RUTHFULLY YOURS

What crashed the Russian Airbus A321 in the Sinai Peninsula is yet to be determined. At the time of this writing the British Telegraph reported an ISIS “bomb plot was uncovered by British spies,” and ISIS’s claim it downed the Russian plane flying at 30,000 feet with a MANPAD (Man Portable Air Defense System), was dismissed outright by counterterrorism and aviation experts. Strangely there seems to be a consensus that “Terrorist groups cannot have such capacities by definition.”

However, in October 2011, after rebels killed Moammar Gaddafi in Libya, some 20,000 MAENADS went missing. Months later only 5,000 were reportedly destroyed. Where the remaining 15,000 missiles went is unclear. This however, did not stop then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from issuing a statement assuring Americans that most of Libya’s weapons, including MANPADS, had been secured. But NATO’s then-military committee chairman, Admiral Giampaolo di Paola, was not so sure. His fear that the missing MAENADS could be scattered “from Kenya to Kunduz [Afghanistan],” subsequently materialized. Especially so, since ISIS has captured sophisticated MANPADS in Iraq and Syria.

Secretary of State John Kerry’s new diplomatic process for dealing with Syria’s harrowing civil war involves convening a series of talks in Vienna. The effort is probably well-intentioned. But I cannot conceive of what he expects to accomplish.

Does anyone really believe that Syria can be put back together again and then revived through democratic elections? The danger is that the all-purpose diplomatic resort to “process” will lead the United States to ignore realities and even make them worse.

America faces two interconnected perils in the region: the expansion of Islamic State and the breakdown of the Middle East’s century-old security order. The Obama administration’s fear of involvement and denial of the fundamental struggle for dominance in the region increases the risks for the U.S., Europe, Africa and Asia. The conference in Vienna last week—involving at least a dozen interested parties, including Iran, Saudi Arabia and Russia—was escapism, not a serious strategy. The next gathering in a week or so will be more of the same.
The old state borders and authorities of the Middle East, established during and after World War I, are disintegrating. The Arab lands are now the scene of a terrible contest for power. As former U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus explained to Congress in September, “almost every Middle Eastern country is now a battleground or a combatant in one or more wars.”

“They attacked even the wounded. Many people throughout Kurdistan have been arrested wholesale lately. Some of them participated in the election campaigns for our party. Many Turkish mainstream media outlets distort the facts and put the blame of the conflicts on Kurds. But it was the police that started the violence and conflicts. This much is clear: they murdered civilians knowingly and intentionally” — Ferhat Encu, Kurdish member of parliament for the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP)

“The police broke F.A.’s teeth, tortured him, beat him and inserted a gun in his anus. He fainted during the torture. Then he was taken to hospital. When we saw him, there were bruises and marks of torture all over his body.” — Zozan Acar, his lawyer.

“We sent ambulances, but the police opened fire even at the ambulances. They open fire at anyone who go outside.” — Seyfettin Aydemir, the co-mayor of Silopi, to newspaper Evrensel

Even though the AKP won the majority of votes this week, on November 3 a new curfew was imposed on the Kurdish town of Silvan —for the sixth time since August 17. Just before the curfew, Muslum Tayar, 22, was killed by the police. They shot him from their armored vehicle.

It could have been a coincidence. A Russian airbus with 224 people – mainly tourists – flying from Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt to St. Petersburg, Russia could simply have come apart in midair, killing all aboard. It would have been one heck of a coincidence, though, considering the players who would have wanted it to disintegrate and the constellation of agendas that would be advanced by a well-placed bomb.

It is almost impossible that the plane was hit from the ground. It was flying too high for a shoulder-fired missile. Although it isn’t clear whether there are mobile missile launchers in Sinai, assume for a moment that one or more exist. The missile would have to have been programmed – it needs radar and target designation – and therefore it needs a) to know the flight path of a particular plane if it plans to hit a particular plane and b) an operator with the right skills. (The list of requirements for a successful takedown of an airliner is what leads some to believe that it was a Russian operator in Ukraine who fired on Malaysian Air Flight 17 a year ago.)

A bomb inside the plane, however, would account for the widespread wreckage.