Like two heavyweight boxers, the United States and Iran circle the ring — flexing their muscles without stepping close enough to actually trade blows. It is clear that neither wants to fight, but they also have no interest in settling their stark differences.
That is how experts say Washington and Tehran have dealt with each other for more than four decades, only changing their stance when it is mutually beneficial.
Tensions have soared between the two foes, who have no formal diplomatic ties, amid the fallout from Israel’s devastating war in the Gaza Strip. But despite calls for de-escalation, observers say there is little room for détente.
“I’ve rarely seen a situation in which the tensions have been so high and the exit ramps are nearly nonexistent and there were no real channels of communication between the two sides,” said Ali Vaez, director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group.
“And that makes the current situation even more dangerous, because there’s plenty of space for miscommunication and misunderstanding,” Vaez added.
Current tensions in the Middle East have had deadly consequences even as each side tries to avoid getting drawn into a direct military confrontation.
The United States has hit Iran-backed militants in response to attacks against U.S. forces and interests in the region, including the deaths of three U.S. soldiers in Jordan last month, while underscoring that its aim is de-escalation.
Iran, which like the United States has said that it does not want war, has continued to back militant groups that make up its so-called “axis of resistance” against Israel and the West, while calling for diplomacy to resolve the crisis.
Tehran and Washington have carefully avoided direct conflict, but are in no position to work out their differences even if they wanted to, experts say.
Washington and Tehran have not had formal diplomatic ties since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, leaving them to negotiate through back-channels or third states when needed.
But political and ideological pressures at home — amplified ahead of a parliamentary vote in Iran in March and a presidential election in the United States in November — has meant that neither side is looking to back away any time soon from the stark red lines the two have drawn.
Avenues For Diplomacy
“There are ways that communication can be had between the two countries, and they do so,” said Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran Program at the U.S.-based Middle East Institute. “But they tend to do it on select files, or moments of crisis.”
Vatanka said those lines of communication include Iran’s envoy to the United Nations who resides in New York and the Swiss Embassy in Tehran which handles American interests in the Islamic republic. There are also third-party mediators, including Qatar, Oman, and Iraq, he said.
The U.S.-Iran prisoner swap worked out in September, which followed years of secret negotiations involving Gulf states and Switzerland, is the most recent example.
Under that deal, four Americans held hostage in Iran were released in exchange for Washington unfreezing $6 billion in Iranian oil revenue held up in South Korea.
As part of the agreement, according to Vaez, “Iran committed to rein in groups that were targeting U.S. interests in Iraq and Syria” and Washington received a commitment that Tehran would not supply ballistic missiles to Russia for use in Moscow’s war against Ukraine.
Shortly after Iran-backed Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, carried out its deadly assault on Israel on October 7, the unfrozen Iranian funds came under intense scrutiny. Republicans in the United States who are gearing up for the presidential election in November have been particularly vocal in criticizing the deal worked out by the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden.
In response, Washington worked out an agreement with Qatar, where the unfrozen Iranian funds were moved and to be released only for humanitarian purposes, to prevent Tehran from accessing them at all. But the deal has remained a hot-button issue.
The Gaza war and the ensuing resumption of attacks on U.S. forces and interests by Iran-backed groups have attracted even more political discord.
After Israel’s large-scale offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 27,000 Palestinians, Iran-backed militant groups have carried out attacks in solidarity with Hamas. The Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen have targeted maritime shipping and U.S. naval forces in the Red Sea. Meanwhile, Iran-backed militias in Iraq killed three U.S. soldiers in Jordan in a drone attack.
That, in turn, has led to U.S. and U.K. attacks on Huthi targets in Yemen, and by the United States against Iran-backed militias and Iranian-linked sites in Syria and Iraq.
U.S. forces launch strikes against Huthi targets in Yemen earlier this month.
Iran, for its part, has said that the axis of resistance, which it denies directing, would continue to carry out strikes until a permanent cease-fire is worked out to stop what it calls a genocide in Gaza. And in what was widely seen as a show of its capability to strike back in the event Iran itself is attacked, it has launched ballistic missile strikes against “enemy” targets in Iraq, Pakistan, and Syria, the latter of which showcased that Israel was within striking distance.
The recent spike in violence came after the United States had experienced “the longest period of quiet in the Middle East” from March until the Hamas assault on October 7, Vaez said.
That relative peace came about not because of displays of power, but because Iran and the United States were negotiating, Vaez said.
“It wasn’t because the U.S. had flexed its military muscle and deterred Iran, it was because it was engaged in diplomatic understandings with Iran that came to fruition and culminated in a detainee deal,” Vaez said.
Tehran and the United States, currently trading threats of ever-stronger responses, “are seeking to pressure each other into greater flexibility,” said Trita Parsi, co-founder of the Washington-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
“Both would like to get back to the truce they enjoyed prior to the October 7 attacks” by Hamas against Israel, Parsi said in written comments. “But whether the political will is available for real de-escalation remains unclear.”
“President Biden has been unmovable in his opposition to a cease-fire in Gaza thus far,” Parsi said, referring to mounting calls for a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hamas. “And without such a cease-fire, real de-escalation remains very unlikely.”
Military Message
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on February 6, halfway through his latest trip to the Middle East to reduce regional tensions, that a proposal for a temporary cease-fire put together with the help of Qatar and Egypt and presented to Hamas and Israel, was “possible and, indeed, essential.”
While details of the proposal have not been made public, Blinken said that the goal is to use any pause in fighting to address humanitarian and reconstruction needs in Gaza and “to continue to pave a diplomatic path forward to a just and lasting peace and security for the region.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken waves as he boards his plane at an airport near Tel Aviv on February 8, during his trip to the Middle East
Asked by RFE/RL whether Washington is employing any diplomatic means, either directly or indirectly, to decrease tensions with Iran, a U.S. State Department spokesperson pointed to recent strikes carried out against Iranian-backed groups in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq.
“Our military response to the killing of three U.S. service members by Iran-aligned militia groups and our continued action to degrade the Huthis’ ability to threaten international shipping sends the clearest message of all: the United States will defend our personnel and our interests,” a U.S. State Department spokesman said in written comments on February 7.
“When we are attacked, we will respond strongly, and we will respond at a time and place of our choosing,” the spokesman said.
Prior to the deadly attack on the U.S. base in Jordan, there had been reports of Washington using third states to send a nonmilitary notice to Iran.
Shortly after the Hamas assault on Israel in October, the U.S. Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said that a congressional delegation to China had asked Beijing to exert its influence with Tehran to prevent the Israel-Hamas conflict from spreading.
In early January, the Lebanese news publication Al-Ahed News quoted Iran’s ambassador to Syria as saying that a delegation from an unidentified Gulf state had carried a message from the United States seeking to reduce the risk of an expanded regional conflict.
The U.S. State Department spokesperson said that beyond the recent U.S. strikes, “our message to Iran, in public and in private, has been a singular one: cease your support for terrorist groups and militant proxies and partners.”
Washington welcomes “any efforts by other countries to play a constructive role in trying to prevent these Iran-enabled attacks from taking place,” the spokesperson added, but referred to White House national-security spokesman John Kirby’s February 6 comment that “I know of no private messaging to Iran since the death of our soldiers in Jordan over a week ago.”
Lack Of Vision
The limits of diplomacy between the United States and Iran, according to Vatanka, “is not a lack of the ability to communicate, the problem is a lack of vision” to repair relations.
For political reasons and for a long time, Vantanka added, neither side has been interested in mending the bad blood that has existed between the two countries going back to 1979.
“Right now, the White House cannot afford to talk to Iran at a time when so many of Biden’s critics are saying he’s too soft on the Iranian regime,” Vatanka said. “On the other hand, you’ve got an Iranian supreme leader who is 84 years old. He’s really keen on two things: not to have a war with the Americans, because he doesn’t think that’s going to go well for Iran or his regime. But at the same time, he doesn’t want to see the Americans return to Tehran anytime soon. Certainly not when he’s alive.”
This, Vatanka explained, is because Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini “does not think the Americans want anything other than the fundamental objective of bringing about the end of the Islamic republic.”
The other major voice in Iranian foreign policy — the leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps — also see anti-Americanism as a worthwhile instrument to further their ideological and political aims at home and abroad, according to Vatanka.
“They think anti-Americanism is the ticket to mobilize the Islamic world around their flag and around their leadership,” Vatanka said.
More moderate voices when it comes to Iran’s foreign policy, Vatanka said, are labeled as traitors and weak and “are today essentially marginalized.”
Like two heavyweight boxers, the United States and Iran circle the ring — flexing their muscles without stepping close enough to actually trade blows. It is clear that neither wants to fight, but they also have no interest in settling their stark differences.
That is how experts say Washington and Tehran have dealt with each other for more than four decades, only changing their stance when it is mutually beneficial.
Tensions have soared between the two foes, who have no formal diplomatic ties, amid the fallout from Israel’s devastating war in the Gaza Strip. But despite calls for de-escalation, observers say there is little room for détente.
“I’ve rarely seen a situation in which the tensions have been so high and the exit ramps are nearly nonexistent and there were no real channels of communication between the two sides,” said Ali Vaez, director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group.
“And that makes the current situation even more dangerous, because there’s plenty of space for miscommunication and misunderstanding,” Vaez added.
Current tensions in the Middle East have had deadly consequences even as each side tries to avoid getting drawn into a direct military confrontation.
The United States has hit Iran-backed militants in response to attacks against U.S. forces and interests in the region, including the deaths of three U.S. soldiers in Jordan last month, while underscoring that its aim is de-escalation.
Iran, which like the United States has said that it does not want war, has continued to back militant groups that make up its so-called “axis of resistance” against Israel and the West, while calling for diplomacy to resolve the crisis.
Tehran and Washington have carefully avoided direct conflict, but are in no position to work out their differences even if they wanted to, experts say.
Washington and Tehran have not had formal diplomatic ties since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, leaving them to negotiate through back-channels or third states when needed.
But political and ideological pressures at home — amplified ahead of a parliamentary vote in Iran in March and a presidential election in the United States in November — has meant that neither side is looking to back away any time soon from the stark red lines the two have drawn.
Avenues For Diplomacy
“There are ways that communication can be had between the two countries, and they do so,” said Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran Program at the U.S.-based Middle East Institute. “But they tend to do it on select files, or moments of crisis.”
Vatanka said those lines of communication include Iran’s envoy to the United Nations who resides in New York and the Swiss Embassy in Tehran which handles American interests in the Islamic republic. There are also third-party mediators, including Qatar, Oman, and Iraq, he said.
The U.S.-Iran prisoner swap worked out in September, which followed years of secret negotiations involving Gulf states and Switzerland, is the most recent example.
Under that deal, four Americans held hostage in Iran were released in exchange for Washington unfreezing $6 billion in Iranian oil revenue held up in South Korea.
As part of the agreement, according to Vaez, “Iran committed to rein in groups that were targeting U.S. interests in Iraq and Syria” and Washington received a commitment that Tehran would not supply ballistic missiles to Russia for use in Moscow’s war against Ukraine.
Shortly after Iran-backed Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, carried out its deadly assault on Israel on October 7, the unfrozen Iranian funds came under intense scrutiny. Republicans in the United States who are gearing up for the presidential election in November have been particularly vocal in criticizing the deal worked out by the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden.
In response, Washington worked out an agreement with Qatar, where the unfrozen Iranian funds were moved and to be released only for humanitarian purposes, to prevent Tehran from accessing them at all. But the deal has remained a hot-button issue.
The Gaza war and the ensuing resumption of attacks on U.S. forces and interests by Iran-backed groups have attracted even more political discord.
After Israel’s large-scale offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 27,000 Palestinians, Iran-backed militant groups have carried out attacks in solidarity with Hamas. The Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen have targeted maritime shipping and U.S. naval forces in the Red Sea. Meanwhile, Iran-backed militias in Iraq killed three U.S. soldiers in Jordan in a drone attack.
That, in turn, has led to U.S. and U.K. attacks on Huthi targets in Yemen, and by the United States against Iran-backed militias and Iranian-linked sites in Syria and Iraq.
U.S. forces launch strikes against Huthi targets in Yemen earlier this month.
Iran, for its part, has said that the axis of resistance, which it denies directing, would continue to carry out strikes until a permanent cease-fire is worked out to stop what it calls a genocide in Gaza. And in what was widely seen as a show of its capability to strike back in the event Iran itself is attacked, it has launched ballistic missile strikes against “enemy” targets in Iraq, Pakistan, and Syria, the latter of which showcased that Israel was within striking distance.
The recent spike in violence came after the United States had experienced “the longest period of quiet in the Middle East” from March until the Hamas assault on October 7, Vaez said.
That relative peace came about not because of displays of power, but because Iran and the United States were negotiating, Vaez said.
“It wasn’t because the U.S. had flexed its military muscle and deterred Iran, it was because it was engaged in diplomatic understandings with Iran that came to fruition and culminated in a detainee deal,” Vaez said.
Tehran and the United States, currently trading threats of ever-stronger responses, “are seeking to pressure each other into greater flexibility,” said Trita Parsi, co-founder of the Washington-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
“Both would like to get back to the truce they enjoyed prior to the October 7 attacks” by Hamas against Israel, Parsi said in written comments. “But whether the political will is available for real de-escalation remains unclear.”
“President Biden has been unmovable in his opposition to a cease-fire in Gaza thus far,” Parsi said, referring to mounting calls for a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hamas. “And without such a cease-fire, real de-escalation remains very unlikely.”
Military Message
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on February 6, halfway through his latest trip to the Middle East to reduce regional tensions, that a proposal for a temporary cease-fire put together with the help of Qatar and Egypt and presented to Hamas and Israel, was “possible and, indeed, essential.”
While details of the proposal have not been made public, Blinken said that the goal is to use any pause in fighting to address humanitarian and reconstruction needs in Gaza and “to continue to pave a diplomatic path forward to a just and lasting peace and security for the region.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken waves as he boards his plane at an airport near Tel Aviv on February 8, during his trip to the Middle East
Asked by RFE/RL whether Washington is employing any diplomatic means, either directly or indirectly, to decrease tensions with Iran, a U.S. State Department spokesperson pointed to recent strikes carried out against Iranian-backed groups in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq.
“Our military response to the killing of three U.S. service members by Iran-aligned militia groups and our continued action to degrade the Huthis’ ability to threaten international shipping sends the clearest message of all: the United States will defend our personnel and our interests,” a U.S. State Department spokesman said in written comments on February 7.
“When we are attacked, we will respond strongly, and we will respond at a time and place of our choosing,” the spokesman said.
Prior to the deadly attack on the U.S. base in Jordan, there had been reports of Washington using third states to send a nonmilitary notice to Iran.
Shortly after the Hamas assault on Israel in October, the U.S. Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said that a congressional delegation to China had asked Beijing to exert its influence with Tehran to prevent the Israel-Hamas conflict from spreading.
In early January, the Lebanese news publication Al-Ahed News quoted Iran’s ambassador to Syria as saying that a delegation from an unidentified Gulf state had carried a message from the United States seeking to reduce the risk of an expanded regional conflict.
The U.S. State Department spokesperson said that beyond the recent U.S. strikes, “our message to Iran, in public and in private, has been a singular one: cease your support for terrorist groups and militant proxies and partners.”
Washington welcomes “any efforts by other countries to play a constructive role in trying to prevent these Iran-enabled attacks from taking place,” the spokesperson added, but referred to White House national-security spokesman John Kirby’s February 6 comment that “I know of no private messaging to Iran since the death of our soldiers in Jordan over a week ago.”
Lack Of Vision
The limits of diplomacy between the United States and Iran, according to Vatanka, “is not a lack of the ability to communicate, the problem is a lack of vision” to repair relations.
For political reasons and for a long time, Vantanka added, neither side has been interested in mending the bad blood that has existed between the two countries going back to 1979.
“Right now, the White House cannot afford to talk to Iran at a time when so many of Biden’s critics are saying he’s too soft on the Iranian regime,” Vatanka said. “On the other hand, you’ve got an Iranian supreme leader who is 84 years old. He’s really keen on two things: not to have a war with the Americans, because he doesn’t think that’s going to go well for Iran or his regime. But at the same time, he doesn’t want to see the Americans return to Tehran anytime soon. Certainly not when he’s alive.”
This, Vatanka explained, is because Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini “does not think the Americans want anything other than the fundamental objective of bringing about the end of the Islamic republic.”
The other major voice in Iranian foreign policy — the leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps — also see anti-Americanism as a worthwhile instrument to further their ideological and political aims at home and abroad, according to Vatanka.
“They think anti-Americanism is the ticket to mobilize the Islamic world around their flag and around their leadership,” Vatanka said.
More moderate voices when it comes to Iran’s foreign policy, Vatanka said, are labeled as traitors and weak and “are today essentially marginalized.”
EU diplomat Johan Floderus’s sister calls on Sweden to start speaking up loudly to demand his release
The family of a Swedish EU diplomat imprisoned in Iran for more than 663 days fear he will be given a death sentence or life imprisonment within the coming days after prosecutors sought the maximum sentence in his case.
“I ask how can this be happening? He is my brother and I’m like: they want to kill my younger brother? That is very hard to take in. I also feel so sad for him being there alone, you know, when I see the pictures of him I just want to be there for him,” said Johan Floderus’s sister, Ingrid.
There has been much talk of the possibility of a regional war in the Middle East ever since Hamas’s brutal assault on Israel on October 7, 2023, and Israel’s genocidal invasion of Gaza, in the context of a U.S. administration not willing to call for an immediate ceasefire. As an Iranian American socialist feminist activist with ties to activists in Iran, the U.S., Israel and Palestine…
A deadly U.S. drone strike in Baghdad late Wednesday drew swift criticism from Iraqi officials and foreign policy analysts, who warned that the Biden administration’s repeated attacks are further inflaming regional tensions and putting civilians at risk. Yehia Rasool, a spokesperson for the Iraqi military, said in a statement early Thursday that the U.S. “conducted a blatant assassination through…
Welcome back to the China In Eurasia Briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter tracking China’s resurgent influence from Eastern Europe to Central Asia.
I’m RFE/RL correspondent Reid Standish and here’s what I’m following right now.
As Huthi rebels continue their assault on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, the deepening crisis is posing a fresh test for China’s ambitions of becoming a power broker in the Middle East – and raising questions about whether Beijing can help bring the group to bay.
Finding Perspective: U.S. officials have been asking China to urge Tehran to rein in Iran-backed Huthis, but according to the Financial Times, American officials say that they have seen no signs of help.
Still, Washington keeps raising the issue. In weekend meetings with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Bangkok, U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan again asked Beijing to use its “substantial leverage with Iran” to play a “constructive role” in stopping the attacks.
Reuters, citing Iranian officials, reported on January 26 that Beijing urged Tehran at recent meetings to pressure the Huthis or risk jeopardizing business cooperation with China in the future.
