Month: November 2018

Authored by Alastair Crooke via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Nahum Barnea, a leading Israeli commentator, writing in Yedioth Ahronoth in May (in Hebrew), set out, unambiguously, the ‘deal’ behind Trump’s Middle East policy:

In the wake of the US exit from JCPOA [which occurred on 8 May], Trump, Barnea wrote, will threaten a rain of ‘fire and fury’ onto Tehran … whilst Putin is expected to restrain Iran from attacking Israel using Syrian territory, thus leaving Netanyahu free to set new ‘rules of the game’ by which the Israel may attack and destroy Iranian forces anywhere in Syria (and not just in the border area, as earlier agreed) when it wishes, without fear of retaliation.

This represented one level to the Netanyahu strategy: Iranian restraint, plus Russian acquiescence to coordinated Israeli air operations over Syria.

 “There is only one thing that isn’t clear [concerning this deal]”, a senior Israeli Defence official closest to Netanyahu, told Ben Caspit, “that is, who works for whom? Does Netanyahu work for Trump, or is President Trump at the service of Netanyahu … From the outside … it looks like the two men are perfectly in sync. From the inside, this seems even more so: This kind of cooperation … sometimes makes it seem as if they are actually just one single, large office”.

There has been, from the outset, a second level, too:

This entire ‘inverted pyramid’ of Middle East engineering had, as its single point of departure, Mohammed bin Salman (MbS).

It was Jared Kushner, the Washington Post reports, who “championed Mohammed as a reformer poised to usher the ultraconservative, oil-rich monarchy into modernity. Kushner privately argued for months, last year, that Mohammed would be key to crafting a Middle East peace plan, and that with the prince’s blessing, much of the Arab world would follow”. It was Kushner, the Post continued, “who pushed his father-in-law to make his first foreign trip as president to Riyadh, against objections from then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson – and warnings from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis”.

Well, now MbS has, in one form or another, been implicated in the Khashoggi murder.  Bruce Riedel of Brookings, a longtime Saudi observer and former senior CIA & US defence official, notes, “for the first time in 50 years, the kingdom has become a force for instability” (rather than stability in the region), and suggests that there is an element  of ‘buyer’s remorse’ now evident in parts of Washington.

The ‘seamless office process’ to which the Israeli official referred with Caspit, is known as ‘stovepiping’, which is when a foreign state’s policy advocacy and intelligence are passed straight to a President’s ear – omitting official Washington from the ‘loop’; by-passing any US oversight; and removing the opportunity for officials to advise on its content.  Well, this has now resulted in the Khashoggi strategic blunder.  And this, of course, comes in the wake of earlier strategic ‘mistakes’: the Yemen war, the siege of Qatar, the Hariri abduction, the Ritz-Carlton princely shakedowns.

To remedy this lacuna, an ‘uncle’ (Prince Ahmad bin Abdel Aziz) has been dispatched from exile in the West to Riyadh (with security guarantees from the US and UK intelligences services) to bring order into these unruly affairs, and to institute some checks and balances into the MbS coterie of advisers, so as to prevent further impetuous ‘mistakes’.  It seems too, that the US Congress wants the Yemen war, which Prince Ahmad consistently has opposed (as he opposed MbS elevation as Crown Prince), stopped. (General Mattis has called for a ceasefire within 30 days.) It is a step toward repairing the Kingdom’s image.

MbS remains – for now – as Crown Prince. President Sisi and Prime Minister Netanyahu both have expressed their support for MbS and “as U.S. officials contemplate a more robust response [to the Khashoggi killing], Kushner has emphasized the importance of the U.S.-Saudi alliance in the region”, the Washington Post reports. MbS’ Uncle (who as a son of King Abdel Aziz, under the traditional succession system, would be himself in line for the throne), no doubt hopes to try to undo some of the damage done to the standing of the al-Saud family, and to that of the Kingdom.  Will he succeed?  Will MbS accede now to Ahmad unscrambling the very centralisation of power that made MbS so many enemies, in the first place, to achieve it?  Has the al-Saud family the will, or are they too disconcerted by events?

