Category Archives: Not Europe

Coherent

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AFP, via the Beirut Daily Star reports that the US is to find the Lebanese army $10 million to buy equipment needed to patrol the southern border and, presumably, keep Hezbollah in hand. For one thing, it doesn’t sound much. For another thing, wouldn’t it be an idea to get the Israelis to stop bombing the Lebanese army before trying to rearm it?

Meanwhile, a glimpse of our leaders in action. What with that and Secretary Rice’s recital at ASEAN, it frankly makes Jacques Chirac look like a good example.

Update: Comments on this entry are now closed as the thread has got frankly dreadful.

OK, Scott – hour of Europe not at hand

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Well, it now looks as if the window of opportunity for a ceasefire in the Levant has slammed shut on the fingers of its proponents. With the destruction of a UNTSO observation post, the mobilisation of three Israeli reserve divisions (by contrast, the total force employed so far has been one division-plus), Hezbollah’s successful defence of positions close to the Israeli border and their first launch of a long-range rocket, and the Israeli government’s claim that the world has given them permission to fight on, all parties to the conflict now seem to be giving war a chance.

If anything arose from the debate here, it was that the employment of an international intervention force might be useful in the context of a ceasefire and mutual concessions. There is no ceasefire, and even if by accident, the danger such forces would be in has been underscored. Worse, Hezbollah has tasted enough success to want to keep going, and the Israelis seem riled enough by this to escalate further. It is therefore unlikely anything would be achieved by sending NRF-7 to wander around the dry hills of the Litani valley.

Jacques Chirac’s remark that NATO, as the “armed wing of the West”, should not be involved is interesting. It admits both a Scott Martens/Sam Huntington reading-that NATO plus a few others roughly equals “the West”, so getting involved in a fight in the Middle East would be a step perilously close to religious war-and also a more limited one. Chirac may also have meant that any force should sail under the EUFOR or UN banner, or that a so-called “Virtual NATO” solution – a UN force made up of NATO member states’ forces, like KFOR or the intervention in East Timor – might be preferable.

It’s worth putting on record, however, that European forces (NRF7) were indeed available and ready when the crisis erupted.

You say that like it’s a bad thing

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Says Scott: Why should outsiders participate in saving face for Israel and in solidifying what will no doubt be perceived in the Middle East as a Hezbollah victory?

Well, if a situation emerges where Israel can save face and Hezbollah is simultaneously able to claim victory, we’d be fools not to seize this opportunity. Put it another way, if both parties can convince at least themselves that they are coming away from the battlefield with their interests advanced, they are likely to stick to the agreement.

Think about it – if the Israelis, as seems possible, settle for a token retreat and an international force whilst giving up the Shebaa farms, thus terminating Hezbollah’s claim to legitimacy, and Hezbollah can meanwhile be satisfied with the feeling that they have beaten off an Israeli onslaught, the northern dimension of the Israel/Palestine conflict is not far at all from solution. There is nothing left to argue about, except disarmament (or something akin to it).

It’s unfortunate that both sides will probably claim they won it by force of arms, but it can’t be helped. In fact, Hezbollah’s extension of its self-declared insecurity zone with bigger rockets and successful delaying action on the frontier probably had more to do with it than the Israeli freakout blitz.

The only problem is the fish, of course. Time for a ceasefire, before the maniacs talking about “doing this for the whole Sunni world” get a hearing in Israel.

Turkmen Gas and Chinese Bombs

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After the Russian gas showdown with Ukraine, the Turkmen gas showdown with Russia. Two can play at that game, it seems. No doubt a lot of this is motivated, like the Ukraine crisis, by the decision makers’ own corruption interests in their Austrian, Swiss or God knows where nominee companies and numbered accounts. No doubt the futility of refusing to sell one’s only product will be apparent soon enough.

But it does point up something-first of all, despite the apparent ebbing of US influence in central Asia (airbase agreements being allowed to lapse, etc), the ‘Stans are very far from a calm hinterland for Russian energy geopolitics. Another thing is that the wider version of this politics – the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, aka “OPEC with Bombs” or the Dictators’ Club if you want to sound Hollywood – might not be as stable as its creators would like to believe. This cuts both ways.

One view of the SCO’s future is that of a gas and oil-empowered alliance of Russia, China, central Asia and maybe Iran, or rather, of their elites. Dedicated to staying that way. It’s not a nice thought, and is certainly one that should inform the debate about the British nuclear deterrent. Another version of it is as a club of toughminded realpolitiker dedicated to keeping the jihadis away from the pipelines, and in the near future the railways. Bolshy independence within it could weaken both these scenarios, although (given the traditional Russian and Chinese approach to central Asian Muslims) that might be quite a good thing.

