend on either deterring or cutting off the head of a leadership that is directing it.

In the wake of 9/11, anti-terrorism experts in the United States and Europe feared exactly this sort of widely distributed, copycat, leaderless terrorism. With rare exceptions here and there, the problem never materialized, and to the limited extent it has, it has plagued Europe more than the United States. It could materialize in the near future, again far more likely in Europe than here.

That concern should not lead Europeans to demonize asylum seekers, of course, for most of them are trying to escape the same purveyors of madness who attacked Paris on Friday. But it would be wildly imprudent to ignore the potential danger. From the forensics so far, every possible avenue of danger has been confirmed. French citizens as attackers? Check. Other European citizens as attackers—in this case Belgian nationals—using the Schengen zone to advantage? Check. Returnees from jihad in Syria? Check. And a terrorist who disappeared into the flow of Europe-bound asylum seekers? Check.

Clearly, then, it is not just the Levant that we in the United States need to be concerned about: the future of Europe is at stake as well, and that future needs to be understood as having, as always, a national security aspect for us. We need our democratic partners to be strong, stable, and cooperative in pursuit of common goals. So it is not only putting the Levant back together that confronts us, it is the simultaneous challenge of preventing Europe from falling apart. It doesn’t get any more basic than that.

About the author:
*Adam Garfinkle is a Fox Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and Editor of The American Interest magazine.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

There’s good news from Guantánamo, as five Yemenis, approved for release from the prison in 2005, 2007 and 2014, have finally been freed, and given new homes in the United Arab Emirates.

As the New York Times reported, the resettlement “was the first of its kind to the United Arab Emirates, which had previously taken in just one former Guantánamo detainee, in 2008 — its own citizen,” Abdullah al-Hamiri, whose story I discussed here.

The Times also explained that, “In May, President Obama met at Camp David with leaders or representatives of the six Middle Eastern countries that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council, including a representative from the United Arab Emirates. The main topic of discussion was the nuclear agreement with Iran, but officials familiar with the deliberations said Mr. Obama had also pressed them to consider resettling groups of detainees. The deal announced on Sunday appears to be the first fruits of those talks.”

With these releases, 107 men remain in Guantánamo, although the Times also noted that “an official familiar with internal deliberations” said that “[a]s many as 17 other proposed transfers of lower-level detainees are in the bureaucratic pipeline.”

48 of these men have been recommended for release, 37 by the high-level, inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force, which President Obama established shortly after taking office in January 2009. Eleven others have been approved for release, since January 2014, by Periodic Review Boards, another high-level review process established in 2013 to review the cases of all those still held who were not already approved for release, and are not facing trials (which just ten men are).

The majority of these 48 men — 39 of them — are Yemenis, and the problem for them has been that the entire US establishment is unwilling to repatriate them, so third countries have had to be found that are prepared to offer them new homes. With these releases, President Obama has, in the last year, released 23 Yemenis.

From my point of view, the shock — reflecting on these releases  — is quite how long these men have waited to be freed since they were first told that the US no longer wanted to hold them. Four of the five were approved for release by President Obama’s Guantánamo Review Task Force, which issued its final report nearly six years ago, in January 2010, while the fifth was approved for release last year by a Periodic Review Board.

However, as I mentioned in my opening paragraph, one of the five, Said al-Busayss (ISN 165, aka Adil Said al Haj Obeid al Busayss), 42, had previously been recommended for release in 2005, under President Bush, by a military review board known as an Administrative Review Board (ARB), as I explained in an article in June 2012, “Guantánamo Scandal: The 40 Prisoners Still Held But Cleared for Release At Least Five Years Ago.”

A foot soldier with the Taliban, he apparently “fought on the front lines until his unit withdrew, when he was given the option of staying or escaping. Choosing the latter, he fled to Pakistan, where he ‘surrendered his weapon and was arrested by Pakistani police,’” as I described it in my book The Guantánamo Files, and in an article in 2010.

In my 2012 article, “Guantánamo Scandal: The 40 Prisoners Still Held But Cleared for Release At Least Five Years Ago,” I also explained, “In the classified US military files relating to the Guantánamo prisoners, which were released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, al-Busayss’s file was a ‘Recommendation to Transfer to the Control of Another Country for Continued Detention (TRCD),’ dated September 3, 2004.” Quite what that meant was unexplained, as it was extremely rare for any receiving country to imprison men released from Guantánamo, because of course, any alleged evidence against them was generally worthless because of the abusive conditions in which they had been held.

When the task force reviewed his case in 2009, he was one of 30 Yemenis who were approved for release but held in what the task force described as “conditional detention.” which meant that they were to be held until it was decided that the security situation in Yemen had improved — although the task force, which invented this categorization, gave no indication of how this was to be decided, or who was to make the decision.

Three of the other men were approved for release by the task force without being placed in “conditional detention,” and all three had also been approved for release in 2007.

In the classified US military files relating to the Guantánamo prisoners, which were released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, the file for Khalid al-Qadasi, 47, was a “Recommendation for Transfer Out of DoD Control (TRO),” dated January 22, 2007.

As I explained in an article in 2010:

Little is known of al-Qadasi, because, as the authorities at Guantánamo have explained, “he claims that he is willing to spend the rest of his life in prison and has emphatically stated that he would rather die than answer questions.” The authorities have apparently ascertained that he served in the Yemeni army as a young man and traveled to Afghanistan in July 2001, and al-Qadasi has apparently stated that he “left Yemen for Pakistan to obtain medical treatment,” and has also said that he “never possessed any weapons in Afghanistan, as he was unable to fight due to his bad back.”

