SAUDI ARABIA/ISIS – Security forces say they have foiled 2 terrorist attacks including one aimed at an international football match in Jeddah. 8 suspected members of ISIS have been arrested. Nine suspects are still being hunted.

IRAN/SYRIA – Iranian media reports that ‘Commander’ Gholam Reza Samaei from the Revolutionary Guard has been killed in action in Syria. ‘Commander’ is the term usually used for officers of Brigadier General level.

EGYPT/SINAI – Two Egyptian soldiers, one a Colonel, were killed in a roadside bomb attack near Sheikh Zuweid in northern Sinai. Two soldiers were also injured. Northern Sinai is home to several militant groups including some connected to ISIS.

S. KOREA/DEMONSTRATIONS – About 12,000 demonstrators in Seoul have demanded the resignation of President Park Geun Hye. She is accused of relying on a cult leader, Choi Soon-sil, when making political decisions.

PHILIPPINES/JAPAN – President Duterte has said he would welcome joint patrols in the South China Sea with Japan at some point in the future. This appears to be part of his strategy to slowly loosen ties with the USA. However, this is a difficult act to carry out as Japan and other regional neighbours are close allies with the Americans. Duterte has already rowed back somewhat on comments he made in China about scrapping a US/Philippines military agreement signed last year.

COMING UP

The Lebanese parliament should at last vote for a President for the country after 2 and half years of bickering. The Sunni and Christian groups appear to have reached a compromise between them which may also be acceptable to the Shia. There’s no compromise on anything in Venezuela at the moment and a planned march on the Presidential palace by opposition supporters may be opposed.  President Maduro does want to see tens of thousands of people outside his palace telling him to go.

DIARY

Oct 3 – Lebanese parliament finally expected to select a president.

Oct 31 – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Cyprus.

Nov 1 – Lavrov moves on to Greece.

Nov 1/5 – Burma’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, in Japan.

Nov 1 – Deadline for Dutch PM Mark Rutte to present a proposal to parliament on the association agreement between the EU and Ukraine.

Nov 2 – U.S. Federal Reserve meets.

Nov 6 – Bulgarian presidential election.

Nov 6 – Nicaragua presidential election

Nov 6/8 – UK PM Theresa May on 1st state visit to India.

IRAN/S-300 – Iran displayed its new Russian S-300 missile defense system during a National Army Day parade in Tehran. This is a serious piece of kit which would come in useful in deterring the possibilities of air strikes against the Islamic Republic unless a foreign  airforce was prepared to lose several jets. The S-300 can engage multiple aircraft and ballistic missiles from over 100 miles away.

IRAN/SYRIA – Another 2 Iranian military fatalities in Syria have been announced in the Iranian media.

SOUTH SUDAN/ETHIOPIA – Fighters from South Sudan have crossed into Ethiopia and killed up to 140 civilians according to Reuters. The attackers are not thought to be South Sudanese government forces. The Ethiopian military chased them back across the border reportedly killing
60 of them.

NATO/POLAND – The American and German defence ministries have both said that NATO will not establish new bases in Poland. This follows requests from Poland for an enhanced presence. Despite not planning extra fixed positions the USA is beefing up its military presence in Eastern Europe.

MACEDONIA/ELECTION – Macedonia will hold an early parliamentary election on June 5^th. The country remains politically and ethnically divided and is struggling to hold back the refugees and migrants on its border with Greece.

NORTH KOREA/NUKES – N Korea is likely to conduct its 5^th  nuclear test in the near future according to S Korean government sources. N Korea is due to hold a Worker’s Party Congress in early May and it may coincide with this.

COMING UP – Netanyahu’s meeting with Putin in Moscow (see diary) is just the latest in a series of one to ones they have held. Israel is nervous about Russia’s ‘friendship’ with Iran and Hezbollah, Russia would prefer Israel not to be so friendly with Ukraine. We rarely get details quickly, but they usually agree something in private which becomes apparent later. It’s not a suprise that Bibi said just last night that Israel will never give back the Golan Heights to Syria. He was signalling to Moscow that the area should not be part of any future peace deal for the Syrian war.

DIARY –

April 18  – EU leaders meet to discuss Libya and the growing numbers of migrants trying to reach Europe from there.

April 20  – After a 2 year break following Russia’s annexation of Crimea the NATO-Russia Council is scheduled to meet in Brussels.

April 20  – UK Secretary of State for Business, Sajid Javid in Iran.

April 21  – Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in Moscow.

April 21  – U.S. President Barack Obama in Saudi Arabia.

April 23 – EC President Tusk and German Chancellor Merkel in Turkey to follow up on  the EU-Turkey refugee deal. So far – so mixed. German media will also focus on the comedian insulting Erdogan story.

April 24 –  Serbia – parliamentary elections.

Welcome to the last ‘Mire’ of 2016. It is a truncated version due to the time of year. The W&Y wishes you a very happy 2017!

CHINA/CARRIER – China’s only aircraft carrier will carry out ‘exercises far out at sea’ in the Western Pacific according to a navy statement. The statement gave few details but it’s thought this will be the first blue water exercise by the carrier.

ISRAEL/UN – Israel summoned the ambassadors of 10 nations to Jerusalem on Dec 25 as a reprimand for last week’s U.N. Security Council resolution demanding an end to settlement building in the West Bank. The ambassadors from New Zealand, UK, Russia, China, Japan, Uruguay, Egypt, France, Spain and Ukraine were all summoned. Calling in an ambassador on Christmas Day is very unusual.

IRAN/DRONE – An Iranian anti-aircraft battery shot down a drone as it flew close to the offices of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran. It was later discovered to belong to state TV and was being used to film a Friday prayer ceremony.

IRAN/SYRIA – Iranian news agencies report that the latest casualty fighting with Iranian forces is Syria was Mohammed Issa Mohammadi from an Afghan Shia Militia unit.

GAMBIA/SENEGAL – The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) says forces from Senegal are on alert to lead a possible military intervention in Gambia if President Yahya Jammeh continues to refuse to step down having lost the Dec 1^st presidential election. The opposition has brought the matter to the Supreme Court which will hear the case on Jan 10^th.

LEBANON/RAPE LAW – Lebanon’s Parliamentary Justice Committee has repealed Article 522 of the Penal Code, which enabled a rapist to avoid punishment by marrying his victim. Parliament must now approve the move. This follows a campaign by women’s rights activists. They also want to change another law so that children whose mothers are Lebanese, but whose fathers are not, can be granted Lebanese citizenship.

DIARY –

Dec 27 – Russia/Turkey/Iran summit in Moscow to discuss Syria.

Dec 27 – Final day of Japanese Prime Minister Abe’s trip to Hawaii to visit Pearl Harbor.

Dec 27 – At least 35 MP’s set to leave ruling Saenuri Party of South Korean President Park Geun Hye.

Jan 1 – Kazakhstan becomes 1^st Central Asian state to take non-permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.

Jan 1 – OPEC’s oil output ceiling of 52.5 million barrels per day  comes into force for all members except Nigeria, Iran and Libya.

Last week, Iran confirmed that it test-fired a ballistic missile. The United States has responded by imposing new sanctions on Iran and stating that Iran remains both a major source of terrorism and a threat to American national interests. A review is now underway concerning U.S. policy toward Iran. At the same time, President Donald Trump has declared his intention of crushing the Islamic State, which has been U.S. policy since the emergence of IS.

U.S. strategy in Iraq prior to the 2007 surge was to oppose both Shiite and Sunni claims to power in Iraq. The United States tried to craft a government in Baghdad that was independent of both major factions, ideally secular and closely aligned with the United States. That government was created, but it was never effective. The Shiites, supported by the Iranians, deeply penetrated the government, and more importantly, the government never had broad support beyond the coalition that backed it. The most dynamic forces in Iraq were deeply embedded in the Shiite and Sunni communities. Both drew strength from outside Iraq – the Sunnis from Saudi Arabia and the Shiites from Iran.

What the United States wanted to create was very different from the reality on the ground. In the surge, the U.S. recognized this, saw the Iranian-supported Shiites as the greater threat and tried to counterbalance them by reaching a financial and political understanding with the Sunni leadership. Apart from providing the U.S. with an opportunity for a graceful exit, the surge didn’t solve the strategic problem the U.S. was dealing with. IS arose as the champion of a substantial part of the Sunni Arab population, and the Iraqi government became, to an imperfect but real extent, captive to Iran. The U.S. remained powerless to craft the Iraq it wanted.