There are plenty of reasons to believe that China would want to bring the attacks to an end. The Huthis have disrupted global shipping, stoking fears of global inflation and even more instability in the Middle East.
This also hurts China’s bottom line. The attacks are raising transport costs and jeopardizing the tens of billions of dollars that China has invested in nearby Egyptian ports.
Why It Matters: The current crisis raises some complex questions for China’s ambitions in the Middle East.
If China decides to pressure Iran, it’s unknown how much influence Tehran actually has over Yemen’s Huthis. Iran backs the group and supplies them with weapons, but it’s unclear if they can actually control and rein them in, as U.S. officials are calling for.
But the bigger question might be whether this calculation looks the same from Beijing.
China might be reluctant to get too involved and squander its political capital with Iran on trying to get the Huthis to stop their attacks, especially after the group has announced that it won’t attack Chinese ships transiting the Red Sea.
Beijing is also unlikely to want to bring an end to something that’s hurting America’s interests arguably more than its own at the moment.
U.S. officials say they’ll continue to talk with China about helping restore trade in the Red Sea, but Beijing might decide that it has more to gain by simply stepping back.
Three More Stories From Eurasia
1. ‘New Historical Heights’ For China And Uzbekistan
Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev made a landmark three-day visit to Beijing, where he met with Xi, engaged with Chinese business leaders, and left with an officially upgraded relationship as the Central Asian leader increasingly looks to China for his economic future.
The Details: As I reported here, Mirziyoev left Uzbekistan looking to usher in a new era and returned with upgraded diplomatic ties as an “all-weather” partner with China.
The move to elevate to an “all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership” from a “comprehensive strategic partnership” doesn’t come with any formal benefits, but it’s a clear sign from Mirziyoev and Xi on where they want to take the relationship between their two countries.
Before going to China for the January 23-25 trip, Mirziyoev signed a letter praising China’s progress in fighting poverty and saying he wanted to develop a “new long-term agenda” with Beijing that will last for “decades.”
Beyond the diplomatic upgrade, China said it was ready to expand cooperation with Uzbekistan across the new energy vehicle industry chain, as well as in major projects such as photovoltaics, wind power, and hydropower.
Xi and Mirzoyoev also spoke about the long-discussed China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, with the Chinese leader saying that work should begin as soon as possible, athough no specifics were offered and there are reportedly still key disputes over how the megaproject will be financed.
2. The Taliban’s New Man In Beijing
In a move that could lay the groundwork for more diplomatic engagement with China, Xi received diplomatic credentials from the Taliban’s new ambassador in Beijing on January 25.
What You Need To Know: Mawlawi Asadullah Bilal Karimi was accepted as part of a ceremony that also received the credential letters of 42 new envoys. Karimi was named as the new ambassador to Beijing on November 24 but has now formally been received by Xi, which is another installment in the slow boil toward recognition that’s under way.
No country formally recognizes the Taliban administration in Afghanistan, but China – along with other countries such as Pakistan, Russia, and Turkmenistan – have appointed their own envoys to Kabul and have maintained steady diplomatic engagement with the group since it returned to power in August 2021.
Formal diplomatic recognition for the Taliban still looks to be far off, but this move highlights China’s strategy of de-facto recognition that could see other countries following its lead, paving the way for formal ties down the line.
3. China’s Tightrope With Iran and Pakistan
Air strikes and diplomatic sparring between Iran and Pakistan raised difficult questions for China and its influence in the region, as I reportedhere.
Both Islamabad and Tehran have since moved to mend fences, with their foreign ministers holding talks on January 29. But the incident put the spotlight on what China would do if two of its closest partners entered into conflict against one another.
What It Means: The tit-for-tat strikes hit militant groups operating in each other’s territory. After a tough exchange, both countries quickly cooled their rhetoric – culminating in the recent talks held in Islamabad.
And while Beijing has lots to lose in the event of a wider conflict between two of its allies, it appeared to remain quiet, with only a formal offer to mediate if needed.
Abdul Basit, an associate research fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, told me this approach reflects how China “shies away from situations like this,” in part to protect its reputation in case it intervenes and then fails.
Michael Kugelman, the director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute, added that, despite Beijing’s cautious approach, China has shown a willingness to mediate when opportunity strikes, pointing to the deal it helped broker between Iran and Saudi Arabia in March.
“It looks like the Pakistanis and the Iranians had enough in their relationship to ease tensions themselves,” he told me. “So [Beijing] might be relieved now, but that doesn’t mean they won’t step up if needed.”
Across The Supercontinent
China’s Odd Moment: What do the fall of the Soviet Union and China’s slowing economy have in common? The answer is more than you might think.
Listen to the latest episodeof the Talking China In Eurasia podcast, where we explore how China’s complicated relationship with the Soviet Union is shaping the country today.
Invite Sent. Now What? Ukraine has invited Xi to participate in a planned “peace summit” of world leaders in Switzerland, Reuters reported, in a gathering tied to the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
Blocked, But Why? China has suspended issuing visas to Lithuanian citizens. Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis confirmed the news and told Lithuanian journalists that “we have been informed about this. No further information has been provided.”
More Hydro Plans: Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Energy and the China National Electric Engineering Company signed a memorandum of cooperationon January 24 to build a cascade of power plants and a new thermal power plant.
One Thing To Watch
There’s no official word, but it’s looking like veteran diplomat Liu Jianchao is the leading contender to become China’s next foreign minister.
Wang Yi was reassigned to his old post after Qin Gang was abruptly removed as foreign minister last summer, and Wang is currently holding roles as both foreign minister and the more senior position of director of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee Foreign Affairs Commission Office.
Liu has limited experience engaging with the West but served stints at the Communist Party’s anti-corruption watchdog and currently heads a party agency traditionally tasked with building ties with other communist states.
It also looks like he’s being groomed for the role. He recentlycompleted a U.S. tour, where he met with top officials and business leaders, and has also made visits to the Middle East.
That’s all from me for now. Don’t forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you might have.
Until next time,
Reid Standish
If you enjoyed this briefing and don’t want to miss the next edition, subscribe here. It will be sent to your inbox every other Wednesday.
U.S. officials have said they believe air strikes on dozens of Iranian-linked sites in Syria and Iraq late on February 2 in retaliation for the killing of three U.S. troops in northwest Jordan were successful and warned more strikes will follow, as Baghdad expressed anger and concerns persisted of widening conflict in the region.
U.S. President Biden had warned of imminent action after a drone attack at a U.S. base in Jordan killed three U.S. service members on January 28.
Washington blamed Iran and its supply of weapons to militia groups in the region.
Reports said the U.S. strikes had hit seven locations, four in Syria and three in Iraq.
“Our response began today. It will continue at times and places of our choosing,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in a statement released shortly after the attacks that “our response began today,” adding, “It will continue at times and places of our choosing.”
“The United States does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. But let all those who might seek to do us harm know this: If you harm an American, we will respond,” he added.
General Yehia Rasool, a spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Shia al-Sudani accused the United States of a “violation” of Iraqi sovereignty with potentially “disastrous consequences for the security and stability of Iraq and the region.”
After a previous U.S. air strike in Baghdad, Sudani asked for the 2,000 or so U.S. troops in Iraq to be withdrawn — a sensitive bilateral topic.
U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the United States “did inform the Iraqi government prior to the strikes” but did not provide details. He said the attacks lasted about 30 minutes and included B-1 bombers that had flown from the United States.
Kirby said defense officials would be able to further assess the strikes’ impact on February 3.
The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, which has extensive contacts inside Syria, said at least 18 pro-Iran fighters had been killed in a strike near Al-Mayadeen in Syria.
U.S. Central Command earlier confirmed the strikes, saying its forces “conducted air strikes in Iraq and Syria against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militia groups.”
“U.S. military forces struck more than 85 targets, with numerous aircraft to include long-range bombers flown from United States,” it said, adding that it had struck “command and control operations, centers, intelligence centers, rockets, and missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicle storages, and logistics and munition supply chain facilities of militia groups and their IRGC sponsors who facilitated attacks against U.S. and Coalition forces.”
Syrian state media said there had been a number of casualties in several sites in Syria’s desert areas along the border with Iraq.
U.S. officials have said that the deadly January 28 attack in Jordan carried the “footprints” of Tehran-sponsored Kataib Hizballah militia in Iraq and vowed to hold those responsible to account at a time and place of Washington’s choosing, most likely in Syria or Iraq.
On January 31, Kataib Hizballah extremists in Iraq announced a “suspension” of operations against U.S. forces. The group said the pause was meant to prevent “embarrassing” the Iraqi government and hinted that the drone attack had been linked to the U.S. support of Israel in the war in Gaza.
Biden has been under pressure from opposition Republicans to take a harder line against Iran following the Jordan attack, but said earlier this week that “I don’t think we need a wider war in the Middle East. That’s not what I’m looking for.”
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has said Tehran “will not start any war, but if anyone wants to bully us, they will receive a strong response.”
Biden on February 2 witnessed the return to the United States of the remains of the three American soldiers killed in Jordan at a service at the Dover Air Force Base, Delaware.
The clashes between U.S. forces and Iran-backed militia have come against the background of an intense four-month military campaign in Gaza Strip against the U.S.- and EU-designated terrorist group Hamas after a Hamas attack killed at least 1,200 people in Israel, most of them civilians.
Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen have also waged attacks on international shipping in the region in what they call an effort to target Israeli vessels and demonstrate support for Palestinians.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is traveling to his fifth round of crisis talks in the region from February 3-8, with visits reportedly planned to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Israel, and the West Bank in an effort to promote a release of hostages taken by Hamas in its brutal October 7 raids.
U.S. officials have said they believe air strikes on dozens of Iranian-linked sites in Syria and Iraq late on February 2 in retaliation for the killing of three U.S. troops in northwest Jordan were successful and warned more strikes will follow, as Baghdad expressed anger and concerns persisted of widening conflict in the region.
U.S. President Biden had warned of imminent action after a drone attack at a U.S. base in Jordan killed three U.S. service members on January 28.
Washington blamed Iran and its supply of weapons to militia groups in the region.
Reports said the U.S. strikes had hit seven locations, four in Syria and three in Iraq.
“Our response began today. It will continue at times and places of our choosing,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in a statement released shortly after the attacks that “our response began today,” adding, “It will continue at times and places of our choosing.”
“The United States does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. But let all those who might seek to do us harm know this: If you harm an American, we will respond,” he added.
General Yehia Rasool, a spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Shia al-Sudani accused the United States of a “violation” of Iraqi sovereignty with potentially “disastrous consequences for the security and stability of Iraq and the region.”
After a previous U.S. air strike in Baghdad, Sudani asked for the 2,000 or so U.S. troops in Iraq to be withdrawn — a sensitive bilateral topic.
U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the United States “did inform the Iraqi government prior to the strikes” but did not provide details. He said the attacks lasted about 30 minutes and included B-1 bombers that had flown from the United States.
Kirby said defense officials would be able to further assess the strikes’ impact on February 3.
The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, which has extensive contacts inside Syria, said at least 18 pro-Iran fighters had been killed in a strike near Al-Mayadeen in Syria.
U.S. Central Command earlier confirmed the strikes, saying its forces “conducted air strikes in Iraq and Syria against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militia groups.”
“U.S. military forces struck more than 85 targets, with numerous aircraft to include long-range bombers flown from United States,” it said, adding that it had struck “command and control operations, centers, intelligence centers, rockets, and missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicle storages, and logistics and munition supply chain facilities of militia groups and their IRGC sponsors who facilitated attacks against U.S. and Coalition forces.”
Syrian state media said there had been a number of casualties in several sites in Syria’s desert areas along the border with Iraq.
U.S. officials have said that the deadly January 28 attack in Jordan carried the “footprints” of Tehran-sponsored Kataib Hizballah militia in Iraq and vowed to hold those responsible to account at a time and place of Washington’s choosing, most likely in Syria or Iraq.
On January 31, Kataib Hizballah extremists in Iraq announced a “suspension” of operations against U.S. forces. The group said the pause was meant to prevent “embarrassing” the Iraqi government and hinted that the drone attack had been linked to the U.S. support of Israel in the war in Gaza.
Biden has been under pressure from opposition Republicans to take a harder line against Iran following the Jordan attack, but said earlier this week that “I don’t think we need a wider war in the Middle East. That’s not what I’m looking for.”
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has said Tehran “will not start any war, but if anyone wants to bully us, they will receive a strong response.”
Biden on February 2 witnessed the return to the United States of the remains of the three American soldiers killed in Jordan at a service at the Dover Air Force Base, Delaware.
The clashes between U.S. forces and Iran-backed militia have come against the background of an intense four-month military campaign in Gaza Strip against the U.S.- and EU-designated terrorist group Hamas after a Hamas attack killed at least 1,200 people in Israel, most of them civilians.
Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen have also waged attacks on international shipping in the region in what they call an effort to target Israeli vessels and demonstrate support for Palestinians.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is traveling to his fifth round of crisis talks in the region from February 3-8, with visits reportedly planned to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Israel, and the West Bank in an effort to promote a release of hostages taken by Hamas in its brutal October 7 raids.
Welcome back to the China In Eurasia Briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter tracking China’s resurgent influence from Eastern Europe to Central Asia.
I’m RFE/RL correspondent Reid Standish and here’s what I’m following right now.
As Huthi rebels continue their assault on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, the deepening crisis is posing a fresh test for China’s ambitions of becoming a power broker in the Middle East – and raising questions about whether Beijing can help bring the group to bay.
Finding Perspective: U.S. officials have been asking China to urge Tehran to rein in Iran-backed Huthis, but according to the Financial Times, American officials say that they have seen no signs of help.
Still, Washington keeps raising the issue. In weekend meetings with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Bangkok, U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan again asked Beijing to use its “substantial leverage with Iran” to play a “constructive role” in stopping the attacks.
Reuters, citing Iranian officials, reported on January 26 that Beijing urged Tehran at recent meetings to pressure the Huthis or risk jeopardizing business cooperation with China in the future.
There are plenty of reasons to believe that China would want to bring the attacks to an end. The Huthis have disrupted global shipping, stoking fears of global inflation and even more instability in the Middle East.
This also hurts China’s bottom line. The attacks are raising transport costs and jeopardizing the tens of billions of dollars that China has invested in nearby Egyptian ports.
Why It Matters: The current crisis raises some complex questions for China’s ambitions in the Middle East.
If China decides to pressure Iran, it’s unknown how much influence Tehran actually has over Yemen’s Huthis. Iran backs the group and supplies them with weapons, but it’s unclear if they can actually control and rein them in, as U.S. officials are calling for.
But the bigger question might be whether this calculation looks the same from Beijing.
China might be reluctant to get too involved and squander its political capital with Iran on trying to get the Huthis to stop their attacks, especially after the group has announced that it won’t attack Chinese ships transiting the Red Sea.
Beijing is also unlikely to want to bring an end to something that’s hurting America’s interests arguably more than its own at the moment.
U.S. officials say they’ll continue to talk with China about helping restore trade in the Red Sea, but Beijing might decide that it has more to gain by simply stepping back.
Three More Stories From Eurasia
1. ‘New Historical Heights’ For China And Uzbekistan
Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev made a landmark three-day visit to Beijing, where he met with Xi, engaged with Chinese business leaders, and left with an officially upgraded relationship as the Central Asian leader increasingly looks to China for his economic future.
The Details: As I reported here, Mirziyoev left Uzbekistan looking to usher in a new era and returned with upgraded diplomatic ties as an “all-weather” partner with China.
The move to elevate to an “all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership” from a “comprehensive strategic partnership” doesn’t come with any formal benefits, but it’s a clear sign from Mirziyoev and Xi on where they want to take the relationship between their two countries.
Before going to China for the January 23-25 trip, Mirziyoev signed a letter praising China’s progress in fighting poverty and saying he wanted to develop a “new long-term agenda” with Beijing that will last for “decades.”
Beyond the diplomatic upgrade, China said it was ready to expand cooperation with Uzbekistan across the new energy vehicle industry chain, as well as in major projects such as photovoltaics, wind power, and hydropower.
Xi and Mirzoyoev also spoke about the long-discussed China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, with the Chinese leader saying that work should begin as soon as possible, athough no specifics were offered and there are reportedly still key disputes over how the megaproject will be financed.
2. The Taliban’s New Man In Beijing
In a move that could lay the groundwork for more diplomatic engagement with China, Xi received diplomatic credentials from the Taliban’s new ambassador in Beijing on January 25.
What You Need To Know: Mawlawi Asadullah Bilal Karimi was accepted as part of a ceremony that also received the credential letters of 42 new envoys. Karimi was named as the new ambassador to Beijing on November 24 but has now formally been received by Xi, which is another installment in the slow boil toward recognition that’s under way.
No country formally recognizes the Taliban administration in Afghanistan, but China – along with other countries such as Pakistan, Russia, and Turkmenistan – have appointed their own envoys to Kabul and have maintained steady diplomatic engagement with the group since it returned to power in August 2021.
Formal diplomatic recognition for the Taliban still looks to be far off, but this move highlights China’s strategy of de-facto recognition that could see other countries following its lead, paving the way for formal ties down the line.
3. China’s Tightrope With Iran and Pakistan
Air strikes and diplomatic sparring between Iran and Pakistan raised difficult questions for China and its influence in the region, as I reportedhere.
Both Islamabad and Tehran have since moved to mend fences, with their foreign ministers holding talks on January 29. But the incident put the spotlight on what China would do if two of its closest partners entered into conflict against one another.
What It Means: The tit-for-tat strikes hit militant groups operating in each other’s territory. After a tough exchange, both countries quickly cooled their rhetoric – culminating in the recent talks held in Islamabad.
And while Beijing has lots to lose in the event of a wider conflict between two of its allies, it appeared to remain quiet, with only a formal offer to mediate if needed.
Abdul Basit, an associate research fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, told me this approach reflects how China “shies away from situations like this,” in part to protect its reputation in case it intervenes and then fails.
Michael Kugelman, the director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute, added that, despite Beijing’s cautious approach, China has shown a willingness to mediate when opportunity strikes, pointing to the deal it helped broker between Iran and Saudi Arabia in March.
“It looks like the Pakistanis and the Iranians had enough in their relationship to ease tensions themselves,” he told me. “So [Beijing] might be relieved now, but that doesn’t mean they won’t step up if needed.”
Across The Supercontinent
China’s Odd Moment: What do the fall of the Soviet Union and China’s slowing economy have in common? The answer is more than you might think.
Listen to the latest episodeof the Talking China In Eurasia podcast, where we explore how China’s complicated relationship with the Soviet Union is shaping the country today.
Invite Sent. Now What? Ukraine has invited Xi to participate in a planned “peace summit” of world leaders in Switzerland, Reuters reported, in a gathering tied to the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
Blocked, But Why? China has suspended issuing visas to Lithuanian citizens. Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis confirmed the news and told Lithuanian journalists that “we have been informed about this. No further information has been provided.”