The authorities refuted these claims, claiming that he was “a probable member of al-Qaida,” who “participated in hostilities against US and Coalition forces” in Tora Bora, but the main claim against him — that he was “a Yemeni who fought in Tora Bora” — was made by Guantánamo’s most notorious liar, Yasim Muhammad Basardah (ISN 252), whose unreliability I discussed here — and also see the Guardian‘s important coverage.

In the files released by WikiLeaks, the file for Sulaiman al-Nahdi (ISN 511), 41, was a “Recommendation for Transfer Out of DoD Control (TRO),” dated August 13, 2007, although, disgracefully, the Justice Department refused to acknowledge that he had been approved for release twice, under President Bush and by President Obama’s task force, and challenged his habeas corpus petition, instead of, logically, not contesting it. Al-Nahdi subsequently had his habeas corpus petition denied, in February 2010.

A similar story is that of Fehmi al-Assani (ISN 554, aka Fahmi Salem Said al Sani), 38, for whom a transfer recommendation was made after his Administrative Review Board Round Three, on July 30, 2007 (PDF, p. 338). In the files released by WikiLeaks, his file was a “Recommendation to Retain under DoD Control (DoD),” dated October 22, 2004. Like Sulaiman al-Nahdi, he then had his habeas corpus petition denied, in February 2010, after the Justice Department challenged his petition, which they did not need to have done.

Both of these men appear to have been nothing more than recently recruited foot soldiers for the Taliban at the time of their capture, while the last of the five men to be freed, Ali Ahmad al-Razihi (ISN 045, aka Ali Ahmad Muhammad al Rahizi), 36, was, for some time, regarded, erroneously, as a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden.

Al-Razihi had his case reviewed by a Periodic Review Board on March 20, 2014, and was approved for release on April 23, 2014, and as I explained at the time, although he was initially regarded as one of the “Dirty 30,” a group of men captured in December 2001 who were considered to be bodyguards for Osama bin Laden.

Prior to his PRB, as I explained at the time:

[It was] noted that he was only “possibly” a bin Laden bodyguard. The PRB summary describe[d] the origin of this claim as “detainee reporting of questionable credibility”, adding, “FBI and other interviews of Guantánamo detainees identified that [al-Razihi] served as a bodyguard for Bin Laden, although one of them later recanted the allegation.”

In his classified military file, released by WikiLeaks in 2011, the prisoner who recanted his statements was identified as Mohammed al-Qahtani, a Saudi tortured at Guantánamo, while another alleged witness, who didn’t recant his statements, and who “photo-identified detainee as a UBL bodyguard on three separate occasions,” was the notorious liar referred to above, a Yemeni named Yasim Basardah, who was released from Guantánamo in 2010.

In conclusion, it is commendable that these five men have finally been released, and I hope they will be able to resume their lives in peace, and with support, in the UAE. I now look forward to hearing about the releases of the 17 other men mentioned by the New York Times as awaiting release, and then the 31 others currently awaiting release. I also hope that the PRBs will speed up in the new year, as there are still 45 men awaiting reviews, and President Obama is running out of time to fulfill his long-unfulfilled promise, made on his second day in office in January 2009, to close Guantánamo for good.

By Chris Zambelis*

The full repercussions of Russia’s growing involvement in the Syria conflict in the form of overt military action have yet to be realized. Until now, Moscow’s support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s Ba’athist regime, in concert with ongoing support furnished by Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah, and Iraq, has proved critical to its survival in the face of an ever expansive insurgency.

Despite its embattled disposition, the Ba’athist regime remains without question the most powerful actor in Syria’s civil war. The conflict has come to be typified by a muddle of armed opposition factions represented by competing radical Islamist currents led by Daesh (“Islamic State”) and al-Qaeda’s Syrian-based franchise Jabhat al-Nusra and a host of other hardline Islamist militants that straddle the ideological divide between both camps. The far less impactful yet nevertheless notable cohort of insurgents associated with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and its multiple iterations continue to solicit and receive moral and military support from the U.S. and other Western nations and their allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

The impact of Russia’s direct intervention in the form of air strikes and other kinetic military operations in support of the Ba’athist regime is profound. While the debate surrounding Moscow’s strategic objectives in Syria remains subject to conjecture, there is little dispute over Russia’s potential to affect the conflict’s trajectory. At the same time, Russia’s elevated profile in Syria cannot be considered in a vacuum absent of the activities and pursuits of other foreign actors, including Saudi Arabia.

The intersecting conflicts of communities, ideologies, and interests that underlie Syria’s civil war have become party to an equally convoluted, multilayered proxy struggle that transcends the Middle East. In this regard, charting Russia’s interface with Saudi Arabia, a driving force behind the armed opposition to the Ba’athist regime, is critical to unpacking at least one facet of the Syrian imbroglio. With the October meeting between Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman al-Saud and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in Sochi, Russia and a public declaration by Saudi clergy affiliated with the political opposition in the kingdom calling on Muslims to wage violent jihad against Russia as the backdrop, the Russo-Saudi clash over Syria merits further examination.

Fleeting Rapprochement

In light of the widely acknowledged deterioration in Saudi-Russo relations over Syria, many observers assessed a positive shift in bilateral relations between the longtime rivals only a few months prior to Moscow’s bombing of armed opposition groups in Syria. The circumstances surrounding the June 2015 meeting between Muhammed bin Salman and Putin are a case in point. Having occurred on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, the meeting between the historic adversaries produced six agreements governing the spheres of oil and natural gas, space research, the peaceful use of nuclear energy and the sharing of nuclear technology, and military-technical cooperation. Muhammed (who at thirty years old also holds the portfolios of second deputy prime minister and minister of defense) and Putin also discussed a range of other issues in what both sides hailed as a friendly and overall positive climate. In a sign that both sides were committed to build upon the momentum from the June talks, Muhammed extended an invitation to Putin to visit the kingdom while Putin reciprocated with an invitation to King Salman bin Abdelaziz Al Saud to visit Russia.

