DAVID GOLDMAN: A NEW BLOG….THE CALL
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org//the-call
This week we are proud to present the inaugural episode of “The Call,” an unconventional foreign policy round-table that will be posted regularly on Monday afternoons. Each “Call” will focus on a single subject to which panelists will bring insights drawn from their experience and contacts in the worlds of finance, investigative reporting, military operations and intelligence work. The weekly discussion will be followed by regular blog-posts.
None of the panelists adhere to any common ideological line or political affiliation, and are united simply by the fact that they like talking to each other:
Mike Breen, Vice President of the Truman National Security Project, is a former US Army officer who served in tactical and operational assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Pepe Escobar is an investigative reporter based in Sao Paolo, Brazil and author of the “Roving Eye” feature for the Asia Times
David Goldman, aka Spengler, is the author of “How Civilizations Die” and the former head of fixed income research for Bank of America.
Rotem Sella is the foreign affairs editor at the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv
David Samuels is a Contributing Editor at Harper’s Magazine
The Godfather IV: Shooting in Syria
David Samuels: The final days of Assad will be one of those great Godfather movie scenes where everyone watches everyone else to see who will try to shoot him first, which is why he’s put every Sunni in the army command under 24 hour surveillance. So the real danger is the trusted Alawite who is in charge of Assad’s security at the palace or runs the intelligence apparatus and is owned by Vladimir Putin. Which means that Assad has a perverse interest in things getting worse as a way to ensure Putin’s continued backing — since other members of his inner circle would have even less popular and international legitimacy than he does. Let’s call that the Paradox of Putin’s Alawite.
Mike Breen: A question for David about the script for Godfather Part IV, shooting now in Damascus. If Assad himself ends up like Sonny in that tollbooth, what difference would it make? Knowing they hang together or hang separately, and with more than enough lawyers, guns & money for a long last stand, don’t the elite circle the T-72’s and keep fighting? And if not, what’s their way out?
Pepe Escobar: So far, defections from the Assad regime have been mostly irrelevant, but one group of people should be watched closely. If any of them defects, the Assad clan may be in serious trouble. The group includes Jamil Hassan; Abdel-Fatah Qudsiyeh; Ali Mamlouk; and Muhammad Deeb Zaitoon. These are the directors of Syria’s four intelligence agencies (yes, this is an ultra-hardcore police state). And then there’s Hisham Bakhtiar – the head of the National Security Council and the top Assad intelligence adviser.
The problem goes beyond the fact that Assad is gross, megalomaniac and totally inept. I’d say Putin already owns most if not all of the above. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov will have a breather of three months or so to go with this “transition” farce. If the army does not kill every FSA or mercenary Salafi-jihadist in sight, then Putin will say “let’s get rid of the bastard”. What Russia wants is Tartus and the weapons contracts – all the rest is cosmetics.
Assad is right on the Saudis and Turks though, and even more on Qatar. I picked up this exchange from al-Akhbar English, have friends there, I do trust them – not bought by the House of Saud:
Assad and Kofi Austin Powers in Damascus on Monday:
Annan – How long do you think this crisis will continue?
Assad – As long as the […] regime funds it.
Annan – Do you think they are behind all the funding?
Assad – They are behind many things that happen in our region. They believe they will be able to lead the whole Arab world today and in the future.
Annan – But it seems to me that they lack the population needed for such an ambition.
[collective laughter]
Time to start considering Qatar as the next superpower…
David Goldman: Pepe Escobar wrote in Asia Times that Russia has effectively scotched the possibility of NATO intervention and that status quo simply drags on. I agree with his tactical reading but see another dimension in Russia’s motives. Our Asia Times colleague M.K. Bhadrakumar wrote last month: “[The Putin-Netanyahu meeting] brings up a core aspect of Russia’s “intransigence” with regard to the Syrian situation. While Western commentators look at Syria being a “client state” of Russia, they blithely overlook Russia’s fear that ascendancy of radical Islam in Syria can easily spread to its extended neighborhood in Central Asia and the North Caucasus.” The Israelis read Russia in exactly this fashion.