More Hydro Plans: Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Energy and the China National Electric Engineering Company signed a memorandum of cooperationon January 24 to build a cascade of power plants and a new thermal power plant.
One Thing To Watch
There’s no official word, but it’s looking like veteran diplomat Liu Jianchao is the leading contender to become China’s next foreign minister.
Wang Yi was reassigned to his old post after Qin Gang was abruptly removed as foreign minister last summer, and Wang is currently holding roles as both foreign minister and the more senior position of director of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee Foreign Affairs Commission Office.
Liu has limited experience engaging with the West but served stints at the Communist Party’s anti-corruption watchdog and currently heads a party agency traditionally tasked with building ties with other communist states.
It also looks like he’s being groomed for the role. He recentlycompleted a U.S. tour, where he met with top officials and business leaders, and has also made visits to the Middle East.
That’s all from me for now. Don’t forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you might have.
Until next time,
Reid Standish
If you enjoyed this briefing and don’t want to miss the next edition, subscribe here. It will be sent to your inbox every other Wednesday.
Welcome back to the China In Eurasia Briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter tracking China’s resurgent influence from Eastern Europe to Central Asia.
I’m RFE/RL correspondent Reid Standish and here’s what I’m following right now.
As Huthi rebels continue their assault on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, the deepening crisis is posing a fresh test for China’s ambitions of becoming a power broker in the Middle East – and raising questions about whether Beijing can help bring the group to bay.
Finding Perspective: U.S. officials have been asking China to urge Tehran to rein in Iran-backed Huthis, but according to the Financial Times, American officials say that they have seen no signs of help.
Still, Washington keeps raising the issue. In weekend meetings with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Bangkok, U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan again asked Beijing to use its “substantial leverage with Iran” to play a “constructive role” in stopping the attacks.
Reuters, citing Iranian officials, reported on January 26 that Beijing urged Tehran at recent meetings to pressure the Huthis or risk jeopardizing business cooperation with China in the future.
There are plenty of reasons to believe that China would want to bring the attacks to an end. The Huthis have disrupted global shipping, stoking fears of global inflation and even more instability in the Middle East.
This also hurts China’s bottom line. The attacks are raising transport costs and jeopardizing the tens of billions of dollars that China has invested in nearby Egyptian ports.
Why It Matters: The current crisis raises some complex questions for China’s ambitions in the Middle East.
If China decides to pressure Iran, it’s unknown how much influence Tehran actually has over Yemen’s Huthis. Iran backs the group and supplies them with weapons, but it’s unclear if they can actually control and rein them in, as U.S. officials are calling for.
But the bigger question might be whether this calculation looks the same from Beijing.
China might be reluctant to get too involved and squander its political capital with Iran on trying to get the Huthis to stop their attacks, especially after the group has announced that it won’t attack Chinese ships transiting the Red Sea.
Beijing is also unlikely to want to bring an end to something that’s hurting America’s interests arguably more than its own at the moment.
U.S. officials say they’ll continue to talk with China about helping restore trade in the Red Sea, but Beijing might decide that it has more to gain by simply stepping back.
Three More Stories From Eurasia
1. ‘New Historical Heights’ For China And Uzbekistan
Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev made a landmark three-day visit to Beijing, where he met with Xi, engaged with Chinese business leaders, and left with an officially upgraded relationship as the Central Asian leader increasingly looks to China for his economic future.
The Details: As I reported here, Mirziyoev left Uzbekistan looking to usher in a new era and returned with upgraded diplomatic ties as an “all-weather” partner with China.
The move to elevate to an “all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership” from a “comprehensive strategic partnership” doesn’t come with any formal benefits, but it’s a clear sign from Mirziyoev and Xi on where they want to take the relationship between their two countries.
Before going to China for the January 23-25 trip, Mirziyoev signed a letter praising China’s progress in fighting poverty and saying he wanted to develop a “new long-term agenda” with Beijing that will last for “decades.”
Beyond the diplomatic upgrade, China said it was ready to expand cooperation with Uzbekistan across the new energy vehicle industry chain, as well as in major projects such as photovoltaics, wind power, and hydropower.
Xi and Mirzoyoev also spoke about the long-discussed China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, with the Chinese leader saying that work should begin as soon as possible, athough no specifics were offered and there are reportedly still key disputes over how the megaproject will be financed.
2. The Taliban’s New Man In Beijing
In a move that could lay the groundwork for more diplomatic engagement with China, Xi received diplomatic credentials from the Taliban’s new ambassador in Beijing on January 25.
What You Need To Know: Mawlawi Asadullah Bilal Karimi was accepted as part of a ceremony that also received the credential letters of 42 new envoys. Karimi was named as the new ambassador to Beijing on November 24 but has now formally been received by Xi, which is another installment in the slow boil toward recognition that’s under way.
No country formally recognizes the Taliban administration in Afghanistan, but China – along with other countries such as Pakistan, Russia, and Turkmenistan – have appointed their own envoys to Kabul and have maintained steady diplomatic engagement with the group since it returned to power in August 2021.
Formal diplomatic recognition for the Taliban still looks to be far off, but this move highlights China’s strategy of de-facto recognition that could see other countries following its lead, paving the way for formal ties down the line.
3. China’s Tightrope With Iran and Pakistan
Air strikes and diplomatic sparring between Iran and Pakistan raised difficult questions for China and its influence in the region, as I reportedhere.
Both Islamabad and Tehran have since moved to mend fences, with their foreign ministers holding talks on January 29. But the incident put the spotlight on what China would do if two of its closest partners entered into conflict against one another.
What It Means: The tit-for-tat strikes hit militant groups operating in each other’s territory. After a tough exchange, both countries quickly cooled their rhetoric – culminating in the recent talks held in Islamabad.
And while Beijing has lots to lose in the event of a wider conflict between two of its allies, it appeared to remain quiet, with only a formal offer to mediate if needed.
Abdul Basit, an associate research fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, told me this approach reflects how China “shies away from situations like this,” in part to protect its reputation in case it intervenes and then fails.
Michael Kugelman, the director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute, added that, despite Beijing’s cautious approach, China has shown a willingness to mediate when opportunity strikes, pointing to the deal it helped broker between Iran and Saudi Arabia in March.
“It looks like the Pakistanis and the Iranians had enough in their relationship to ease tensions themselves,” he told me. “So [Beijing] might be relieved now, but that doesn’t mean they won’t step up if needed.”
Across The Supercontinent
China’s Odd Moment: What do the fall of the Soviet Union and China’s slowing economy have in common? The answer is more than you might think.
Listen to the latest episodeof the Talking China In Eurasia podcast, where we explore how China’s complicated relationship with the Soviet Union is shaping the country today.
Invite Sent. Now What? Ukraine has invited Xi to participate in a planned “peace summit” of world leaders in Switzerland, Reuters reported, in a gathering tied to the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
Blocked, But Why? China has suspended issuing visas to Lithuanian citizens. Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis confirmed the news and told Lithuanian journalists that “we have been informed about this. No further information has been provided.”
More Hydro Plans: Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Energy and the China National Electric Engineering Company signed a memorandum of cooperationon January 24 to build a cascade of power plants and a new thermal power plant.
One Thing To Watch
There’s no official word, but it’s looking like veteran diplomat Liu Jianchao is the leading contender to become China’s next foreign minister.
Wang Yi was reassigned to his old post after Qin Gang was abruptly removed as foreign minister last summer, and Wang is currently holding roles as both foreign minister and the more senior position of director of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee Foreign Affairs Commission Office.
Liu has limited experience engaging with the West but served stints at the Communist Party’s anti-corruption watchdog and currently heads a party agency traditionally tasked with building ties with other communist states.
It also looks like he’s being groomed for the role. He recentlycompleted a U.S. tour, where he met with top officials and business leaders, and has also made visits to the Middle East.
That’s all from me for now. Don’t forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you might have.
Until next time,
Reid Standish
If you enjoyed this briefing and don’t want to miss the next edition, subscribe here. It will be sent to your inbox every other Wednesday.
The U.S. continues to launch airstrikes on Yemen in response to the campaign of missile and drone attacks on commercial ships along key global trade routes through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden led by Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis. The Houthi strikes have expanded from targets connected to Israel, in protest of the siege and bombing of Gaza, to ships affiliated with the U.S. and U.K.
The BBC’s characteristically mild-mannered note said it all: What is Tower 22? More to the point, what are US forces doing in Jordan? (To be more precise, a dusty scratching on the Syria-Jordan border.) These questions were posed in the aftermath of yet another drone attack against a US outpost in the Middle East, its location of dubious strategic relevance to Washington, yet seen as indispensable to its global footprint. On this occasion, the attack proved successful, killing three troops and wounding dozens.
The Times of Israel offered a workmanlike description of the site’s role: “Tower 22 is located close enough to US troops at Tanf that it could potentially help support them, while potentially countering Iran-backed militants in the area and allowing troops to keep an eye on remnants of Islamic State in the region.” The paper does not go on to mention the other role: that US forces are also present in the region to protect Israeli interests, acting as a shield against Iran.
While Tower 22 is located more towards Jordan, it is a dozen miles or so to the Syria-based al-Tanf garrison, which retains a US troop presence. Initially, that presence was justified to cope with the formidable threat posed by Islamic State as part of Operation Inherent Resolve. In due course, it became something of a watch post on Iran’s burgeoning military presence in Syria and Iraq, an inflation as much a consequence of Tehran’s successful efforts against the fundamentalist group as it was a product of Washington’s destabilising invasion of Iraq in 2003.
A January 28 press release from US Central Command notes that the attack was inflicted by “a one-way attack UAS [Unmanned Aerial System] that impacted on a base in northeast Jordan, near the Syrian border.” Its description of Tower 22 is suitably vague, described as a “logistics support base” forming the Jordanian Defense Network. “There are approximately 350 US Army and Air Force personnel deployed to the base, conducting a number of key support functions, including support to the coalition for the lasting defeat of ISIS.” No mention is made of Iran or Israel.
Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh found it hard to conceal the extent that US bases in the region have come under attack. Clumsily, she tried to be vague as to reasons why such assaults were taking place to begin with, though her department has, since October 17 last year, tracked 165 attacks, 66 on US troops in Iraq and 98 in Syria. The singular feature in the assault on Tower 22, she stressed, was that it worked. “To my knowledge, there was nothing different or new about this attack that we’ve seen in other facilities that house our service members,” she told reporters on January 29. “Unfortunately, this attack was successful, but we can’t discount the fact that other attacks, whether Iraq or Syria, were not intended to kill our service members.”
A senior official from the umbrella grouping known as Islamic Resistance in Iraq justified the attack as part of a broader campaign against the US for its unwavering support for Israel and its relentlessly murderous campaign in Gaza. (Since October 17, the group is said to have staged 140 attacks on US sites in both Iraq and Syria.) “As we have said before if the US keeps supporting Israel, there will [be] escalations.” The official in question went on to state that, “All the US interests in the region are legitimate targets, and we don’t care about US threats to respond.”
A generally accepted view among security boffins is that US troops have achieved what they sought to do: cope with the threat posed by Islamic State. As with any such groups, dissipation and readjustment eventually follows. Washington’s military officials delight in using the term “degrade”, but it would be far better to simply assume that the fighters of such outfits eventually take up with others, blend into the locale, or simply go home.
With roughly 3,000 personnel stationed in Jordan, 2,500 in Iraq, and 900 in Syria, US troops have become ripe targets as Israel’s war in Gaza rages. In effect, they have become bits of surplus pieces on the Middle Eastern chessboard and, to that end, incentives for a broader conflict. The Financial Times, noting the view of an unnamed source purporting to be a “senior western diplomat” (aren’t they always?), fretted that the tinderbox was about to go off. “We’re always worried about US and Iranian forces getting into direct confrontation there, whether by accident or on purpose.”
President Joe Biden has promised some suitable retaliation but does not wish for “a wider war in the Middle East. That’s not what I’m looking for.” A typically mangled response came from National Security Council spokesman John Kirby: “It’s very possible what you’ll see is a tiered approach here, not just a single action, but potentially multiple actions over a period of time.”
Rather than seeing these attacks as incentives to leave such outposts, the don’t cut and run mentality may prove all too powerful in its muscular stupidity. Empires do not merely bring with them sorrows but incentives to be stubborn. The beneficiaries will be the usual coterie of war mongers and peace killers.
A militia group that the Biden administration blamed for the deadly attack on U.S. forces stationed at a shadowy base in Jordan said Tuesday that it would stop targeting American troops in Iraq, a move that could clear the way for the withdrawal of U.S. soldiers more than two decades after the 2003 invasion. “We announce the suspension of military and security operations against the occupation…
To mark the Day of the Endangered Lawyer, the Law Society of England and Wales issued a press release on 24 January honouring legal professionals who are targeted for upholding the rule of law and defending a strong justice system.
The Law Society has published its annual intervention tracker which shows that the Society took 40 actions relating to 17 countries in 2023. Most of these actions were initiated by concerns relating to arbitrary arrest or detention (58%) followed by harassment, threats and violence (27%).
Law Society president Nick Emmerson said: “Across the world, lawyers continue to face harassment, surveillance, detention, torture, enforced disappearance and arbitrary arrest and conviction...
We use this day to draw attention to the plight faced by countless lawyers across the globe, as they fight for their right to freely exercise their profession and uphold the rule of law.
A recent example comes from Amnesty International on 25 January 2024: On 31 October 2023, human rights lawyer, Hoda Abdelmoniem, was due to be released after serving her unjust five-year prison sentence stemming solely from the exercise of her human rights. Instead, the Supreme State Security Prosecution (SSSP) ordered her pretrial detention pending investigations into similar bogus terrorism-related charges in a separate case No. 730 of 2020. During a rare visit to 10th of Ramadan prison on 4 January, her family learned that her health continues to deteriorate and that she developed an ear infection, affecting her balance and sight. She must be immediately and unconditionally released. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/11/29/2020-award-of-european-bars-associations-ccbe-goes-to-seven-egyptian-lawyers-who-are-in-prison/]
Warhawks in the United States wasted no time agitating for direct military conflict with Iran after a drone attack on a military base just inside Jordan’s border with Syria on Sunday killed three American troops and injured dozens more. Both Republican and Democratic members of Congress called on U.S. President Joe Biden to quickly respond with strikes inside Iran, which denied any connection to…
U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has asked Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to use Beijing’s influence on Iran to push it to stop the Houthis in Yemen from attacking Red Sea trade routes.
The appeal came during two days of meetings in Bangkok between the pair, according to a senior Biden administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity according to rules set by the White House.
Over 12 hours, the pair also discussed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Myanmar’s civil war, North Korea, Israel’s war with Hamas, the South China Sea, fentanyl and artificial intelligence, the official said.
It was their first meeting since Oct. 26, when Wang visited Washington in the run-up to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s trip to San Francisco in November for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, during which he also held direct talks with U.S. President Joe Biden.
The official said the meeting was meant to build on the commitments made during that summit, including to reinstate military-to-military talks and to stem illicit Chinese exports of precursors for fentanyl, which has been called a leading cause of death for American adults.
A working group on counternarcotics would be established on Tuesday and both Military-Maritime Consultative Agreement Meetings and talks about regulating artificial intelligence would be held in the Spring.
“The two sides are committed to continuing these strategic channels of communication,” the official said, adding there would be “a telephone call between the two leaders at some point in the coming months.”
Diplomatic telephone
On the apparently widening conflict in the Middle East that began with the attack on Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7, the White House official said Sullivan had pressed Wang to use Beijing’s influence on Iran to push it to end attacks by Houthis on trade ships transiting the Red Sea.
The Houthis’ latest attack took place Friday and this time directly targeted a U.S. warship, the USS Carney, which was patrolling the area to try to prevent further attacks in the lucrative trade route.
Both Hamas and the Houthis have been labeled “proxies” of Iran by the United States, with Tehran not viewed as having direct control of either group but being accused of funding and training both. The Houthis, meanwhile, are accused of targeting trade ships off Yemen’s coast in response to Israel’s invasion of Hamas-controlled Gaza.
As a major trading nation, China had its own interests in stopping the attacks on the Red Sea route and had the ability to pressure Iran as one of the biggest buyers of its oil, the White House official said.
“We would characterize both the economic and trade relationship as giving Beijing leverage over Iran to some extent. How they choose to use that, of course, is China’s choice,” the official said.
“Iran’s influence over the Houthis, and the Houthis’ destabilization of global shipping, raises serious concerns not just for the U.S. and China but for global trade,” they added. “There should be a clear interest in China in trying to quiet some of those attacks.”
The civil war in Myanmar was also discussed by Sullivan and Wang, building off talks between Sullivan and Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin on Friday, during which the official said Sullivan “stressed the importance” of getting humanitarian aid into Myanmar.
“I’m not sure I would characterize anything recently as constructive,” the official said, adding the United States still hoped China would come round to helping “bring us back to the path of denuclearization.”
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alex Willemyns for RFA.
It is not only missiles that are being lobbed as U.S. and U.K. air strikes aim to stop the Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen from targeting ships in a key global trade route — mutual threats of continued attacks are flying around, too.
The question is how far each side might go in carrying out their warnings without drawing Tehran into a broader Middle East conflict in defense of the Huthis, whose sustained attacks on maritime shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden led to its redesignation as a terrorist organization by Washington last week.
“Our aim remains to de-escalate tensions and restore stability in the Red Sea,” the United States and the United Kingdom said in a joint statement following their latest round of air strikes on Huthi targets in Yemen on January 21. “But let us reiterate our warning to [the] Huthi leadership: we will not hesitate to defend lives and the free flow of commerce in one of the world’s most critical waterways in the face of continued threats.”
The Huthis responded with vows to continue their war against what they called Israel’s “genocide” of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.
“The American-British aggression will only increase the Yemeni people’s determination to carry out their moral and humanitarian responsibilities toward the oppressed in Gaza,” said Muhammad al-Bukhaiti, a senior Huthi political official.
On cue, the two sides clashed again on January 24 when the Huthis said they fired ballistic missiles at several U.S. warships protecting U.S. commercial vessels transiting the Bab al-Mandab Strait off the coast of Yemen. U.S. Central Command said three anti-ship missiles were fired at a U.S.-flagged container ship and that two were shot down by a U.S. missile destroyer while the third fell into the Gulf of Aden.
With the stage set for more such encounters, Iran’s open backing and clandestine arming of the Huthis looms large. While continuing to state its support for the Huthis, Tehran has continued to deny directing their actions or providing them with weapons. At the same time, Iran has showcased its own advanced missile capabilities as a warning of the strength it could bring to a broader Middle East conflict.
The United States, emphasizing that the goal is to de-escalate tensions in the region, appears to be focusing on preventing the Huthis from obtaining more arms and funding. In addition to returning the Huthis to its list of terrorist groups, Washington said on January 16 that it had seized Iranian weapons bound for the Huthis in a raid in the Arabian Sea.
The U.S. Navy responds to Huthi missile and drone strikes in the Red Sea earlier this month.