The seemingly positive shift in relations between Saudi Arabia and Russia was explained by numerous factors. Among these included the diplomatic breakthrough surrounding Iran’s nuclear program. The impact of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed between Iran and the so-called P5+1 (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany) continues to reverberate strongly in Saudi Arabia. In exchange for its agreement to not pursue a nuclear weapons program and to agree to other restrictions on its nuclear activities, Iran will see most of the international economic sanctions levied against it lifted.

The landmark agreement lays the groundwork for the steady rehabilitation of Iran’s position in the international community. Iran’s return to the world stage will have far reaching strategic implications for Saudi Arabia and the wider Middle East and international energy markets. Despite its strategic alliance with the U.S. and assurances from Washington over its commitment to the preservation of close relations with Riyadh, Saudi Arabia worries that the emerging détente between Washington and Tehran portends an eventual rapprochement that will reshape the regional and international landscape at the kingdom’s expense. Even as it continues to tout its longtime position as a major swing producer and exporter of crude oil, the prospect that Iran, an energy powerhouse in its own right, will realize its full potential as a producer and exporter of both crude oil and natural gas represents another cause of deep concern in Riyadh, which fears having to contend with greater Iranian supply and the residual negative impacts on energy prices that would result. Iran has already elicited strong interest from major international energy companies eager to reap the rewards of Iran’s vast wealth of untapped potential in the oil and natural gas sectors.

Consequently, the logic that underlined Saudi Arabia’s apparent openness toward Russia was couched as an attempt on the part of the Riyadh to diversify its portfolio of diplomatic relations to lessen its dependence on Washington. Likewise, Russia’s apparent willingness to more closely engage with Saudi Arabia is also worth viewing through the prism of the Iran nuclear agreement. Moscow’s reaction to the JCPOA has largely been overlooked.

On the surface, Russia has welcomed the agreement. Yet the prospect of Iran’s reintegration into the international community presents Russia with numerous challenges. Russia has successfully leveraged Iran’s diplomatic and economic isolation to great effect over the years. From the Kremlin’s vantage point, hostilities between the U.S. and Iran, for the most part, have served a useful purpose in the form of distracting and otherwise preoccupying Washington, forcing it to devote significant attention and resources that could have otherwise been concentrated toward Moscow. Russia has leveraged its diplomatic and economic influence over Iran as both a lever of influence over Washington and the international community. As a major producer of oil and natural gas, the economic sanctions levied against Iran have helped to protect Russia’s market share and favorable energy pricing schemes even given the prospects for Russian investment in the Iranian energy sector. The Iranian energy sector is poised to compete with Russian exporters in the vital European market.

Iran’s isolation had also helped foster close diplomatic and economic ties between Moscow and Tehran that had come to resemble a special relationship. Russia found common cause with Iran in their shared opposition to the U.S. and numerous other Western-led institutions and policies and mutual advocacy for the creation of alternative structures and approaches. Indeed, with few alternatives, Iran had come to depend greatly on Russia as both a vital economic outlet that helped it circumvent economic sanctions, as well as a diplomatic interlocutor that was often advocating on its behalf in the international community. The extent of Russia’s support for Iran’s defense and nuclear sector is also well known. Russia and Iran have also expanded their cooperation into the military and intelligence spheres in Syria and Iraq.

Despite a genuine sense of shared concern over the circumstances surrounding the Iranian nuclear agreement, the gravity of the developments in Syria would outweigh any possibility of a transformational shift toward the positive in Saudi-Russo relations. The degree of mutual enmity shared between Saudi Arabia and Russia regarding the conflict in Syria and a host other matters would suggest that any potential breakthrough in relations would be illusory or, at best, fleeting.

Standoff in Syria

The conflagration in Syria has quickly escalated into a staging ground for a host of proxy conflicts with ramifications that transcend the Levant. In this regard, Saudi Arabia and Russia are among the conflict’s main protagonists. Saudi Arabia is one of the principal sources of political, military, and economic support for a number of armed opposition factions, including various radical Islamist currents, which have taken up arms against the Ba’athist regime.

Saudi Arabia views the conflict in Syria through the prism of geopolitics. As Iran’s most important ally, the uprising in Syria presented an opportunity to undermine Tehran’s influence in the Persian Gulf and greater Middle East. In doing so, the kingdom resorts to a sectarian invective characterized by an anti-Shi’ite discourse reflective of the hardline Salafist and Wahhabist ideologies promoted by its religious establishment domestically and internationally. Saudi Arabia is joined most prominently by Qatar and Turkey and, to different degrees, other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and Jordan in aiding and abetting the rival political and armed opposition currents that are struggling against the Ba’athist regime. The U.S. and other Western allies are also invested in both the armed and political opposition. And while Saudi Arabia and other patrons of the opposition have formally declared war against Daesh, their streams of support readily make their way into the hands of hardline Salafist and other armed Islamist extremists, the dominant insurgent cohort within the insurgency. Many of these factions maintain ideological and operational links to al-Qaeda’s Syria-based affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra and have achieved other levels of cooperation under the auspices of umbrella insurgent coalitions such as Jaish al-Fatah (Army of Conquest).