The opposition in Turkey claims that Turkey has been humiliated. Here’s Yusuf Kanli writing in Hurriyet Daily News:
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu must be congratulated for being courageous enough to confess that Turkey has failed in its policies regarding Syria. It is not at all easy for a politician to admit failure of any sort. Davutoğlu has been often accused by opponents of mixing up academia and politics and trying to bend political realities to fit his “strategic depth” theory. His brave declaration of failure, anyhow, showed that he must still possess some degree of academic ethical values.
Unfortunately, Turkey made a very serious mistake in Syria. It thought that, as in Libya the regime would collapse quickly and would be replaced with the AKP’s “brothers” the Muslim Brotherhood. The “Sunni brotherhood” was instrumental in embracing Sudan’s bloodthirsty dictator Omar al-Bashir, but Bashar al-Assad was only an “Alawite brother.”
Turkey really does seem up the creek in Syria.
Pepe Escobar: The House of Saud does not feel threatened by AKP. But in Syria they are missing the plot. Post-Assad – if there is one – will certainly be hardcore Muslim Brotherhood; good for Qatar, not good for Saudi. Most of the Sunni business elite in Syria actually is in bed with the regime – and they haven’t abandoned it. Jordan is already ultra-wobbly. There are more than 150,000 new Syrian refugees – mostly poor. There are still 450,000 Iraqi refugees – mostly middle class and business owners. And 70% of the population is Palestinian – second-class citizens politically. King Playstation barely rules over the MB and the Palestinians. Well, his “security services” are among the most ruthless in the Middle East. There will be “elections” soon without any political reform. King Playstation better dust off that flat in London.
Mike Breen: Pepe is right to bring up Jordan’s extreme fragility. The country is basically an overcrowded city state built on a ridiculously fragile layer-cake of sub-citizen refugees, with the huddled Palestinian masses at the base, formerly wealthy or middle class but now increasingly destitute Iraqis one layer up and the recently arrived Syrians completing the picture. Some of the “Syrians,” by the way, are Iraqis who fled to Syria a few years back — and an unlucky few are Palestinians who went to Iraq, then to Syria, and now to Jordan. Unemployment was something close to 13% last I checked, with social mobility effectively zero. The king’s control is shaky, although the security apparatus has elevated keeping up appearances around Amman’s international hotels to an art form.
So my question is this: what happens when the rest of the region’s safety valve and buffer zone, with a seemingly infinite capacity to absorb semi-permanent refugees from its neighbors, goes belly-up itself? I’d argue that Jordan’s calming influence on the neighborhood is often undervalued but will be understood as essential when it’s gone — and gone could be upon us sooner than we think.
David Samuels: The more the Muslim Brotherhood takes control of the opposition’s political leadership in Turkey – which seems to be the preferred path to cohesion there in Turkey and in the US — the more support Assad can command among Syria’s minority groups.
I thought the great CJ Chivers’ piece about the meeting of opposition field commanders inside Turkey was very revealing, and showed an enormous political, emotional and structural disconnect between the opposition leadership inside and outside Syria. This suggested to me that Assad is not entirely delusional when he says he can win. For the opposition to overthrow him, there would need to be some kind of major power backing for a unified opposition — and that doesn’t exist yet, and may never exist. NATO intervention in Syria seems far away in a US election year. Turkey’s limits seem clear — they will go so far to please the Saudis and control their own borders, but not far enough to trigger a direct confrontation with the Iranians and the Russians. You can see Turkish policy as simply the outcome of dueling economic priorities – Russian and Iranian energy interests versus the Turkish need for loans from the Saudis. The need to balance those two competing interests puts a ceiling on the level of political and military coherence that the Syrian opposition can achieve with Turkey serving as its sponsor.
Which again means that Assad isn’t getting on a plane anytime soon, and that the short term Russian interest in Syria may be in making sure Assad’s plane goes in for repairs so he can’t fly to London. They can use the same technicians that they sent to start up Bushehr and to train the Iranian crews to use those S-300 missiles they keep promising to deliver.
