A Four Country Democratic Coalition vs. China?

07/02/2014

John Garnaut 

Source Link

Asia Pacific editor for Fairfax Media 

This article originally appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald

NEW DELHI -- Australia and India are deepening military ties and reviving the spirit of a controversial four-way democratic coalition with Japan and the United States, in response to growing concerns about China.

Momentum towards full bilateral naval exercises, intelligence sharing and a safeguards agreement for uranium exports has been propelled by the May election of a strong Indian leader, Narendra Modi, who in November is likely to become the first Indian prime minister to visit Australia since 1988.

And it has been spurred by China's escalating challenges to its eastern and southern neighbors and to what the U.S. and Australia call "freedom of navigation".

Referring to those conflicts, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop raised the spectre of World War I to warn that "random events can unleash forces that quickly spiral out of control."

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that China's actions were driving erstwhile enemies together. "The consequence has been how China's neighbors are drawing closer to the United States than ever before," he said.

Until now, India has been relatively muted in response to People's Liberation Army incursions across the "line of actual control," which stretches 4,000 kilometers along the spine of the Himalayas.

Mr Modi, however, is signalling a new policy of strategically and forcefully pushing back, according to serving and retired officials.

"Next time the response will not be fudge or denial," said the chief spokesman for Mr Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, MJ Akbar, referring to a three-week Chinese army incursion into Indian Kashmir, which took place last year.

"You are playing chess, but the knights are fully armed," he said.

As well as signalling tougher reactions, the Modi administration is helping to weave a web of security relationships stretching east across the Indo-Pacific and south to Australia.

China Just Gave Obama a Second Chance

By William Pesek

 JUL 7, 2014

Source Link

Years from now, when the history of Barack Obama's much-maligned Asia "pivot" is written, he may owe a debt of gratitude to an unlikely ally: Xi Jinping.

The Chinese president is, of course, vehemently opposed to the U.S. rebalancing its focus toward the East. Hardliners in Xi's Communist Party believe the U.S. president should stick to his own neighborhood and leave the world's most dynamic economic region to China’s suzerainty. But Xi's ham-handed efforts to assert himself in Asia are having exactly the opposite effect.

Aggressive Chinese maritime claims are driving Vietnam into Washington's arms and leading Filipinos to welcome back the U.S. troops they once relished sending home. An apparent assault on Hong Kong’s cherished freedoms is alienating one population that has reunified with the mainland and another -- Taiwan’s -- that increasingly seems to dread the prospect.

Even in Seoul last week, as Xi tried to cozy up to South Korean President Park Geun Hye by highlighting their shared wariness of Japan’s rightward turn, his efforts appear to have come up short. As much as Park may loathe Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, she leads a vibrant democracy that remains home to tens of thousands of U.S. troops. South Korea is not about to align itself with Communist China.

Xi's overbearing ways are giving Obama a second wind in Asia. Question is, will the U.S. president take advantage of it?

Let’s face it, Obama's "pivot" has been reduced to a punchline. There’s been too much talk about America’s focus on Asia and too little to show for it. The U.S. has beefed up its troop presence in northern Australia and the Philippines and pledged to come to Japan's defense in case of conflict with China. But what’s still lacking is a clear and substantive plan for U.S. leadership in a region that’s changing at a breakneck pace.

This week affords a chance to turn the tide as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visits China and India and Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew hits Beijing to take the pulse of China's restructuring efforts. While the engagement is welcome, Kerry and Lew are too busy putting out today's fires to plan for tomorrow.

What Asian nations really want to see from the U.S. are signs of commitment to Asia’s long-term growth and development. That means dedicating more resources and creating new senior Asia posts in Washington, attracting experts in Asian history, economics, politics -- perhaps even naming an Asia policy czar. If Obama is going to make another Asia speech, it should be big and detailed on policy. The U.S. president also needs to make more trips to Asia than he cancels.

The Switch Chinese cyberspies have hacked Middle East experts at major U.S. think tanks

By Andrea Peterson 

7 July 2014

Source Link

Middle East experts at major U.S. think tanks were hacked by Chinese cyberspies in recent weeks as events in Iraq began to escalate, according to a cybersecurity firm that works with the institutions. 

The group behind the breaches, called "DEEP PANDA" by security researchers, appears to be affiliated with the Chinese government, says Dmitri Alperovitch, chief technology officer of the firm CrowdStrike. The company, which works with a number of think tanks on a pro bono basis, declined to name which ones have been breached. 

Alperovitch said the firm noticed a "radical" shift in DEEP PANDA's focus on June 18, the same day witnesses reported that Sunni extremists seized Iraq's largest oil refinery. The Chinese group has typically focused on senior individuals at think tanks who follow Asia, said Alperovitch. But last month, it suddenly began targeting people with ties to Iraq and Middle East issues. 

This latest breach follows a pattern identified by experts of Chinese cyberspies targeting major Washington institutions, including think tanks and law firms. It's rarely clear why Chinese cyberspies hack specific American targets, but experts say there are a few clues to why the DEEP PANDA group may have been interested in Middle East experts at think tanks. 

China's need for natural resources has skyrocketed along with its economic profile, and the country has increasingly turned to the Middle East to fuel its energy needs. China surpassed the U.S. as the world's largest net importer of petroleum and other liquid fuels last September, according to the US Energy Information Administration. In Iraq, China is a major oil investor. 

"It wouldn't be surprising if the Chinese government is highly interested in getting a better sense of the possibility of deeper U.S. military involvement that could help protect the Chinese oil infrastructure in Iraq,"wrote Alperovitch in a company blog post. 

Experts say that breaking into organizations like think tanks can give adversaries access to sensitive communications about international strategy – and potentially allow them to use compromised e-mail accounts to get at other targets: A phishing message coming from a trusted acquaintance at a prominent think tank that asks a user to download an attachment is more likely to succeed than a seemingly random e-mail. 