The United States and United Kingdom also appear to be focusing on precision strikes on the Huthis’ military infrastructure while avoiding extensive human casualties or a larger operation that could heighten Iran’s ire.
On January 24, the Pentagon clarified that, despite the U.S. strikes in Yemen, “we are not at war in the Middle East” and the focus is on deterrence and preventing a broader conflict.
“The United States is only using a very small portion of what it’s capable of against the Huthis right now,” said Kenneth Katzman, a senior adviser for the New York-based Soufan Group intelligence consultancy, and expert on geopolitics in the Middle East.
Terrorist Designation
The effectiveness of Washington’s restoration on January 17 of the Huthis’ terrorist organization label and accompanying U.S. sanctions — which was removed early last year in recognition of the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen and to foster dialogue aimed at ending the Yemeni civil war involving the Huthis and the country’s Saudi-backed government forces — is “marginal,” according to Katzman.
“They don’t really use the international banking system and are very much cut off,” Katzman said. “They get their arms from Iran, which is under extremely heavy sanctions and is certainly not going to be deterred from trying to ship them more weapons by this designation.”
But the strikes being carried out by the United States and the United Kingdom, with the support of Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands, are another matter.
The January 21 strikes against eight Huthi targets — followed shortly afterward by what was the ninth attack overall — were intended to disrupt and degrade the group’s capabilities to threaten global trade. They were a response to more than 30 attacks on international and commercial vessels since mid-November and were the largest strikes since a similar coalition operation on January 11.
Such strikes against the Huthis “have the potential to deter them and to degrade them, but it’s going to take many more strikes, and I think the U.S. is preparing for that,” Katzman said. “You’re not going to degrade their capabilities in one or two volleys or even several volleys, it’s going to take months.”
The Huthis have significant experience in riding out aerial strikes, having been under relentless bombardment by a Saudi-led military collation during the nine-year Yemeni civil war, in which fighting has ended owing to a UN-brokered cease-fire in early 2022 that the warring parties recommitted to in December.
“They weathered that pretty well,” said Jeremy Binnie, a Middle East defense analyst with the global intelligence company Janes.
“On the battlefield, airpower can still be fairly decisive,” Binnie said, noting that air strikes were critical in thwarting Huthi offensives during the Yemeni civil war. “But in terms of the Huthis’ overall ability to weather the air campaign of the Saudi-led coalition, they did that fine, from their point of view.”
Since the cease-fire, Binnie said, the situation may have changed somewhat as the Huthis built up their forces, with more advanced missiles and aging tanks — a heavier presence that “might make them a bit more vulnerable.”
“But I don’t think they will, at the same time, have any problem reverting to a lighter force that is more resilient to air strikes as they have been in the past,” Binnie said.
Both Binnie and Katzman suggested that the Huthis appear willing to sustain battlefield losses in pursuit of their aims, which makes the group difficult to deter from the air.
A cargo ship seized by Huthis in the Red Sea in November 2023.
The Huthis have clearly displayed their intent on continuing to disrupt maritime shipping in the Red Sea, which they claim has targeted only vessels linked to Israel despite evidence to the contrary, until there is a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.
This has brought the Huthis’ complicated relationship with Iran under intense scrutiny.
‘Axis Of Resistance’
The Huthis have established themselves as a potent element of Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance” against Israel and the United States, as well as against Tehran’s regional archrival, Saudi Arabia.
But analysts who spoke to RFE/RL widely dismissed the idea that the Huthis are a direct Iranian proxy, describing the relationship as more one of mutual benefit in which the Huthis can be belligerent and go beyond what Tehran wants them to.
While accused by Western states and UN experts of secretly shipping arms to the Huthis and other members of the axis of resistance, Iran has portrayed the loose-knit band of proxies and partners and militant groups as independent in their decision-making.
The grouping includes the Iran-backed Hamas — the U.S. and EU designated terrorist group whose attack on Israel sparked the war in the Gaza Strip — and Lebanese Hizballah — a Iranian proxy and U.S. designated terrorist group that, like the Huthis, has launched strikes against Israel in defense of Hamas.
“The success of the axis of resistance … is that since Tehran has either created or co-opted these groups, there is more often than not fusion rather than tension,” between members of the network and Iran, explained Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank.
But the relationship is not simply about “Iran telling its proxies to jump and them saying how high,” Taleblu said. “It’s about Iran’s ability to find and materially support those who are willing to or can be persuaded to shoot at those Tehran wants to shoot at.”
Iran’s interest in a certain axis member’s success in a given area and its perception of how endangered that partner might be, could play a crucial role in Tehran’s willingness to come to their defense, according to Taleblu.
Middle East observers who spoke to RFE/RL suggested that it would take a significant escalation — an existential threat to Tehran itself or a proxy, like Lebanese Hizballah — for Iran to become directly involved.
“The Islamic republic would react differently to the near eradication of Hizballah which it created, versus Hamas, which it co-opted,” Taleblu said. “Context is key.”
“Iran is doing what it feels it can to try to keep the United States at bay,” Katzman said, singling out the missile strikes carried out on targets this month in Syria, Iraq, and Pakistan that were widely seen as a warning to Israel and the United States of Tehran’s growing military capabilities. Iran is “trying to show support for the Huthis without getting dragged in.”
Iran is believed to have members of its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the ground in Yemen. Tehran also continues to be accused of delivering arms to the Huthis, and at the start of the year deployed a ship to the Gulf of Aden in a show of support for the Huthis before withdrawing it after the U.S.-led coalition launched strikes in Yemen on January 11.
“So, they are helping,” Katzman said, “but I think they are trying to do it as quietly and as under the radar as possible.
A U.S.-led ground operation against the Huthis, if it came to that, could change Iran’s calculations. “Then Iran might deploy forces to help them out,” Katzman said.
KYIV — Ukrainian officials on January 27 said Russia had intensified attacks in the past 24 hours, with a commander saying the sides had battled through “50 combat clashes” in the past day near Ukraine’s Tavria region.
Meanwhile, Kyiv and Moscow continued to dispute the circumstances surrounding the January 24 crash of a Russian military transport plane that the Kremlin claimed was carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Kyiv said it has no proof POWs were aboard and has not confirmed its forces shot down the plane.
Live Briefing: Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine
RFE/RL’s Live Briefinggives you all of the latest developments on Russia’s full-scale invasion, Kyiv’s counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL’s coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.
General Oleksandr Tarnavskiy, the Ukrainian commander in the Tavria zone in the Zaporizhzhya region, said Russian forces had “significantly increased” the number of offensive and assault operations over the past two days.
“For the second day in a row, the enemy has conducted 50 combat clashes daily,” he wrote on Telegram.
“Also, the enemy has carried out 100 air strikes in the operational zone of the Tavria Joint Task Force within seven days,” he said, adding that 230 Russian-launched drones had been “neutralized or destroyed” over the past day in the area.
Battlefield claims on either side cannot immediately be confirmed.
Earlier, the Ukrainian military said 98 combat clashes took place between Ukrainian troops and the invading Russian army over the past 24 hours.
“There are dead and wounded among the civilian populations,” the Ukrianian military’s General Staff said in its daily update, but did not provide further details about the casualties.
According to the General Staff, Russian forces launched eight missile and four air strikes, and carried out 78 attacks from rocket-salvo systems on Ukrainian troop positions and populated areas. Iranian-made Shahed drones and Iskander ballistic missiles were used in the attacks, it said.
A number of “high-rise residential buildings, schools, kindergartens, a shopping center, and other civilian infrastructure were destroyed or damaged” in the latest Russian strikes, the bulletin said.
“More than 120 settlements came under artillery fire in the Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, and Mykolayiv regions,” according to the daily update.
The General Staff also reported that Ukrainian defenders repelled dozens of Russian assaults in eight directions, including Avdiyivka, Bakhmut, Maryinka, and Kupyansk in the eastern Donetsk region.
Meanwhile, Kyrylo Budanov, chief of Ukrainian military intelligence, said it remained unclear what happened in the crash of the Russian Il-76 that the Kremlin claimed was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were killed along with nine crew members.
The Kremlin said the military transport plane was shot down by a Ukrainian missile despite the fact that Russian forces had alerted Kyiv to the flight’s path.
Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov told RFE/RL that it had not received either a written or verbal request to secure the airspace where the plane went down.
The situation with the crash of the aircraft “is not yet fully understood,” Budanov said.
“It is necessary to determine what happened – unfortunately, neither side can fully answer that yet.”
Russia “of course, has taken the position of blaming Ukraine for everything, despite the fact that there are a number of facts that are inconsistent with such a position,” he added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has insisted Ukraine shot down the plane and said an investigation was being carried out, with a report to be made in the upcoming days.
In Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced the creation of a second body to assist businesses in the war-torn country.
Speaking in his nightly video address late on January 26, Zelenskiy said the All-Ukraine Economic Platform would help businesses overcome the challenges posed by Russia’s nearly two-year-old invasion.
On January 23, Zelenskiy announced the formation of a Council for the Support of Entrepreneurship, which he said sought to strengthen the country’s economy and clarify issues related to law enforcement agencies. Decrees creating both bodies were published on January 26.
Ukraine’s economy has collapsed in many sectors since Russia invaded the country in February 2022. Kyiv heavily relies on international aid from its Western partnes.
The Voice of America reported that the United States vowed to promote at the international level a peace formula put forward by Zelenskiy.
VOA quoted White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby as saying that Washington “is committed to the policy of supporting initiatives emanating from the leadership of Ukraine.”
Zelenskiy last year presented his 10-point peace formula that includes the withdrawal of Russian forces and the restoration of Ukrainian territorial integrity, among other things.
Consider this paradox: without the Soviet Union (U.S.-designated nemesis since 1917), the United States would have never succeeded at placing the planet under its unilateral grip—often referred to by U.S. imperialists as the “new world order”. Or, rephrased differently, a world whereby the U.S. wants to rule unchallenged. This how it started: first, forget the Soviet Politburo—Mikhail Gorbachev practically annulled its role as the supreme decision-maker body of the Soviet Communist Party before proceeding to dismantle the Soviet state. In sequence, he, his foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze, other anti-communists in his inner circle, and the Yeltsin group were the material instruments in the downfall of the USSR thus leading to U.S. success.
By a twist of events, with its unrelenting policy of economic, geopolitical, and military pressure to submit the new Russia to its will, the United States effectively forced it to intervene in Ukraine many years later. After 33 years from the dismantling the Soviet Union (first by Gorbachev’s contraptions of perestroika and glasnost, and then by Yeltsin’s pro-Western free-marketers), Russia is now breaking up the monstrous American order it helped create. Today, it seems that Russia have reprised its founding principles in the world arena—not as an ideologically anti-imperialist Soviet socialist republic, but as an anti-hegemonic capitalistic state.
The process for the U.S. world control worked like this: taking advantage of Gorbachev’s dismantlement of the socialist system in Eastern Europe and his planned breakup of the USSR, the United States followed a multi-pronged strategy to assert itself as the sole judge of world affairs. The starting point was the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. With the success of its two-stage war to end that occupation (Operations: Desert Shield, 1990, and Operation: Desert Storm, 1991) the United States achieved multiple objectives. Notably, it removed the USSR completely from the world scene even before it was officially dismantled, and it put Iraq and the entire Arab world under its effective control, and it tested its new world order.
Far more important, with a considerably weakened Russia taking the seat of the USSR at the Security Council, the United States finally completed its takeover of the United Nations. Although the hyperpower is known for routinely operating out of the international norms and treaties, and has myriad methods to enforce its influence or control over foreign nations, it is a fact that whoever controls the Security Council can use its resolutions—and their ever-changing interpretations— as authorization for military interventions in the name of so-called collective international legality.
Still, it is incorrect to say that the United States has become the omnipotent controller without considering the other three permanent members of the Security Council: Britain, France, and China. First, aside from being the two states with a known history of imperialism and colonialism, Britain and France are NATO countries. As such, they pose no threat to U.S. authority. This leaves China. (For now, I shall briefly discuss China’s role vis-à-vis the U.S. taking control of the Security Council after the demise of the USSR, while deferring its relevance to U.S. plans in Ukraine to the upcoming parts)
China has been rising as world power since the early 1990s onward. That being said, China’s world outlook has been consistently based on cooperation and peace among nations. China is neither an imperialist nor expansionist or interventionist state, and its claim on taking back Taiwan is historical, legal, and legitimate. That being said, China’s abstention from voting on serious issues is seriously questionable. Interpretation: China seems primarily focused on building its economic and technological structures instead of antagonizing U.S. policies that could slow its pace due to its [China] growing integration in the global capitalistic system of production. Consider the following two Western viewpoints on China’s voting practices:
The Australian think tank, Lowy Institute, states, “China used its UN Security Council rotating presidency in August … China did not veto any UN Security Council resolutions between 2000 and 2006.”
Observation: but the period 2000–2006 was the post-9/11 Orwellian environment in which the United States broke all laws of the U.N. and turned the organization into its private fiefdom. Does that mean China had caved in to U.S. pressure and subscribed to its objectives? Based on its history, ideals, stated foreign policy principles, and political makeup, my answer is no. Yet, we do know that China has often been moving alongside U.S. objectives—by remaining silent on them. Examples include the U.S. 13-year blockade of and sanctions on Iraq (starting in 1990 and theoretically ending after the U.S. invasion in 2003), as well post-invasion occupation that is lasting through present by diverse ways and methods.
Wikipedia (Caveat: never take anything printed on this website seriously unless you verify content rigorously) stated the following on China, “From 1971 to 2011, China used its veto sparingly, preferring to abstain rather than veto resolutions not directly related to Chinese interests. China turned abstention into an “art form”, abstaining on 30% of Security Council Resolutions between 1971 and 1976. Since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, China has joined Russia in many double vetoes. China has not cast a lone veto since 1999.”
Observation: by abstaining, China seems playing politics and patently taking sides with Washington on critical issues. Is china conspiring, in some form, with the U.S. for selfish reasons? Are there other reasons?
No science is needed to prove that China is neither fearful of the United States nor subservient to it or uncertain about its own great place in the world. Simply, China favors dialogue over confrontation and patience over nervous impulses. Although such conduct may unnerve some who want to see China stand up to the hyper-imperialist bully, the fact is, China is no hurry to play its cards before the issue of Taiwan is resolved. Still, by its own problematic actions at the Security Council, China is not a dependable obstacle to U.S. plans. Of interest to the anti-imperialist front, however, is that China’s voting record on Iraq, Libya, and Yemen has left dire consequences on those nations.
Russia’s Intervention in Ukraine: Dialectics
Russia’s intervention in Ukraine was calculated and consequential. It was calculated based on symmetric response to U.S. long-term planning aiming at destabilizing it. The consequentiality factor is significant. Russia’s action did not precede but followed a protracted standoff with Ukraine following U.S.-organized coup in 2014. Not only did that coup topple the legitimate government of Viktor Yanukovych, but also veered Ukraine’s new rulers toward a fanatical confrontation with Russia and ethnic Russians—a sizable minority in Donbass.
Could comparing U.S. and Russian reactions to each other’s interventions shed light on the scope of their respective world policies? How does all this apply to Ukraine? First, Ukraine is not a conflict about territory, democracy, sovereignty, and all that jargon made to distract from the real issues and for the idle consumption of news. Second, to understand the war on Ukraine, we need to place Russia’s intervention in Ukraine in a historical context that —at least since the dismantlement of the USSR.
Premise
The study of reactions by political states to military interventions and wars is an empirical science. By knowing who is intervening, who is approving, and who is opposing, and by observing and cataloging their conduct vis-à-vis a conflict, we can definitely identify pretexts, motives, and objectives. For example, when Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, the reaction of the United States, key European countries, Israel, Arab Gulf states, Egypt, and Jordan were unanimously approving—and supporting with instigation, money, weapons, and logistics. The Soviet Union on the other hand, called for dialogue, negotiation, and other ways to end the conflict.
In the Iraq-Iran War, the U.S., Europe, and Israel wanted the war to continue so both would perish by it. Henry Kissinger the top priest of U.S. Zionism simplified the U.S. objective with these words, “The ultimate American interest in the war (is) that both should lose”. Consequently, Western weapons sales to both contenders skyrocketed—war is business. The Arab Gulf states, for example, financed and wanted Iraq to defeat Iran—its revolutionary model threatened their feudal family systems of government. They also looked for surgical ways to weaken Iraq thus stopping its calls for the unification of Arab states.
It turned out, when the war ended after eight years without losers and winners, that U.S. and Israel’s objective evolved to defeat Iraq that had become, in the meanwhile, a regional power. The opportunity came up when Iraq, falling in the U.S. trap (April Glaspie’s deception; also read, “Wikileaks, April Glaspie, and Saddam Hussein”) invaded Kuwait consequent to oil disputes and debts from its Gulf-U.S.-instigated war with Iran. As for Iran, it became the subject of harsh American containment and sanction regimes lasting to this very date.
Another example is the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. While the USSR, China, Arab States, and countless others only condemned but did nothing else as usual, Ronald Reagan, on the other hand, approved and sent his marines to break up the Palestinian Resistance and expel it from Lebanon, which was an Israeli primary objective.
United States: Reaction to the Russian Invasion of Afghanistan
When the USSR intervened in Afghanistan in 1979, that country became an American issue instantly. Cold war paradigms played a paramount role in the U.S. response. Not only did the U.S. (with Saudi Arabia’s money) invent so-called Islamist mujahedeen against the Russian “atheists” (operation Cyclone), but also created ad hoc regional “alliances’—similar to those operating in Ukraine today—to counter the Soviet intervention.
Russia: Reaction to U.S.’s many interventions and invasions
When Lyndon Johnson invaded the Dominican Republic (1965), when Ronald Reagan mined the Nicaraguan ports (1981-85), and when George H.W. Bush invaded Panama (1989) and moved its president to U.S. prisons, the USSR reacted by invoking the rules of international law—albeit knowing that said law never mattered to the United States. The Kremlin of Mikhail Gorbachev stated that the invasion is “A flagrant violation of the fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter and norms of relations among states”.
But did he do anything to hold the U.S. accountable? Gorbachev knew well that words are cheap, and that from an American perspective such charter and norms are ready for activation only when they serve U.S. imperialist purpose. The U.S., of course, did not give a hoot to Gorbachev’s protestation—and that is the problem with Russian leaders: they avoid principled confrontation with the futile expectation that the United States would refrain from bullying Russia. One can spot this tendency when Russian leaders kept calling U.S. and European politicians “our partners” while fully knowing that the recipients are probably smirking in secret.
Another catastrophic example is Gorbachev’s voting (alongside the United States) for the U.N. Resolution 678 to end Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait by January 15, 1991. According to my research, that was the first time in which a resolution came with a deadline. Meaning, the United States (and Gorbachev) were in a hurry to implement Bush’s plan for world control.