The United States now has three broad strategic options. The first is, after 15 years of ineffective fighting, to accept defeat in the region, withdraw and allow the region to evolve as it will. The advantage of this strategy is that it accepts the reality and consequences of the previous 15 years, and it halts an ineffective approach. The weakness of this strategy is that in accepting the evolution of the region, the U.S. could face an increasingly powerful Sunni world and a powerful Shiite Iran. After the sense of relief may come an unbearable headache.

The second option is to use American force to crush IS and isolate Iran, or failing that, engage Iran in some form of military action, possibly directed at its nuclear program. The United States does not have a military force large enough to simultaneous wage war from the Mediterranean to Iran, and also in Afghanistan. Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said at the beginning of the Iraq war that you fight with the army you have. He should have added that if the army you have is insufficient, you will lose, or at most, face an endless stalemate. The goal of this strategy would be to crush not merely the current organizations fighting for Sunni and Shiite causes but to destroy the will of the Arab and Persian worlds to create new organizations out of the ashes of the old. The United States has never fought a major foreign war without a coalition of forces. Its distance from the Eurasian battlefield means that support from other forces for the logistical effort is essential. This is why there is discussion of an alliance with Russia. But Russia does not have the same interests in Iran as the United States, nor is it looking for the same outcome.

The third strategic option is built on two realities. First, the U.S. has limited forces, reluctant or discordant allies, and cannot win a war on this scale. Second, the Islamic world is deeply divided along religious and ethnic lines. There is the religious split between Shiites and Sunnis. There is the split between the Arab and non-Arab world. In other words, Islam is not of a single fabric and these divisions are its point of vulnerability. The third strategy would require allying with one faction to give it the thing it desires the most – the defeat of the other.

From the beginning of American history, the U.S. has used the divisions in the world to achieve its ends. The American Revolution prevailed by using the ongoing tension between Britain and France to convince the French to intervene. In World War II, facing Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union, the United States won the war by supplying the Soviets with the wherewithal to bleed the German army dry, opening the door to American invasion and, with Britain, the occupation of Europe.

Unless you have decisive and overwhelming power, your only options are to decline combat, vastly increase your military force at staggering cost and time, or use divergent interests to recruit a coalition that shares your strategic goal. Morally, the third option is always a painful strategy. The United States asking monarchists for help in isolating the British at Yorktown was in a way a deal with the devil. The United States allying with a murderous and oppressive Soviet Union to defeat another murderous and oppressive regime was also a deal with the devil. George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt both gladly made these deals, each knowing a truth about strategy: What comes after the war comes after the war. For now, the goal is to reach the end of the war victorious.

In the case of the Middle East, I would argue that the United States lacks the forces or even a conceivable strategy to crush either the Sunni rising or Iran. Iran is a country of about 80 million defended to the west by rugged mountains and to the east by harsh deserts. This is the point where someone inevitably will say that the U.S. should use air power. This is the point where I will say that whenever Americans want to win a war without paying the price, they fantasize about air power because it is low-cost and irresistible. Air power is an adjunct to war on the ground. It has never proven to be an effective alternative.

The idea that the United States will simultaneously wage wars in Syria, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan and emerge victorious is fantasy. What is not fantasy is the fact that the Islamic world, both strategically and tactically, is profoundly divided. The United States must decide who is the enemy. “Everybody” is an emotionally satisfying answer to some, but it will lead to defeat. The United States cannot fight everyone from the Mediterranean to the Hindu Kush. It can indefinitely carry out raids and other operations, but it can’t win.

To craft an effective strategy, the United States must go back to the strategic foundations of the republic: a willingness to ally with one enemy to defeat another. The goal should be to ally with the weaker enemy, or the enemy with other interests, so that one war does not immediately lead to another. At this moment, the Sunnis are weaker than the Iranians. But there are far more Sunnis, they cover a vast swath of ground and they are far more energized than Iran. Currently, Iran is more powerful, but I would argue the Sunnis are more dangerous. Therefore, I am suggesting an alignment with the Iranians, not because they are any more likable (and neither were Stalin or Louis XVI), but because they are the convenient option.

The Iranians hate and fear the Sunnis. Any opportunity to crush the Sunnis will appeal. The Iranians are also as cynical as George Washington was. But in point of fact, an alliance with the Sunnis against the Shiites could also work. The Sunnis despise the Iranians, and given the hope of crushing them, the Sunnis could be induced to abandon terrorism. There are arguments to be made on either side, as there is in Afghanistan.

In my opinion, what cannot be supported is simultaneous conflicts with Sunnis and Shiites, Arabs and Persians. What we learned in Iraq is that we will not win such a conflict. Attempting what failed in Iraq on a far larger scale makes little sense. Dividing your enemies is a fundamental principle of strategy. Uniting them makes little sense. Therefore, simultaneously waging war on Sunnis and Shiites is irrational. Simply withdrawing from the region carries enormous long-term risks.

In the end, Washington wanted to defeat the British and Roosevelt wanted to defeat Hitler. Without the French or Soviets, these wars would have been lost. In the end, the Bourbons and communists were destroyed. Washington and Roosevelt were in no rush. There is always time for the winner to pursue the end he wants. There is never time for the loser.

This article originally appeared on Geopoliticalfutures.com and is republished with permission.

RUSSIA/REVOLUTION – Wednesday marks the 100th anniversary of the abdication of Czar Nicholas II. Time to celebrate? In 1987 yes, in 2017 – the authorities appear unsure what to do. The abdication ushered in the Soviet Revolution, but these days the Russian leadership is slower to trumpet the ‘glory’ days of communism and about 25% of Russians support re-instating the monarchy. In recent years, the Kremlin has begun romanticizing the Czar, after all, the increasingly autocratic President Putin does seem to have some of his characteristics.  So the first of many 1917 anniversary events this year is likely to see Moscow trying to reconcile the contradictions of celebrating both the Czar’s life and his demise.

IRAN/POLITICS – The economic credentials, and indeed future of the relatively moderate President, Hassan Rouhani, have taken another blow. The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei suggested to the Assembly of Experts that the President was not implementing the ‘Resistance Economy’ doctrine he (the Ayatollah) had backed in 2014. “If all the necessary steps had been taken” he said, “we would have observed a tangible difference in the country’s economic conditions and people’s lives”. His intervention strengthens the hands of the hardliners who are increasingly challenging the President and some of whom are against the nuclear deal he negotiated in 2015.

JIHAD/CHINA – The MEMRI monitoring group has published a fascinating report saying that the latest Al-Qaeda linked Arab language magazine ‘Islamic Turkestan’ has called on jihadists around the world to attack Chinese targets in their own countries. The timing comes as hundreds of jihadists are thought to have left Iraq and Syria and scattered. The Islamic Turkestan group wants to establish an independent state in the Muslim majority Chinese region of Xinjia

COMING UP

A busy week. The Brits may trigger Article 50 and get on with Brexiting, the Dutch may be seen to be one of the more right wing countries in the EU, and Turkey’s President Erdogan may decide his approval ratings are far more important than EU/Turkey relations.  So for once this year we turn to the White House for some calm rational, bi laterals as Mrs Merkel meets Mr Trump tomorrow.  By no co-incidence their two finance ministers, Wolfgang Schaeuble and Steven Mnuchin have a meeting in Germany the following day. The Germans want to avoid a trade war with US and to develop close ties with the new administration.

DIARY –

Mar 13th – NATO’s annual report published. Look for comments on Trump, Russia, and an EU military force.

Mar 13th – Reserve Bank of India will lift ATM cash withdrawal limits in place since November.

Mar  13th – Foreign ministers of 5 countries expected to meet in London to discuss prospects for a settlement to the Yemen crisis.

Mon 13th – UK For Sec Boris Johnson in Moscow for talks with Sergei Lavrov.

Mon 13th – UK’s Brexit bill back in the House of Commons following the Lords attaching two amendments to it.

Mar 13th – OECD in Paris releases growth figures for the G20

Mar 14th – President Trump hosts Angela Merkel.

Mar 14th – Hawaiian state authorities challenge President Trump’s updated travel ban in a federal court on the grounds that it breaches a religious freedom clause in the constitution and damages the Hawaiian economy.

Mar 14th – Chile hosts 1st post-Trans-Pacific Partnership conference with China, South Korea and others.

Mar 15th – 100th anniversary of the abdication of Czar Nicholas II of Russia.

Mar 15th – Dutch general election. Geert Wilders Anti-Immigrant Freedom Party may win the most seats of any one party but will be kept from power by a coalition of other parties.

Mar 15th – French Republican presidential candidate Francois Fillon due in court accused of paying his wife a salary for work she did not do.

Mar 15th – Depending on a result of the court (see above) President Trump’s travel ban due to begin.