Russia, for its part, continues to provide the Ba’athist regime with a critical lifeline of support in the diplomatic, military, and economic realms. The latest displays of overt Russian military might in Syria are emblematic of Moscow’s determination to ensure that its interests in Syria are preserved. The recent displays of operational coordination between Russia and Iran in Syria and other theaters represent another critical facet of Russia’s involvement in Syria.

In many respects, the factors that have helped shape Russia’s approach toward Syria represent a carryover of the Cold War. The Soviet Union and Syria enjoyed friendly ties that spanned the diplomatic, military, economic, ideological, and social domains. The brand of secularism and socialism represented by Syrian-style Ba’athist ideology shared a great deal in common with Soviet-style socialism and command economy. While it may eventually adopt a flexible position toward al-Assad’s survival – indeed, Russia has issued a number of proposals to end the conflict, some of which have demonstrated a potentially flexible position toward the disposition of al-Assad – Russia at this juncture remains committed to the Ba’athist regime, in one form or another, a prospect that likely includes the continuation of al-Assad at the helm for the foreseeable future. This reality leaves it irreconcilable with the objectives pursued by Saudi Arabia. On the diplomatic front, Russia has attempted to outmaneuver the efforts of Saudi Arabia and other opponents of the Ba’athist regime by hosting its own diplomatic initiatives.

Much has been said of Russia’s military presence in Syria. Russia has maintained a modest naval refueling station in Syria’s port city of Tartus since the end of the Cold War. In a region dominated by pro-U.S. regimes, Syria represents a critical ally. But Russia’s continued support for al-Assad in particular and the Ba’athist regime more broadly is also rooted in deeper worries about the perceived intentions of its rivals the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) rivals.

In Russia’s view, the incremental expansion of NATO into its former sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union represents an affront to Russia’s sovereignty and an existential threat to its existence. Moscow’s intervention in Syria must also therefore be viewed through a wider geopolitical lens that is reflective of Russia’s attempt to reassert its perceived status as a global power. The prominent radical Islamist current within the broader insurgency, which includes a sizeable cohort of Russian citizens and others from across the former Soviet Union, is another factor of concern. Saudi Arabia’s track record of encouraging the spread of hardline Salafist and Wahabbist ideologies, including among Russian Muslims and others in the former Soviet Union, remains a point of contention in Saudi-Russo ties. The central role played by Saudi Arabia in supporting the mujahedeen struggle against the Soviet Union after it had invaded Afghanistan continues to color Russian perceptions of the kingdom. Consequently, the potential fall of the Ba’athist regime may serve as a springboard for insurrection in the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Relatedly, Turkey’s actions in Syria have likewise raised consternation in Russia. Despite sharing close economic ties centered around energy and other major sectors – Turkey is the largest consumer of Russian natural gas after Germany – Russia worries that the Ba’athist regime’s demise would embolden an ascendant Turkey to project its authority further into Russia’s traditional sphere of influence in the Caucasus and former Soviet Central Asia, especially among the regime’s largely ethnic Turkic and Muslim populations. Many of the region’s ethnic Turkic populations share ethnic, linguistic, religious, and cultural ties with Turkey. The recent victory of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party in November’s Grand National Assembly elections has likely provided his government with the mandate it needs to press ahead with its agenda in Syria. In this context, the growing convergence of interests between Saudi Arabia and Turkey over Syria raises another set of alarm bells in Moscow. Saudi Arabia and Turkey have set aside their longstanding differences in order to more closely coordinate activities in support of the political and armed wings of the Syrian opposition.

Retaliatory Response

Saudi Arabia has initiated a retaliatory policy against Russia. The kingdom, alongside other benefactors of the armed opposition, has strongly condemned Moscow’s decision to launch air strikes in Syria. While not a reflection of official policy, the call by over 50 Saudi clerics associated with the domestic Saudi opposition for Arabs and Muslims to take up arms against Russia, as well as Iran and other supporters of the Ba’athist regime, is likely to resonate widely with a sizeable percentage of the Saudi population that views the conflict through a hardline sectarian framework analogous to what is advocated by Daesh and al-Qaeda. The statement by the Russian Orthodox Church describing Russia’s actions in Syria as a “holy war” has also inflamed tensions between Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Saudi Arabia is also reported to have increased its material support for the armed opposition, specifically in the forms of facilitating the transfer of U.S.-made BGM-71 TOW (Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire-guided) anti-tank missiles provided by U.S. intelligence, to various armed factions. In operational terms, the introduction of the TOW systems helps to counter Syria’s largely Russian-origin heavy armor platforms and any future weapons systems supplied by Russia to the Ba’athist regime. Saudi Arabia has also been suspected of orchestrating numerous attacks targeting Russian interests across Syria, including operations launched by militants associated with Jaish al-Fateh and Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam).

Riyadh is leveraging its economic influence to confront the Kremlin over Syria. There is speculation that Saudi Arabia is intent to keep oil prices low by way of boosting its overall production and incorporating price discounting in order to undermine rivals such as Russia that depend heavily on oil and other energy-generated revenues. In doing so, the kingdom is able to gain leverage in critical markets such as Europe and Asia at the expense of competitors such as Russia. Saudi Arabia resorted to similar measures during the Cold War to undermine the Soviet Union.

Notwithstanding the fluidity of the situation on the battlefield and in diplomatic circles, the Saudi-Russian rivalry over Syria will become increasingly relevant as the conflict continues to unfold.

About the author:
*Chris Zambelis is a senior analyst with Helios Global Inc., a risk management group based in the Washington, D.C.-area. He specializes in Middle East affairs. The opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect the position of Helios Global, Inc.