Not only did the Gorbachev regime approve Resolution 678, but also approved all U.S. resolutions pertaining to Iraq since the day it invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990. The statement is important. It means that Gorbachev’s role was structurally fundamental in allowing the United States to become the de facto “chief executive officer” of world affairs. At the same time, his role was also the material instrument in turning Russia into a U.S. vassal for over two decades since the dissolution of the USSR. [After becoming a former president of a superpower, Gorbachev made a living by taking commissioned speeches at various U.S. universities and think tanks]
From attentively reading Resolution 678, it is very clear that the objective was not about the withdrawal of Iraq from Kuwait. Decisively, it was about the disarming of Iraq for the sake of the Zionist entity in Palestine. In fact, the U.S. bombing of Iraq in 1991 was never meant just to end that occupation by dislodging Iraqi forces from Kuwait. It was enacted to destroy Iraq’s civilian structures and infrastructures, its army, and its nascent military industry including its nuclear capabilities.
The point: Gorbachev as a convert from communism to capitalism closed his eyes to U.S. objectives in Iraq and the world—these were unimportant to his plan since he obviously tied a deeply altered USSR to the wheel of U.S. imperialism while thinking he and his regime still mattered. With that, he doomed future Russia to protracted hardship and the world to suffer at the hands of U.S. violent imperialists and Zionists.
The Example of Libya: Zionist hyper-imperialist Barack Obama bombed Libya in 2011. [For the record, the Jerusalem Post (top publication in the Zionist state) called Obama, “An insider’s view: Eight years watching the first Jewish US president”. (Describing Obama as Jewish is irrelevant. He was a Zionist at the service of Israel via a constructed career powered by opportunism and sycophancy) Obama’s bombing of Libya is testimony to Russia’s betrayal of just causes when that suits its calculations.
Russia of Dmitry Medvedev (and Putin as his prime minister) explicitly accepted the U.S. plan by not vetoing UNSC 1970, and UNSC Resolution 1973 that declared the whole of Libya a No-Fly Zone. Once the resolution was passed, the U.S. (and NATO) transformed it at once into a colossal bombing of that country. (Debating whether Russian’s general conduct toward U.S. tactics was an expression of pragmatism, concession, collusion, or weakness goes beyond the scope of this work. I reported on Lavrov’s statement on the Libyan issue further down in this series.)
As for the United States, a fascist Hillary Clinton disguised as an “intelligent diplomat” epitomized the U.S. role for government change in Libya as follows. Referring to the brutal murder of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Obama’s Secretary of State said, “We came, we saw, he died”. Aside from theatrically debasing Mark Anthony’s famous victory exclamation with her crazed laughter, Clinton’s “WE” confirmed the basics: Odyssey Dawn was a code name, not for a romantic beginning for Libya but for Obama’s imperialist war to conquer its oil and depose its leader.
Two other events are significant for their long-term implications: U.S. invasions of Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003). Regardless of U.S. pretexts, Russia reacted to each invasion differently. In the case of Afghanistan, it sided with the United States in spite of the fact that Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban had nothing to do with the still very much suspicious attack on the United States on September 11, 2021. It is imperative to recall what Tony Blair said prior to the Anglo-American invasion. Media and public records of the British government can confirm that Blair thundered to the Taliban, “Surrender Bin Laden, or lose power”. The Taliban offered to comply if the U.S. could prove that Bin Laden was behind the attack. The U.S. never responded—it just invaded.
In the case of Iraq, Russia, together with France and Germany, vehemently opposed the planned invasion but only within the realm of the UNSC. The U.S. and Britain invaded nevertheless. Aside from protesting, however, neither Russia nor any other country took any punitive action against the top two imperialist powers. More than that, Russia of the first Putin presidency sent neither weapons nor money to Iraq and Afghanistan to help them fight the invaders. Germany and France did the same. Was that for “solidarity” with invaders or fear from U.S. retribution?
What is worse, Russia and China had even accepted the U.S.‑imposed U.N. resolution 1483 that crowned the United States and Britain as the occupying powers of Iraq. That acceptance is a moral, historical, and legal blunder that the passing of time will never erase. This how it should be interpreted politically: with the passing of that resolution, Russia and China had not only legalized the U.S. imperialist occupation of Iraq, but also lent international legitimacy to the invasion and it is false motives.
A question: why did not the United States and Britain try to declare themselves as the occupying powers of Afghanistan? The answer is prompt: look no farther than the Zionist Israeli project to re-shape and control Iraq and other Arab countries via the United States. Accordingly, Afghanistan is not relevant to this scheme.
To close, I’m not suggesting that interventions by any country are tolerable as long as “A” can do whatever “B” does or vice versa, or, as long as they do not stand in the way of each other. That would void the struggle for a just world system where natural states could enjoy independence and security. Rather, to address persistent questions on the current configuration of the world order, we must tackle first the issue of exclusive entitlement. That is, we like to know according to what rule Russia, China, or any other country should remain mute while the dictatorial, violent hyper-empire continues staking its claim to arrange the world according to its vision? If this rule turns out to be by means of fire, death, and printed money, then we may finally understand the miserable situation of the world today and find all possible means to end it.
It is no small matter, but the “indispensable nation” [Madeleine Albright’s words] seems to think it deserves this exclusivity. American biblical preachers, hyper-imperialists, multi-term politicians, think tanks, proselytes of all types, military industry, and neophyte politicians seeking promotions within the system, and, before I forget, Zionist neocon empire builders often declare that the U.S. is predestined to rule over others. Biden, a self-declared Zionist has recently re-baptized the notion of U.S. ruling over others when he declared that the U.S. must lead the new world order.
Another Subject: American ideologues of permanent wars persistently talk about what appears to be a fixed target: Ukraine must win and Russia must lose. What hides behind such frivolous theatrics? First off, why Ukraine must win and Russia must lose? Stating so because Russia intervened in Ukraine is non sequitur. The United States, Britain, France, and Israel have been punching the world with invasions for decades without anyone being able to stop them. Ineluctably, therefore, there should be fundamental reasons for wanting to see Russia lose.
To begin, U.S. tactics to frame wars in terms of winning and losing is at the very least childish and makes no sense. Further, whereas waging wars of domination are built on a hypothetical model that ends with “we win they lose”, the resulting indoctrination paradigm is invariably translated into an ideological construct whereby winning is a sign of power and losing is a sign weakness. Again, that makes no sense. One could lose not out of weakness or could win not out of strength. In endless situations, winning or losing in any field is a function of varied dynamic and static forces leading to either outcome by default.
In real context, the fabricated philosophy pivoting around the must-win scenario while discarding potential devastating reactions by a designated adversary is of paramount significance to understand the dangerous mindset of American politicians and war planners. As they prepare pretexts for a war by choice, they completely jump over the possibility that an opposite response could devastate them. How does the process work?
Houthi-affiliated Yemeni coastguard patrols the Red Sea, flying Palestinian and Yemeni flags. [Credit: AFP]
In the topsy-turvy world of corporate media reporting on U.S. foreign policy, we have been led to believe that U.S. air strikes on Yemen, Iraq and Syria are legitimate and responsible efforts to contain the expanding war over Israel’s genocide in Gaza, while the actions of the Houthi government in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Iran and its allies in Iraq and Syria are all dangerous escalations.
In fact, it is U.S. and Israeli actions that are driving the expansion of the war, while Iran and others are genuinely trying to find effective ways to counter and end Israel’s genocide in Gaza while avoiding a full-scale regional war.
We are encouraged by Egypt and Qatar’s efforts to mediate a ceasefire and the release of hostages and prisoners-of-war by both sides. But it is important to recognize who are the aggressors, who are the victims, and how regional actors are taking incremental but increasingly forceful action to respond to genocide.
A near-total Israeli communications blackout in Gaza has reduced the flow of images of the ongoing massacre on our TVs and computer screens, but the slaughter has not abated. Israel is bombing and attacking Khan Younis, the largest city in the southern Gaza Strip, as ruthlessly as it did Gaza City in the north. Israeli forces and U.S. weapons have killed an average of 240 Gazans per day for more than three months, and 70% of the dead are still women and children.
Israel has repeatedly claimed it is taking new steps to protect civilians, but that is only a public relations exercise. The Israeli government is still using 2,000 pound and even 5,000 pound “bunker-buster” bombs to dehouse the people of Gaza and herd them toward the Egyptian border, while it debates how to push the survivors over the border into exile, which it euphemistically refers to as “voluntary emigration.”
People throughout the Middle East are horrified by Israel’s slaughter and plans for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, but most of their governments will only condemn Israel verbally. The Houthi government in Yemen is different. Unable to directly send forces to fight for Gaza, they began enforcing a blockade of the Red Sea against Israeli-owned ships and other ships carrying goods to or from Israel. Since mid-November 2023, the Houthis have conducted about 30 attacks on international vessels transiting the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden but none of the attacks have caused casualties or sunk any ships.
In response, the Biden administration, without Congressional approval, has launched at least six rounds of bombing, including airstrikes on Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. The United Kingdom has contributed a few warplanes, while Australia, Canada, Holland and Bahrain also act as cheerleaders to provide the U.S. with the cover of leading an “international coalition.”
President Biden has admitted that U.S. bombing will not force Yemen to lift its blockade, but he insists that the U.S. will keep attacking it anyway. Saudi Arabia dropped 70,000 mostly American (and some British) bombs on Yemen in a 7-year war, but utterly failed to defeat the Houthi government and armed forces.
Yemenis naturally identify with the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza, and a million Yemenis took to the street to support their country’s position challenging Israel and the United States. Yemen is no Iranian puppet, but as with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran’s Iraqi and Syrian allies, Iran has trained the Yemenis to build and deploy increasingly powerful anti-ship, cruise and ballistic missiles.
The Houthis have made it clear that they will stop the attacks once Israel stops its slaughter in Gaza. It beggars belief that instead of pressing for a ceasefire in Gaza, Biden and his clueless advisers are instead choosing to deepen U.S. military involvement in a regional Middle East conflict.
The United States and Israel have now conducted airstrikes on the capitals of four neighboring countries: Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Iran also suspects U.S. and Israeli spy agencies of a role in two bomb explosions in Kerman in Iran, which killed about 90 people and wounded hundreds more at a commemoration of the fourth anniversary of the U.S. assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in January 2020.
On January 20, an Israeli bombing killed 10 people in Damascus, including 5 Iranian officials. After repeated Israeli airstrikes on Syria, Russia has now deployed warplanes to patrol the border to deter Israeli attacks, and has reoccupied two previously vacated outposts built to monitor violations of the demilitarized zone between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Iran has responded to the terrorist bombings in Kerman and Israeli assassinations of Iranian officials with missile strikes on targets in Iraq, Syria and Pakistan. Iranian Foreign Minister Amir-Abdohallian has strongly defended Iran’s claim that the strikes on Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan targeted agents of Israel’s Mossad spy agency.
Eleven Iranian ballistic missiles destroyed an Iraqi Kurdish intelligence facility and the home of a senior intelligence officer, and also killed a wealthy real estate developer and businessman, Peshraw Dizayee, who had been accused of working for the Mossad, as well as of smuggling Iraqi oil from Kurdistan to Israel via Turkey.
The targets of Iran’s missile strikes in northwest Syria were the headquarters of two separate ISIS-linked groups in Idlib province. The strikes precisely hit both buildings and demolished them, at a range of 800 miles, using Iran’s newest ballistic missiles called Kheybar Shakan or Castle Blasters, a name that equates today’s U.S. bases in the Middle East with the 12th and 13th century European crusader castles whose ruins still dot the landscape.
Iran launched its missiles, not from north-west Iran, which would have been closer to Idlib, but from Khuzestan province in south-west Iran, which is closer to Tel Aviv than to Idlib. So these missile strikes were clearly intended as a warning to Israel and the United States that Iran can conduct precise attacks on Israel and U.S. “crusader castles” in the Middle East if they continue their aggression against Palestine, Iran and their allies.
At the same time, the U.S. has escalated its tit-for-tat airstrikes against Iranian-backed Iraqi militias. The Iraqi government has consistently protested U.S. airstrikes against the militias as violations of Iraqi sovereignty. Prime Minister Sudani’s military spokesman called the latest U.S. airstrikes “acts of aggression,” and said, “This unacceptable act undermines years of cooperation… at a time when the region is already grappling with the danger of expanding conflict, the repercussions of the aggression on Gaza.”
After its fiascos in Afghanistan and Iraq killed thousands of U.S. troops, the United States has avoided large numbers of U.S. military casualties for ten years. The last time the U.S. lost more than a hundred troops killed in action in a year was in 2013, when 128 Americans were killed in Afghanistan.
Since then, the United States has relied on bombing and proxy forces to fight its wars. The only lesson U.S. leaders seem to have learned from their lost wars is to avoid putting U.S. “boots on the ground.” The U.S. dropped over 120,000 bombs and missiles on Iraq and Syria in its war on ISIS, while Iraqis, Syrians and Kurds did all the hard fighting on the ground.
In Ukraine, the U.S. and its allies found a willing proxy to fight Russia. But after two years of war, Ukrainian casualties have become unsustainable and new recruits are hard to find. The Ukrainian parliament has rejected a bill to authorize forced conscription, and no amount of U.S. weapons can persuade more Ukrainians to sacrifice their lives for a Ukrainian nationalism that treats large numbers of them, especially Russian speakers, as second class citizens.
Now, in Gaza, Yemen and Iraq, the United States has waded into what it hoped would be another “US-casualty-free” war. Instead, the U.S.-Israeli genocide in Gaza is unleashing a crisis that is spinning out of control across the region and may soon directly involve U.S. troops in combat. This will shatter the illusion of peace Americans have lived in for the last ten years of U.S. bombing and proxy wars, and bring the reality of U.S. militarism and warmaking home with a vengeance.
Biden can continue to give Israel carte-blanche to wipe out the people of Gaza, and watch as the region becomes further engulfed in flames, or he can listen to his own campaign staff, who warn that it’s a “moral and electoral imperative” to insist on a ceasefire. The choice could not be more stark.
New Zealand’s defence minister has defended a decision to send six NZ Defence Force staff to the Middle East to help “take out” Houthis fighters as they are “essentially holding the world to ransom”.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins confirmed the plan at the first Cabinet meeting for the year.
The deployment, which could run until the end of July, will support the military efforts led by the United States to protect commercial and merchant vessels.
The Houthis attacks are disrupting supply lines, and forcing ships to voyage thousands of kilometres further around Africa in protest against the Israeli war on Gaza.
‘Firmly on side of Western backers of Israel’
A security analyst also said the US-requested deployment could be interpreted as New Zealand “planting its flag firmly on the side of the Western backers of Israel”.
Speaking to RNZ Morning Report, Defence Minister Judith Collins denied it showed New Zealand being in support of Israel over the war on Gaza.
She said it was a “very difficult situation”, but not what the deployment was about.
“It’s about the ability to get our goods to market . . . we’re talking about unarmed merchant vessels moving through the Red Sea no longer able to do so without being attacked.”
Collins said New Zealand had been involved in the Middle East for a “very long time” and it needed to assist where possible to remain a good international partner and to make sure military targets were “taken out”.
Houthis had been given a number of serious warnings, Collins said, and its actions were “outrageous”.
“They are essentially holding the world to ransom.”
NZ would not allow ‘pirates’
New Zealand was part of the world community and would not stand by and allow “pirates to take over our ships or anyone’s ships”.
Collins said she was not expecting there to be any extension or expansion of the deployment which would end on July 31.
The opposition Labour Party is condemning the coalition government’s deployment of Defence Force troops to the Middle East, saying it has “shades of Iraq”.
Labour foreign affairs spokesperson David Parker made clear his party’s opposition to the deployment.
“We don’t think we should become embroiled in that conflict . . . which is part of a longer term civil war in Yemen and we think that New Zealand should stay out of this, there’s no UN resolution in favour of it . . . we don’t think we should get involved in a conflict in the Middle East.”
‘Deeply disturbing’, say Greens
The Green Party’s co-leaders have also expressed their unhappiness with the deployment, describing it as “deeply disturbing”.
In a statement, Marama Davidson and James Shaw said they were “horrified at this government’s decision to further inflame tensions in the Middle East”.
“The international community has an obligation to protect peace and human rights. Right now, what we are witnessing in the Middle East is a regional power play between different state and non-state groups. This decision is only likely to inflame tensions.”
Davidson and Shaw indicated they would call for an urgent debate on the deployment when Parliament resumes next week.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
“How dare we have a conversation about trade when there are children right now being treated without anaesthetic?”
British journalist Myriam Francois on the Houthis blockade of shipments in the Red sea amid Israel’s war on Gaza. pic.twitter.com/Yg9RV2ek4p
One word characterizes United States foreign policy – counterproductive.
Major U.S. foreign policy decisions after World War II — Vietnam War, Lebanon intrusion, Somalia incursion, Afghan/Soviet War, Afghan occupation, Iraq War, support for Shah of Iran, and Libyan Wars — have been counterproductive, not resolving situations and eventually harming the American people. The one-sided relationship the United States has with Israel is another counterproductive policy that is harmful to the American public
Persistent attention to Israel and its dubious position in the world may seem overkill, except this attention is one of the most important, mortally affecting the U.S. public. Until a complete report of fatal relations with Israel is placed on the desks of U.S. congresspersons and they act positively upon the contents, attention to the issue is incomplete and peril continues. Surveying U.S. policies that favored Israel collects a horrendous list of American fatalities, economic havoc, international terrorism, political misalignment, hatred, and aggression against fortress America.
Two questions. How have the expensive arrangements, Velcro attachments, and highly supportive measures for Israel benefitted the United States? What has Israel done for Americans, not for American politicians, but for those who vote them into office? A convenient means for obtaining the answer is to have a leading “think tank” in the United States supply the information. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which “seeks to advance a balanced and realistic understanding of American interests in the Middle East and to promote the policies that secure them” has a 2012 article on the topic, “Friends with Benefits: Why the U.S.-Israeli Alliance Is Good for America,” by Michael Eisenstadt and David Pollock, Nov 7, 2012, and is a likely source. Some of its major recommendations:
U.S.-Israeli security cooperation dates back to heights of the Cold War, when the Jewish state came to be seen in Washington as a bulwark against Soviet influence in the Middle East and a counter to Arab nationalism….Israel remains a counterweight against radical forces in the Middle East, including political Islam and violent extremism. It has prevented the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the region by thwarting Iraq and Syria’s nuclear programs.
(1) The reason the Soviet Union acquired influence in the Middle East was Washington’s refusal to sell arms to the Arab nations, while “indirectly supplying weapons to Israel via West Germany, under the terms of a 1960 secret agreement to supply Israel with $80 million worth of armaments.“ Less secret deliveries of MIM-23 Hawk anti-aircraft missiles in 1962 and M48 Patton tanks in 1965 told the Arab nations they could not collaborate with a government that armed their principal adversary and they should seek military assistance elsewhere.
(2) Arab nationalism has developed, and developed, and developed; so, how did Israel counter Arab nationalism? Did Israel stimulate Arab nationalism?