"If you can go after these indirect targets that have some of the information or you can see who they are communicating with you build up a lot of intelligence," explains Benjamin Johnson a former National Security Agency employee who now works at cybersecurity firm Bit9. 

The troubling implication of this is that pretty much everyone is a target, he says. "If you have a relationship with anyone who has something valuable in terms of information, you yourself are a target because it might be easier for them to go after you than the target directly," Johnson explains. 

Pakistan must not be India’s neighbor

http://www.indiandefencereview.com/news/pakistan-must-not-be-indias-neighbor/0/

ByDr Amarjit Singh

IssueNet Edition| Date : 08 Jul , 2014

Does India want good neighborly relations with its neighbors? Yes, but not with Pakistan. Does India love its neighbors? Yes, but not Pakistan. Should India live on good terms with its neighbors? Yes, but not with Pakistan.

India has tried for 66 years to live peacefully with Pakistan, but has simply not succeeded.

The reason for these assessments and positions is because there is a choice. People often say that nations cannot choose their neighbors. But, one answer is that they can. China chose to become India’s neighbor by annexing Tibet; Taiwan chose to become a neighbor of China by breaking away; the borders and neighbors in Central Asia changed remarkably during the great game of the 19th century. England chose to annex Wales and Scotland, thereby eliminating them as neighbors; the USA bought a large chunk of territory from France in the Louisiana Purchase to cease to be a neighbor of France; and the USA bought Alaska from Russia, thereby becoming a neighbor of Russia.

In India, there was a conscious choice to not have Hyderabad and Junagad as neighbors soon after independence. And, India chose to have Bangladesh as a neighbor on its eastern flank rather than continuing with Pakistan as a neighbor there. And when the British united India, it took away countries that were neighbors of each other. These are only a few examples in the region and world that illustrate that neighbors can be chosen, borders can be changed, and destinies of people forged. Sometimes, these destinies are forged by battle, at other times by purchase, and at yet other times by negotiation or threat. One example of the latter was Russia’s annexation of Eastern Siberia from China in the earlier part of the 19th century without firing a shot. At the height of its empire, Great Britain was neighbors with much of the world. It must simply be appreciated that times change, fates change, those down come up, those up go down, the free are enslaved, while the enslaved become free, kings have become paupers[1], and paupers kings[2]. Never should we lose sight of human history.

India has tried for 66 years to live peacefully with Pakistan, but has simply not succeeded. India must be mad if what Einstein stated is true. He had said, “[I]t is a sign of madness to make the same effort again and again, and expect different results.” Thus, India has again and again tried diplomacy with Pakistan, hoping that the result will be different each time. Indian leaders – and those in charge of foreign policy — need to see a mental doctor.

The major trouble with non-violence is that it doesn’t fit into the belief of the military.

Jihad v. Non-Violence

There is no comparison between the practice of jihad in military matters, and that of non-violence in military matters. Given one versus the other, Jihad wins hands down from a military perspective at every occasion.

But, as much as the principle of “jihad” in Islam has been twisted for centuries by Muslims to defeat a non-muslim enemy, so much has the principle of non-violence been twisted to forfeit the sword and the rifle. The true jihad is the internal struggle of the mind and soul to break through its bonds and emerge into an understanding and love of God, but that is not how Muslims have interpreted it against the Russians or Americans or British or Sikhs or Hindus. Similarly the true non-violence is the gradual ascension of the soul rather than forcing the soul to reach higher states of consciousness without establishing and cementing prior accomplishments in the spiritual journey. Thus spiritual non-violence is to attain to higher states by “sahej”, i.e., gradually, rather than pushing and forcing one’s unwilling mind to accept true thoughts it can’t hold. But, this beautiful spiritual meaning of non-violence has been distorted by Hindus and Mahatma Gandhi to forego the use of arms altogether, which is ridiculous. A country cannot survive without a military. To win wars, one needs a strong military, not one that merely achieves a stalemate.

Israel: Hamas Needs A War

http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/israel/articles/20140708.aspx

July 8, 2014

Israel launched air attacks on more than fifty targets in Gaza. In the last 24 hours nearly a hundred rockets were fired from Gaza and the Israeli air operations are mostly against rocket storage and firing operations. This is difficult because most of the rockets are deliberately stored in residential areas. This complicates Israeli air attacks, even though only smart bombs and guided missiles are used for these targets. Gaza medical personnel reported that nine people were wounded in todays’ air strikes. In late 2012 Israel was in a similar situation that led to an eight day offensive into Gaza. This ended with a Hamas promise to halt the rocket fire. Hamas was not able or willing to stop the attacks completely so here we are again. 

Israel has other serious problems besides Hamas. For example, Israel is a democracy and governments can only be formed if a majority coalition (in parliament) can be formed. It has proved impossible to form a coalition without including some parties that back Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Arabs are violently opposed to those settlements and that anger is encouraged by decades of Arab and Palestinian media propaganda calling for the destruction of Israel at all costs. The official line in most Arab countries is that there can be no real compromise on this “destruction of Israel” issue. Any peace deals with Israel are seen as temporary truces, not a permanent end to anti-Israel violence. Calls for radical solutions (as in the destruction of Israel) were long believed to be mainly an Arab disease but in the last two decades Israeli radicals (still a minority, but a loud one) have called for more rapid and violent responses to Arab terrorism and physical attacks. This has led to Israeli “settlers” attacking Palestinians regularly. In 2012 the Israeli government announced that Jewish residents of the West Bank making "price tag" (retaliatory) attacks would be treated like terrorists. This gave the police more power to investigate and prosecute these crimes, which diminished for a while then began increasing again. That may have slowed the attacks but it did not stop them. These price tag attacks were also carried out to protest Israeli government efforts to dismantle illegal settler structures in the West Bank in addition to the more publicized revenge attacks against Palestinians who went after settlements or settlers. Price tag attacks represented a shift in settler attitudes since the 2006 war with Hezbollah and increasing violence from Hamas. 