The moral is that the Russians keep drawing more cards the longer they sit at the table, so in the game will keep on keeping on, in the absence of someone stepping in and changing the game. I don’t see the US or Israel bombing anyone anytime soon, and the Iranians don’t want to start a war either. So it seems worth imagining what 1914-like event could start a war that no one wants.
David Goldman: There are several possible triggers.
One is movement in Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal, reportedly the largest in the world, and a prospective WMD. As long as Assad controls it no-one will care, because it’s the equivalent of a hand grenade in Assad’s pocket. If other people (e.g. Iran or proxies) get hold of it, all bets are off. The arsenal is reportedly up for grabs, and that is extremely serious.
A second is a sufficient intensity of Iranian subversion in Shi’ite areas of Saudi Arabia. The Iranians keep talking about the issue of alleged Saudi repression of Shi’ite but are not likely to do much right away.
The evolution of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood as a global force eventually could be an issue – but the Egyptians seem to have their hands full right now with the Egyptian military. Daily News of Egypt claims that Morsi caved into the Saudis and de facto reversed the revolution:
Whether Morsy has deliberately wished it or not, his visit to Saudi Arabia, the largest Gulf state, at a time of economic difficulty, has reinstated the pre-revolution,Mubarakhabit of rushing towards Gulf riches as a first resort to counteract economic crises.Moreover, to many of the Muslim Brotherhood’s critiques, Morsy’s choice of the kingdom as his first destination after assuming power has further ascertained their doubts regarding the true intents of the Muslim Brothers and their intent to seek support for their narrow partisan objectives at the expense of Egypt’s national interests.
I’m inclined to agree with Daniel Pipes that Tantawi is the real ruler of Egypt, but happy to be corrected.
And the last matter is the possibility of a US or Israeli strike on Iran.
Mike Breen: I suppose there’s something tactically appealing about trying to time a strike on Iran to coincide with the collapse of the Syrian regime, assuming it happens. A diversion is always welcome when you’re going after a predictable target set. That said, whatever the tactical advantages — and they seem far from certain, at least to me — they don’t come close to outweighing the strategic pitfalls of rushing to strike.
In my view, the best thing out there on this remains Colin Kahl’s paper from last month — and much of my own thinking on this tracks with Colin’s much more informed and considered opinion. I’d urge everyone who hasn’t yet to give the report a read.
To be clear, an Iranian bomb is a disaster we must avoid. That said, why is rushing to strike such a bad idea? For starters, because it will be messy and we have enough time on the clock to exhaust other options. ISIS estimates that Iran needs a solid year to come up with an extremely crude but testable device and at least two to build something it can put on the pointy end of a missile. That timeline starts when the Supreme Leader gives the word, which the evidence strongly suggests he has not yet done. And with good reason, because an Iranian break-out attempt is very likely to be detected as soon as they start refining to weapons-grade at Fordow or Natantz. Both facilities, remember, are under IAEA observation — not to mention the watchful eye of a rainbow coalition of intelligence agencies. This is not to say that there is no urgency to the situation. There is. But we are not yet locked in some desperate race against time in which we must strike before they finish turning screws on the bomb casing — and there is still hope we may never be.
David Goldman: My thought about Colin Kahl’s paper is the same as that of the Kansas City mob boss in “Casino,” to switch movies for a moment: “Why take chances?: There’s a broader reason. Neutralize Iran, and a great deal else in the region falls into line. Iran disrupted the natural balance of power of the two Ba’athist states. Both were ruled by minorities. The Assad family came from the Alawite minority in Syria and oppressed the Sunnis, while Saddam Hussein came from the Sunni minority in Iraq and oppressed the Shi’ites. As I had the ghost of Richelieu explain, if you compose a state from antagonistic elements to begin with, the rulers must come from one of the minorities. All the minorities will then feel safe, and the majority knows that there is a limit to how badly a minority can oppress a majority. Introduce an outside player who tips the balance of power, though, and everyone has to fight to the death.
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