(3) What has Israel done to protect others as a “counterweight against radical forces in the Middle East, including political Islam and violent extremism?” The answer is nothing. Radical forces, political Islam, and violent extremism emerged immediately after Israel’s formation and grew, and grew, as Israel grew.
(4) Iraq and Syria sought nuclear weapons to counter Israel’s nuclear weapons developments, which the U.S. could have and should have prevented. No nukes in Israel; no nukes in Syria or Iraq. Why did the U.S., dedicated to preventing nuclear proliferation, allow Israel to obtain the atomic bomb?
Dozens of leading U.S. companies have set up technology incubators in Israel to take advantage of the country’s penchant for new ideas. In 2011, Israel was the destination of 25 percent of all U.S. exports to the region, having recently eclipsed Saudi Arabia as the top market there for American products.
(1) U.S. companies have subsidiaries worldwide and hire talent in all nations. What’s significant about Israel?
(2) “In 2011, Israel was the destination of 25 percent of all U.S. exports to the region…” Was that good? In 2022, U.S. exports to Israel were $20.0 billion and imports were $30.6 billion, adding $10.7 billion to Washington’s trade deficit, not a good economic statistic. Without Israel’s trade, the U.S. exported $83 billion in goods and services to Middle East nations and had a trade surplus of $5.3 billion, a better statistic.
U.S. companies’ substantial cooperation with Israel on information technology has been crucial to Silicon Valley’s success. At Intel’s research and development centers in Israel, engineers have designed many of the company’s most successful microprocessors, accounting for some 40 percent of the firm’s revenues last year. If you’ve made a secure financial transaction on the Internet, sent an instant message, or bought something using PayPal, you can thank Israeli researchers.
These bites of public relations win the all-time Pinocchio award. Is The Washington Institute a legitimate “think tank” or a covert lobby?
(1) “Israel has been crucial to Silicon Valley’s success.” Next, we’ll hear that Moses received the Ten Commandments on Mt. Whitney.
(2) “At Intel’s research and development centers in Israel, engineers have designed many of the company’s most successful microprocessors, accounting for some 40 percent of the firm’s revenues last year.” Intel has 131,000 employees in 65 countries — 11,000 in Israel, 12,000 in China, and approximately 7,500 employees at its 360-acre Leixlip campus in Ireland. The company develops the processors, not the country or specific engineers; it can develop the same processors anywhere in the world and has capably developed its major microprocessors for 45 years in the good old United States of America.
(3) “If you’ve made a secure financial transaction on the Internet, sent an instant message, or bought something using PayPal, you can thank Israeli researchers.” Another Pinocchio award. Let’s be more accurate: “If you’ve been scammed in a financial transaction, had your messages hacked, or had someone purchase an item with your PayPal account, thank Israeli researchers.”
In its one-sided presentation, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy does not show the U.S.-Israeli alliance is good for America. The Institute has not considered the other side, the harm that Israel has visited upon its most essential partner. Reality shows the U.S. government and its people have dealt with Israel in a suicidal manner and in a zero-sum game, where the U.S. is the “zero,” or actually minus, and Israel receives the sum of all the benefits.
Recognition of Israel
From its inception, Israel betrayed the United States and the U.S. betrayed its commitment to a just and peaceful post-WWII world. President Harry S. Truman’s recognition of the new state, only 11 minutes after its declaration, did not consider its composition, signified a pardon of the excesses committed by Irgun and Haganah militias against civilian populations, and certified the exclusion of a Palestinian voice in the new government. Truman never asked who represented the 400,000 indigenous Palestinians in the declared Israeli state that was almost equal in population to the 600,000 Jews, most of whom were recent immigrants and not decidedly permanent.
Suez Canal War
Several years later Israel again betrayed its principal benefactor. While President Eisenhower attempted to broker a peace agreement between Egypt and France and Great Britain that would resolve the crisis emerging from Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal, Israel held secret consultations with the British and French. Considering Nasser a threat to its security, desirous of incorporating the Sinai into its small nation, and with a plan to extend Israel to the Litani River in Lebanon, Israel devised a strategy with the two European powers that permitted its forces to invade Egypt and advance to within 10 miles of the Suez Canal. Pretending to protect the vital artery, Britain and France parachuted troops close to the canal. An enraged Eisenhower threatened all three nations with economic sanctions, which succeeded in having all three militaries withdraw their forces and relinquish control of the canal to Egypt.
Six-Day War
The six-day war brought the first American blood in the U.S. commitment to Israel. On June 8, 1967, Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats attacked the USS Liberty, an intelligence-gathering vessel patrolling in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, 17 nautical miles off the northern Sinai coast. The crew suffered thirty-four (34) killed and one hundred seventy-three (173) wounded. A declassified Top Secret report details the CIA version of the attack and exonerates Israel by claiming mistaken identity. This has not satisfied USS Liberty survivors, who felt Israeli pilots had many opportunities for proper identification and performed the attacks to prevent the ship from obtaining important intelligence information.
1973 Yom Kippur War
Next came the 1973 Yom Kippur War and an economic catastrophe for the American people. The U.S. maintained it needed Israel to offset Soviet influence in the Arab world. The combined Egyptian and Syrian attempt to retake lands lost in the 1967 war prompted the Nixon administration to use taxpayer money and supply massive shipments of weapons to the beleaguered Israel state. An excuse for providing the armaments shipments ─ Israel might use the Samson option and nuke its adversaries ─ is regarded as a manipulation to pacify opponents of the arms deliveries. The controversy is reported in Wikipedia.
Dayan raised the nuclear topic in a cabinet meeting, warning that the country was approaching a point of “last resort.” That night, Meir authorized the assembly of thirteen 20-kiloton-of-TNT(84 TJ) tactical nuclear weapons for Jericho missiles at Sdot Micha Airbase and F-4 Phantom II aircraft at Tel Nof Airbase. They would be used if absolutely necessary to prevent total defeat, but the preparation was done in an easily detectable way, likely as a signal to the United States. Kissinger learned of the nuclear alert on the morning of 9 October. That day, President Nixon ordered the commencement of Operation Nickel Grass, an American airlift to replace all of Israel’s material losses.
The U.S. contribution in enabling Israel to achieve a decisive victory resulted in an oil embargo that drove up oil prices, set Americans into a frantic rampage in trying to keep their cars on the road, a stagnant economy, and huge inflation, which the Federal Reserve stopped by raising interest rates to record highs and led to the 1982 recession.
Lebanon War
Despite a truce with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and wanting to rid Lebanon of the PLO and Syrian dominance in Lebanon affairs, Israel used a failed assassination of Shlomo Argov, Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, as an excuse to invade Lebanon on June 6, 1982. Where Israel went, U.S. diplomacy was sure to follow, and the U.S. joined a multinational peacekeeping force.
U.S. presence in Lebanon had detractors. On April 18, 1983, a car bomb destroyed the U.S. embassy in West Beirut, killing dozens of American foreign service workers and Lebanese civilians. On October 23, 1983, after U.S. gunships in the Mediterranean shelled Syrian-backed Druze militias in support of the Christian government, a truck crashed through the front gates of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut and exploded. Beirut barracks were destroyed and 241 marines and sailors were killed in the explosion. Soon after, President Reagan withdrew all U.S. forces from Lebanon.
International Terrorism
For several decades, al-Qaeda, the most prominent international terrorist organization, posed the most serious threat to America’s peace and stability. On August 7, 1998, al-Qaeda associates bombed the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in Africa. Twelve Americans were among the two hundred and twenty-four people who died in the terrorist actions. Three years later, the September 11 attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. caused 2,750 deaths in New York and 184 at the Pentagon. Forty more Americans died when one of the hijacked planes crashed into the ground in Pennsylvania. In addition, 400 police officers and firefighters perished in attempts to rescue people and extinguish the fires at the New York Trade Center.
Where did it all start? Why, and how did master terrorist Osama bin Laden develop his plans? There is no one factor, but, in several documents, bin Landen mentions Zionist control of Middle East lands and its oppression of an Arab population as significant factors. America’s support for Israel was one of bin Laden‘s principal arguments with the United States. The al-Qaeda leader revealed his attitude in the last sentences of a “Letter to America.”
Justice is the strongest army, and security is the best way of life, but it slipped out of your grasp the day you made the Jews victorious in occupying our land and killing our brothers in Palestine. The path to security is for you to lift your oppression from us.
During the 1990s, two other documents,“Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places” and the “Declaration of the World Islamic Front,” retrieved from Osama bin Laden, jihad, and the sources of international terrorism, J. M. B. Porter, Indiana International & Comparative Law Review, provide additional information on bin-Laden’s attachment of his terrorist responses to Zionist activities.
[T]he people of Islam have suffered from aggression, iniquity, and injustice imposed on them by the Zionist/Crusader alliance … Their blood was spilled in Palestine and Iraq. The horrifying pictures of the massacre of Qana, in Lebanon, are still fresh in our memory.
So now they come to annihilate … this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors. … if the Americans’ aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews’ petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there. The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel’s survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.
Afghanistan
The hunt for Osama bin Laden and efforts to annihilate the al-Qaeda organization led to the invasion of Afghanistan and a twenty-year clash between the U.S. and the Taliban. Result: 2,402 United States military deaths, 20,713 American service members wounded, and Taliban regaining control.
Iraq
It’s difficult and punishing to agree with Osama bin Laden, but he may be correct or have a perspective that needs more examination. Did Bush order the invasion of Iraq to destroy Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, which any child could ascertain he could not possibly have, or did the Neocons, Israel’s voice in the administration, convince him to use Americans, their resources, and their money to rid the Middle East of Israel’s most formidable enemy? Was George W. Bush’s uncalled-for war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq another example of sacrificing U.S. lives to advance Israel’s interests? Other international terrorist operations emerged during the Iraq war and brought U.S. military personnel into more battles. Finally, in 2019, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the best-equipped and largest of all the terrorist factions, which caused havoc in Syria and Iraq, was defeated, and international terrorism moved out of the Middle East and into parts of Africa.
Iran
It is taken for granted that Iran and the United States are natural enemies, except the hostility may be manufactured and the factory might be in Tel Aviv. Iran has a government and internal problems that disturb the U.S., but so do many other nations, especially Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. maintains relations with these nations. Confrontations have occurred and are escalating and that demands toning down rather than ratcheting up, and more diplomatic confrontations to prevent the physical confrontations. Sanctions that harm Iran’s economy and people, assistance to Israel in assassinating Iranian scientists, and use of the powerful computer worm, Stuxnet, to cause mayhem in Iran’s nuclear program are counterproductive provocations. The U.S. has no specific problem with Iran that cannot be ameliorated. Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians and incursions into the Haram al-Sharif are problems that Iran has with Israel, and they cannot be ameliorated until the oppression stops. Cunningly, Israel has tied its problems with the Islamic State to U.S. problems with Iran and uses the U.S. to challenge Iran.
Other
· In defiance of U.S. restrictions and the U.S. supplying Israel with advanced military equipment, Israeli companies sold weapons to China without a permit.
· The U.S. gives Israel the sum of $3.1 B every year to purchase advanced weapons, from which Israel became a major exporter of military equipment and has been able to compete effectively with its patron.
· Israeli governments have scoffed at all U.S. entreaties to halt settlement expansion, even insulting then Vice-President Joe Biden by authorizing settlement expansion one day before Biden arrived for talks.
· Two Navy SEALs are missing and assumed dead after a maritime operation to intercept weapons from Iran heading to Houthi fighters. This episode is a result of the U.S. participating in Israel’s war against Gaza.
· The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has been attacking air bases housing U.S. and Iraqi troops in western Iraq “as a part of a broad resistance to the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq, as well as a response to Israel’s operations in Gaza.”
Toward the Abyss
The verdict is clear; the United States derives no benefit from its close relationship with Israel. Maybe, during the confusing Cold War, desk strategists determined the Soviets had an influence with Middle Eastern nations and thought it wise to have a place where the Pentagon would be welcome. Soviet influence disappeared after the 1979 Camp David Accords; Egypt and Israel signed a peace agreement and Soviet diplomats and military vanished from the desert sands.
From September 11, 2001, to October 7, 2023, the U.S. continually suffered fatalities, economic havoc, international terrorism, political misalignment, hatred, and aggression against Fortress America. Why did U.S. administrations pursue a “special relationship” with Israel and find themselves victims of the “war on terror” and involved in numerous wars? The current U.S. administration, which did not use its clout to prevent the October 7, 2023 attack in Israel, has permitted Israel’s self-inflicted problems to bring the U.S. people into supporting the genocide of the Palestinian people, promoting the U.S. as the leading killer of indigenous peoples.
It took a long time to turn the murmurs of genocide in Palestine into a forceful expression that others would accept and fearlessly repeat. Murmurs of sabotage and treason by elected government officials are being heard, but they are legal terms for crimes, and, legally, U.S. legislators’ activities may not be considered in those categories. Treachery is a better word, gaining federal office by treacherous means — pandering to those that represent the interests of a foreign power to obtain campaign funds and press coverage — and using that office to satisfy the wants of the foreign power, despite the damage done to American constituencies. Past and present U.S. executives and legislators are guilty of treachery and that word should be shouted in the halls of Congress. Sound the alarm, get them out before it is too late, and elect into office those who represent the American people and not a foreign government. MAGA – MAKE AMERICA GOOD AGAIN.
Aiding the genocide has put the U.S. in severe moral decline; escalating internal divisions are leading to social and political decline; and an economy that can no longer compete in the international markets, together with increasing resistance to use of the dollar, is leading to economic decline. The signs of civil strife have yet to appear and when they do they will push the U.S. off the edge of the cliff and into the abyss.
Air strikes and diplomatic sparring between Iran and Pakistan have raised difficult questions for China and its influence in the region amid growing fears the upheaval sweeping across the Middle East could spread.
Since the tit-for-tat strikes on January 16 and 18 against militant and separatist groups, Islamabad and Tehran have signaled they want to de-escalate the situation and that their foreign ministers will hold talks in Pakistan on January 29.
But the attacks have exposed the fine line between peace and conflict in the region and put the spotlight on China, a close partner of both countries, to see if it can use its sway to ramp down tensions and avoid a conflict that would jeopardize Beijing’s economic and geopolitical interests in the region.
“For China, the stakes are high and they really can’t afford for things to get any worse between Iran and Pakistan,” Abdul Basit, an associate research fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, told RFE/RL.
China has tens of billions of dollars of investments in Iran and Pakistan and both countries are high-level partners that benefit from Chinese political and economic support.
Following the missile-strike exchange, China’s Foreign Ministry called for calm and said it would “play a constructive role in cooling down the situation,” without giving details.
Beijing is now expected to step up its engagement to head off another crisis in the region, in what analysts say is yet another test for China’s influence after recently hitting its limit with the war in Gaza, shipping attacks in the Red Sea by Iranian-backed Huthi militants, and the growing instability across the Middle East these events have caused.
“We’re yet to see anything really concrete where China has stepped in to solve an international crisis,” Sari Arho Havren, an associate fellow at London’s Royal United Services Institute, told RFE/RL. “[But] China has a reputational image at stake where it’s presenting itself as the alternative to the United States, even though assumptions about how powerful it really is in the Middle East are now being scrutinized.”
What’s Going On Between Iran And Pakistan?
The Iranian strikes in Pakistan were part of a series of similar attacks launched by Iran that also hit targets in Iraq and Syria.
In Pakistan, Tehran said it was targeting the Sunni separatist group Jaish al-Adl with drones and missiles in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan Province. Jaish al-Adl operates mostly in Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan Province but is also suspected to be in neighboring Pakistan. The group claimed responsibility for a December 15 attack on a police station in southeastern Iran that killed 11 officers.
In response, Islamabad said its military conducted air strikes in Sistan-Baluchistan targeting the Baloch Liberation Front and the Baloch Liberation Army, two separatist groups believed to be hiding in Iran.
The exchange of strikes was followed by Pakistan recalling its ambassador from Iran and blocking Tehran’s ambassador to Islamabad from returning to his post.
On January 21, the Counterterrorism Department in Pakistan’s southwestern Sindh Province announced it had arrested a suspect in a 2019 assassination attempt on a top Pakistani cleric who is a member of the Zainebiyoun Brigade, a militant group allegedly backed by Iran.
But since the strikes on each other’s territory, Iran and Pakistan have cooled their rhetoric and signaled that they intend to de-escalate, echoing sentiment through official statements that the neighbors are “brotherly countries” that should pursue dialogue and cooperation.
People gather near rubble in the aftermath of Pakistan’s military strike on an Iranian village in Sistan-Baluchistan Province on January 18.
Basit says this stems largely from the fact that the countries see themselves spread too thin in dealing with a host of pressing foreign and domestic issues.
Tehran has grappled with a series of attacks across the country, including a January 3 twin bombing that killed more than 90 people, and is engaged across the region directly or through groups that it backed such as Yemen’s Huthis and Lebanon’s Hizballah.
The tit-for-tat attacks, meanwhile, come as Pakistan is embroiled in an economic crisis and prepares to hold high-stakes elections on February 8, the first since former Prime Minister Imran Khan was removed in a vote of no confidence in April 2021, setting off years of escalating political turmoil.
“Between the economy, elections, and always-present tensions with India that could grow, Pakistan simply can’t afford another front,” Basit said.
Islamabad and Tehran are now pushing to cool down the situation, though Basit adds that the situation remains tense. “There is peace and calm now, but the animosity is ongoing,” he said.
How Much Leverage Does China Have?
Following a week of tensions, China has leverage to push for a diplomatic settlement to the dispute, although experts say Beijing may be reluctant to intervene too publicly.
“China looks to be quite measured here in its response and that raises some questions about where China stands in using its influence,” Basit said. “China knows it can influence the situation, but Beijing also usually shies away from situations like this because they worry that if they try and fail, then the West will look at it differently.”
Beijing raised expectations in March 2023 it would play a larger political role in the Middle East when it brokered a historic deal between regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Wang Yi holds up a March 2023 deal in Beijing with Iranian Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Shamkhani (right) and Saudi State Minister Musaad bin Muhammad al-Aiban (left).
Michael Kugelman, the director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute, says China’s willingness to be a mediator shouldn’t be underplayed. “It looks like the Pakistanis and the Iranians had enough in their relationship to ease tensions themselves,” he told RFE/RL. “But China was willing to do the Iran-Saudi deal, which is a more fraught relationship to get involved in. So, they might be relieved now, but that doesn’t mean they won’t step up if needed.”
China also holds other cards if it needs to calm the situation between Iran and Pakistan.
As China’s “iron brother,” Islamabad has a close partnership with Beijing, with cooperation ranging from economic investment to defense. Pakistan is the largest buyer of Chinese weapons and is also home to the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship series of infrastructure projects within China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
CPEC is part of Beijing’s efforts to connect itself to the Arabian Sea and build stronger trade networks with the Middle East.
A centerpiece of the venture is developing the port of Gwadar in Balochistan, which would strengthen shipping lanes to the region, particularly for energy shipments from Iran.