For decades the settlers could be depended on to be passive after a Palestinian attack, letting the Israeli police and military look for the culprit. But now the settlers are increasingly launching "price tag" counterattacks. The price tag refers to what the Palestinians must suffer for every attack on Israelis, or for Israeli police interfering with settler activities. This is vigilante justice, and it does more damage to Palestinians than Israeli police efforts to catch and prosecute Palestinian attackers. The Palestinians are not accustomed to this kind of swift payback and they do not like it. Israel has been under growing public and international pressure to crack down more vigorously on the vigilantes. This became especially urgent because the attacks are much more common, and are even extending to feuds between factions of Jewish religious extremists. The Palestinians are still committing most of the terror attacks, but the Jewish terrorists are catching up and extremists on both sides back increased violence in the hope of driving the other side out. Some extremist settler groups have long called for the expulsion of all Arabs from the West Bank and that idea is becoming more popular among settlers and Israelis in general. It’s still a minority attitude, but as more Israelis become frustrated with the relentless Arab calls for destroying Israel, extreme countermeasures appeal to more people. 

Winning: The Cycle Of Violence Persists

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htwin/articles/20140708.aspx

July 8, 2014

History often repeats itself and in the case of Iraqi Islamic terrorists there is, for the second time since 2007, a major dip in al Qaeda approval ratings because of the brutality of Iraqi Islamic terrorists. Back in 2007 it was the "Al Qaeda In Iraq" leadership that was out of control. Opinion polls in Moslem countries showed approval and support of al Qaeda plunging, in some cases into single digits. Thus after the 2003 invasion of Iraq al Qaeda managed to take itself from hero to zero in less than four years. Al Qaeda since recovered somewhat but that kinder and gentler approach did not last and by 2013 the Iraqi al Qaeda (ISIL or Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) was again losing popular support. That was quite visible when ISIL recently seized control of parts of Iraq and promptly slaughtered captured Iraqi soldiers and police, mainly because these men were Shia. Then ISIL declared the parts of Syria and Iraq it controlled were the new Moslem caliphate. Naturally the ISIL leaders are running this new caliphate and are calling on all Moslems to follow them. Most Moslems have responded, according to recent opinion polls, by expressing greater fear rather than more admiration for Islamic terrorist groups, especially ISIL. In the meantime (earlier in 2014) al Qaeda leadership condemned ISIL as completely out of control and not to be trusted or supported. In the last year opinion polls show Moslems becoming more hostile to Islamic terrorists, seeing them as a cause for concern not as defenders of Islam. The same thing happened back in 2007. 

The Iraqi Islamic terrorists are really out there, at least in terms of fanaticism and extremism and have been since the Sunni dictatorship of Iraq was overthrown in 2003 (with the help of two divisions of American and one division of British troops). This eventually led the local al Qaeda branch of make several bad decisions. The first one was to killing lots of Moslem women and children in terror attacks. Then they declared the establishment of the "Islamic State of Iraq" in late 2006. This was an act of bravado, touted as the first step in the re-establishment of the caliphate (a global Islamic state, ruled over by God's representative on earth, the caliph.) The caliphate has been a fiction for over a thousand years but still resonated with Islamic radicals. 

The original caliphate came apart because the Islamic world was split by ethnic and national differences and the first caliphate fell apart after a few centuries. Various rulers have claimed the title over the centuries, but since 1924, when the Turks gave it up (after four centuries), no one of any stature has stepped up and assumed the role. So when al Qaeda "elected" a nobody as the emir of the "Islamic State of Iraq", and talked about this being the foundation of the new caliphate, even many pro-al Qaeda Moslems were aghast. 

When al Qaeda could not, in 2007, exercise any real control over the parts (mostly Anbar province in the West) of Iraq they claimed as part of the new Islamic State, it was the last straw for many Moslems. The key allies, battered by increasingly effective American and Iraqi attacks, dropped their support for al Qaeda and the terrorist organization got stomped to bits by the "surge offensive" a year later. The final insult was delivered by the former Iraqi Sunni Arab allies, who quickly switched sides, and sometimes even worked with the Americans (more so than the Shia dominated Iraqi security forces) to hunt down and kill al Qaeda operators. 

Over the last seven years al Qaeda in Iraq slowly rebuilt and received a major boost in 2011 when the Sunni Arab majority in neighboring Syria rose up against the decade’s old Shia dictatorship. While the Sunni Arabs are a minority in Iraq (20 percent of the population versus 60 percent Shia) it is quite the opposite in Syria (15 percent Shia and 75 percent Sunni). The Sunnis are most numerous in eastern Syria and western Iraq which the Sunnis see as one entity divided by artificial political boundaries imposed by Turks and the Western nations that replaced the Turks after 1918. This “Sunnistan” is the northernmost concentration of Sunni Arabs and long subjugated by non-Sunni or non-Arab powers. Turks and Persians (Indo-European Iranians) have long fought over the area, with the Turks largely in charge since the 16th century. The Turks were Sunni and what is now called Iraq has long been, not surprisingly, a center of the long religious battle between Sunni and Shia sects of Islam. 

Iraq: History Repeats Itself Again

http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/iraq/articles/20140706.aspx

July 6, 2014: The army has been fighting to retake Tikrit from ISIL (al Qaeda in Iraq and the Levant) for a week now. Despite regular pronouncements of victory the fighting continues. In Syria ISIL continues to spend more time fighting fellow rebels than the Syrian government forces. This is apparently because ISIL is trying to clear all opposition out of their stronghold in eastern Syria, which they used to share with other Islamic terrorist rebel groups. One impetus for this is the need for money and ISIL has recently gained control over most of the oil fields in eastern Syria. The oil is sold to smugglers, at a big discount, and the smugglers then truck it into Turkey and sell it to brokers who buy oil with no questions asked. ISIL has moved a lot of armored vehicles and heavy weapons, captured from the Iraqi forces in Mosul, into Syria to use against other Islamic terrorist groups and this has been a big help. ISIL also uses violence against any Sunnis in Syria or Iraq who appear less than enthusiastic about ISIL ruling them. Many Iraqi Sunni tribes have openly joined ISIL recently and that means government forces passing through tribal territory face ambush and a generally hostile population. 