Source:
This article was published by Gulf State Analytics

By Samuel Helfont*

The recent attacks in Paris have underscored the need to defeat the Islamic State and reignited debates over how to do so. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and once again we are hearing that “we may have to hold our noses”[1] and work with people like the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. This is not a new suggestion. Since shortly after American forces began bombing the Islamic State in August 2014, there have been voices suggesting that “the U.S. should help Assad to fight ISIS, the greater evil.”[2] This argument was not strategically sound then, and the events in Paris have not made it so. Western leaders need to avoid appeasing populist demands with strategic blunders.

Proponents of supporting Assad see him as a viable partner in defeating the Islamic State. A hardnosed realist may acknowledge that Assad is unpleasant, but may still be inclined to put aside such messy moral qualms to defeat the Islamic State, which represents a critical security interest. The advantage of this approach seems obvious at first. It combines a credible fighting force on the ground with American air power. This combination has been a winning approach in the past and is generally what Western strategists prefer. The problem with this plan is not its value-free analysis, but rather that it ignores what FPRI’s James Kurth describes as the “realities of the mentalities of the localities.”

The Islamic State originally formed in Iraq. Its subsequent foothold in Syria did not emerge in a vacuum. It resulted from a political context in which Assad’s forces were killing Syrians en masse. Despite Western narratives about the brutality of the Islamic State, the Assad regime is responsible for many more deaths than all Syrian opposition groups (including the Islamic State) combined. Even over the past year, when the Islamic State has been at the apex of its power, the Assad regime has been much more efficient in carrying out atrocities. In the first half of 2015, for example, the regime killed seven times more Syrians than the Islamic State.[3] Assad targets civilians, tortures, and has used chemical weapons against his own people. These circumstances have driven many Syrians to support groups such as the Islamic State, which they view as the only force that is able to stand up to Assad. In other words, Assad is the problem. His continued presence in Syria is the sustenance on which the Islamic State thrives. Any viable solution in the near-term needs to alter this political context by offering a vision of the future for the Syrian people that does not include living under Assad’s yoke. Without such a vision, the political context on the ground will remain the same and groups like the Islamic State will be very difficult to defeat. This has been one of the main obstacles to Western efforts in Syria so far.

Currently, the American-led coalition is targeting the Islamic State with airpower as well as supporting Syrian opposition forces that are fighting the Islamic State on the ground. Some limited special operations forces have also been used in aid and assist missions as well as direct action. These efforts have not been insignificant. According to the latest Department of Defense numbers, the American-led coalition has conducted over eight thousand airstrikes, damaging or destroying over sixteen thousand targets[4] and killing twenty to thirty thousand fighters.[5] This has degraded the Islamic State’s capabilities, but not enough to prevent it from holding large swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq, or from reaching outside Syria to attack Russian airliners and Parisian concert halls. It has also not stemmed the flow of refugees out of Syria. The biggest obstacle that the American-led coalition has faced is its inability to convince enough Syrians (and Iraqis and foreign fighters) to stop supporting the Islamic State and to instead to join the fight against it. Thus far, the Islamic State has been able to replenish its ranks as fast as the Western-led coalition has been able to deplete them.

The problem is political. Because Syrians are being killed by Assad at much higher rates than they are being killed by the Islamic State, Assad is a much bigger threat to them. Therefore, the current American strategy asks these Syrians to ignore their primary threat (the Assad regime), and instead focus on their secondary threat (the Islamic State). That is a difficult sell and it has not worked thus far. Furthermore, even if the strategy worked and the fighters of the Islamic State were crushed, it would not change the political context in which the Islamic State emerged. As post-surge Iraq showed, if the political context that produces groups such as the Islamic State is not dealt with, similar groups will rise in their place. In other words, the Islamic State should be seen as a symptom of a political context. Fighting the symptom will not kill the disease. Western leaders seeking a way forward after the Paris attacks need to figure out a way to remove Assad without creating further chaos on the ground. That is a tall order, but it is the only way to create a political context in which a lasting peace is possible.

About the author:
* Samuel Helfont is a Fox Fellow in FPRI’s Program on the Middle East, and holds a post-doctoral lectureship in the University of Pennsylvania’s interdisciplinary International Relations Program. In May 2015, he completed a PhD in Princeton University’s Near Eastern Studies Department, where he wrote his dissertation on Saddam Hussein’s use of religion to entrench his authoritarian regime, based on captured Ba’th Party and Iraqi state records. Helfont is the author of Yusuf Al-Qaradawi: Islam and Modernity  (The Moshe Dayan Center/Tel Aviv University Press, 2009) and the FPRI monograph, The Sunni Divide: Understanding Politics and Terrorism in the Arab Middle East. He has written widely in publications such as The Middle East Journal, Orbis, The New Republic, The American Interest, and The Jewish Review of Book, among others and is proficient at various levels in Hebrew, Arabic, and Turkish.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI

Notes:
[1] http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/11/17/ten-point-plan-to-defeat-isis.html

By Cheryl Pellerin

Two specific emerging challenges are among those that concern Navy Adm. Mike Rogers, commander of U.S. Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency.

The challenges are a potential inability to trust financial and other data due to manipulation by adversaries, and the disregard of some non-state actors for connectivity and other staples of daily life in many parts of the world.

Rogers joined Marcel Lettre, acting undersecretary of defense for intelligence, and others in a recent panel on cyberwar during the recent annual Reagan National Defense Forum held in Simi Valley, California.

From a military perspective, Rogers said to the audience of government and industry leaders, data manipulation through network intrusion is probably his No. 1 concern.