Mar 15/16 – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Japan. N Korea missile tests high on the agenda.

Mar 15th – Pakistan. 1st nationwide census in 19 years begins.

 Mar 15/18 – He’s still going.  Saudi’s King Salman, and 1,500 strong team, in China until Saturday.

Mar 16th – Emmanuelle Macron, centrist candidate for President in Berlin to see Merkel and to see if he can raise his foreign policy credentials.

Mar  16th – Irish PM Enda Kenny visits the White House.

Mar 17th – Sec of State Tillerson moves on to South Korea.

Mar 18th – Sec of State Tillerson due in Beijing to see foreign minister Wang Yi, but he may also see President Xi Jinping.

Mar 19th – World Teacher of the Year announced in Dubai. $1 million dollars for the winner!

IRAN/SYRIA – The latest named casualty among Iranian led militia in Syria is Zamen Etemadi of the Afghan Shia Fatimiyoun Brigade. He was buried in the Iranian province of Alborz.

IRAN/SAUDI/TRUMP –  Donald Trump’s decision to make Saudi Arabia the first country he will visit as President has attracted a lot of attention, including in Tehran.  The Tabnak News Agency’s take on it was that it sets the stage for an Arab/US alliance to counter Iran. It said he was engaged in an ‘Iranophobic’ project.

COMING UP

The set piece event is the Beijing ‘One Belt, One Road’ summit. President Xi wants buy in to the new ‘Silk Road’ which will increase links between China, Central Asia and Europe. Many countries will invest and co-operate, others will ask what’s in it for us’. The Trump/Erdogan meeting could be a little fraught given that the US is arming Kurdish factions fighting in Syria, which Turkey regards as akin to arming terrorist groups. Mr Erdogan may also remind Mr Trump that he wants the leader of the Gulen movement handed over. The Iran Presidential election is a big deal – the incumbent, President Rouhani is the favourite to win. He is what passes for a relative moderate in the Islamic Republic.  1,600 people applied to stand, the Guardian Council approved 6 candidates.  The result will impact on the Trump administration’s attitude towards Iran and the nuclear deal.

DIARY

Mon – Chinese President Xi Jinping expects at least 20 world leaders at his One Belt, One Road summit. It’s supposed to be the new Silk Road.

Mon – Newly elected French president Emmanuelle Macron expected to name his Prime Minister.

Mon – President Trump meets Crown Prince Sheik Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan of Abu Dhabi at the White House.

Mon – Trump’s proposed travel ban from various Muslim majority countries may itself be banned when a Court in Seattle hears the Administration’s appeal against a Hawaiian judge’s injunction blocking it.

Tues – Sacked FBI director James Comey may get to give his side of the story to a Senate committee investigating the Russian hacking election scandal. It’s a closed session so he may wait until there’s a session open to cameras.

Tues – President Erdogan meets President Trump at the White House.

Weds – Italian PM Gentiloni continues the Italian policy of keeping close ties with Russia. He’s in Sochi to see President Putin.

Weds – 70^th Cannes Film Festival.

Weds – Former U.S military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning due to be released early from Fort Leavenworth military prison following President Barack Obama’s commutation of her sentence before leaving office. Manning leaked U.S. military secrets to WikiLeaks.

Fri – Presidential elections – Iran.

Sat – 15^th anniversary of East Timor independence from Indonesia.

IRAN/ARAB NATO – Tehran’s Friday Prayer Leader, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, has said that the ‘Arab NATO’ alliance praised by Donald Trump last week would be made up of the “servants of the U.S.” Khatami usually says what the Supreme Leader thinks.

IRAN/CASUALITIES – Iranian forces continue to take losses in Syria. The latest to be identified by the Iranian media is Ali Reza Rezaei of the Fatimiyoun Brigade. The Afghans fighting with Iran make up a substantial percentage of the Iranian casualties.

COMING UP

The UK news agenda will probably be dominated by a mixture of the fallout from the Manchester bombing and election campaigning. There may be more arrests, court appearances, details on the wounded, and the national debate about ‘what is to be done’.

In the USA – President Trump may be back home – but he won’t get a warm welcome. The probe into ‘inappropriate’ ties with Russia will continue. It’ll be interesting to see how President Macron deals with the experienced President Putin. The Venezuelan demonstrations look set to go on for yet another week: President Maduro must be hoping they run out of steam.

DIARY

Mon – New French President Emmanuel Macron hosts President Putin at Versailles.

Weds – Foreign Ministers from the Organization of American States meet in Washington to discuss the Venezuelan crisis.

Weds – Ireland’s High Court considers if it can hear a Brexit reversibility case. It will probably kick the issue to the European Court of Justice.

Weds – Representatives from all 7 major UK political parties will hold a debate on BBC TV.

Weds – President Trump meets Vietnamese PM Nguyen Phuc in Washington to discuss China and the disputes in the South China Sea and hopes not to stumble over his guests name.

Thurs – President Putin hosts St Petersburg International Economic Forum. Among those attending are UN Sec Gen Guterres, and Indian PM Modi.

Thurs – EU/China summit in Brussels.  European Council President Donald Tusk, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, and Prime Minister Li Keqiang all attending.

Thurs – Estonian police will begin carrying teddy bears in their cars to help comfort children caught up in accidents.

Fri – Ireland should get a new Taioseach (PM). Enda Kerry is retiring. Simon Coveny and Leo Varadkar are the main contenders to replace him

Fri – UK PM Theresa May and opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn will participate individually and consecutively on a BBC TV ‘Question Time’ programme.

Sat – General Election in Malta.

IRAN/IRAQ – Iranian backed Shia militia forces in Iraq and Syria have linked up along the shared border between the two countries.  This should secure a supply line between Iraq and Syria. It will also help the Syrian Army and their Iran backed militia allies in preventing US backed rebel forces from moving south to north.

IRAN/USA –An Iranian warship shone a spotlight and laser at an US Marine Corp helicopter in the Strait of Hormuz last week. The helicopter was 2 US Navy vessels. A Pentagon source told CBS News that the incident was “unsafe and unprofessional.”

IRAN/SYRIA –  lranian forces have suffered at least 3 new fatalities in Syria. Among them is  Heydar Jalilvand from the Revolutionary Guard Air Force. He was killed on June 11.

QATAR/TURKEY – Turkey has sent Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu to Saudi Arabia to meet King Salman in a bid to patch up the broken relationship between Qatar and it’s Gulf neighbours. Turkey’s plans to base troops in Qatar will concentrate minds.

PALESTINE/PRISONERS – Palestinian officials say the Palestinian Authority (PA) will continue to pay allowances to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons and to individuals “martyred,” when carrying out attacks against Israelis. The US recently asked the PA to stop the payments to ‘family members of those who have committed murder or violence against others.”. Officials said the matter was a ‘Red Line’ and “an issue of national duty that cannot be compromised.

LEBANON/ELECTION – In a move to try and break the country’s political deadlock parliament has passed an new electoral law which should allow a general election next year – the first for 8 years.

COMING UP –  In the UK the beginning of the Brexit negotiations with the EU will be overshadowed by the continuing political and social fallout from the London tower block which killed dozens of people last week. PM May’s government does not appear in a fit state to concentrate on the incredibly detailed texts which will be on the table.

DIARY –

Mon – EU/UK Brexit negotiations begin in Brussels.

Mon – President Trump hosts Panama’s President Varela to discuss the crisis in Venezuela.

Mon – NASA media briefing on results of the Kepler mission which hopes to identify which planets outside of the solar system may be able to support life.

Weds – President Trump holds an election campaign style rally in Iowa. There is no campaign.

Weds – UK Government present Queens Speech on proposed legislation. Probably.

Thurs – EU Heads of Government summit. Continues on Friday. Moving EU agencies out of the UK among items on the agenda.

Thurs – EBC meets in Frankfurt. Will it followed the Federal Reserve Bank and raise interest rates 0.25%?

Fri – It’s a year since UK voted Brexit.

Fri – Start of campaigning on a referendum on changes to the constitution.  These include altering the peace deal with the rebels whose attacks caused the French to intervene in Mali in 2013/14.

Sat – Berlin Zoo receives 2 Pandas ‘on loan’ from China.  No really – they are being loaned for 15 years, they will be the only pandas in Germany, and yes, they are part of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Sun – Anniversary of the outbreak of the 3 year long Korean War which began in 1950.

Sun – New York’s Gay Pride March – the oldest annual gay parade in the USA.