ISIL continues to hold 49 Turks (diplomats and families seized in the Mosul consulate) and nearly a hundred Indian workers (including 46 nurses) seized in the north. ISIL is holding a lot of foreigners it grabbed when it unexpectedly seized Mosul on June 9th. While many have been released, some are being held for propaganda or trading purposes. 

In northern Iraq ISIL is hunting down any real or imagined opponents (Shia or members of rival Islamic terrorist organizations) and killing them. ISIL is also destroying Shia mosques and religious shrines. To escape this over a million people (mostly Shia) have fled their homes in the north during the last four weeks. While some have fled south towards Baghdad or north into Kurdish territory many simply went to the many locations in the north where ISIL has no presence. ISIL actually controls little actual territory in the north. There are large parts of the countryside occupied by non-Sunnis. Many of these people have weapons and are organized to defend themselves. Of course if ISIL assembles a large enough forces (several hundred armed men and some heavy machine-guns, mortars and armored vehicles) they can overwhelm most of these village and town defense forces. The longer ISIL is active in the north the more of these local opponents they will crush. The government, with the help of Iran and the U.S. are trying to get these local defense forces organized and better armed and led. Meanwhile what armed men ISIL does have are increasingly tied up just patrolling or guarding Mosul and other towns in the north they do control along with the main roads connecting them all. 

Is Iraq imploding?

http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/IsIraqimploding_kpfabian_070714.html

K. P. Fabian

July 07, 2014

Yes, Iraq is imploding and unless a miracle happens we shall have to write the obituary of Iraq as a state to be succeeded by a Kurdistan, a Shiistan, and one or more Sunnistans. The Kurdistan will be more or less tranquil; the Shiistan will be more or less a protectorate of Iran; and the Sunni area will be a zone of contention.

The required miracle is obvious: A reconciliation between US and Iran; conclusion of an agreement on the nuclear issue and simultaneous lifting of sanctions on Iran; a joint effort by US and Iran to replace Maliki, Prime Minister since 2006, with support from both, by a Shia leader acceptable to the Kurds and the Shias; a national decision to revise the constitution to grant to the Sunnis the autonomy that the Kurds enjoy; and a commitment by the Shia leadership to create a truly federal Iraq.

Such a miracle is unlikely to occur. Therefore, it follows that Iraq is at present inexorably moving towards dissolution. In any case, even after that miracle occurs, it will be a difficult, if not impossible task to recover in full the territory under the ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) and its associates.

Let us look at the big picture. The government in Baghdad has lost control over a stretch of territory to ISIL. ISIL has declared a ‘caliphate’ claiming territory from Aleppo in northwestern Syria to Diyala in northeastern Iraq; the Iraqi army built by US at a cost exceeding $ 20 billion melted away as an armed group of a few thousand urban guerrillas approached Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city; the Iraqi army ran away leaving the US-made weapons and uniforms; a good part of the civilian population fled. Mosul fell on June 20th. Later, Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s birth place, fell. So far the government forces have not succeeded in recapturing any significant territory from the rebels. Maliki asked US for F16s to use air power against the rebels. The US has not dispatched any planes; it believes that unless Maliki is replaced by a less divisive leader there is no use taking any military action in support of an unpopular government. For obvious reasons going back to the ill-starred 2003 invasion and occupation under President George Bush and the subsequent disastrous management by the occupiers, there is no question of sending US troops back to Iraq as combatants. President Obama has sent drones, some armed, and about 800 military advisors, ostensibly to show support to the government in Baghdad, but basically to secure the US Embassy, the largest in the world. At any cost, President Obama wants to avoid a repeat of the humiliating flight by helicopter of US Ambassador from a falling Saigon in 1975. It is unlikely that Baghdad might fall as Saigon did.

ISIL’S BOLD CALIPHATE ROLL-OUT: OBJECTIVES AND RISKS

http://warontherocks.com/2014/07/isils-bold-caliphate-roll-out-objectives-and-risks/

Barak Mendelsohn

July 8, 2014 · in Analysis, Commentary

Only three weeks after it surprised the world with its lightning advance across north and central Iraq, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) delivered an even more audacious surprise when, on Sunday, June 29, it announced the re-establishment of the Islamic Caliphate and declared its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the new Caliph. The declaration was part of a more elaborate roll-out, reminiscent of the way a business presents a new product. As part of this roll-out, ISIL — now calling itself the Islamic State — also released aRamadan message from Baghdadi directed at “the mujahideen” and the whole ummah (Muslim community), a short biography of the new “Caliph,”and a video abolishing the Sykes-Picot borders. The Islamic State has also, through Twitter, released ongoing announcements about jihadis who allegedly pledged allegiance, either as groups or individuals, to Baghdadi (or to his new identity “Caliph Ibrahim”). The caliphate roll-out by ISIL is bold and well-thought out. At the same time, it is risky, reeks of arrogance, and could backfire.

The announcement of the caliphate serves a number of purposes. First, it elevates the status of ISIL and Baghdadi. It strengthens the image of ISIL actually delivering on the aspirations of Islamists while other jihadi groups are only talking about the establishment of a caliphate. Ironically, many jihadi leaders, including al Qaeda chieftain Ayman al-Zawahiri, have long criticized other Islamist movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, for waiting for the “right conditions” before they start taking action toward the establishment of God’s rule. Now ISIL is steaming ahead in the face of rival jihadi groups’ allegations that its Islamic State project is premature. By emphasizing the destruction of the border between Iraq and Syria, ISIL distinguishes itself from other jihadi groups in yet another way. Whereas the rejection of the borders separating Muslim countries and people is a common theme in the rhetoric of jihadis, ISIL moves to actual action, thus strengthening the perception of the authenticity of the caliphate and ISIL’s true commitment.