Reflecting Reality

“As a military commander, I’m used to the idea that I can walk into a darkened space with a lot of sensors coming together and look at a visual image that uses color, geography and symbology, and quickly assimilate what’s going on and make very quick tactical decisions,” Rogers said.

“But what happens if what I’m looking at does not reflect reality … [and] leads me to make decisions that exacerbate the problem I’m trying to deal with [or] make it worse?” he added.

The admiral said he’d just returned from New York, where he spent a day in related discussions with business leaders and with students at Columbia University.

The digital environment, for the private sector and the military, is founded on the idea of faith in the data, he said.

“The fundamental premise for most of us is that whatever we’re looking at, we can believe — whether it’s the balance in your personal account … or the transactions you make in the financial sector,” Rogers said.

What happens, he asked, if that trust is disrupted? What if the digital underpinning relied upon by people everywhere can no longer be believed?

Vision of the World

His second concern from a military perspective involves non-state actors.

“Nation-states, while they want to gain an advantage,” he said, “generally have come to the conclusion that if the price of gaining that advantage is destroying or destabilizing the basic status quo and underpinnings that we’ve all come to count on, that’s probably not in their best interest.”

With non-state actors like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or al-Qaida, Rogers added, that premise is gone. They are interested in destroying the status quo to achieve their vision of the world as it should be, he said.

“So what happens when they suddenly start viewing cyber as a weapon system, as a capability that helps them achieve that end state — and one they can use as a vehicle to achieve destruction and disorder, just as we’re watching them do in the kinetic world?”

In his remarks on the panel, Lettre — who oversees all DoD intelligence and security organizations, including the National Security Agency — said the cyber threat picture is complex and a function of a geostrategic landscape that is as challenging as the nation has seen in 50 years.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work “have been pushing for … an innovative approach [and] innovation in technologies to try to tackle this strategic landscape and deal with these challenges,” he said.

Commitment to Innovate

One of Carter’s three commitments as secretary, Lettre added, is to innovate for the Force of the Future so the nation can stay ahead of such threats it will face five, 10 and 20 years down the road.

As part of the department’s deliberate, strategic approach to cyber, in April officials updated the DoD Cyber Strategy, focusing on three missions, Lettre said.

These are defending DoD networks, being prepared if the president calls on the department to help the nation deal with consequential attacks on the homeland, and making cyber options available to combatant commanders, he said.

Among other things the strategy prompts a focus on military application of power through the use of partnerships, the undersecretary added.

Allies, Partners

“Attacking the cyber-defense challenge really does require partnerships with industry and partnerships with international allies,” Lettre said.

The second focus involves building out capability, forces, options, tools, strategies and doctrine that underlie the ability to defend and where necessary respond to cyberattacks, he said.

Establishing the now-five-year-old Cyber Command was a big step forward in building out the needed forces and tools, Lettre said, and by 2018 the sub-command will be fully operational, with 6,200 cyber forces that will allow the department to defend its networks, defend the nation and support combatant commanders.

Supporting Cybercom

To support this buildup, in October the General Services Administration put out a five-year, $460 million multiple-award request for proposals to outsource Cybercom mission support in areas that include doing the following:

• Unify cyberspace resources, create synergy and synchronize warfighting effects to defend the information-security environment.
• Centralize command of cyberspace operations to strengthen DoD cyberspace capabilities and integrate and bolster DoD cyber expertise.
• Improve DoD capabilities to ensure resilient, reliable information and communication networks, counter cyberspace threats and assure access to cyberspace.
• Support the armed services’ ability to confidently conduct high-tempo, effective operations, and protect command-and-control systems and the cyberspace infrastructure supporting weapons system platforms from disruptions, intrusions and attacks.

The goal, according to GSA, is to support Cyber Command and support services to the mission force, cyber components and Joint Force headquarters through 10 areas that include cyberspace operations, all-source intelligence and engagement activities.

Private-Sector Help

To those who wonder why Cybercom would look to the private sector for this kind of help, Rogers said, “Who develops the kinetic munitions that we drop? Who builds those [Joint Direct Attack Munitions], those [Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles]?”

It’s not the Defense Department or the U.S. government, the Cybercom commander said.

“We turn to the private sector to harness the abilities and their capabilities to generate the tools DoD needs to execute its broad mission to defend the nation and protect our interests,” Rogers added.

Cyber should have the same opportunities, the admiral said.

“Not that there aren’t aspects that are different,” he added, “but the fundamentals I think translate well between the two worlds.”

By Michael Wilner

After spending years by his side urging a more aggressive American role in the Syrian conflict, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton once again called on US President Barack Obama to expand US military operations there on Thursday, advocating he establish a no-fly zone in the country’s north.

Lamenting over the president’s policies at the beginning of the war that avoided intensive arming and training of Syria’s rebels fighting for the ouster of Bashar Assad– “we had an opportunity,” the Democratic presidential contender argued, that has now passed– Clinton nevertheless argued for an intensification of support for the Free Syrian Army, for the establishment of safe zones on the country’s border with Turkey, and for an “intelligence surge” that would provide the US-led coalition against Islamic State (Daesh) with a longer target list in its air campaign.

The United States, she said, should work with the coalition and with Syria’s neighbors “to impose no-fly zones that will stop Assad from slaughtering civilians and the opposition from the air. Opposition forces on the ground with material support from the coalition could then help create safe areas where Syrians could remain in the country, rather than fleeing toward Europe.”

“This combined approach,” she said in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, “would help enable the opposition to retake the remaining stretch of the Turkish border from ISIS, choking off its supply lines. It would also give us new leverage in the diplomatic process that Secretary Kerry is pursuing.”

