RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13441/power-grabs

The assertiveness of supra-national organisations with a focus on global policy-making is direct threat to the sovereignty of the nation state, and a dilution of the power of the individuals within it.

Most alarmingly, as MEP Marcel de Graaff neatly surmised from the UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration: “Criticism of migration will become a criminal offense.” At what point have we left all pretext of democracy and moved into the sphere of dictatorship, manifest at a supranational level?

“It’s very simple: the globalist political elite doesn’t respect nation-states, nor does it give a damn about the views of ordinary people. Indeed, it despises them so much that it would much rather make their views illegal than listen to what they have to say.” — James Delingpole, Breitbart, December 9, 2018.

It is a strange time to be a citizen in a Western democracy. Our society is based on exchange — we transact in the free market, we share ideas online, and most significantly we give up some of our natural liberty in exchange for a civil society and a vote.

But increasingly, the freedoms supposed to be protected by civil society are being eroded away. At the level of the individual, our freedom of speech is under attack. Criticism of migration is apparently about to become “hate speech” and a prosecutable offence.

When the authority of the nation state is ceded to a supra-national body, such as the United Nations, our power as citizens is diluted.

Based on the contractual theory of society and the works of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau from the 17th and 18th century, real power is supposed to sit with the people; in order to retain moral character, government must thus rest on the consent of the governed, or the volonté générale (“general will”):

“What man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited right to everything he tries to get and succeeds in getting; what he gains is civil liberty and the proprietorship of all he possesses.” (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract)

What happens if you start to interfere with this contract? What happens, for instance if clauses within this contract are removed, or the contract ripped up altogether?

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13493/syria-kurds-us-allies

It would be strategic wisdom to maintain the small US presence in Syria while reducing the US profile in Iraq in order to forestall a looming demand by the Iraqi parliament for a total US withdrawal. Now it is probably too late because the Syrian Kurds have decided to abandon the US before the US abandons them. It seems that US forces will leave Syria not on American and Turkish terms but on Russian and Iranian terms.

Trump was doubtless informed about events in Iraq on a running basis by McGurk over recent months, but his statements at the US base were as nonchalant about the facts in Iraq as about the situation in Syria. What he does not imagine at all is that the day may be close when the Iraqi parliament votes by a large majority to ask him to remove US forces from the country — and he will have to comply.

The consequences of these December days will delay regime change in Iran. If a perception arises in Iran that the regime can expel the US from Iraq as well as Syria, while expanding its influence to dominate Syria from end to end, some Iranians will give the regime another chance and others will be significantly more discouraged from challenging its power. Thus a single obstinate insistence to prefer a personal instinct to all better-informed advice may bring US policy tumbling down throughout the Middle East.

In April 2018, we warned that President Trump’s decision to withdraw US forces from Syria would be a repetition of President Obama’s worst mistake, the precipitate withdrawal from Iraq that facilitated the capture of Mosul by the Islamic State (ISIS).

We perceived that the immediate consequence of abandoning Syria would be a Turkish-led campaign to annihilate America’s Syrian Kurdish allies, who heroically bore the brunt of defeating the ISIS in Syria and capturing its capital, Raqqa.

The conclusion drawn was that the Syrian Kurds would have no choice but to appeal to Iran for help. For it was only Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman who had protested vehemently against the Turkish-facilitated capture of Afrin, a Kurdish town in northwest Syria, in March by an Islamist militia. In the meantime, Turkey has sent many thousands of Kurds fleeing, who have been replaced with “displaced Syrian Arabs from East Ghouta.” The Islamist militia has subjected Christians to Sharia-style dhimmitude and forced Yazidis to convert to Islam on pain of death. Amnesty International has also reported on rampant offences against property and individuals; it mentions the thousands of refugees who have fled from Afrin.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/2018s-biggest-loser-was-the-liberal-international-order-11546199900

It’s been a year of tumult and chaos in world politics. In Japan, a national poll selected the kanji character sai, meaning disaster, as best reflecting the national mood. Perhaps 2019 will bring better news. In the meantime, here are the states, individuals, institutions and ideas that were 2018’s biggest losers. Next week: the winners.

• China’s Belt and Road Initiative. In 2018 Beijing began to learn how hard it is to build an international system. The BRI isn’t only a massive infrastructure project intended to build an integrated commercial area centered on China; it is an attempt to translate China’s economic might into geopolitical power.

After Beijing forced Sri Lanka to hand over control of its Hambantota port facilities for 99 years to satisfy its debt late in 2017, this year saw China’s most important BRI targets cancel existing agreements (Malaysia), demand better terms (Pakistan) and scale back projects (Myanmar). Chinese ties to South Africa’s Gupta family (widely blamed for facilitating the corruption of former president Jacob Zuma) and other corrupt figures have contributed to a more skeptical view of Beijing’s intentions across Asia and Africa. The pushback has only begun. China’s debt-trap diplomacy will face more obstacles in 2019.

• Britain. The United Kingdom slowly twisted in the wind in 2018, unable to negotiate an acceptable European Union exit package or to make up its mind what to do next. At year’s end the future of Brexit is as uncertain as it was 12 months ago. None of the available options—accept the EU’s offer, crash out of the EU in a “no deal” Brexit, hold a second referendum, or give up and remain in the EU—command a parliamentary majority. Within living memory Britain was one of the world’s leading powers and its parliamentary system lauded as the most successful model of democratic governance. At the start of 2019, British prestige and power are touching new lows.

• Mohammed bin Salman. The crown prince of Saudi Arabia managed to keep his job in 2018, but otherwise the year was a nightmare for him and his country. Staging the brutal murder in Istanbul of columnist Jamal Khashoggi, an ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, may have been intended to deliver a message to the Turkish leader, a Saudi rival. Instead the Turks outplayed the Saudis and dripped out one damaging revelation after another as the Saudi public-relations machine struggled to contain the fallout. Saudi prestige bled further as the kingdom’s war in Yemen wrought havoc on civilians.