And might President Erdogan throw more wrenches into this delicate process by further leaking evidence Turkey has, if Washington does not attend sufficiently to his demands.  Erdogan seems ready to pitch for the return of Ottoman leadership for the Sunni world, and likely still holds some high-value cards up his sleeve (such as intercepts of phone calls between the murder cell and Riyadh).  These cards though are devaluing as the news cycle shifts to the US mid-terms.

Time will tell, but it is this nexus of uncertain dynamics to which Bruce Reidel refers, when he talks of ‘instability’ in Saudi Arabia.  The question posed here, though, is how might these events affect Netanyahu’s and MbS’ ‘war’ on Iran?

May 2018 now seems a distant era.  Trump is still the same ‘Trump’, but Putin is not the same Putin. The Russian Defence Establishment has weighed in with their President to express their displeasure at Israeli air strikes on Syria – purportedly targeting Iranian forces in Syria.  The Russian Defence Ministry too, has enveloped Syria in a belt of missiles and electronic disabling systems across the Syrian airspace. Politically, the situation has changed too: Germany and France have joined the Astana Process for Syria. Europe wants Syrian refugees to return home, and that translates into Europe demanding stability in Syria. Some Gulf States too, have tentatively begun normalising with the Syrian state.

The Americans are still in Syria; but a newly invigorated Erdogan (after the release of the US pastor, and with all the Khashoggi cards, produced by Turkish intelligence, in his pocket), intends to crush the Kurdish project in north and eastern Syria, espoused by Israel and the US.  MbS, who was funding this project, on behalf of US and Israel, will cease his involvement (as a part of the demands made by Erdogan over the Khashoggi murder). Washington too wants the Yemen war, which was intended to serve as Iran’s ‘quagmire’, to end forthwith.  And Washington wants the attrition of Qatar to stop, too.

These represent major unravelings of the Netanyahu project for the Middle East, but most significant are two further setbacks:

First, the loss of Netanyahu’s and MbS’ stovepipe to Trump, via Jared Kushner, by-passing all America’s own system of ‘checks and balances’.  The Kushner ‘stovepipe’ neither forewarned Washington of coming ‘mistakes’, nor was Kushner able to prevent them. Both Congress and the Intelligences Services of the US and UK are already elbowing into these affairs.  They are not MbS fans.  It is no secret that Prince Mohamed bin Naif was their man (he is still under ‘palace arrest’).

Trump will still hope to continue his ‘Iran project’ and his Deal of the Century between Israel and the Palestinians (led nominally by Saudi Arabia herding together the Sunni world, behind it).  Trump does not seek war with Iran, but rather is convinced of a popular uprising in Iran that will topple the state. 

And the second setback is that Prince Ahmad’s clear objective must be other than this – instability in, or conflict with, Iran.  His is to restore the family’s standing, and to recoup something of its leadership credentials in the Sunni world, which has been shredded by the war in Yemen – and is now under direct neo-Ottoman challenge from Turkey.  The al-Saud family, one may surmise, will have no appetite to replace one disastrous and costly war (Yemen), with another – an even greater conflict, with its large and powerful neighbor, Iran.  It makes no sense now.  Perhaps this is why we see signs of Israel rushing to hurry Arab state normalisation – even absent any amelioration for the Palestinians.

Nehum Barnea presciently noted in his May article in Yediot Ahoronot:

“Trump could have declared a US withdrawal [from the JCPOA], and made do with that. But under the influence of Netanyahu and of his new team, he chose to go one step further. The economic sanctions on Iran will be much tighter, beyond what they were, before the nuclear agreement was signed. “Hit them in their pockets”, Netanyahu advised Trump: “if you hit them in their pockets, they will choke; and when they choke, they will throw out the ayatollahs””.

This was another bit of ‘stovepiped’ advice passed directly to the US President. 

His officials might have warned him that it was fantasy.  There is no example of sanctions alone having toppled a state; and whilst the US can use its claim of judicial hegemony as an enforcement mechanism, the US has effectively isolated itself in sanctioning Iran: Europe wants no further insecurity. It wants no more refugees heading to Europe. Was it Trump’s tough stance that brought Kim to the table?  Or, perhaps contrarily, might Kim have seen a meeting with Trump simply as the price that he had to pay in order to advance Korean re-unification?  Was Trump warned that Iran would suffer economic pain, but that it would nonetheless persevere, in spite of sanctions? No – well, that’s the problem inherent in listening principally to ‘stovepipes’.