Politics hates a vacuum. It especially hates a vacuum in the tinderbox cockpit of the Middle East where the conflicting issues of money, vital resources, religious extremism , religious conflicts, historic rivalries and the geopolitical link between East and West dangerously clash.

The virtual collapse in 2011-2012 of Bashar Al-Assad’s despotic regime in Syria created such a vacuum. It was filled by the even more despotic Islamic State Caliphate.

Now the Caliphate is on its knees.  The Western half of Mosul is recaptured.  Only a handful of IS fighters remain in the dangerously narrow winding streets of the Eastern half.

The fundamentalists once boasted that their Syrian-Iraqi base would become a springboard from which to launch an Islamic conquest of the Middle East and Europe. They  have retreated to their spiritual capital of Raqqa in Syria for the final battle to the death.

They will lose . But who will win? And what will they win? Assad, Russia, the US and its Western allies, Iraq, the Kurds, Turkey, Iran, a score  or more of rebel forces—all are directly involved in the fighting. Then there are the backers—or interested parties: Saudi Arabia, Israel, Qatar, Kuwait, the EU, the United Arab Emirates, Somalia, Afghanistan and the wider Islamic world.

It looks as if Assad will remain in power for the foreseeable future—but he will be a political shadow of his former self.   Neither the Trump Administration nor any of its European or Arab allies have any stomach for removing a secular despot who can be replaced by another fanatic Islamic despot. And besides, he will have the military support of Iran and Russia.

Russia and Iran are set to be the big winners. They gambled on Assad when he was all but dead and buried . They can expect payback in the form of military bases, political influence and lucrative contracts to rebuild war torn Syria.

This is not good news for the US and its allies. They do not want Russian influence back in the Middle East  at a time when Moscow is also flexing its muscles in the Baltic and Ukraine and hacking into Western computer systems. They especially don’t want Iran to extend its regional tentacles.

Israel should have special cause for concern. To have Assad on its northeastern border was bad enough.  To have an Assad backed by Iran and—presumably—with Iranian troops is the stuff of nightmares.

The EU will have mixed feelings. They don’t want expanded influence in the Middle East for Russia or Iran, but they would welcome a return to normality which would stem the tsunami of refugees.

Then there is Turkey and, of course, the Kurds. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears to have designs for revived Ottoman greatness. Relations with the EU and NATO have been relegated to the back seat in pursuit of his goal.  Erdogan’s troops are in Northern Syria and he will want them to stay.

Standing in his way are the Turks traditional bete noire– the Kurds. They have been struggling for a homeland carved out of Syria, Iran, Iraq and Turkey for more than a century. They have been the boots on the ground for the US-led coalition and expect their reward. The question is: “Will America be in a position to give it?

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are even more worried about spreading Iranian influence than Washington. Moscow they can live with, but not Tehran.  The end of the civil war in Syria would free up battle hardened Iranian troops for the fighting in Yemen and embolden Tehran to foment discontent among Shi-ite populations in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

For the rest of the Islamic world the approaching end of the Syrian civil war eliminates a focal point for their dissident fundamentalist populations. Its removal undermines the Jihadists but also means that thousands of angry battle-hardened Jihadists will be returning home—many of them still firm in their warped political-religious beliefs.  You can destroy a state, but you can’t kill an idea.

As the end approaches the players jockey for pole position and the stakes and dangers increase inexorably.  Current conflicts are not so much between crazed Jihadists and super powers but between Super Powers keen to retain or regain influence at the other’s expense.  All sides are aware of the dangers, but the closer we come to the end the more determined they become to succeed, or, at the very least, prevent the other from succeeding.

Tom Arms is Editor of www.lookaheadnews.com

QATAR/TURKEY – Ankara says it will not leave its military base in Qatar, despite calls do so by a Saudi-led coalition. The closing of the base is one of 13 demands made to Qatar due to its alleged support for terrorism. Another demand was the closing down of the TV station Al Jazeera.

IRAN/ISRAEL –  Iran held its annual ‘Al Quds Day’ in support of Palestine and against Israel. Hundreds of thousands of people marched through Tehran and other cities. President Hassan Rouhani and Islamic Revolution Guards Commander Mohammad Ali Jafari attended the rallies. The organisers called for the destruction of Israel which was described as a ‘cancerous tumour’.

IRAN/TERROR – The Revolutionary Guard Corps says it has killed 3 terrorists and arrested a fourth in the northwestern province of Kurdistan, The group was not identified.

PHILLIPINES/AUSTRALIA – Australia is sending 2 surveillance planes to the Philippines to help in the ongoing fight against Islamist rebels in the city of Marawi.

COMING UP –

This would have been the week the UK took up the rotating presidency of the EU from Malta. Due to circumstances, unforeseen by former UK PM David Cameron this will now not be the case and instead plucky little Estonia will fill the breach.

One of the world’s most irritating sentences ‘Hello, hello? I’m on a train’ is set to switch to ‘Hello, hello? I’m on a plane’ (See Diary)

DIARY –

Mon – UK PM May will give more details of plans to allow EU citizens living in the UK to stay after     Brexit.

Mon – UN International Day for the Victims of Torture.

Mon – Ex-wife of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, Agnes Reeves Taylor, appears at Westminster Magistrates Court on torture charges. Mr Taylor is currently serving a 50-year prison sentence.

Mon – OECD publishes its ‘International Migration Outlook’.

Venezuelan Flag

Mon –  Italian tyre maker Pirelli to suspend production at its Venezuelan plant due to difficulties in obtaining and transporting raw material.

Tues – First session of new French National Assembly. 424 of the 577 Deputies are newbies.

Weds – UK’s biggest space company Inmarsat to launch an S-band communications satellite which will link with ground antennas to provide wi-fi services onboard aircraft

Thur – 10 years since Apple introduced the iPhone.

Fri – Finland holds its annual ‘Wife Carrying Championships’. The winner gets to drink his wife’s weight in beer.

Sat – Taiwan parliament expected to vote on a bill to make same-sex marriage legal. If it passes, Taiwan will be the first Asian country to allow gay marriage.

Sat – S Africa’s ANC begins accepting applications for party leader. Winner will be president of the country if the party wins 2019 parliamentary election.

Sat – 20th anniversary of Britain’s handover of Hong Kong to China after 156 years of colonial rule.  Anti-Beijing demonstrations expected. unrest.

Sat –  Canada Day – this year celebrating 150 years of self-government. UK’s Prince Charles to attend.

Sat – Prince Charles will therefore miss the London march against PM May which is intended to help topple the Conservative government. It has the tag line ‘Not One More Day’.

Sun – He will however be closer to the action in the USA where anti Trump demonstrations are expected to take place calling on the President to be impeached.

IRAN/FRANCE – The French were first out of the blocks when most of the sanctions against Iran were lifted last year – it’s paying off. Total SA is set to sign a $5 billion deal to develop the South Pars offshore gas field. Total will take a 50.1% share, China’s National Petroleum Corporation will 30% and Iran Petropars 19.9%.

MEXICO/GANGS – 19 people were killed in a shootout between police and suspected drug cartel gunmen in Sinaloa state.  The state attorney general’s office said armed men attacked police near Mazatlan, and the police fought back with support from federal forces.

QATAR/RUSSIA – President Putin has phoned the leaders of Qatar and Bahrain to call for an end to the dispute between Qatar and other GCC members. So far – so no good.

EU/JAPAN – Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom says she’s confident a broad trade agreement between the EU and Japan will be announced by Thurs. The EU is trying to plug the gaps in its budget after the UK leaves the Union.

TAJIKISTAN/IRAN –  Iran has closed its economic and cultural offices in the Tajik city of Khujand after being told to suspend activities by the Tajik government. It’s the latest in a series of crackdowns by Tajikistan. There’s no official explanation but diplomatic relations soured in 2015 when Iran invited a Tajik opposition leader living in exile, to attend the annual “International Islamic Unity Conference” in Tehran.

USA/N KOREA – The Pentagon is to present President Trump with military options for dealing with N Korea in case it nears developing a nuclear weapon that could reach America, according to CNN.

COMING UP

The main event has to be the G20 in Hamburg which looks set fair to become a series of diplomatic rows to the backdrop of revolting demonstrators.  Mrs Merkel may continue her routine as social conscience of the world given that Mr Trump is in town, they will be able to fall out over free trade and climate change. Mr trump gets to see President Putin in person for the first time, despite having repeatedly claimed he’s met him in the past. They will disagree over Syria – it’s just a matter of how publicly they do this.

President Xi will spend the week getting his Peking ducks in a row ahead of G20: He sees Putin and Merkel before even getting to the conference. Once he’s there – so will be tens of thousands of demonstrators.  14,000 police officers are being drafted in.