Second, ISIL’s declaration seeks to stifle debate among jihadis about the religious legitimacy of its actions. In its prior incarnations, ISIL already maintained that it was a state, and as such, superior to other jihadi organizations and scholars, imbued with authority that they lack. ISIL relied on such authority to justify its rejection of arbitration with other jihadi groups in Syria. Thus, the announcement of a caliphate — an even higher level of authority — grants ISIL, in its perspective, unchallenged authority, and serves as a tool to cast off criticism and allegations that its actions are inconsistent with Shari’ah law.

Evolution of the Immortals: The Future of Iranian Military Power

by Michael McBride

June 29, 2014

Source Link

Evolution of the Immortals: The Future of Iranian Military Power

Iran has a long, proud tradition of military might dating back to the armies of the Achaemenid Empire under Darius the Great and Xerxes. Throughout its history, Iran has often been a significant regional military power. However, during the reign of the Qajar dynasty, a period wrought with corruption, economic stagnation, and lack of modernization, Iran saw its standing in the international community wane as the wave of European colonization in the 19th and 20th centuries flooded its territory. At the conclusion of World War II, under Reza Shah Pahlavi, Iran received substantial military aid from the west, particularly from the United States and the United Kingdom, which coupled with revenues generated from the sale of oil enabled Iran to field a sizable military with modern equipment. However, the Islamic Revolution of 1979 brought new political leadership in the form of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei and likeminded religious clerics that would drastically alter the form and purpose of Iran’s military.

Iran today poses a potential threat not only to the region, but also to the international community as it is believed to be pursuing nuclear weapons, maintains an arsenal of chemical weapons, funds, trains, and equips terrorists and paramilitary proxies, and threatens to disrupt the global economy by obstructing the vital shipping lane through the Strait of Hormuz. While Iran does not currently possess the military might to realize its goals of becoming a regional hegemon and a significant powerbroker in the international community, it is clear that the regime is attempting to expand its influence through asymmetrical and unconventional means of projecting military power. However, changes in the character of modern warfare and trends within Iranian society pose major threats to the regime’s ability to achieve its goals. International isolation, economic stagnation, and politicization of the military will cause Iran to become militarily less powerful over the next 20 years. 

In order to evaluate the future trajectory of Iranian military power, an overview of the regime’s current capabilities is necessary. Iran’s military power is divided between two parallel military structures, the conventional forces known as the Artesh and the asymmetric Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) or Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Enqelab-e Eslami. The Artesh traces its lineage back to the Iranian National Army under Reza Shah Pahlavi, while the IRGC was formed out of several militias that emerged during the Islamic revolution in order to act as a counterweight to the Artesh and protect the newly formed Islamist regime against a military coup. Particularly since the end of the Iran-Iraq War, the IRGC has positioned itself as the pre-eminent service within Iran’s military apparatus reaffirming itself as the “guardians of the revolution” responsible for maintaining internal stability as well as “exporting the revolution.” However, in 2007 Major General Mohammed Ali Jafari, commander in chief of the Islamic IRGC announced that its primary focus would shift from external defense to internal security.[i]

The Artesh’s primary responsibilities include deterring, defending against, and defeating foreign aggressors.[ii] While nominally a professional military, clerical leaders within the regime ensure Islamic ideological indoctrination within the ranks and promote officers on the basis of political loyalty. Since seizing power, the Islamic regime maintained control over the military in what Dr. Ken Pollack has termed “commissarism,” which he defines as “heavy-handed efforts on the part of the regime to ensure the loyalty and obedience of the military. The regime seeks to make sure that the military will execute the orders the regime issues and, more importantly, that the military will not turn against the regime and try to oust it.”[iii] To maintain absolute control over the military, officers in the Artesh are promoted on the basis of loyalty to the regime and political reliability rather than merit or effectiveness. The ruling clerics ensure the indoctrination of the military in its Islamic ideology, particularly the concept ofvaliyat-e faqih, which advocates total control over the country by the religious leadership and demands absolute loyalty to the Supreme Leader. The guiding principles for the military, codified in 1992, ensured that Islamic ideology would be the basic precept for organizing and equipping the military.[iv] Within the IRGC, the Office of the Representative of the Guardian Jurist to the Guards controls commissars positioned within each unit at all levels of the guard to ensure ideological conformity and political loyalty to the Supreme Leader, who also serves as the commander in chief of the armed forces.[v]

Israel Launches Military Offensive On Hamas-Ruled Gaza Strip To Quell Rocket Attacks

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Jeffrey Heller

07/08/2014

GAZA/JERUSALEM, July 8 (Reuters) - Israel bombarded the Gaza Strip on Tuesday in strikes that Palestinian officials said killed at least 11 people, stepping up what threatens to become a long-term offensive against Islamist group Hamas after scores of rockets hit Israeli towns.

After the worst outbreak of violence along the Gaza frontier since an eight-day war in 2012, the Israeli military said a ground invasion of the enclave was possible, though not imminent, and urged citizens within a range of 40 km (24 miles) of the coastal territory to stay close to bomb shelters.

"We are preparing for a battle against Hamas which will not end within a few days," Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said in a statement. "We will not tolerate missiles being fired at Israeli towns and we are prepared to extend the operations with all means at our disposal in order to keep hitting Hamas."

SCROLL DOWN FOR LIVE UPDATES

The Israeli military said it targeted about 90 sites in aerial and naval assaults overnight and resumed air strikes on Tuesday.