Arho Havren says that given both Iran and Pakistan’s economic dependence on China, Beijing will do all it can, should tensions rise, but will likely do so behind the scenes. “China [is unlikely] to take a stronger public stake in the conflict, but will instead use its back-channels,” Arho Havren said.
What Comes Next?
While the situation between Iran and Pakistan is moving towards de-escalation, the recent tensions highlight the often tenuous footing of regional rivalries that China’s ambitions to lead the Global South rest upon.
Both Pakistan and Iran are members of the Beijing-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which also includes India, Russia, and Central Asia (minus Turkmenistan). The SCO has been an important part of Beijing’s bid for leadership across parts of Asia and the Middle East while looking to bring together countries to work together on economic and security issues.
China has invested in growing the bloc and is in discussion to add more countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Belarus, but further conflict between its members could derail those moves and damage the SCO’s credibility.
Arho Havren says Beijing will still have to grapple with the lack of trust between Islamabad and Tehran and is facing similar issues elsewhere in the Middle East as it walks a tightrope between simultaneously raising its international influence and limiting any diplomatic exposure that could hurt its reputation.
“Cooperation may be easy, but the relations between the countries in the region are complex, and China’s journey [in the Middle East] is still in its beginning,” she said.
In response to Israel’s assault on the people of Gaza in early October, Yemen’s Houthi movement, Ansar Allah, began mounting attacks on commercial ships in and around the Red Sea. The Houthis said the attacks were aimed at Israeli-connected or Israel-bound ships and they would continue until there is a ceasefire in Gaza. Meanwhile, the pressure on this vital trade route is impacting the global…
You have to hand it to the U.S. and its henchmen for brazenness. In order to protect their client state Israel and its genocide in Gaza, the U.S., together with the UK, have in one week launched air and sea attacks on the Houthis in Yemen five times, referring to it as “self-defense” in their Orwellian lingo. The ostensible reason being Yemen’s refusal to allow ships bound for Israel, which is committing genocide in Gaza, to enter the Red Sea, while permitting other ships to pass freely.
To any impartial observer, the Houthis should be lauded. Yet, while the International Court of Justice considers the South African charge of genocide against Israel that is supported by overwhelming evidence, the U.S. and its allies have instigated a wider war throughout the Middle East while claiming they do not want such a war. These settler colonial states want genocide and a much wider war because they have been set back on their heels by those they have mocked, provoked, and attacked – notably the Palestinians, Syrians, and Russians, among others.
While the criminalization of international law does not bode well for the ICJ’s upcoming ruling or its ability to stop Israeli’s genocide in Gaza, Michel Chossudovsky, of Global Research, as is his wont, has offered a superb analysis and suggestion for those who oppose such crimes: that Principle IV of the Nuremberg Charter – “The fact that a person [e.g. Israeli, U.S. soldiers, pilots] acted pursuant to order of his [her] Government or of a superior does not relieve him [her] from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.” – should be used to supplement the South African charges and appeal directly to the moral consciences of those asked to carry out acts of genocide. He writes:
Let us call upon Israeli and American soldiers and pilots “to abandon the battlefield”, as an act of refusal to participate in a criminal undertaking against the People of Gaza.
South Africa’s legal procedure at the ICJ should be endorsed Worldwide. While itcannot be relied upon to put a rapid end to the genocide, it provides support and legitimacy to the “Disobey Unlawful Orders, Abandon the Battlefield” campaign under Nuremberg Charter Principle IV.
While such an approach will not stop the continuing slaughter, it would remind the world that each person who participates in and supports it bears a heavy burden of guilt for their actions; that they are morally and legally culpable. This appeal to the human heart and conscience, no matter what its practical effect, will at least add to the condemnation of a genocide happening in real time and full view of the world, even though no one will ever be prosecuted for such crimes since any real just use of international law has long disappeared. Yet there is a edifying history of such conscientious objection to immoral war making, and though each person makes the decision in solitary witness, individual choices can inspire others and the solitary become solidary, as Albert Camus reminded us at the end of his short story, “The Artist at Work.”
With each passing day, it becomes more and more evident that Israel/U.S.A. and their allies do want a wider war. Iran is their special focus, with Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen targets on the way. Anyone who supports the genocide in Gaza, explicitly or through silence, bears responsibility for the conflagration to come. There are no excuses.
And the facts show that it is axiomatic that waging war has been the modus operandi of the U.S./Israeli alliance for a long time. Just as in early 2003 when the Bush administration said they were looking for a peaceful solution to their fake charges against Sadam Hussein with his alleged “weapons of mass destruction,” the Biden administration is lying, as the Bush administration lied about September 11, 2001 to launch its ongoing war on terror, starting in Afghanistan. Without an expanded war, President Biden – aka the Democrats, since he will most probably not be the candidate – and his psychopathic partner Benjamin Netanyahu, will not survive. It is bi-partisan war-mongering, of course, internationally and intramurally, since both U.S. political parties are controlled by the Israel Lobby and billionaire class that owns Congress and the “defense” industry that thrives on never-ending war to such an extent that even the notable independent candidate for the presidency, Robert Kennedy, Jr., who is running as an anti-war candidate, fully supports Israel which is tantamount to supporting Biden’s expanding war policy.
Biden and Netanyahu, who are always claiming after the fact that they were surprised by events or were fed bad advice by their underlings, are dumb scorpions. They are stupid but deadly. And many people in the West, while perhaps decent people in their personal lives, are living in a fantasy world of “sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity,” in MLK, Jr.’s words, as the growing threat of a world war increases and insouciance reigns.
Neither the Israeli nor American government can allow themselves to be humiliated, U.S./NATO by the Russians in Ukraine and the Israelis by the Palestinians. Like cornered criminals with lethal weapons, they will kill as many as they can on their way down, taking their revenge on the weakest first.
Their “mistakes” are always well intentioned. They stumble into wars through faulty intelligence. They drop the ball because of bureaucratic mix-ups. They miscalculate the perfidy of the moneyed elites whom allegedly they oppose while pocketing their cash and ushering them into the national coffers out of necessity since they are too big to fail. They never see the storm coming, even as they create it. Their incompetence or the perfidy of their enemies is the retort to all those “nut cases” who conjure up conspiracy theories or plain facts to explain their actions or lack thereof. They are innocent. Always innocent. And they can’t understand why those they have long abused reach a point when they will no longer impetrate for mercy but will fight fiercely for their freedom.
All signs point to a major war on the horizon. Both the U.S.A. and Israel have been shown to be rogue states with no desire to negotiate a peaceful world. Believing in high-tech weapons and massive firepower, neither has learned the hard lesson that anti-colonial wars have historically been won by those with far less weapons but with a passionate desire to throw off the chains of their oppressors. Vietnam is the text-book case, and there are many others. Failure to learn is the name of their game.
The Zionist project for a Greater Israel is doomed to fail, but as it does, desperate men like Biden and Netanyahu are intent on launching desperate acts of war. Exactly when and how this expanded war will blaze across the headlines is the question. It has started, but I think it prudent to expect a black swan event sometime this year when all hell will break loose. The genocide in Gaza is the first step, and the U.S./Israel, “not wanting” a wider war, have already started one.
(For an excellent history lesson on the Zionist oppression of Palestinians and the current genocide, listen to Max Blumenthal’s and Miko Peled’s impassioned talk – “Where is the War in Gaza Going? – delivered from the heart of darkness, Washington D.C. Two Jewish men who know the difference between Zionism and Judaism and whose consciences are aflame with justice for the oppressed Palestinians.)
Military actions by various actors across the Middle East are compounding fears that Israel’s assault on Gaza is escalating into a full-blown regional war. In recent days, the United States has carried out strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen who have resumed their attacks on container ships in the Red Sea; Iran has struck targets in northern Iraq, Syria and Pakistan; while Hezbollah and Israel…
Over three months into Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, there is little hope the carnage will stop anytime soon—and with each passing day, the danger of Israel’s war on Gaza spiraling into a larger regional conflict increases. The devastation in Gaza is unlike anything seen in the 21st century, but Israel’s military strikes—like last week’s assassination of Saleh al-Arouri, a top leader of Hamas, in Lebanon—have not been limited to Palestine alone. At the same time, armed resistance groups in Iraq and Syria have launched hundreds of attacks on US bases, confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah has created a simmering northern front along the Lebanese border, and Yemen’s blockade of the Red Sea has created an international crisis for shipping and trade. Should any of these fronts open into a new facet of this war, it could lead to the unraveling of the entire region, with a very real possibility of a showdown between Israel and the US against Iran. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with former war correspondent Chris Hedges on the slippery slope to a regional war.
Studio Production: David Hebden Post-Production: Adam Coley
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Welcome everyone to The Real News Network. My name is Maximillian Alvarez. I’m the editor-in-chief here at The Real News, and it’s so great to have you all with us. We are recording this on Monday, January 8th, and it has been exactly three months since the October 7th Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel, designated as Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, culminated in the brutal killing of over 1100 people, including nearly 700 Israeli civilians, hundreds of security forces and dozens of foreigners. Hamas forces also captured around 250 hostages from Israel during the attack.
Since then, over the past three months, Israel’s scorched-earth assault on the Gaza Strip has wreaked a kind of devastation unseen in the 21st century. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, nearly 23,000 Palestinians have now been killed in Gaza since October 7th, the majority of whom are women and children, with countless others still buried under the rubble.
As of December, 1.9 million people, 85 percent of Gaza’s population had been displaced. That number is now even higher. This is to say nothing of the violence, death, devastation, and displacement that has resulted over 75 years of Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestine. Under the manifestly false guise of eradicating Hamas, Israeli forces are carrying out Israel’s long-sought-after goal of eradicating Palestinians from Gaza itself, obliterating civilian lives, homes, and neighborhoods with genocidal abandon. Bombing hospitals, schools, archeological and cultural sites, refugee camps, and the infrastructure of daily life; roads, bridges, waterways, everything. Gaza is being reduced to a moonscape. A full-scale ethnic cleansing is happening before our eyes and the United States, and President Joe Biden’s administration, are undeniably guilty of being full-throated accomplices, allies, and enablers of this carnage. Even though Biden himself, his cabinet and the various administrators of the United States’ global military regime, have tried to paint themselves as mere concerned observers on the sidelines. But make no mistake, as we speak, over on Capitol Hill, tensions are running high and fears are mounting that Israel’s war on Gaza could spiral into a regional war in which the US will be directly implicated.
As Jason Burke writes this week in The Guardian, “Israeli defense officials and former senior intelligence officers have said they expect fighting in Gaza to continue for at least a year, raising the prospect of thousands more civilian casualties, a deepening humanitarian crisis, and a continuing grave threat to regional stability.”
Even at The New York Times, whose reporting on this issue has been, let’s say, at times suspect, the concern is palpable. In a report published last week, Eric Schmitt, Julian E. Barnes, Helene Cooper and David E. Sanger write:
“American, Israeli and Lebanese officials insist that few parties want Israel’s war in Gaza to become a wider conflict that engulfs the Middle East. But the assassination of Saleh al-Arouri, a top leader of Hamas in Lebanon on Tuesday, and the deaths of scores of people in mysterious twin explosions in Iran on Wednesday, threatened to bring the Middle East and the United States closer to the brink of a regional war, which the Biden administration has tried to stave off since Hamas’s deadly attacks against Israel on October 7th. Just hours after the bombs went off in Iran, the United States and 12 of its allies issued a written warning to another militia group in the region, the Houthis of Yemen, who have been mounting near-daily missile, drone and seaborne attacks on commercial vessels. So far, the United States has held back from retaliating against Houthi bases in Yemen, in large part because it does not want to undermine a fragile truce in Yemen’s civil war. Israeli officials would not comment on whether their forces had targeted Mr. al-Arouri, but Lebanese and American officials ascribed the attack to Israel.”
So what are the chances of Israel’s war on Gaza spiraling into a larger regional war? And what position will that put the United States in? What would such a war look like and what are the global implications here? What are the guardrails, for lack of a better word, currently keeping that reality at bay? And how close are those guardrails from breaking down right now? To talk about all of this, I’m honored to be joined today by my Real News colleague and host of The Chris Hedges Report, the one and only Chris Hedges. Chris, thanks so much for joining me today, man.
Well, I mean, first let me just say for the record, since we don’t often get to do this on The Real News where you and I get to chat to each other, I am just immensely proud and grateful of the incredible work that you’ve been doing on The Chris Hedges Report. And I’m grateful to the whole team in the back room, Kayla, the studio team, David, Cameron, Adam, everyone who’s made this show a reality. It’s really, really important, powerful, and we really appreciate the work you’re doing here, man. And I know that you’ve been running yourself ragged covering this, not just since October 7th, but for most of your adult life.
And so I often find myself wondering what you think about these big issues that we’re trying to cover here at The Real News every week. And this is one that I really wanted to not just have us talk about by the coffee machine in between your recordings, I wanted us to sit down and talk for our audience about how likely a regional war is here. I mean, I don’t want us to try to predict the future. We can’t do that, things may change by the time this video gets released, but I wanted to just start by sort of getting your general thoughts on where we are right now. How concerned should regular people be that this war on Gaza, which is horrific in and of itself, that it is enough to want to stop this war on Gaza and it shouldn’t take a larger regional war for people to finally be concerned about what’s happening over there. But given where we are right now, I wanted to just ask you from your vantage point, how close are we to this war in Gaza spiraling into a larger regional conflict?
Chris Hedges:
At this particular moment, I don’t think we’re that close. And that’s because Iran, in particular, but also Hezbollah, do not want a conflict with Israel. They’re not logistically prepared, in particular Hezbollah. One of the reasons Israel has bombed more than once the airports in Damascus and Aleppo is because that’s the supply route to Hezbollah. Hezbollah, the Shiite militia in Lebanon, is funded and backed by Iran.
But all that said, the longer the conflict goes on in Gaza, the more things can spiral out of control. If you go back and read Barbara Tuchman, for instance, most of the people, with maybe the exception of Kaiser Wilhelm, did not want World War I. But events, unfortunately, once you open that Pandora’s box of war, have the ability to drive you rather than you driving it. So the longer it goes on, the more we flirt with that possibility. I think striking the Houthis is probably… if they continue attacks on shipping, I think we will see US strikes on Houthi bases in Yemen. This is what was done when there was all that problem with pirating, Somali pirates, if you remember, they started striking the bases.
But it could happen, and if it does, it will be absolutely catastrophic. Because a war with Iran, throughout the region, will not be interpreted as simply a war with Iran, it’ll be interpreted as a war against Shiism and 60% of Iraq is Shia, Bahrain, 3 million Shias in Saudi Arabia. So it will be interpreted by Shia, the Shiites, as a religious war and will immediately extend beyond the borders of Iran itself.
The big question in Gaza, we know what the Israeli goal is, whether they can achieve it or not, is an unknown. They want to push the 2.2, 2.3 million Palestinians out. They want them ethnically cleansed. That’s why they’re destroying the infrastructure. That’s why they’re engineering a humanitarian crisis. 500,000 Gazans, Palestinians in Gaza, according to the UN, are literally starving. We are already seeing huge rates of intestinal diseases, especially among children. Pretty soon you’re going to see cholera. And many people are living in… it’s winter, so it’s cold, it’s rainy. So really, the goal of Israel is to offer the Palestinians a choice between death by bombs, bullets, infectious diseases or exposure, or leaving Gaza.
Now, the problem that Israel has run into, although Anthony Blinken tried to run interference, is that none of the countries, especially Egypt which borders Gaza to the south, is willing to accept the Palestinians. And Blinken’s first trip throughout the Middle East, he was roundly rebuffed by King Abdullah in Jordan and everywhere else, because he apparently was carrying a kind of quota list, 1.1 million Palestinians in Egypt, 700,000 in Iraq, this kind of stuff, which was just rejected throughout the Arab world. And now we know, and this has been public, by the Netanyahu government, they are reaching out to countries in Africa and South America to take the Palestinians and offering them, reportedly, financial inducements to do so.
Can that be achieved? I think we don’t know. At some point, despite the very, I would say, largely successful resistance put up by Hamas and other resistance groups, there’re actually 12 in Gaza, they’re going to run out of ammunition. I mean, they don’t have the logistical supply chain to continue this forever. And so that’s the big conundrum. I think that we will continue to see both Hezbollah and Iran act with considerable restraint. Of course, we hear about the Houthis as being Iranian-backed. That’s true up to a point. But I don’t think the Iranians are in any way directing the attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, which I’ve crossed in a dhow. It’s very big, it’s about the size of California. We’re talking about a very large water body.
But yes, as with any of these conflicts, there are just so many ways it can spiral out of control so quickly despite whatever the intentions are within the region. But I think what you’re seeing with Israeli strikes against Hamas leaders, Hezbollah commanders, drone strikes, these targeted assassinations, Netanyahu and his government is counting on that restraint to prevent a wider conflict. I read The New York Times this morning, it was kind of a remarkable front page story about all of the provocations that were being carried out by Iran. In fact, it’s the complete opposite, the provocations are carried out by Israel. And the nation that has exercised, up until this point, considerable restraint is Iran.
Maximillian Alvarez:
I’m going to ask a question that’s going to sound very boilerplate and dumb, but it’s one that I know is on a lot of people’s minds, especially people who have been so underserved by corporate media for many years and not given the context to understand what we’re actually seeing right now.
But I think for your average person, when you see, oh, Israel targeted a suburb in Lebanon and assassinate someone, doesn’t that start a war? How the hell does that not spiral over into something? And so you’re right, it’s bonkers to read places like The New York Times, who I cited in the introduction here, and have them talking about the provocations from Iran. I’m like, Israel’s assassinating people in their own countries. How is that not a provocation? And so, I guess, the very obvious question for people who are trying to understand this is, there’s been a lot of talk about the rest of the Arab world and why aren’t people coming to Palestinians’ aid or why aren’t these other countries willing to accept all of these displaced Palestinians from Gaza and beyond? And so that’s my question, is just from a basic general audience standpoint, where is that restraint coming from? What is keeping these other countries from getting more involved, even as Israel flagrantly violates international law, including in their own countries?
Chris Hedges:
Well, in the case of Iran and Hezbollah, it’s the fact that they don’t want to go into an open conflict with Israel because that will also probably, in the case of Iran, include a direct conflict with the United States. Netanyahu has long wanted to attack Iran, in particular the nuclear sites in Iran, and he has periodically made pushes to get the United States involved. That has been fiercely resisted by the Pentagon. Iran is not Lebanon. It’s a large country, 60 million people. It virtually controls Iraq, courtesy of our disastrous invasion and occupation. So it’s not an easy entity to take on. It has very sophisticated, apparently, very sophisticated aerial defense systems, and that’s why Israel is unable to attack Iran by itself. It would just bring down too many warplanes. So the push by Netanyahu is to get the United States to take out the aerial defense systems and then allow Israeli jets to bomb in particular nuclear sites. But if they bomb those sites, we’re talking about thousands and thousands of deaths, Iranian deaths.