Clinton has long advocated for a more aggressive approach in Syria, now four and a half years embroiled in civil war. Assad, backed by the governments of Russia and Iran, remains at the center of the conflict, which has taken the lives of nearly 300,000 people and displaced over half of the country’s population.

As state institutions deteriorated throughout the war-torn nation, al-Qaeda in Iraq, or AQI, took advantage of the vacuum created by the conflict and took root in Raqqa, a city in eastern Syria. The group rebranded as Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and ultimately secured itself territory, declaring an Islamic State caliphate.

“ISIS is demonstrating new ambition, reach, and capabilities,” Clinton said. “We have to break the group’s momentum, and then its back. Our goal is not to deter and contain ISIS, but to defeat and destroy ISIS.”

The goal, she continued, must be to “smash the would-be caliphate” with a “more effective coalition air campaign, with more allied planes, more strikes and a broader target set.”

“We should be honest about the fact that, to be successful, airstrikes will have to be combined with ground forces actually taking back more territory from ISIS,” Clinton added. But “if we’ve learned anything from 15 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, its that local people and nations have to secure their own communities. We can help them, and we should. But we cannot substitute for them.”

Also operating throughout northern Iraq, Clinton offered tough words for Baghdad, where the government, backed strongly by Shia leadership in Iran, has struggled to maintain unity amongst its Shia and Sunni populations.

“Baghdad needs to accept, even embrace, arming Sunni and Kurdish forces,” Clinton argued. “But if Baghdad won’t do that, the coalition should do so directly.”

Clinton delivered the speech less than a week after 129 people were killed in Paris by militants loyal to Islamic State – an act that has galvanized France and refocused the 2016 US presidential campaign on to national security. Several Republican candidates are now calling for a “pause” in Obama’s plan to resettle up to 10,000 Syrian refugees.

Clinton joined the president in opposition to that proposal on Thursday. “The world’s great democracies,” she said, “can’t sacrifice our values or turn our backs to those in need.”

Original article

Iran’s ministry of communications says the Telegram now has an employee dedicated to censoring the site’s content for Iranian users, making sure it conforms to Islamic Republic regulations.

The Minister of Communications Mahmoud Vaezi wrote on his Instagram page that in correspondence with the Telegram’s website providers, “we asked for the blocking of obscene and immoral content of the network, and in response they have blocked it.”

He added that Telegram management has announced that they have dedicated one employee to monitor the content provided for Iranian users and filter out “inappropriate and immoral material”.

Vaezi stressed that all social networking sites active in Iran must “conduct healthy activities” or they will be subjected to government filtering.

Iran’s media supervisory board has decided not to conduct any filtering of the Telegram and will monitor the network for compliance with its promises. The board reportedly will make a final decision on the fate of the Telegram in Iran next month.

The technological development has international recognition and has sparked interest for industrial production by a manufacturer in the medical sector.

Based on the resonance location system (echo) used by bats and dolphins to navigate, Marco Antonio Trujillo Tejeda and Cuauhtli Padilla Arias, mechatronic engineers from the Tec de Monterrey in Mexico, devised a bracelet that makes mobility simpler and safer for the blind.

“Mobility is a tool that complements objects like the traditional cane, as it is used at ground level and locates objects just two steps away, meanwhile the bracelet has a range of four and a half meters,” said Trujillo Tejeda.

Sunu band bracelet emits high-frequency sound waves (30 pulses per second) that bounce after hitting an object and are recorded by a proximity sensor that calculates the distance, which translates into vibrations directly into the wearer’s wrist; as the person get closer to the objects, the pulses will be more frequent.

The device registers objects from two centimeters wide. Operating indoors, where the width of sound waves is thinner to record more details and where obstacles are closer, as well as outdoors where the wavelength range is wider.

“The person scans its surroundings by moving the wrist back and forth, to anticipate and to dodge objects. Sunu band is activated when the wearer performs some movement on foot, giving 14 hours of continuous use, but can last up to a week without having to recharge.”

Marco Trujillo explained that along with the bracelet a tag is offered to locate lost objects, and it works just by placing the small device to anything like keys or other objects susceptible of being lost; it communicates via Bluetooth with a smartphone or bracelet, which will vibrate to indicate proximity to the tag, and emits an alarm for easy location.

Creativity and sensitivity were two constants in Marco Trujillo from his childhood, which he shared with a deaf cousin, his best friend at the time, and with who he created a communication system that only they could decode.

As part of his career plans he developed technologies that help people with disabilities, for example, an interface for a computer mouse that could facilitate communication for people with cerebral palsy, a device to help the blind cook and inform them time and temperature, or a mechanism that recorded images and translated them into Braille on a display for a blind person to appreciate. His social service was performed in a welfare institution for blind girls, which further opened his sensitivity.

“Blindness is a disability that takes away people’s independence, and makes them stand aside in activities they could perform. The investments made in science to help the blind are mostly on surgeries or treatments to restore vision, and still there is little for developments that involve adaptation.

Sunu band allowed Marco Trujillo, and his partner Cuauhtli Padilla, participate in various technology competitions and the creation of the company Sunu, which has enrolled in a couple of Mexican accelerators of technology-based companies and one in Boston (USA). One of the most important awards received by the development is as one of 10 innovators under 35 delivered by the MIT Tech Review.

The bracelet is protected by an international patent and is in the process of being internationally produced thanks to the interest of a company manufacturing medical devices in Guadalajara, Mexico. The development will go on pre-sale through a crowdfunding campaign on indiegogo.com starting this month.