King, sorry – President Macron has summoned the two houses of the Assemble Nationale to the Palace of Versailles so that they can hear plans for his rule, and to vote on a bill authorizing the government to rule by decree where necessary due to the threat of terrorism. De Gaulle used to pull the Versailles trick and some of the shine may already be coming off Le Macron as the media has been unimpressed with some of his allegedly high handed ways.

DIARY

Mon – China’s President Xi Jinping in Moscow to see President Putin. He stays on for more talks on Tuesday.

Mon – French President Emmanuel Macron has called both houses of the National Assembly to a special session held in the Palace of Versailles.

Chinese National Flag

Mon – Silvio Berlusconi (remember him?) stands trial accused of bribing witnesses to keep shtum about allegations he paid young women for sex. He was acquitted of these charges in 2014.

Weds – India’s President Modi in Tel Aviv en -route to G20. Due to give a speech while there.

Weds – President Xi moves on to Germany to see Mrs Merkel.

Thurs – Day 2 of Xi in Germany.

Tues – If it’s the 4^th of July then it must be the famous Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest.  This year American Joey Chestnut is taking on Japan’s Takeru Kobayashi. The record is – 69!

Tues – Syria peace talks reconvene in Kazakhstan sponsored by Iran, Russia, and Turkey.

Thurs – En-route to the G20,

President Trump flies to Warsaw for the ‘Three Seas Initiative’ – which seeks greater co-operation between the nations situated between the Black Sea, Adriatic and Baltic.

Thurs – European Space Agency press conference in the Netherlands to give details of mission to Mercury due to launched Oct 2018.

Thurs – International Criminal Court will deliver decision on whether South Africa’s failure to arrest and extradite Sudan’s leader, Omar Al Bashir, when he was on a visit to the country was a breach of its obligations under international law.

Fri – Last day of last round Cypriot peace talks. Time’s running out.

Fri – Opening day of G20 Summit in Germany.

Sat – Second day of G20.

Russia, US and Jordan have agreed a ceasefire for southern Syria.  It is likely that Israel is supporting this given that the area stretches to the Golan Heights where Israel has launched punitive air strikes on the Syrian Regime for incursions.  On the face of it, this ceasefire should, in effect, turn the ‘symbolic but nebulous’ de-escalation zone in this area into a Safe Zone.

The city of Daara, which has been pounded and besieged by Regime forces for many months is the major rebel town in this area.  Aid hasn’t reached Daara for over 6 months and there are horrific stories of deprivation and starvation, but a few miles from Jordan’s border.

Turkey, Russia and Iran set up 4 de-escalation zones in May in Idlib Province, Homs, Ghouta and in the south around Daara.  However, these appear to be ‘escalation’ zones rather than the converse, with Idlib, Ghouta and Daara especially hard hit, and chemical weapons allegedly in almost daily use in Ghouta.  The Regime appeared to be trying to gain as much ground as possible before the ceasefire and the UN Geneva Process which reengaged this week.  This has come to fruition on many counts, and worryingly for some, many world leaders including President Trump and Macron believe Assad has a role to play in the future of Syria.  Quite frankly, any future for Syria is better than the present one, and if it has to include Assad, certainly for the short and medium term, then so be it.

For the Geneva Process to be given any chance of success there needs to be a ‘proper’ ceasefire and copious amounts of humanitarian aid delivered. It would appear that all those with a ‘dog’ in this fight have agreed the ceasefire, Russia, US, Turkey and Iran; but it is just not working comprehensively, and this is where the UN must come in and play the ‘UN’ role.

With these guarantors, it must be possible for the P5 of the UNSC to agree to get UN monitors on the ground to verify the ceasefire?  They proved they can be effective last year when they successfully monitoring the removal of thousands of civilians from Mosul in Iraq.

The second enabling function is to get aid to all who need it quickly.  Similar to Mosul, if vast amounts of aid, which is available in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, doesn’t  get to those who most need it we will see a repeat of Iraq 2003, where the battle was won but the peace was lost by not feeding and administering the vanquished and destitute.  Even more worrying could see renewed support for Islamic State.

In order to get this aid to where it is needed the most, first, I believe it would be best achieved by the support of UN peacekeepers.  There are still pockets of IS and AQ to be avoided, and I cannot believe that the Regime, with Russia at even closer hand, would attack another UN convoy, as it did in Aleppo last year. Hence the UN is the only viable and fair delivery merchant.

With this all in place, the hundreds of thousands of besieged and starving people can be feed, the Geneva Process can move forward with some optimism, and the US and Russian Coalitions, together can defeat IS in Syria as they have been in Iraq.

It must now be an opportunity for Britain to stand up and play a key role?  It is time we lifted our head out of the BREXIT mire and do what we’re really good at, diplomacy and ‘muscular’ humanitarianism; aka, aid to the most difficult places.  As a P5 member we can bring the UN in to monitor the ceasefire and enable this aid, and under these types of assurance to the majority in Syria, give the Geneva process the chance it needs to deliver a long term solution to this most horrific crisis.  In the very short term, with RAF transport aircraft a short flight away in Cyprus, the ceasefire now gives the opportunity to air drop 100’s tonnes of aid into Daara and the environs in S Syria now, to alleviate the most acute suffering, and giving a chance for ground based aid to ramp up.

To prevaricate anymore, at this stage, will be to replay the mistakes of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, in spades, and condemn the vast majority in Syria to terminal decline and stoke the embers of IS, again, prolonging this shadow of terror to the UK and elsewhere ‘ad infinitum’?

TURKEY/GULF – Turkey’s President Erdogan has begun a visit to the Gulf region aimed at defusing the damaging and dangerous standoff around Qatar. First stop – Jeddah, then Kuwait. Today he’s in Qatar for his first face-to-face talks with Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani since the crisis began.  Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt cut ties with Qatar accusing it of backing extremism.  Turkey is setting up a military base in Qatar.

USA/N KOREA – The White House is planning to put a ban on U.S. citizens traveling to North Korea according to AP.  2 tour operators that send groups to North Korea have been informed of the move.  This follows the case of student Otto Warmbier who died last month after spending more than a year in a N Korean prison.

SYRIA/ISIS – Syrian government forces and allies have recaptured territory from the Islamic State in countryside southeast of Raqqa.  The area is close to territory controlled by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. This further raises tensions beyween Washington and Moscow.

AFGHAN/TALIBAN – Taliban fighters  have overrun districts of Taywara previously controlled by the Government in the central province of Ghor and Kohistan. Ghor province shares borders with Farah in the northwest and Helmand in the south, both of which are Talib strongholds.

US/RUSSIA/CYBER – The US and Russia are discussing the creation of a joint cybersecurity working group.

IRAN/IRAQ – An Iranian soldier and 3 Iraqi gunmen have been killed in fighting along the border.   Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps described the gunmen as terrorists. Four of the militants were injured and crossed the border back into Iraq; one was captured. Clashes between the Guard Corp and Iranian Kurdish militant groups based in Iraq occur regularly along the border.

COMING UP

Every week the New York Times and CNN tell us that the walls are closing in on President Trump. If they are, they are moving slowly. This week may see the same pace, or, perhaps the pace will quicken. Donald Trump Jnr, Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner are both due to give evidence to the US Senate Intelligence Committee. They’ll be asked (on different days) about a meeting they had with Russians who said they had politically damaging information on Hillary Clinton from Russian “government sources.”

DIARY

Mon – 5 columnists and executives from the Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet go on trial on Istanbul charged with ‘membership of an armed terrorist orginisation’. Among the accused is the former editor-in-chief of the paper – Can Dundar.

Mon – President Trump’s son, Donald Jnr, to give evidence at US Senate Intelligence Committee hearings re links with Russia.

Mon – Prince William and Prince Harry appear on UK TV to mark the anniversary of the death of their mother – Princess Diana.

Mon – Philippine’s President Duterte gives State of the Nation address and is expected to justify his support of extra judicial murders of drug dealers.

Weds – Australia’s most senior Roman Catholic figure, Cardinal George Pell, appears in court charged with sex offences. Pell is Treasurer at the Vatican and the 3^rd highest-ranking official at the Holy See.  He denies the allegations.

Weds – Jared Kushner anad former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort to give evidence at Senate Intelligence Cmmte hearing.

Thurs – US Vice President Pence leaves Washington for a 4 day trip to Eastern Europe.  He will go to Georgia, Estonia and Montenegro.

Thurs – Anniversary of armistice that ended the Korean War. Both Koreas will mark the occasion, the North often uses the date to launch missiles or threaten to destroy Seoul in a ‘Sea of Fire’.