The attacks killed at least six people in a house, the Palestinian Interior Ministry said. Four others died in a car struck in Gaza City, medical officials said, one of whom a pro-Hamas website identified as Mohammed Shaaban, a commander in the movement's armed wing.

There were no reports of deaths from rockets fired out of Gaza.

A source in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office quoted the Israeli leader as saying: "The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) must be ready to go all the way. All options are on the table, including a ground invasion."

GETTING THE SUNNI GANG BACK TOGETHER

BY STEVE COLL

Source Link

President Barack Obama is sometimes described as a foreign-policy “realist.” It’s an abstract, imprecise label, but when it is laid on Obama, it is intended to describe his cold-eyed emphasis on core American interests, rather than, say, on the promotion of rights or democratic politics abroad. In fact, Obama and his advisers have ardently promoted human rights abroad. Yet there is no denying their occasional expedience. 

The most recent example came on June 22nd, in Cairo, where Secretary of State John Kerry posed smilingly with Egypt’s newly elected, coup-making, dictatorial president, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, who has presided over an increasingly grotesque series of show trials, leading to the convictions of his opponents in the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as journalists, including a trio of Al Jazeera reporters who were sentenced to prison two days after Kerry’s appearance. 

Kerry condemned that verdict even as the U.S. State Department released $575 million in military aid to Egypt. That money will only entrench Al-Sisi in power and reinforce his evident opinion that he need not make concessions. In the case of Egypt, at least, the Obama Administration seems to have concluded that it must accept what it cannot change, for the sake of regional stability and Israel’s security.

American Presidents have been accommodating Middle Eastern despots in the search for stability for decades, and there is nothing in Obama’s touch that can redeem such compromises. Yet that is not the only valid criticism of the Administration’s situational realism in the region. Another is that it has often been unrealistic.

Early in the President’s second term, for example, the Administration expended months of frenzied activity in pursuit of a fresh start to Israel-Palestinian talks on a two-state solution. That proved quixotic. The Administration also expended months of frenzied activity trying to organize peace talks in Geneva between supposed moderate rebels and proxies for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s barrel-bombing war machine. That didn’t work out, either.

Israel Launches Military Offensive Against Gaza

By Daniel Estrin
July 8, 2014
Source Link

JERUSALEM (AP) -- The Israeli military launched what could be a long-term offensive against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Tuesday striking nearly 100 sites in Gaza and mobilizing troops for a possible ground invasion aimed at stopping a heavy barrage of rocket attacks against Israel.

The military said "Operation Protective Edge" looks to strike the Islamic Hamas group and end the rocket fire that has reached deeper into Israel and intensified in recent weeks.

The attacks come as tensions have soared over the killing of three Israeli teenagers and the apparent revenge killing of a Palestinian teenager by three Jewish suspects.

The military said it was seeking to "retrieve stability to the residents of southern Israel, eliminate Hamas' capabilities and destroy terror infrastructure operating against the State of Israel and its civilians."

Nearly 300 rockets and mortars have been fired at Israel in recent weeks, including a barrage of close to 100 projectiles on Monday alone, the military said, a huge surge after years of relative quiet that followed a previous Israeli campaign to root out Gaza rocket launchers.

Israel has responded with dozens of airstrikes, and eight Palestinian militants were killed Monday. Israel had signaled that it would not launch a larger offensive if the militant group Hamas ceased the rocket fire. But the same time Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed the military to prepare options for every scenario.

"We have repeatedly warned Hamas that this must stop and Israel's defense forces are currently acting to put an end of this once and for all," said Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev.

Military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said the current round of hostilities was being dictated by Hamas and Israel would continue its barrage so long as its citizens were under fire from Gaza.

What the West Can Do If It's Really Serious About Middle East Peace

07/07/2014

Source Link

After weeks of rapid expansion in Syria and Iraq, ISIS announced the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. Their claim is laughable, because the original concept of the Caliphate was based on a pluralistic consultation between the four Sunni schools and their two Shia counterparts.

What is not laughable however are the large swathes of land that have fallen under the control of the militant organization. It is not inconceivable to imagine that ISIS could soon impose their dominion over a stretch of land that extends from the shores of the Mediterranean to those of the Persian Gulf.

To state the obvious, ISIS is not just Iraq's problem. Or for that matter Syria's problem. Or even just the Middle East's problem. In a world where a palm civet in China's Guangdong province can unleash a pandemic that killed people in America, and where a Tunisian fruit seller could bring down a powerful Egyptian dictator, the problems of any one country are more often than not, the problems of every country.

Viewed in this light, Western intervention in the Middle East is not an entirely unwelcome phenomenon. It is undeniable that the Arab nations can learn from the example of the West when it comes to matters of organizing for the public good, politics and commerce and the spirit of open minded innovation in the pursuit of scientific knowledge.

What is unwelcome however is the kind of short-sighted series of ill-advised interventions that we have become accustomed to since the Second World War, where every decade has seen one or more Middle Eastern countries embroiled in protracted conflicts.

These regular outbreaks of violence in the region are an aberration in our region's long history. Way back before what I like to call the BC years (Before Churchill), my great grandfather had envisioned a pluralistic Arab world where Muslims, Christians and Jews were all equal citizens of the state. Of course, his vision was betrayed by the Sykes Picot agreement that arbitrarily carved up a land whose people spoke a common language and whose collective unconscious shared memories went back entire millennia at a time.

Ukraine Presses Offensive In East As Rebels Regroup

By Richard Balmforth

07/08/2014

KIEV, July 8 (Reuters) - Ukraine's government signaled its intention to press on with its campaign against pro-Russian rebels on Tuesday and the militants, regrouping after losing their stronghold, said they were preparing to fight back.

President Petro Poroshenko, drawing confidence from the fall of the rebel bastion of Slaviansk at the weekend, named a new chief of military operations in the east following his appointment of an aggressive new defense minister who ruled out negotiations until the separatists lay down their arms.