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US equity futures are fading off earlier highs, bond yields are tumbling along with the dollar after several media outlets have called the House for Democrats (while Republicans maintain control of the Senate).

It was quite a roller-coaster for the dollar but it’s been a one-way-street lower since the odds of a Dem House triggered the calls…

 

And as the dollar fades, safe-haven buying in bonds and gold is evident…

 

For now S&P futures are still green but clinging to a critical support level at the 200DMA

Still a long way to go until the cash market open tomorrow in New York.

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Things are again rapidly heating up in the East China Sea amidst already heightened tensions in a region where Washington is increasingly asserting the right of navigation in international waters against broad Chinese claims and seeking to defend the territorial possessions of its allies. 

According to a bombshell new Reuters report the tiny and rocky Senkaku Islands which lie between northern Taiwan and the Japanese home islands are “rapidly turning into a flashpoint for war”. Alarmingly, Japanese government sources have been quoted as saying Tokyo and the United States are drawing up an operations plan for an allied military response to Chinese threats to the disputed Senkaku Islands. 

From nearly the start of his entering the White House, President Trump has said he’s committed to upholding Article 5 of the US-Japan security treaty signed the post-war years of the mid-20th century: “We are committed to the security of Japan and all areas under its administrative control and to further strengthening our very crucial alliance,” Trump had promised from the first official reception of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe back in February 2017, and since consistently maintained. 

Japanese government sources have told regional media that the joint plan of response with the United States involves “how to respond in the event of an emergency on or around the uninhabited islands in the East China Sea” — which is set to be completed by next march, according to the statements. 

Beijing claims the islands as part of its historical inheritance — as it does neighbouring Taiwan, despite failing to seize the protectorate during the Chinese Civil War.

Taiwan, however, was a Japanese protectorate before World War II.

It’s a messy historical scenario, thought resolved through United Nations conventions and treaties established after the conflict. — Reuters/news.com.au

The Japan Times reports that “The plan being drawn up assumes such emergencies as armed Chinese fishermen landing on the islands, and Japan’s Self-Defense Forces needing to be mobilized after the situation exceeds the capacity of the police to respond.”

The situation is now taking on a greater urgency as both the US and Japan participate in the two nations’ largest ever join war games, which involves the nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier. The exercise, called Keen Sword began on Monday and is set to run through Thursday, and involved a combined force of 57,000 sailors, airmen and marines — with Japan contributing 47,000 of those military personnel. Canadian warships are also involved in the exercises. 

Japan is seeking greater direct commitment and resolve on the part of the United States to defend its territorial claims against Chinese encroachment, which Japan says is already beginning to happen through informal provocative raids of fishing boats organized by Beijing. 

Reuters reports that “ongoing aggressive incursions by Chinese fishing boats — organised as a state militia — and a freshly militarized coast guard has seen tensions in the East China Sea flare.” And the report further confirms: “The plan being drawn up assumes such emergencies as armed Chinese fishermen landing on the islands, and Japan’s Self-Defense Forces needing to be mobilized after the situation exceeds the capacity of the police to respond.”

Right now nearly 100K US, allied, & partner-nation military pers are conducting exercises #TridentJuncture & #KeenSword: each involving ~50K troops, dozens of ships, & 100s of aircraft across Europe and the Pacific. #GlobalReach #AnyWhere #AnyTime #WeAreNATO #PacificPartnerships pic.twitter.com/DqIeAszjmJ

— William Seely (@william_seely) November 2, 2018

Though the United States has in the past expressed deep reluctance on outright defending claims to the Japan-administered islands (indicating it will take no official position on the issue), which China calls the Diaoyu, Japan’s Self-Defense Forces says the focus of talks with the US has involved how to incorporate the US military’s strike capabilities in any potential Chinese invasion of the Senkaku Islands scenario. 