Thurs – 100th anniversary of Finland’s independence from Russia. President Putin to attend celebrations.

Sat – Venezuela’s President Maduro stages election for a constituent assembly. This would have the power to override parliament and the constitution. 

In 2014 Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin reacted to U.S. sanctions imposed against him by telling Congress – “Send me your teeth ground in impotent rage”

Three years on, amid much grinding of teeth, Congress has imposed another set of sanctions against Russia and people in the leadership. The public reaction will be similar, and as in 2014, the more covert response will play out.  Moscow will push back in various ways.

The sanctions against Russia for its illegal annexation of Crimea are hurting, especially with the oil price relatively low – but they have not caused Russia to back down. As the W&Y has argued many times Moscow’s intervention in Syria is connected to these sanctions: Russia has made itself a problem in Syria and therefore part of the solution. The price of a solution will include discussions on the sanctions. Russia has other buttons to push.

So, do sanctions work?  It’s a frequently asked question with the frustrating answer – ‘occasionally – in different ways’.

A 1985 study by U.S. academics looked at 200 cases and judged 16 of them to have achieved their aims. For example in 1925 the League of Nations threatened sanctions against Greece unless it withdrew from Bulgaria’s border territory. Greece withdrew.  In 1958/59 the U.S.S.R. imposed economic sanctions on Finland after Communists were excluded from the Finnish government. The Finnish Prime Minister eventually resigned. In 1977, after the U.S. imposed sanctions on Taiwan after learning it was secretly developing nuclear weapons. Taiwan abandoned the programme.

However, in all these cases others factors were involved and the issues were not ‘die in the ditch’ crisis for the party on the recieving end of the sanctions.  In Russia’s case involving Crimea, this is an matter of utmost importance to Moscow and there is no question that they will give the territory back. In the North Korean situation if the leadership has arrived at the conclusion that their survival entails having a nuclear bomb – sanctions will not prevent it. In the Venezuelan example the leadership of the country has already fabulously enriched itself – yes ‘smart sanctions’ against individuals such as president Maduro will hurt but the life of luxury the leadership and their children enjoy will remain mostly intact.

Sometimes sanctions seek to build a wall around a state – but rarely does everyone agree to guard the wall, and frequently one state will actively build a gate, open it, and drive through supplies.  It has not been proven, but it is suspected that Russia has supplied crude oil to North Korea and in certainly tries to help Iran in a variety of ways.

Sanctions can also give a state’s leadership an excuse for their own failings. President Putin points to them as part of the problem of Russia’s economic woes, the same thing happens in Iran.

So they are a flawed, and sometimes blunt instrument in the diplomatic tool box, but they sometimes work, and even when they have less of the effect than intended they do usually go someway in punishing what one or more parties sees as a serious transgression. Against this lies the law of unintended consequences which, while it should give pause for thought, is not neccesarily an argument for not acting.

Sanctions lie between doing nothing, and a military response, and as such are useful. Ask yourself what are the alternatives.

NIGERIA/PRESIDENT – President Muhammadu Buhari says he feels a “tremendous improvement” in his health but must wait for his doctors to give him the go ahead to return to Nigeria from the UK.  Buhari has been in London for 3 months leading to protests at home demanding his resignation.

RUSSIA/LIBYA – Another demonstration of growing Russian influence in M/East and North Africa. Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter, head of the Libyan National Army arrived in Moscow over the weekend.

TURKEY/GERMANY – A group of German parliamentarians will be allowed to visit German troops at an airbase in Konya next month. A similar trip to Incirlik airbase was previously called off by the Turks raising tensions between the two NATO allies.

IRAN/MISSILES – Iran’s parliament has approved $520 million in funding for the country’s missile program and foreign operations. The funding appears to be a reaction to U.S. sanctions. The money will be spent on Iran’s ballistic missile program and special forces.

IRAN/CASUALTIES – Iranian forces have suffered the loss of another officer fighting in Syria. Revolutionary Guard Colonel Col. Mortaza Hosseinpour was killed near Palmyra on Aug 8^th and buried a few days later in Iran.

IRAN/MAYOR – The growing influence of the (relatively) moderate reformers in Iran has been underlined by the election of Mohammad Ali Najafi’s as Tehran Mayor. This builds on the success of the reformist-moderate bloc in last year’s parliamentary elections.

ISRAEL/WALL – Israel has published details of the underground sensor-equipped wall it will construct along the 37 mile border with the Gaza Strip. It will reach deep under the ground in  a bid to prevent Hamas sponsored tunnels used to hide weapons and launch attacks into Israel. The cost is estimated at $1.1 billion. The project will take several years to complete

COMING UP –

The N. Korea story isn’t going away. On Thursday, the newly appointed Japanese foreign and defence ministers – Taro Kono and Itsunori Onodera – are in Washington for scheduled talks with their opposite numbers. Japan is a target for North Korea and home to 54,000 U.S. troops. Onodera recently said that that Japan might have to consider allowing its military to launch a pre-emptive strike against enemies. This would be quite a move considering Japan’s post-World War II constitution limits the use of force to self-defense. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe closed down the debate but the fact that it was raised is worth noting. One item on the talks agenda might be Japan’s thoughts on buying American Tomahawk cruise missiles but if so, its unlikely to made public.

DIARY –

Mon – UK PM Theresa May ends her walking holiday by walking back into Downing St and back to threats to her leadership and divisions on her somewhat opaque Brexit strategy.

Mon – Chancellor Merkel is on the campaign trial in Hessen ahead of next month’s general election.

Mon – The International Criminal Court returns from summer recess to resume the hearing against Dominic Ongwen, a Ugandan commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army. Ongwen was abducted by the LRA as a child.

Mon – Pakistan celebrates 70 years of Independence from Britain. India marks the event on Tuesday.

Tues – 72^nd anniversary of the liberation of the Korean peninsula from Japan by Russian and American troops.

Weds – Formal start of renegotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

Weds – Elvis still out of the building; 40^th anniversary of the death of ‘The King’.

Thurs – Japanese foreign and defence ministers in Washington to meet their opposite numbers.  N. Korea situation will dominate discussions.

Thurs – 130^th anniversary of the birth of Marcus Garvey.

U.S./AFGHANISTAN – President Donald Trump has decided on America’s policy for Afghanistan after a “rigorous” review says Defence Secretary Jim Mattis. Details are not yet announced. 16 years into America’s longest war the Taliban and other anti-government groups control almost half of the country.

IRAQ/ISIS – The operation to retake the town of Tal Afar, Iraq began yesterday.  The town is the last urban area held by ISIS in Iraq. It is on a major ISIS supply route to and from Syria. Iraq’s Shia militia are expected to play a bigger role in the operation than they did for Mosul and this may exacerbate ethnic and religious tensions.

VENEZUELA/PARLIAMENT – President Maduro’s controversial constituent assembly is to take over powers from the opposition-led congress. Members of congress said it was another step in a coup by the President.

VENEZUELA/ORTEGA – Former attorney-general Luisa Ortega, and her husband, politician German Ferrer, have fled to Mexico via a speedboat and then plane. The government had accused Ortega and Ferrer of illegal acts after she threatened to open an investigation into alleged fraud surrounding July’s election, which led to the creation of the new constituent assembly.

VENEZUELA/MILITARY – The government plans to hold a nationwide military exercise called Bolivarian Sovereignty 2017 on Aug 26/27. This may be a response to Donald Trump’s bellicose remarks, it might also be to test to see if units obey orders.

IRAN/CASUALTY – Another senior Revolutionary Guard officer has been killed in Syria. Brigadier General Se Mostafa Khosh Mohammadi is the latest fatality. The Guards are losing about 8 men a month in Syria.

IRAN/ROUHANI – Iran’s parliament has approved most of the Cabinet ministers selected by President Hassan Rouhani for his 2nd term. Among them is Javad Zarif the highly rated veteran Iranian diplomat who negotiated the country’s 2015 nuclear deal as foreign minister.

AUSTRIA/MIGRANTS – Austria is sending 70 soldiers to the Brenner Pass on Austria-Italy border to prevent migrants from entering the country. Austria says up to 1,000 migrants enter the country each month, many of them via the Pass.

COMING UP – The joint S Korean/U.S. military exercise is the one to watch.  They are an annual event and usually coincide with bellicose language from N Korea and sometimes a missile test. This year’s ‘Ulchi-Freedom Guardian’ exercise comes amid even greater tension than usual. The North has warned that the war games constituted “reckless behaviour driving the situation into the uncontrollable phase of a nuclear war.”