One rebel leader played down the loss of Slaviansk as a military expedient and said the hundreds of fighters who were able to move from the town to the regional capital Donetsk were preparing a command structure to defend that city and hit back:

"We're not preparing ourselves for a siege. We are preparing ourselves for action," Alexander Borodai, prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, told a Russian online newspaper during a visit to the Russian capital.

Sporadic shooting was heard from various parts of Donetsk overnight though no specific incidents were reported. But in Luhansk, a city on the border with Russia where rebels also control key buildings, two people in a minibus were killed by a shell that exploded nearby, a municipal official said.

"There is an exchange of fire among the separatists. They are shooting at each other," Iryna Verigina told a Ukrainian television station by telephone from Luhansk.

Poroshenko, installed in office just a month ago, named Vasyl Grytsak to head the "anti-terrorist center", making him operational chief in the drive to crush the rebels.

The move continued his shake-up of the military and security leadership in which he has appointed a hardline defense minister to bring fresh vigor to the fight against the insurgency.

Grytsak, a 53-year-old police lieutenant-general and 20-year veteran of the state security apparatus, replaces Vasyl Krutov, who had headed the "anti-terrorist center" since mid-April.

Despite some successes against the rebels, Krutov and other security officials have come under criticism for the patchy performance of the armed forces and big military losses including the downing by the rebels of an Ilyushin Il-76 plane in June with the deaths of more than 49 crew and servicemen.

Ukraine, Having Seized Rebel-Held Cities, Now Must Govern Them

BY JAMES RUPERT

JULY 07, 2014

Source Link

Stabilizing a Recaptured Conflict Zone Will Test Kyiv's Skills at Reconciliation

Ukrainian soldiers in the eastern Ukrainian town of Slaviansk on July 5, 2014. Ukrainian forces recaptured towns in eastern Ukraine from pro-Russian rebels on Saturday and raised the country's blue and yellow flag again over what had been the separatist redoubt of Slaviansk. PHOTO: REUTERS/Maria Tsvetkova

While Ukraine’s weekend victory in seizing back two cities in Donetsk province is its biggest in the three-month war with Russian proxy forces, it immediately poses some tough new tests for the government in Kyiv.

And, at a critical moment in Ukraine’s fight against separatist militias backed by the Russian government, it is unclear what real support is being offered to Ukraine by governments in the transatlantic community.

Ukraine’s Military Gains

The scope of the military gains is still emerging. Ukrainian troops dislodged perhaps the biggest military center of the Russian-backed rebellion, in the city of Slaviansk, where the rebellion’s overall commander, Russian Army Col. Igor Girkin, had maintained his headquarters. Girkin and many of his fighters escaped to Donetsk, the largest city in southeastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Photos posted by Ukraine’s Defense Ministry showed that the separatists’ retreat from Slaviansk was unplanned, disorganized and perhaps even a rout. The ministry displayed large stocks of captured weapons and ammunition, including shoulder-fired rockets or recoilless rifles, land mines, and machine guns. Mangled or burned armored vehicles littered local roads. Anti-aircraft weapons also were seized, noted Atlantic Council Senior Fellow Adrian Karatnycky.

While pockets of damage to roads and buildings are evident in photos and video shot throughout Slaviansk, the city appears to have survived widespread destruction, Karatnycky and other analysts say. While much of Slaviansk had been emptied as city residents fled the fighting and the rebel occupation of the past months, Ukrainian officials immediately began bringing essentials “to the local population, including medications, potable water and food” as well as delayed pension payments, according to the daily report issued by Ukraine’s National Security Council. Troops and engineers were working to restore television transmissions, rail lines and utilities in the area, the council said.

Have We Gone From a Post-War to a Pre-War World?

07/07/2014 

Source Link 

On June 28, 1914, a chauffeur panicked after a failed bomb attack on his boss, took a wrong turn and came to a complete stop in front of a café in Sarajevo where Gavrilo Princip was sitting. Princip, discouraged at the apparent failure of the planned murder, seized the unexpected opportunity and fired the shots that began the First World War, a cataclysm which claimed over nine million lives, ended four empires and set in motion events from the Communist Revolution in Russia to the rise of Nazi Germany.

One hundred years later, the world is nervously keeping its eyes peeled for misguided chauffeurs and asking itself whether history could repeat. The great powers are at peace, and trade and cultural ties between nations seem closer than ever before, yet the international scene is in many ways surprisingly brittle. In particular, a rising naval power is challenging an established hegemon, and a "powder keg" region replete with ethnic and religious quarrels looks less stable by the day.

In 1914, Germany was the rising power, the U.K. the weary hegemon and the Balkans was the powder keg. In 2014, China is rising, the United States is staggering under the burden of world leadership and the Middle East is the powder keg.

Only a few years ago, most western observers believed that the age of geopolitical rivalry and great power war was over. Today, with Russian forces in Ukraine, religious wars exploding across the Middle East, and territorial disputes leading to one crisis after another in the East and South China seas, the outlook is darker. Serious people now ask whether we have moved from a post-war into a pre-war world. Could some incident somewhere in the world spark another global war?

MIDDLE EAST POWDER KEG

Let's start with the powder keg. The immediate cause of the fighting in World War I was the set of ethnic and religious conflicts in the Balkans. In the second half of the 19th century, economic development and modernization led to heightened competition among the region's peoples. The drive for self-determination set Croats, Serbs, Magyars, Kosovars, Bosniaks, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Greeks and others at one another's throats. The death toll mounted and the hatred grew as massacres and ethnic cleansing spread -- and the ability of the outside powers to control the region's dynamics shrank as the imperial powers were themselves undermined by rising social and nationalist tensions.