One Japanese military analyst was quoted as saying: “Given that military organizations always need to assume the worst possible situation, it is natural for the two countries to work on this kind of plan against China.”

The two already have a framework for such talks based on recently created 2015 defense guidelines known ans the Bilateral Planning Mechanism, or BPM. It stipulates the US and Japan’s Self-Defense Forces will “conduct bilateral operations to counter ground attacks against Japan by ground, air, maritime, or amphibious forces”. Currently there’s a similar contingency plan in place for a potential emergency threat on the Korean peninsula.

Between now and the spring – when the plan is set to be finalized and agreed upon – China will likely ramp up its incursions on the islands, or just seize them altogether before US commitments can be firmed up, in which case the great unknown will be whether the United States actually steps up to come to Japan’s aid while risking war with China — something that up until now has been carefully avoided.

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Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

Periodically, I’ll encounter someone who has read one of my essays and has decided not to pursue them further, stating, “You’re one of those ‘End of the world’ guys. I can’t be bothered reading the writings of someone who thinks we’re all doomed. I have a more positive outlook than that.”

In actual fact, I agree entirely with his latter two comments. I can’t be bothered reading the thoughts of a writer who says we’re all doomed, either. I, too, have a more positive outlook than that.

My one discrepancy with such comments is that I don’t by any means think that the present state of events will lead to the end of the world, as he assumes.

But then, neither am I naïve enough to think that if I just hope for the best, the powers that be will cease to be parasitical and predatory out of sympathy for me. They will not.

For any serious student of history, one of the great realisations that occurs at some point is that governments are inherently controlling by nature. The more control they have, the more they desire and the more they pursue. After all, governments actually produce nothing. They exist solely upon what they can extract from the people they rule over. Therefore, their personal success is not measured by how well they serve their people, it’s measured by how much they can extractfrom the people.

And so, it’s a given that all governments will pursue ever-greater levels of power over their minions up to and including the point of total dominance.

It should be said that, on rare occasions, a people will rise up and create a governmental system in which the rights of the individual are paramount. This was true in the creation of the Athenian Republic and the American Constitution, and even the British Magna Carta.

However, these events are quite rare in history and, worse, as soon as they take place, those who gain power do their best to diminish the newly-gained freedoms.

Such freedoms can almost never be destroyed quickly, but, over time and “by slow operations,” as Thomas Jefferson was fond of saying, governments can be counted on to eventually destroy all freedoms.

We’re passing through a period in history in which the process of removing freedoms is nearing completion in many of the world’s foremost jurisdictions. The EU and US, in particular, are leading the way in this effort.

Consequently, it shouldn’t be surprising that some predict “the end of the world.” But, they couldn’t be more incorrect.

Surely, in 1789, the more productive people of France may have felt that the developing French Revolution would culminate in Armageddon. Similarly, in 1917, those who created prosperity in Russia may well have wanted to throw up their hands as the Bolsheviks seized power from the Romanovs.

Whenever a deterioration in rule is underway, as it is once again now, the observer has three choices:

Declare the End of the World

There are many people, worldwide, but particularly in the centres of the present deterioration – the EU and US – who feel that, since the situation in their home country is nearing collapse, the entire world must also be falling apart. This is not only a very myopic viewpoint, it’s also quite inaccurate. At any point in civilization in the past 2000 years or more, there have alwaysbeen empires that were collapsing due to intolerable governmental dominance and there have alwaysconcurrently been alternative jurisdictions where the level of freedom was greater. In ancient Rome, when Diocletian devalued the currency, raised taxes, increased warfare and set price controls, those people who actually created the economy on a daily basis found themselves in the same boat as Europeans and Americans are finding themselves in, in the 21st century.

It may have seemed like the end of the world, but it was not. Enough producers left Rome and started over again in other locations. Those other locations eventually thrived as a result of the influx of productive people, while Rome atrophied.

Turn a Blind Eye

This is less dreary than the above approach, but it is nevertheless justas fruitless. It is, in fact, the most common of reactions – to just “hope for the best.”

It’s tempting to imagine that maybe the government will realise that they’re the only ones benefitting from the destruction of freedom and prosperity and they’ll feel bad and reverse the process. But this clearly will not happen.