This summer  the Wall Street Journal broke  news of a secret transfer of $400 million in foreign currency via an unmarked cargo plane to Iran back in January.  Subsequently the White House had been forced to repeatedly deny having paid what was a ransom to Iran for the release of American hostages.

Iran has aired a documentary containing footage of pallets of millions in foreign currency that the video claims was part of the “expensive price” the Obama administration paid to free four U.S. hostages in January.

Obama has broken all the rules to appease the Ayatollahs. His administration has misled the public to spin the apparent $1.7 billion ransom payment to Iran.

Republicans believe that President Obama’s disastrous nuclear deal with Iran was sweetened with an illicit ransom payment and billions of dollars for the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism,”. So, why Iran is still unhappy with Obama?

Iran has violated U.N. Security Council resolutions banning Iranian missile launches. It conducted a naval missile test in dangerous proximity to a U.S. fleet aircraft carrier in the Gulf. It hijacked a U.S. military ship and videotaped the humiliation of its crew.

More recently an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps missile ship and three fast-attack crafts demonstrated aggressive behavior in the vicinity of a US ship.

And yet, despite the partial lifting of sanctions, the release of billions of dollars and the granting of nuclear exemptions, the Ayatollahs of Iran are not happy.

The nuclear deal hasn’t delivered the benefits Iran was hoping to receive. Its ambition to be a global heavy weight and the sole major regional player has not materialised. Others, such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egypt are still calling the shots.

The leadership thought the signing of the nuclear accord would mark a new phase in its relations.

However, despite all the hard work of the Tehran funded lobbies in Washington, the pro-Tehran advisers in the White House, and the millions of dollars spent on PR and favourable press reporting, Iran is still not enjoying the fruits of the nuclear deal. Most banks remain reluctant to deal with Iran. American banks are not open for business with Iran.

Washington is fully aware that Iran, like its friends in Damascus, are the biggest sponsors of terrorism and abusers of human rights.  It is bogged down in Iraq and Syria. Its military has failed to defeat the anti-Assad opposition despite Russian involvement.

Tehran’s relations with Russia are strained. Russia embarrassed Tehran by telling the world that Iran allowed its air-force to use bases in Iran to attack targets in Syria.

Iran has not moderated its human rights policies. It executed 966 people in 2015, over 100 were juveniles. Amnesty International’s report for 2015/2016 says “They blocked Facebook, Twitter and other social media websites, jammed foreign satellite television stations, arrested and imprisoned journalists and suppressed peaceful protests.”

An important report issued by the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington, D.C. arms-control think tank, revealed that Iran was secretly granted exemptions to the July 2015 nuclear agreement so it could meet requirements for what the agreement calls “Implementation Day” — when Iran was to receive an estimated $150 billion in sanctions relief.

Not coincidentally, the same day that Implementation Day was announced (January 18), U.S. officials announced a swap of 18 Iranian prisoners held by the United States for five U.S. citizens who had been illegally held by Iran. An additional 14 Iranians were removed from an INTERPOL wanted list. (A London based Iranian opposition figure told me that the 18 Iranian prisoners refused to go back to Iran).

The Institute report cites an unnamed official who said that without these exemptions, some of Iran’s nuclear facilities would not have been in compliance with the JCPOA by Implementation Day.

Some of the exemptions were significant and allowed Iran to not report activities with nuclear weapons-related applications. One of the exemptions allowed Iran to violate a cap of 300 kg for its enriched-uranium stockpile under certain circumstances.

As the West is trying hard to renew business relations with Iran, the regime continues to oppress its citizens and deny their basic human rights. The regime hopes that the promise of business deals will blind the world to Iran’s crimes against its own people.

Yesterday marked 15 years since Sept. 11, 2001. Since then, the U.S. and other forces have waged almost constant war in the Middle East, the birthplace of Islam and civilization itself. On Sept. 11, we pause and remember where we were that day and what we were thinking. That is altogether appropriate. However, it is also appropriate to consider how the map of the Middle East has changed since 9/11. Maps are useful tools, but they can be dangerous because they lock patterns into your mind that may not be accurate. The only way to counter this is to force yourself to look at things from a different perspective. To do this, we have created two maps of the Middle East: one of the region on Sept. 11, 2001 and another of the region on Sept. 11, 2016.

Osama bin Laden had one great goal in mind for al-Qaida, and it wasn’t simply to kill Americans. For bin Laden, attacks like 9/11 were a means to an end. Bin Laden really sought to transform the Islamic world from within by insurrection. He came from a wealthy Saudi family, and when he looked at this map, he saw sclerotic regimes, indulgent dictators and a society in a general state of collapse. The once-proud heirs of the Prophet Muhammed’s revelation had been turned into pawns in the Cold War and had imbibed foreign ideals – first nationalism, then socialism, then petty authoritarianism. And now they were weak and ignorant of their own traditions, and bin Laden hoped to change this.

Al-Qaida didn’t have the power to do this single handedly. And so al-Qaida attacked the United States, hoping to create a rallying cry in the Muslim world not just against the West but against the Western-sympathizing dictators who had steered the Arab Muslim world to this disastrous place. In total, 2,977 people died on 9/11 – but from al-Qaida’s point of view, 9/11 was initially a failure. The U.S. punished Afghanistan and the Taliban, but Afghanistan was on the periphery of al-Qaida’s fight. Al-Qaida hoped to draw the U.S. into the heart of the Middle East, and at first the U.S. didn’t take the bait.

But 9/11 also showed that bin Laden understood something the U.S. and others did not. And that was that most Middle Eastern states were in fact weak, their borders artificial. The 9/11 attacks may not have immediately set off the chain reaction bin Laden hoped for, but his diagnosis of the situation proved to be accurate. Eventually, the tinder ignited, sparked by the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the U.S. attempt to install a liberal democracy in Baghdad. Since then, because of war, popular unrest (most notably the 2011 so-called Arab Spring), economic frailty and various other dynamics, the map of the Middle East has changed dramatically.

This is a map of the Middle East on Sept. 11, 2016. The map does not show official political borders. It shows the forces that exert power over certain territory. It is a very different map than the first and represents the realization of at least some of bin Laden’s objectives.

Libya, for instance, is no longer a country. The old Libya was the 16th largest country in the world by area but only had a population of 6 million split between two population centers – Tripoli and Benghazi. The distance between Tripoli and Benghazi is over 600 miles, which is mostly desert. The hinterlands support small populations of various tribal groups and the Tuareg, many of whom now exert control over regions and battle each other for position and territory.

Yemen has fallen apart again, with fresh civil war kicking off in 2014, a few years after Arab Spring protests shook the country. The Saudis and their allies support what is still recognized internationally as Yemen. The Houthis and their supporters have a stronghold in the north. Al-Qaida has found enough space to operate its own little fiefdom in the country, and the Islamic State is there too. It is the perfect example of jihadist groups taking advantage of popular disillusionment with the old order of things.

Lebanon remains as it has been since the 1960s: hopelessly divided and deadlocked. Only now, Hezbollah has become both a political party and a fifth-column military force in the small Levantine country. Hezbollah has in recent years traded the occasional skirmish with Israel for supporting Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian Arab Republic, but remains dominant in stretches of land that is for all intents and purposes Hezbollah’s sovereign territory.

Egypt looks relatively stable despite its unrest and the 2013 coup d’état, but Egypt is under significant strain. The economy is in shambles, its military is dealing with an insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula and other jihadist terrorist threats at home, and its 80 million plus people live in an area roughly the size of the state of Kentucky, clustered on either bank of the Nile River.

Jordan is under similar strain – the fact that Jordan has been able to hold together amid the chaos surrounding it is a minor miracle. Almost 20 percent of the people living in Jordan are Syrian refugees.

Syria and Iraq have been destroyed and will not recover, at least not in their previous form. At the heart of this is the Islamic State, a splinter of al-Qaida, which took advantage of both the power vacuum in Iraq after the U.S. invasion and the sectarian rivalries embedded within the region. Bin Laden hoped to begin the process of building a caliphate by overthrowing Middle Eastern dictators. The Islamic State is building that caliphate by conquering territory and ruling it and has thus far met with success beyond what could have been imagined for such a group in 2001.

Syria has splintered into at least three different segments. First is the Islamic State. Second is the small, partially disconnected statelet the Syrian Kurds have carved out for themselves, which they call Rojava, on the Jazira Plain. Third is the remnants of the Syrian Arab Republic led by Assad’s regime – exactly the type of regime Bin Laden hoped al-Qaida would help break apart. Assad’s regime is a shadow of its former self, though it has solidified control over the Alawite coast as well as most of Syria’s major metropolitan areas: Homs, Hama and Damascus.