ICRC admits Israel and Palestine

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According to this morning’s news, the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent had admitted the Israeli Magen David Adom and Palestinian Red Crescent Society as full members, following the final passage of a text allowing the new “red crystal” symbol. The red crystal looks to me like a red Renault logo, but I guess at least it doesn’t have much religious significance for anybody.
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Somalia: As if the West’s lack of concern could be plainer

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So now, according to CNN, the US and various others are now talking about paying for an African Union peacekeeping force for Somaila. They just had some wanker on talking about how Somalia is a place where children don’t got to school, they join militias, where there’s no law and order, where “there’s been too much chaos for too long.”

Gee, fifteen years of it and only now they notice.

Of course, this “Islamic Court Union” seems to be the cause of all this new concern. As long as Somalia was a non-sectarian disaster area, or as long as it was merely unpleasant warlords in charge, it was just too hard to try to fix any of the country’s problems. But if an organization that claims adherence to a religion takes over, well, then we have to do something.

There’s a reasonable case for saying that outside intervention in Somalia is a bad idea – it hasn’t worked really well in the past. And, there’s a reasonable case for intervening on humanitarian grounds – the country really is an awful mess. But I really don’t see how there’s more of an argument for intervention today than there was a year ago. If anything, there’s a better argument against inteverntion. This “Islamic Court Union” seems to be relatively competent at reinstalling law and order, and has not so far (at least to the best of my knowledge) started chopping off hands or forcing women to wear burkas. In that part of the world, that may well be the best realizable outcome. The locals seem to prefer it to the US-backed association of local warlords the ICU displaced.

Doha Adieu?

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Steve Clemons, who’s quite adept at reading the Washington tea leaves, writes that the Doha round of trade negotiations is effectively over.

Why? For most of the present US administration, Bob Zoellick had been the US Trade Representative. Zoellick was an old hand, wise in the ways of both trade and Washington. But when Condelezza Rice was appointed Secretary of State, Zoellick went over to become her deputy. His successor, Rob Portman, was a Congressman from Ohio who had been involved with the nuts and bolts of trade legislation for many years. He was serious and experienced, with friends on Capitol Hill. Now Portman has resigned as Trade Representative to head the Office of Management and Budget; a bigger responsibility, but not connected to trade.

The upshot is that the USTR position will now be empty for some time, the current president’s authority to negotiate agreements that the Congress cannot amend is expiring soon, and the administration sees little hope of progress in the Doha round before it leaves office. Looks like it could be the end of the line for Doha.

Take Me Out

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Once upon a time, before it became the Paris edition of the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune published its late sports editor Dick Roraback’s ode to baseball’s opening day each year.

Under the fold, “The Crack of the Bat.”

(The fifth stanza is current again, after reflecting a bygone age for more than three decades. The Buc and the Nat refer to the Pittsburgh Pirates [buccaneers] and the Washington Nationals. In 1971, major league baseball left Washington, not returning until last season when the relocated Montreal Expos became the new Nationals. The fields in the stanza, Forbes and Griffith, are long gone. Forbes’ replacement is also gone, and Griffith’s replacement’s replacement is moving from drawing board to construction site this year.)
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More Troubling News

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Just off the wires from Iraq:

The sectarian cleansing that drove 68-year-old Abbas al-Saiedi from his home may be as alarming a sign of a country on the brink of civil war as the killings that have swept Iraq in the past week…….

Al-Saiedi’s story, a tale of fear and desperation told to The Associated Press on Wednesday, represents a growing phenomenon of religious cleansing in which members of each Muslim sect are driving the others from neighborhoods where they have long lived side by side.

The practice, which has been going on for some time in neighborhoods south of Baghdad, is a barometer of the degree to which the Shiites and Sunnis have moved on the path to civil war. The number of incidents cannot be fully gauged, but is not yet at the level of mass expulsions of the kind that took place in the Balkans during the civil war there in the 1990s.

For their part, Sunnis have long-standing claims of attacks by Shiite-dominated and, some say, government-linked death squads and eviction from homes in the very neighborhoods now being occupied by Shiites displaced from Sunni areas.

The Colour of Steel

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First of all many thanks to the kind folk of Afoe offering me the possibility of expressing my views on some European reactions to the Mittal Steel bid for the European steel giant Arcelor. By now most of you must have heard about this sitation. Mittal Steel is the world’s largest steelmaker and was founded (and is still currently run) by the Indian-born steel maker Lakshmi Nivas Mittal, the third richest man in the world.
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