It’s also tempting to imagine that maybe it won’t get a whole lot worse and that life, although not all that good at present, might remain tolerable. Again, this is wishful thinking and the odds of it playing out in a positive way are slim indeed.

Accept the Truth, But Do Something About It

This, of course, is the hard one. Begin by recognising the truth. If that truth is not palatable, study the situation carefully and, when a reasonably clear understanding has been reached, create an alternative.

When governments enter the final decline stage, an alternative is not always easy to accept. It’s a bit like having a tooth pulled. You want to put it off, but the pain will only get worse if you delay. And so, you trundle off to the dentist unhappily, but, a few weeks after the extraction, you find yourself asking, “Why didn’t I do this sooner?”

To be sure, those who investigate and analyze the present socio-economic-political deterioration do indeed espouse a great deal of gloom, but this should not be confused with doom.

In actual fact, the whole point of shining a light into the gloom is to avoid having it end in doom.

It should be said here that remaining in a country that is tumbling downhill socially, economically and politically is also not the end of the world. It is, however, true that the end result will not exactly be a happy one. If history repeats once again, it’s likely to be quite a miserable one.

Those who undertake the study of the present deterioration must, admittedly, address some pretty depressing eventualities and it would be far easier to just curl up on the sofa with a six-pack and watch the game, but the fact remains: unless the coming problems are investigated and an alternative found, those who sit on the sofa will become the victims of their own lethargy.

Sadly, we live in a period in history in which some of the nations that once held the greatest promise for the world are well on their way to becoming the most tyrannical. If by recognizing that fact, we can pursue better alternatives elsewhere on the globe, as people have done in previous eras; we may actually find that the field of daisies in the image above is still very much in existence, it’s just a bit further afield than it was in years gone by.

And it is absolutely worthy of pursuit.

*  *  *

Clearly, there are many strange things afoot in the world. Distortions of markets, distortions of culture. It’s wise to wonder what’s going to happen, and to take advantage of growth while also being prepared for crisis. How will you protect yourself in the next crisis? See our PDF guide that will show you exactly how. Click here to download it now.

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Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen doubled down on a claim that Middle Easterners are among those traveling in the Central American caravans currently making their way north in hopes of gaining asylum in the United States. 

Speaking with Fox News Intelligence on Monday, Nielsen said: “We absolutely see people from the Middle East, from southeast Asia, from other parts of the world,” adding “They are not just from Central America.”

“We don’t always know exactly who they are … What I can tell you is we stopped 3,000 people last year at the southwest border who had patterns of travel similar to a terrorist. We call those special interest aliens.“

Nielsen also added that the migrants are using women and children as “barriers,” which are sent up to the front of the group to frustrate federal military and police, and that the rest of the caravans – which appear to be organized and financed – are comprised of “mostly single men.” She added that the timing and origin of the groups are suspicious in nature. 

Nielsen’s comments come amid a CNBC report suggesting that President Trump’s decision to send thousands of US troops to reinforce border security in California, Arizona and Texas will cost upwards of $220 million. 

Last week footage emerged of several groups of migrants becoming violent with Mexican authorities, including this clip of them throwing rocks at a helicopter. 

Here is video of the migrant caravan throwing rocks & molotov cocktails at Mexican security forces on the Guatemalan border.

I reached out to the man who took this video.

He confirms it’s authenticity.

Watch it.

The caravan is violent. pic.twitter.com/WqnffoH6yH

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) November 1, 2018

President Trump in response said that the US military would treat rocks as “rifles,” a comment he later walked back while still stressing that the caravan was a dangerous threat to the United States. 

Meanwhile, according to Mexico News Daily, a fourth caravan of 4,000 asylum-seekers is now making its way north, bringing the total number of migrants headed towards the US above 12,000. 

The first caravan started out with approximately 7,000 people, however around half either turned back or accepted asylum from Mexico. 

Between 7,000 and 15,000 US troops will be stationed in Southern Border states, while the actual number of migrants which reach the US-Mexico border will undoubtedly be much smaller than the estimated 12,000 currently traveling north. An April caravan of approximately 1,200 people dwindled to several hundred people, who were granted asylum at the US border. 

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