Iraq has split into at least four different segments. The Islamic State is under severe pressure there but remains a formidable force. Iraq’s Kurds in the north enjoy autonomy through the Kurdistan Regional Government – independence is a fait accompli at this point. Shiite Arab Iraq oscillates between being an Iranian vassal state and attempting to assert its own writ. Sunni Arab Iraqis, with the least physical control over their territory than any other entity on this map, remain something of a wildcard. IS could not have grown into what it is today without them, but that tacit support has waned in the last year.

Sitting atop this chaotic situation are the Middle East’s four regional powers: Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel. This map reveals that these countries face grave challenges and potential opportunities. Turkey must fear spillover from the chaos raging to the south, the result of both Syria’s civil war and the rise of the Islamic State – but that also means Turkey has a chance to reclaim its influence in some of the old Ottoman territories. Iran has to deal with Sunni Arabs, the Islamic State and the Kurds, all claiming land within territory that used to belong to its mortal enemy. These are all threats – but they also present a chance for Iran to gain a base of operations in the heart of the Middle East from which it can project power.

Saudi Arabia, a vast, oil-rich desert whose economy is under severe strain, faces a war on two fronts, and there are limits to the amount of treasure it can use to protect itself. Israel is surrounded by general chaos, but its two most important strategic partnerships – with Egypt and Jordan – remain in place. Israel’s would-be enemies are also too fractured and too busy fighting each other to give Israel a hard time. Despite the unease Israel feels looking at this map, ironically Israel is more secure today than at any other point in its modern history. As for the Palestinians, they have never been more divided, and Israeli military and economic dominance of the Palestinian territories is at this point a simple, if controversial, fact.

Looking at the old map of the Middle East is like traveling back in time. It is an echo of a past long gone. Comparing that old map to the new reveals the thinking of those who live there and gives a sense of the direction in which events have developed since 9/11. It’s not how bin Laden drew it up or planned it, but 15 years after 9/11, the map looks a lot more like he would have wanted, despite a massive expenditure of American (and Russian, French and various other foreign) resources in the region to stop those very developments. Bin Laden had a deep understanding of his part of the world in 2001. Looking at these maps bears that out – and points towards an inexorable conclusion: These new borders will change too, and that will necessitate more new maps

This article originally appeared on Geopoliticalfutures.com and is republished with permission.

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in the spring of 2003, Iraq has been unstable. It will remain that way for years to come irrespective of what happens in Mosul.

The main source of instability is the sectarian struggle inside the country.

The meddling of Iran has made a bad situation much worse. The regional rivalry between Shi’a Iran on one side and the Sunni states of Saudi Arabia and Turkey has contributed to the instability. Unless the three agree to work together to resolve differences, Iraq will continue to be a victim.

The military offensive against ISIS in Mosul is expected to last several weeks.  The indications are that ISIS will eventually be driven out of Mosul and escape to Syria which is considered a safe haven given that neither the Assad regime nor the Russians are interested in fighting them.

The immediate consequences of the Mosul offensive are already making headlines: “Exodus of refugees of cataclysmic proportions”. The possibility of a desperate “ISIS using chemical weapons”. Also stories of WW3 appear in the press. The latter is unlikely for the simple reason that the security of USA and Russia is not threatened by what is happening in Mosul.

The Mosul issue is complicated. There are too many players involved with conflicting agendas. The latest participant to enter the fray is Turkey which has kept a tank battalion in Ba’ashiqa, a nearby town.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly said that Turkish forces will participate in the “liberation” of Mosul. The various actors involved in the fight for Mosul (inc the Kurdish Peshmerga, the Sunni Hashd-al-Watani militia, the Turkish army, the Shia popular mobilization units, the Iraqi Security Forces, and the PKK)  complicate the potential for coordination and subsequent co-operation. Inevitably a conflict of a different kind will follow between the disparate groups fighting ISIS.

Defeating ISIS in Mosul does not automatically mean an end to the violent islamist movements. They will continue to flourish as long as they are fed with hatred of Western civilization. We can defeat them militarily but seemingly cannot eliminate the extremist ideology from the minds of the gullible dupes who joined ISIS since the summer of 2013.

In the Middle East, the media is focusing on a wider anti- Saudi plot by Iran supported by the Obama administration’s decision to conclude a nuclear deal with Iran and lift sanctions. This emboldened Iran to impose its will on the region.

So the main winner will be Iran with hegemony over two of the most important Arab states – Syria and Iraq, while Saudi Arabia and Turkey lick their political wounds and concede political defeat. Iran has so far prevailed in its agenda to strengthen its grip over Iraq and Syria while keeping Turkey and Saudi Arabia out.

Questions remain; how to deal with the various militias loyal to Iraq, Iran, and Kurdistan and so on? Can they be integrated into the political process? Is there a super plan of reconciliation and unification? Will Turkey and Iran play a constructive role in helping to rebuild Mosul and Iraq?

The loss of Mosul was a severe blow to Iraq. But why and how was Mosul occupied so swiftly by ISIS in June 2014? Why did the Iraqi army not fight?  The answer can be found in an article I wrote in the Huffington Post in June 2014 :

In a nut-shell the collapse of the Iraqi army was swift and shocking. The fall of Mosul was catastrophic. No one expected that the army would disintegrate so quickly. Nouri al-Maliki the former Iraqi Prime Minister was blamed. He had purged commanders he suspected of disloyalty, replacing them with officers whose qualifications were not military experience but sectarian affiliations and personal loyalty. The alienation of the Sunni Arab element of Iraqi society, a third of the Iraqi population, has helped anti-government insurgents and made the collection of human intelligence in the Sunni areas extremely difficult.

For Iraq, the battle of Mosul is a testing ground. Reaching a power-sharing agreement between the different forces fighting for Mosul today, and protecting the local Sunni population will be critical for both the outcome of the battle and Iraq’s future.

The next battle for Mosul will be charting its political course after the military operation.  If the various Iraqi players and the regional powers don’t agree, not only is Mosul doomed but so is Iraq itself. The country will be fragment into 3 states; Shi’a, Sunni, and Kurdish. Preventing that is the challenge once ISIS has been run out of town.

Nehad Ismail is Senior Analyst at Wikistrat

Welcome to the last ‘Mire’ of 2016. It is a truncated version due to the time of year. The W&Y wishes you a very happy 2017!

CHINA/CARRIER – China’s only aircraft carrier will carry out ‘exercises far out at sea’ in the Western Pacific according to a navy statement. The statement gave few details but it’s thought this will be the first blue water exercise by the carrier.

ISRAEL/UN – Israel summoned the ambassadors of 10 nations to Jerusalem on Dec 25 as a reprimand for last week’s U.N. Security Council resolution demanding an end to settlement building in the West Bank. The ambassadors from New Zealand, UK, Russia, China, Japan, Uruguay, Egypt, France, Spain and Ukraine were all summoned. Calling in an ambassador on Christmas Day is very unusual.

IRAN/DRONE – An Iranian anti-aircraft battery shot down a drone as it flew close to the offices of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran. It was later discovered to belong to state TV and was being used to film a Friday prayer ceremony.

IRAN/SYRIA – Iranian news agencies report that the latest casualty fighting with Iranian forces is Syria was Mohammed Issa Mohammadi from an Afghan Shia Militia unit.

GAMBIA/SENEGAL – The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) says forces from Senegal are on alert to lead a possible military intervention in Gambia if President Yahya Jammeh continues to refuse to step down having lost the Dec 1^st presidential election. The opposition has brought the matter to the Supreme Court which will hear the case on Jan 10^th.

LEBANON/RAPE LAW – Lebanon’s Parliamentary Justice Committee has repealed Article 522 of the Penal Code, which enabled a rapist to avoid punishment by marrying his victim. Parliament must now approve the move. This follows a campaign by women’s rights activists. They also want to change another law so that children whose mothers are Lebanese, but whose fathers are not, can be granted Lebanese citizenship.

DIARY –

Dec 27 – Russia/Turkey/Iran summit in Moscow to discuss Syria.

Dec 27 – Final day of Japanese Prime Minister Abe’s trip to Hawaii to visit Pearl Harbor.

Dec 27 – At least 35 MP’s set to leave ruling Saenuri Party of South Korean President Park Geun Hye.

Jan 1 – Kazakhstan becomes 1^st Central Asian state to take non-permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.

Jan 1 – OPEC’s oil output ceiling of 52.5 million barrels per day  comes into force for all members except Nigeria, Iran and Libya.