Source: Agencia ID

Compared to other countries, the Netherlands takes an average position when it comes to implementing climate change adaptation initiatives. In the period 2010-2014 little changes have been observed to reduce the vulnerability to climate change or to exploit possible opportunities. Countries like Portugal, Spain, UK and the Scandinavian countries all receive the maximum score of 19, with the Dutch scoring ‘only’ 15 points. In prospect of COP21 climate conference in Paris, an international team including researchers of Wageningen University published the progress of climate change adaptation initiatives in Nature Climate Change.

During the international climate negotiations in Paris (COP21) coming December, countries negotiate on reducing climate change emissions and adapting to the consequences of climate change. Next to sensitive topics such as who is financial responsible, one of the topics of discussion during the conference will be setting up national and international climate change adaptation strategies. The negotiations aim to make more financial means available to converge political ambitions between countries, stimulate national policy strategies and improve the implementation of climate change adaptation in the most vulnerable countries.

COP21

With COP21 approaching an international research team looked into the efforts countries made the past years, focussing particularly on the progress of national adaptation policies and initiatives. Such overview could serve as an important reference for the negotiations on future investments: What has already been done in terms of climate change adaptation policy? Can progress be observed? Is this enough and how can this be further strengthened? Until now little systematic comparative research has been conducted.

The team researched changes in climate change adaptation initiatives of 41 countries that committed themselves to the Kyoto-protocol and were obligated to report their efforts to the United Nations (UNFCCC). In the study the period 2010-2014 are compared.

More climate initiatives

The research showed that the number of reported initiatives increased from 1457 to 2772, an increase of 87 percent. Most adaptation initiatives focus on water and agriculture, while strongest increase observed in crisis management and the energy sector. A strong increase (139 percent) was found in designing laws and regulations for climate change adaptation, an important step in anchoring climate change adaptation policies. However, emphasis is still on the policy formulation stage: gathering knowledge via research and investigate possible adaptation options. Implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policy still remain limited. Alarming is the finding that attention for vulnerable groups in society (elderly, chronically ill persons, children, indigenous people) has lowered even further from 4.67% to 2.28% of all reported initiatives.

Average

The Adaptation Initiatives Index aggregates different indicators into one score. With this method the Netherlands scores 15 out of the possible 19 points, an average score. The Netherlands made little progress – at least on paper – in the period analysed. This is likely due to the strong focus on adaptation in the water sector (e.g. Delta programme) and limited efforts in other areas. The Dutch National Adaptation Strategy – expected in 2016 – will likely to show a broader approach of adaptation initiatives in the Netherlands.

Portugal, Norway, Sweden, Canada, Spain and the United Kingdom all received the maximum score. The reports show that Kazakhstan has most progressed over the research period, from 3 to 17 points. The strong increase of some countries is partly explained by the research methods used that focus on identifying a spread of adaptation initiatives, rather than the quality and impact of the adaptation initiatives. In addition, the method is not yet able to filter out symbolic policy. The research also shows a decrease in scores for some countries; in Slovenia for example political and social changes led to reformulating ambitions.

An important observation is that countries define climate change adaptation in different ways. Is adaptation the same as development aid? Is climate change adaptation mainly a form of risk management? And does reframing budget reserved for water into climate change adaptation budget mean real changes in terms of policy? These different interpretations complicate systematic analysis and evaluation of climate change adaptation policy and will have consequences for the political negotiations during COP21. It will be important during the conference to think about how adaptation policies and investments can be monitored and evaluated in a systematic way and discuss what definitions and goals should be pursued.

By Niranjani Roland

Church and rights activists want the Sri Lankan government to ensure that citizens working abroad have the right to vote in national elections so they can access vital social benefits.

“Voting rights are one of the basic rights and it should be given to migrant workers who contribute to our economy,” said Father George Sigamoney, director of Caritas Sri Lanka, which is working to empower migrant workers.

Having migrant workers in the voters’ register certifies their place of residence and allows them other key rights and benefits.

Chandrani Perera, 58, who belongs to the Assemblies of God church and who worked in Jordan for 29 years, said she has no security as she ages because she is not entitled to a pension scheme.

“The government increases its income by the remittances we send, but they do nothing to secure our future,” she said pointing out how public servants and private workers are entitled to a provident fund when they retire.

Foreign workers are only “namesake” citizens, she said.

That is why Caritas is working to empower migrant workers to help ensure their rights, Father Sigamoney said.

Lakshman Nipuna Arachchi, secretary of Ethera Api (those serving abroad), an organization that works for migrant rights, pointed out that some expatriates working abroad for more than 30 years have never voted in any election held in Sri Lanka.

“They can’t exercise their voting rights and select a leader of their choice,” Arachchi said. “If migrant workers have an opportunity to elect leaders then leaders might show an interest in the rights of migrant workers.”

Arachchi said he submitted a petition Nov. 11 to the minister for foreign employment to set up a mechanism to allow foreign workers to vote.

Allowing these workers to vote will also entitle them to tax rebates, government pension schemes and a minimum wage rate, said the former parliamentarian from the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (Marxist party).

Keerthi Tennakoon, executive director of the Campaign for Free and Fair Elections, also said Sri Lankans living abroad should be acknowledged with a basic right to vote.

However, the minister of foreign employment, Thalatha Athukorala, in a Nov. 11 press conference said giving voting rights to Sri Lankan migrant workers was not possible, as it could lead to election malpractices and see the system of electronic voting misused. However, she did say that discussions are ongoing on issues of minimum wage and pension schemes.

According to the Foreign Employment Bureau, there are 4 million Sri Lankans working abroad, the bulk being in Persian Gulf countries and in Europe. The country’s central bank estimated the amount of remittances sent home by Sri Lankans working abroad in 2014 was about US$7.5 billion.