Counter-Terrorism: The Swarm

Source Link

July 8, 2014: Dutch counter-terrorism experts fear that Islamic terrorism in Holland, and elsewhere, is becoming more difficult to deal with because of what they call the “swarm effect”. This is partly the result of intelligence being able to quickly identify Islamic terrorist groups that are organized and take them down before they can make attacks. That has forced Islamic terrorists to develop other forms of organization. Thus a growing number of attacks are the result of individuals or casually created groups getting orders via Internet based social networks about what kinds of attacks to make and how to do it. Social networks make it possible for many active terrorists to stay in touch with new information on targets and techniques and, when a general call for “action” goes out it is very difficult for intelligence organizations to detect exactly who will act. But increasingly radicalized Moslems do act. 

Fortunately these attacks are small scale, often involving one attacker often using improvised weapons (like a knife) against individuals. Nevertheless there are a growing number of individuals who have training and experience in building or obtaining more powerful weapons (firearms and explosives) and carrying out deadlier attacks. This is particularly true in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring uprising. The Syrian fighting, which has been the most intense and long-lasting has already attracted over 3,000 European Moslems (mostly young men, many of them teenagers). These men have gone to Syria to fight and most of them return with newly acquired terrorist skills, including advice from more experienced terrorists on how to obtain firearms and explosives on the black market. 

Dutch police believe that only 120 Dutch Moslems have gone to Syria to fight and 10-15 percent of whose have been killed. Most will make it back and based on the evidence so far many of the returnees will serve as effective recruiters to get more young men to go. Some five percent of Dutch are now Moslem, most of them migrants who arrived in the last few decades and their children. Cable news networks and the Islamic terrorists enable these migrants to stay in touch with their old lives more than at any time in the past and this makes it more difficult to leave harmful things, like Islamic radicalism and Islamic terrorism behind. Especially for young Moslems the appeal of “jihad” in defense of Moslem is strong and increasingly that turns into acts of terrorism in their new homes.

The Inevitability of Foreign Entanglements

ByGeorge Friedman

July 8, 2014

The Fourth of July weekend gave me time to consider events in Iraq and Ukraine, U.S.-German relations and the Mexican borderland and immigration. I did so in the context of the founding of the United States, asking myself if America has strayed from the founders' intent with regard to foreign policy. Many people note Thomas Jefferson's warning that the United States should pursue "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations -- entangling alliances with none," taking that as the defining strategy of the founders. I think it is better to say that was the defining wish of the founders but not one that they practiced to extremes.

As we know, U.S. President Barack Obama has said he wants to decrease U.S. entanglements in the world. Ironically, many on the right want to do the same. There is a common longing for an America that takes advantage of its distance from the rest of the world to avoid excessive involvement in the outside world. Whether Jefferson's wish can constitute a strategy for the United States today is a worthy question for a July 4, but there is a profounder issue: Did his wish ever constitute American strategy?

Entangled in Foreign Affairs at Birth

The United States was born out of a deep entanglement in international affairs, extracting its independence via the founders' astute exploitation of the tensions between Britain and France. Britain had recently won the Seven Years' War with France, known as the French and Indian War in the colonies, where then-Col. George Washington led forces from Virginia. The British victory didn't end hostilities with France, which provided weapons, ammunition and other supplies to the American Revolutionaries, on occasion landed troops in support of American forces and whose navy served a decisive role in securing the final U.S. victory at Yorktown.

America's geopolitical position required that it continue to position itself in terms of this European struggle. The United States depended on trade with Europe, and particularly Britain. Revolution did not change the mutual dependence of the United States and Britain. The French Revolution of 1789, however, posed a deep dilemma for the United States. That later revolution was anti-monarchist and republican, appearing to share the values of the United States.

This forced the United States into a dilemma it has continued to face ever since. Morally, the United States appeared obligated to support France and its revolution. But as mentioned, economically, it depended on trade with the British. The Jeffersonian Democrats wanted to support the French. The Federalist Party, cautious of British naval power and aware of American dependence on trade, supported an alignment with Britain. Amid much tension, vituperation and intrigue, the United States ultimately aligned with its previous enemy, Britain.

When Jefferson was elected president in 1800, he did not reverse U.S. policy. By then, the French Revolution had grown vicious, and Napoleon had come to power in 1799. Besides, Jefferson knew as well as Washington had that the United States required trade relations with Britain. At the same time, Jefferson was more aware than others that the United States was a narrow strip of land between the Atlantic and Appalachians. With minimal north-south transportation and dependence on the sea, the United States needed strategic depth.

Fear, not ambition, is what fuels Moscow in Ukraine

Mary Dejevsky

7 July 2014 

The Guardian

Source Link

The west has misread Russia's motivations in Ukraine, and in doing so risks provoking Putin 

'If Vladimir Putin was so intent on re-establishing Moscow’s influence over Ukraine, why has he not rushed to the aid of those fighting in Donetsk and Sloviansk?' Photograph: Yuri Kadobnov/AP

The contest for eastern Ukraine may not be over, but when Ukraine's president, Petro Poroshenko, described the recapture of Sloviansk at the weekend as of "huge symbolic importance", he was not exaggerating. Other towns and cities remain in rebel hands, including the million-strong conurbation of Donetsk, but Sloviansk was the rebels' military headquarters. The hoisting of Ukraine's flag over the city hall marks a decisive advance for the government in the government in Kiev.

Which should raise a question: where are the Russians? If President Vladimir Putin was so intent on re-establishing Moscow's influence over Ukraine, if he was so determined to preserve Russia's fraternal ties with these fellow Slavs, if his ultimate objective was the reconstitution of empire, then why has he not rushed to the aid of those fighting, and dying, in Donetsk and Sloviansk?

Why have we heard nothing from Nato about Russian troops threateningly close to Ukraine's eastern border? Why no satellite pictures on our news bulletins of "clearly" Russian tanks rolling into east Ukrainian towns? Why no warnings recently from Washington or London about the dire consequences, should Moscow follow its annexation of Crimea by occupying eastern Ukraine?