In terms of the other Arab countries, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, there’s a real hostility towards Hamas because Hamas comes out of the Muslim Brotherhood. And Sisi, of course, overthrew a Muslim Brotherhood government and has instituted very harsh measures, repression, against the Muslim Brotherhood, jailing thousands of them, carrying out assassinations itself, torture, along with the dissidents and all sorts. So in fact, the Egyptian government works fairly closely, especially Egyptian intelligence, with Israeli intelligence, and they don’t want Hamas, number one, to cross over the border into the Sinai. I mean, I will say for Sisi, the president of Egypt, he makes the point that if the Israelis want to move the Palestinians out of Gaza, which is being carpet bombed, into the desert instead of putting them in the Sinai, which is neither want to put them in the Negev, which is in Israel. But of course the idea is to push them out and they’ll never return.
And the same is true with Jordan. The Jordanian regime is also very hostile to the Brotherhood and to Hamas. You’ve actually had the Jordanian army move up to the border with the West Bank to make sure the Israelis do not expel people into Jordan. Saudi Arabia is… So traditionally the Arab regimes have paid lip service to the plight of the Palestinians, but done very, very little to help them. That’s a long history going on for 75 years back to the founding of the state of Israel. That’s not changed.
So the Palestinians… I mean, I will say, with the exception of the Houthis, who have actually been proactive in defense, both in terms of trying to fire missiles and make them, to Israel itself and attacking shipping, the Arab regimes have done nothing other than rhetorical calls for ceasefires. But there’s always been that hypocrisy within the Arab world towards the Palestinians.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Yeah. I mean, it’s like it is wild to see, out of all the people in all the countries in the region, knowing what Yemen has been through, that these are the guys who are out on these boats actually taking the most concerted steps to try to stop this genocidal violence and disrupt it however they can. I mean, I wanted to just kind of build on that for a second and ask the question that I brought up in the intro, which is what would it take for these sort of guardrails that you’ve laid out, these sort of reasons and justifications for avoiding at all costs this boiling over into a larger regional conflict in which Iran, US and others are implicated? What would it take for those guardrails to break down? I mean, if people are watching this and saying, how bad does it have to get for other countries to get involved, I guess, what would you say in response?
Chris Hedges:
Well, I would say constant provocations in a sense, repeated assassinations of Hezbollah leaders, a bombing of southern Lebanon. I mean, we already have artillery duels, but I mean severe Israeli strikes against either the leadership of Hezbollah or the use of Israeli warplanes to begin to, especially, target areas in Beirut.
There would come a point in which Hezbollah would not have a choice, but it would clearly be driven by Israeli actions. Because Hezbollah, since the beginning of this conflict, has shown a deep reluctance to put… they have fired across the border, and there have been thousands of Israelis who have had to evacuate the northern part of Israel. But we have to remember that Hezbollah has about 150,000, people don’t know, 100, 150,000 serious rockets that could do tremendous damage if they landed in Tel Aviv and elsewhere. So if they wanted to truly do damage, they could, and they haven’t. They’ve been very, very restrained.
But I think that the longer Israel carries out these kinds of strikes, the more those provocations take place, the closer we come… despite a reluctance on the part of Iran and Hezbollah, the closer we come to a regional conflict. Which, I mean, it probably would start with clashes with Hezbollah, Iran does supply Hezbollah. Does Israel and the United States attack those supply lines? Is that considered by Iran to be a direct strike on Iran? I mean, this could go bad in many, many ways, but I would say it would probably begin with Hezbollah just being pushed over the edge by Israel.
Maximillian Alvarez:
As a great poet once said, things fall apart, right? I mean, you could have all this restraint. You could have these different respective reasons for avoiding a larger regional conflict. But I think as you rightly pointed out, the more that this violence goes on, the more that these provocations, the more that Israel feels empowered to effectively do whatever the hell it wants without anyone stopping them, the more that that reckless evil of war that you’ve written about and documented over the course of your life. Like you said, the Pandora’s box is opened and no one necessarily knows where it’s going to go from there.
And so like I said, I know we got to round out in a sec and I don’t want us to try to predict the future, which is very unpredictable at this point. But I think, again, another question that’s on folks’ mind that is being kind of prodded and poked by that sort of orgiastic mainstream coverage where they talk about like, here’s the scenario that will lead to nuclear arms being used or US forces being used. So we are getting questions from folks of what would happen, what would it take for more US troops to be involved in this? Or how possible are nuclear weapons? Things like that.
So I guess I just wanted to ask if you had any final thoughts on that, for folks who are watching this, they’re scared, they’re being even more scared by mainstream media, I guess, about what that falling apart could look like in this case.
Chris Hedges:
Well, apparently the US has told Israel that if they carry out a ground incursion into southern Lebanon, they will not get involved. They said that if Hezbollah carried out a ground incursion into Israel, which is highly unlikely, that that would be a different matter. In terms of Iran, I think that Iran would have to be active, which it has not been, actively engaged in carrying out strikes, which I find unlikely, against either Israeli or US targets. And at that point then we’re in deep, deep trouble. So again, I think if the match is lit, it’s lit in Lebanon.
And the Israeli leadership has talked about this as an axis of… they’ve stolen this Bush term, axis of evil, that it’s not just a war with the Palestinians, although I don’t know how you can have a war with the people that doesn’t have an army and navy and air force, artillery, mechanized units, anything else. So they’re already speaking in that apocalyptic rhetoric. And I think in the end, it’s really totally dependent on how far Israel goes. And if they do not show restraint, then I could see it beginning with Hezbollah. And once Hezbollah is actively engaged, especially if Israel does make a ground incursion into Lebanon, then you bring Iran a few steps closer to being involved in a conflict. And at that point, it becomes a regional conflict and very, very dangerous.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Well, and since you mentioned Bush, I just kind of want to close on this question. And this should be reserved for a larger discussion, but just a kind of rounding out question to, in terms of asking about the current guardrails that are keeping us from spiraling out into a larger regional war. I’m wondering what role internal pressure here in the United States and public sentiment against the war or for a ceasefire, and just the general lack of desire to get embroiled in such a regional war, what role, if any, that plays? Because I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and you and I were talking about this before we got recording, right? I’ve been very upfront on my show, on The Real News and elsewhere, that I grew up in many ways a typical first gen Mexican-American family. We were raised with that type of conservatism. We came, we did it the right way, we were in the land of opportunity, yada, yada, yada.
And after 9/11, when I was still young and dumb, I bought in fully to the sort of jingoistic fervor. I remember when names like yours came up on Fox News, I’ll be like, “Oh, who are those nut jobs? Those guys, they’re unpatriotic.” And that was… I think a lot of people forget just how dominant that culture was, and that feeling was for so many people. It’s not to negate the tremendous outpourings of demonstrators and brave voices, like yours, speaking out against the disastrous war in Iraq and everything the Bush administration was doing.
But I just keep thinking about how drastically the public mood has changed in 20 years, where you had so many families like mine, regular people, working people, who lived in the heart of empire and still felt that imperial hubris, like we had the right to go around telling the rest of the world how to run their countries, and that we were never going to suffer any consequences for that. And now you just have quite a sea change, at least in terms of the public opinion, about how involved the US should be in this or any other war.
At the same time though, the resistance from the upper echelons of power, in the same way that Bush and Blair could look at these historic outpourings of people, and in the most cynical way use those as justifications for the war and say like, “Oh, you see all those people out there protesting? That’s why the terrorists want to attack us ’cause they hate our freedom. So that’s why we’re going to go and attack… we’re going to go and invade Iraq.” It was one of the most cynical things I’ve ever seen in my life.
But again, right now, as far as Biden, Blinken and their administration are concerned, they seem just as willfully deaf to the opposition to Israel’s war on Gaza and the US getting involved in more foreign wars. Do you see that playing any real role in stopping this or at this point is power just found a way to successfully inoculate itself from the demos completely?
Chris Hedges:
Yeah. I mean, look, the Congress is bought and paid for by the Israel lobby. Biden is one of the largest recipients of Israel lobby aid. Both parties are completely wedded to Israel. Our intelligence services are integrated with the Israeli. Israel is the 10th largest arms exporter in the world. So it’s totally, it’s training our police forces. So I think, especially because it’s Israel, it doesn’t really matter what the public and all these demonstrations, which have been very heartening to people like myself, it doesn’t matter. Especially, it’s worse because it’s Israel. So if somehow there began to be a conflict between Iran and Israel, I have little doubt that we would intervene. And at that point, we’re at war with Iran.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Well, that is the great Chris Hedges, host of The Chris Hedges Report, which you can watch every week, every Friday, noon Eastern Time, right here on The Real News Network. You can also subscribe to Chris’ Substack, which I highly encourage everyone to do if you want early access to those episodes. Chris, thank you so much for talking to me about this, man, and thank you for all the incredible work that you’re doing.
Chris Hedges:
All right. Thanks, Max.
Maximillian Alvarez:
And thank you all so much for watching. Thank you for caring. Please take care of yourselves, take care of each other. Solidarity forever.
Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories and struggles that you care about most, and we need your help to keep doing this work. So please tap your screen now, subscribe and donate to The Real News Network. Solidarity forever.
The International Court of Justice. Photo credit: ICJ
On January 11th, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague is holding its first hearing in South Africa’s case against Israel under the Genocide Convention. The first provisional measure South Africa has asked of the court is to order an immediate end to this carnage, which has already killed more than 23,000 people, most of them women and children. Israel is trying to bomb Gaza into oblivion and scatter the terrorized survivors across the Earth, meeting the Convention’s definition of genocide to the letter.
Since countries engaged in genocide do not publicly declare their real goal, the greatest legal hurdle for any genocide prosecution is to prove the intention of genocide. But in the extraordinary case of Israel, whose cult of biblically ordained entitlement is backed to the hilt by unconditional U.S. complicity, its leaders have been uniquely brazen about their goal of destroying Gaza as a haven of Palestinian life, culture and resistance.
South Africa’s 84-page application to the ICJ includes ten pages (starting on page 59) of statements by Israeli civilian and military officials that document their genocidal intentions in Gaza. They include statements by Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Herzog, Defense Minister Gallant, five other cabinet ministers, senior military officers and members of parliament. Reading these statements, it is hard to see how a fair and impartial court could fail to recognize the genocidal intent behind the death and devastation Israeli forces and American weapons are wreaking in Gaza.
The Israeli magazine +972 talked to seven current and former Israeli intelligence officials involved in previous assaults on Gaza. They explained the systematic nature of Israel’s targeting practices and how the range of civilian infrastructure that Israel is targeting has been vastly expanded in the current onslaught. In particular, it has expanded the bombing of civilian infrastructure, or what it euphemistically defines as “power targets,” which have comprised half of its targets from the outset of this war.
Israel’s “power targets” in Gaza include public buildings like hospitals, schools, banks, government offices, and high-rise apartment blocks. The public pretext for destroying Gaza’s civilian infrastructure is that civilians will blame Hamas for its destruction, and that this will undermine its civilian base of support. This kind of brutal logic has been proved wrong in U.S.-backed conflicts all over the world. In Gaza, it is no more than a grotesque fantasy. The Palestinians understand perfectly well who is bombing them – and who is supplying the bombs.
Intelligence officials told +972 that Israel maintains extensive occupancy figures for every building in Gaza, and has precise estimates of how many civilians will be killed in each building it bombs. While Israeli and U.S. officials publicly disparage Palestinian casualty figures, intelligence sources told +972 that the Palestinian death counts are remarkably consistent with Israel’s own estimates of how many civilians it is killing. To make matters worse, Israel has started using artificial intelligence to generate targets with minimal human scrutiny, and is doing so faster than its forces can bomb them.
Israeli officials claim that each of the high-rise apartment buildings it bombs contains some kind of Hamas presence, but an intelligence official explained, “Hamas is everywhere in Gaza; there is no building that does not have something of Hamas in it, so if you want to find a way to turn a high-rise into a target, you will be able to do so.” As Yuval Abraham of +972 summarized, “The sources understood, some explicitly and some implicitly, that damage to civilians is the real purpose of these attacks.”
Two days after South Africa submitted its Genocide Convention application to the ICJ, Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich declared on New Year’s Eve that Israel should substantially empty the Gaza Strip of Palestinians and bring in Israeli settlers. “If we act in a strategically correct way and encourage emigration,” Smotrich said, “if there are 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza, and not two million, the whole discourse on “the day after” will be completely different.”
When reporters confronted U.S. State Department spokesman Matt Miller about Smotrich’s statement, and similar ones by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Miller replied that Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have reassured the United States that those statements don’t reflect Israeli government policy.
But Smotrich and Ben-Gvir’s statements followed a meeting of Likud Party leaders on Christmas Day where Netanyahu himself said that his plan was to continue the massacre until the people of Gaza have no choice but to leave or to die. “Regarding voluntary emigration, I have no problem with that,” he told former Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon. “Our problem is not allowing the exit, but a lack of countries that are ready to take Palestinians in. And we are working on it. This is the direction we are going in.”
We should have learned from America’s lost wars that mass murder and ethnic cleansing rarely lead to political victory or success. More often they only feed deep resentment and desires for justice or revenge that make peace more elusive and conflict endemic.
Although most of the martyrs in Gaza are women and children, Israel and the United States politically justify the massacre as a campaign to destroy Hamas by killing its senior leaders. Andrew Cockburn described in his book Kill Chain: the Rise of the High-Tech Assassins how, in 200 cases studied by U.S. military intelligence, the U.S. campaign to assassinate Iraqi resistance leaders in 2007 led in every single case to increased attacks on U.S. occupation forces. Every resistance leader they killed was replaced within 48 hours, invariably by new, more aggressive leaders determined to prove themselves by killing even more U.S. troops.
But that is just another unlearned lesson, as Israel and the United States kill Islamic Resistance leaders in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Iran, risking a regional war and leaving themselves more isolated than ever.
If the ICJ issues a provisional order for a ceasefire in Gaza, humanity must seize the moment to insist that Israel and the United States must finally end this genocide and accept that the rule of international law applies to all nations, including themselves.
The role of the US State Department regarding Israel’s continued obliteration of Gaza is becoming increasingly clear. As the actions of the Israeli Defence Forces continue, the Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, is full of meaningless statements about restraint and control, the protection of civilians, the imperatives of humanitarianism in war. As the war continues, so do those statements.
As the new year began, an official from the White House expressed satisfaction at what appeared “to be the start of the gradual shift to lower-intensity operations in the north that we have been encouraging”. But the revised Israeli approach did not “reflect any changes in the south”. The monstrous death toll, in short, would continue to rise.
As Washington feigns a reproachful attitude to the IDF’s grossly lethal tactics, claiming success in restraining them, another, failing front is also being pursued in the Arab world and beyond. As Israel’s great defender, the US is attempting to hold back fury and consternation as the dirty deeds by their favourite ally in the Middle East are being executed.
Blinken’s latest round of travelling has the flavour of swinging by tetchy neighbours to see how they are faring in the sea of blood and acrimony. The itinerary includes Istanbul, Crete, Amman, Doha, Abu Dhabi, Al-’Ula, Tel Aviv, the West Bank, Manama and Cairo. The State Department’s media release on January 4 outlines the obsolete agenda any sensible diplomat would do best to discard. “Throughout his trip, the Secretary will underscore the importance of protecting civilian lives in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza; securing the release of all remaining hostages; our shared commitment to facilitating the increased, sustained delivery of life-saving humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza and the resumption of essential services; and ensuring that Palestinians are not forcibly displaced in Gaza.”
So far, Palestinians are being massacred by the IDF in Gaza, forcibly deprived of life-saving humanitarian assistance and essential services in a sustained act of strangulation while being forcibly displaced. They are being oppressed, harassed and murdered by vigilante Israeli settlers in the West Bank, even as the army looks the other way.
It follows that Blinken is telling tall stories and hoping that legs carry them far. They are also being told as proceedings before the International Court of Justice instituted by South Africa commence to determine whether Israel’s conduct in Gaza satisfies the definition of genocide in international law.
The strategy becomes clearer in the second part of the disingenuous traveller’s agenda. Blinken “will also discuss urgent mechanisms to stem violence, calm rhetoric, and reduce regional tensions, including deterring Houthi attacks on commercial shopping in the Red Sea and avoiding escalation in Lebanon.”
The Houthi attacks and the increasingly violent situation in Lebanon serve as golden distractions for Washington, since they give the Biden administration room to simultaneously claim to be preventing a widening of the conflict while permitting Israel’s butchery to continue.
Corking the conflict, however, is not proving such a success. The war is widening, even if reporting on the subject remains sketchy in the negligently lazy news outlets of the Anglosphere. In addition to the bold moves of the Houthis and escalating violence on the border between Israel and Lebanon come ongoing, harrying efforts from the Islamic Resistance in Iraq. An Al-Mayadeen report on January 7 took note of an announcement from the group, also known as the Iraqi al-Najuba Movement, that it had fired an al-Arqab long-range cruise missile at Haifa “in support of our people in Gaza and in response to the massacres committed by the usurping entity against Palestinian civilians, including children, women, and the elderly.”
A spokesperson for the Iraqi Resistance, Hussein al-Moussawi, was bullish in claiming that the group had the capacity to strike targets beyond Haifa. Conditions to develop the group’s weapons had also been “favourable”.
In a separate statement, the Islamic Resistance also revealed that its fighters had targeted an Israeli base on the occupied Golan Heights, usin drones. To this can be added drone attacks on the US army base of Qasrok, located in the countryside of Hasakah in northeastern Syria, and the Ain al-Asad airbase in western Iraq. The base continues to host US forces.
Perhaps the greatest canard of all in this briefest of trips by Blinken is the continued, now absurd claim, that Washington is committed “to working with partners to set the conditions necessary for peace in the Middle East, which includes comprehensive, tangible steps towards the realization of a future Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel, with both living in peace and security.”
In his remarks to President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, Blinken showed the hardened ignorance that will ensure the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will continue in some form. In his mind, a “reformed” Palestinian Authority will take over the reins of a ruined Gaza (“effective responsibility”) whatever the residents of Gaza think.
Palestinians will never, given current conditions, be permitted sovereignty and anything remotely resembling a thriving, viable state. Israel, whose very existence is based on predation, dispossession and war, will never permit a Palestinian entity to be given equal standing at the diplomatic or security table. The US, in the tatty drag of an independent broker, will go along with the pantomime, promoting, as Blinken is, a sham, counterfeit form of autonomy, one forever subject to conditions, demarcations and restraints. And one thing is almost certain about any future rump Palestinian entity: it will be deprived of any right to defend itself.
The Biden administration is reportedly drafting plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen amid escalating fears of a wider war in the Middle East, where the U.S. is inflaming regional tensions by heavily arming Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip. Politico reported Thursday that U.S. officials are “increasingly concerned” that Israel’s devastating war on Gaza “could expand… to a wider…
